short fiction

  • empty chair in front of a fireplace
    horror,  short fiction

    The Reckoning: Short Story

    As the wind sighed and murmured through the old trees outside her bedroom window, Gina woke with a start. The cottage bedroom was in explicably colder. She saw her breaths coming out in plumes of steam. Not again she thought.   How had the duvet worked itself free again, pooling at the bottom of the lumpy four-poster bed? And why was it always exactly 1:35 a.m. when her bladder, without fail, announced its demands? Groping in the dim light, she pulled the duvet back to her chin and stared at the frost spreading across the small windowpanes. Thin white lines like spider silk, stretching left to right in uneven patterns—suggestive…

  • musician's stand with instruments
    Music,  short fiction

    Folk Me – I’m Getting Old

    There are many signs that you’re getting old, my friends. That sighing/groaning noise you make as you get on or off the sofa. Creaking bones and muscