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Published Fiction The Untold Ghost in the Haunted anthology from Pill Hill Press  I noticed the picture again going downstairs, the sketch of the two girls.The girls were practically identical, even down to the trim of their hair and the cut of their collars. Their faces, caught between boredom and hesitant smiles, were much the same. They might have been reflections of each other. Except... I admit that I still felt shaken, and tired from the day's driving. Yet it seemed to me there was a difference, a distinction too subtle for the heavy-handed artist to have caught deliberately. It had something to do with light and shade, with the curve of lips and the barest hint of expression in eyes. Its effect was simply that the girl on the right looked wrong. Los Alamos, 1945 in Thaumatrope [Twitter story]  Today
the War Ended, Tonight the Sky Burned in OG's Speculative Fiction #24 "Shut up," he said, and she did. He stopped to glare at her; then his expression softened. "I'm sorry. I want to take my wife away. There's no reason for her to be here anymore." He brushed long fingers across his eyes and seemed, just for a moment, to waver. "The thing is, it's over." "What--" "The war." Rosalie struggled to find her voice. "That's impossible." "It's true."  Wunderkind in Bards and Sages Quarterly vol. 2 #2She was one of the few survivors left who remembered that last night, when they'd gazed at a sky banded with purple and azure that glittered and billowed like some continental sea. Scientists the next morning had explained it away as a comet that had shattered in the upper atmosphere; but by then the first chunks had already been found, the first Powerful born. The early news reports were jubilant: like something from a movie, they joked, like a comic book become real. Yet even as they spoke the violence had begun.  Feeler
in Shelter of Daylight #3Jennifer didn't answer. It would have been difficult to. As she descended further into the darkness behind her eyelids, as she let her self unfold towards him, so his voice started to dissolve, flaking away like desiccated skin. She knew he was still talking, but only snatches of phrases made it to her, as if from a great distance: "Kept thinking maybe she'd call," "Couldn't go to work," "Everyone would see it." It was only when she shut his voice out entirely that the flowers began to bloom.  The Painted City in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight
MagazineEverything - the square, the street, the structures - was painted in a kaleidoscope of colour, in countless patches of incredible shades that ebbed and flowed around each other. It was like a massive, magnificent fractal, or a Rorschach test of the gods. It was astonishingly, painfully beautiful to look at. It brought hot tears to his eyes and hot thoughts into his mind. Under his breath, Kafka said, “This is bad. This is the worst, most wonderful place we’ve ever found." Then out loud: "I think we should leave.” Survivor Guilt podcast at Variant Frequencies A wounded man finds himself driven underground, into the purgatory of tunnels that honneycomb the ruined earth. Battling for a life he knows he’s already lost, he is haunted by fever dreams of a time before the Accident: of blue skies, green grass, of his long-dead mother. If the rats don’t get him, if the poison coursing through his veins doesn’t kill him, there are worse things hidden in the depths. Worst of all may be the answers to the questions that have haunted his whole life… [Summary by me]  The Other Ten Thousand in the Kings of the Realm anthology from Lame Goat Press"Who are you that's fool enough to come into a dragon's lair unarmed and unarmoured?" (Yet perhaps he wasn't such a fool, for he'd stopped just out of range of Grimol's fire.) "Speak up! Who is it that's about to feed the dragon Grimol?" There was no hesitation or nervousness in the man's voice as he replied, "If that were the case I wouldn't expect my name to matter much. As it is, I'm here to see you die, and you may as well know that my name is Thale of Ankor."  Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams in Necrotic TissueGug-Shabeth returned his watery stare to the long field. There, other birds had nestled amongst the crop, their leathery wings tucked around them like cloaks, their proboscises probing the strange fruits that grew there. The scarecrow he’d built was nothing now but a cruciform frame draped with scraps of leathery meat. He was failing in his responsibility. But if they had ever intended him to succeed, ever cared at all, then they would not have made him so carelessly; every thought, every step, would not be such torment. No, the gods had little time for this patch of their creation, if indeed they had time for any of it, in their wantonness and their cruelty.
I tell you truly, it wasn’t the most interesting sporting event I've been to.
There was a noise. It sounded, I thought a little insanely, like somebody trying to say 'cheese' with a mouth completely full of food. It came, I was sure, from the body lying nearest to me, about three metres away. But that was crazy. It was a dead body, it had to be, and dead things didn’t make noises in my experience. For that matter, dead things don’t stand up either... I pointed my gun at it. It seemed the sensible thing to do. For a moment it just looked at me, and I wanted to vomit, because where its face should have been there wasn’t much of anything except the goo, wet and oozing. For all that I thought I could recognise Connors under there, what was left of him. It kept on staring at me, and it made that noise again, and it took a step forward, and I shot it in the chest.  Rindelstein's Monsters in the The Death Panel anthology from Comet PressAs up close as I can manage without my stomach turning over, I notice something of interest. "This coarse hair?" Rindelstein kneels beside me. "Well, it looks human. It’s certainly odd though." "Why odd?" "Because Mr. Price was blonde, and this hair isn't." He looks suddenly nervous, and I can't blame him. Though it would be easy to press him, I like the idea of letting him stew even better. "Maybe it's time I met some of your patients," I say conversationally. By 'patients' I mean 'suspects', but I figure he already knows that.  Feeler in Ballista # 7Jennifer didn't answer. It would have been difficult to. As she descended further into the darkness behind her eyelids, as she let her self unfold towards him, so his voice started to dissolve, flaking away like desiccated skin. She knew he was still talking, but only snatches of phrases made it to her, as if from a great distance: "Kept thinking maybe she'd call," "Couldn't go to work," "Everyone would see it." It was only when she shut his voice out entirely that the flowers began to bloom.  Imaginary Prisons in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction # 29"Thinking he can beat wise and mighty Goblins, foolish boy-man goes looking for rusty trinket-sword lost by grandfather after much ale. Fifteen suns and moons he goes, getting lost and falling over often, until he is lucky and finds cave where useless sword is. Greatly I’ve done, he thinks, but just as he is picking up blunted pig-sticker, stupid man-child stumbles over own feet, falling on arse and smashing puny head into many pieces. Not the most literary people, are they? But it’s always nice to see a sense of humour exhibited in these things.”  Peachy in Murky Depths # 8Peachy had been watching the back garden with cold calculation for about an hour before I properly noticed. It was hardly uncommon for her to scowl through the glass at the neighbours' tom, or to stare at blackbirds that had the temerity to wander through her hunting grounds. For her to stay in one position for an hour, though, fully conscious and alert, was something new. Survivor in Nanoism [Twitter story]  In the Service of the Guns in Space and Time # 107
In the far distance the half-dozen human ships stood out stark against the ground, hunkered together in a crude encampment. Apart from that there was rock, in dull grey planes broken only by the occasional dip or hillock; there were the meagre moss-like plants, and the Singers. With nothing else to look at as he set off towards the camp, Pilate focused his attention on them. If he'd had to describe them he’d have offered the image of a two metre long, semi-translucent, white slug. If slugs had evolved to become the dominate life form on Earth, had developed forepaws and--whatever those things at the front were, some kind of proboscis? Well then they'd have looked something like the Singers.
Thangrind had only one ambition when he ascended
to the throne of Lastaphia: to be more loathsome than his famously despicable
father. He would have liked to surpass his grandfather as well, but was
conscious of the need to set realistic goals. Though his father had been
appallingly evil, Thangrind believed that with diligence he could exceed the old
man's misdeeds.
Anyway, he cut quite a figure when he walked up Main Street in that suit. Well, not walked, y’know, I guess he shambled as much as the rest of them, but somehow he seemed kind of smarter than the others–more alert. And in that suit, he reminded me of my kid, when we buried him. That’s why I named him Billy.  The Burden of Kings in Aoife's Kiss Vol VII no. 2"I was young when I met him, and they called me ‘the savage
prince.’ I don’t know now whether it was
meant as compliment or mockery. I was on a journey and had found a cave to shelter me for the night. Outside in the forest, the rain
and wind were driving hard. It was the kind
of storm that can bring a tree to earth, and I’d heard more than one fall as I
lay awake that night. How could any
living thing be safe in such a tempest? And
yet it was there that the old man found me." Exodus in Hub # 57 "It's a miracle," she said to the official, before she could do anything to stop the words. He (or she) glanced down at her. She tried to imagine eyes behind the frosted silver plates, and failing, continued almost in a panic, "It’s a miracle, isn't it? All these years they've been working and nobody thought they'd ever manage it, but they did. I remember when everyone said it was impossible--a door here and a door there and, oh, something in between I suppose, but nothing you can see. Isn't it a miracle?"
I stood there on the cusp of the crater looking down for perhaps half an hour, feeling like at any moment I’d wake up. But the more I looked, the more real it seemed. It was something like an igloo, a dome of metallic fibre slung over a large framework with an airlock jutting from one side. It was built partly over the water pipe that runs through DeLambre, while power appeared to come from a nest of solar panels on the nearest rim and oxygen recycling to be handled by scrubbers jutting from the side opposite the door. It all seemed sensible enough--except that it was on the moon, in the middle of the DeLambre crater, perhaps eighty kilometres from human contact and with no visible means of communication.Doppelganger at Chiaroscuro Thirty years spent hunting, Strive to be Happy in Flash Fiction Online She stared back mutely. That, at least, he didn’t blame her for: what could she say, after all? Any intrusion would only make things worse. He’d established the rules for this long ago, and she hadn’t fought back, which he considered as good as consenting.
Everyone knows the great desert is hot by day and cold by night. But that heat and cold is something you must know to understand. The midday sun seems to burn through your eyelids, so that outside the shade you cannot escape it; it pricks at your skin like a thousand needles, and sweat offers no relief because you could never sweat enough. It is harsh and cruel, and without water and a good guide you will not live long.  The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma in The Willows #5
I would not suggest that Algernon Whisper is a sane man. I would not even go so far as to argue the claim made in this and other journals that he is criminally insane - in that matter he has proven himself beyond my ability to defend. I contest only one assertion made by your otherwise-reputable periodical: that Algernon Whisper is foolish, that his madness is at the expense of his wits. Having known the subject since childhood, I write here to state clearly and categorically that this is not the case - if anything, Algernon Whisper is a genius.  The Other Ten Thousand in OG's Speculative Fiction #9
A dragon makes a terrible mistake. [Summary by OG's Speculative Fiction]Life can be relentless. Again, either you get this, or you don't get it - yet. Wishing its hold on us away won't ever work. In such moments, you can either hold out hope that, when you finally break, there will be something new, or you accept what life is and find the good in it. On the other hand, we may know that, but there are some of us who never stop looking beyond and continually leaping into the abyss. [Introduction by Mytholog]
Fishfinger
and her mom and her dad don’t ever come to church with us, so I asked
her one time, did that mean that she doesn’t believe in the baby Jesus
like how we do? And she said, no, they have their own God who’s
different from ours and he isn’t called God his name is D-A-G-O-N,
that’s how she spelled it. New Skin for the Old Ceremony in Hub #17 Suddenly,
and quite unexpectedly, Lansdale craned his head out of the window, and
said in a tone so serious that it seemed strange coming out his mouth,
“I did see it, y’know. Hadn’t a drop in me on the way here, an’ I swear to you an’ god an’ whoever else that I saw something.” “I’m not saying you didn’t.” “An’ what’s more, when these lads and me got here, there was somethin’ moving around in those woods. We went to look, but we lost it. That’s why we was waitin’ here. If you want to police something, maybe you should go an’ see what that was--‘cause it sure as hell wasn’t no man.” King Gob's Warcry at From the AsylumThree thousand years we have waited. Three thousand years since we fought and lost to them. Were they stronger? No, but they were bigger and more numerous. For all our magic, they were too many. I remember--the fierce northmen with their axes, and the blood of my brothers. I remember, for I was there. We are very old, we are, and age does not decay us as it does them--no, it teaches us. We who are old and do not die have learned much in our waiting and in our patience. Stockholm Syndrome podcast in Pseudopod Billy, he was first generation through and through. I don’t know what his story was, but when he turned up about two weeks ago he was wearing a suit, a real nice suit, he even still had a carnation in his buttonhole. I don’t know, maybe they was burying him when it happened. You’ve got to wonder what they’d have thought, when they was burying him and he got up like that.Anyway, he cut quite a figure when he walked up Main Street in that suit. Well, not walked, y’know, I guess he shambled as much as the rest of them, but somehow he seemed kind of smarter than the others–more alert. And in that suit, he reminded me of my kid, when we buried him. That’s why I named him Billy. Night Nurse in Yellow Mama [See Free Fiction] The Lord of Feathers at Reflection's EdgeIsabella, daughter of the Fourfold Baron, has lost her heart to the Lord of Feathers. Without having spoken a word to him, she chooses to give up her life and follow after him to the ugly, forgotten town of Lantern, where she begs audience in his court. Denied this visitation, her money dwindles and her servants vanish, and Isabella focuses feverishly on the question that haunts her: what will it take to make the Lord of Feathers love her? [Summary by Reflection's Edge] Fear of a Blue Goo Planet podcast in Chaos Theory: Tales Askew When a shuttle that's never supposed to crash does just that, it leaves our hero stranded on a planet where every thing is covered in some kind of blue organic substance. The blue goo has some interesting properties... just ask the zombies. [Summary by CTTA]
Forthcoming Fiction Bull
Spec Publication date October 2010
The Unleashing of the Ineffectual Publication date (in Something Wicked magazine (pub: Futurequake Press)) NYK Passive Resistance Publication date (in Mythica Publishing's Another Time, Another Place anthology) NYK Publication date (in Ricasso Press's Through Blood and Iron anthology) NYK Dancing in the Winter Rooms Publication date NYK Escape VelocityIt's Easier to Pretend in the Dark Publication date NYK Lightspeed Jenny's Sick Publication date NYK Theaker's Quarterly Fiction Glass Houses Publication date NYK Encounters Some Theories Regarding the Current Crisis Publication date NYK |
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Friendly
Fear of a Blue Goo Planet 
The Ascension of DeepRED
The Space Beneath the Church
Stockholm Syndrome
Allotment in the 
Fleshworld in 
The Gate in the Jungle 
My Friend Fishfinger, by Daisy aged 7 
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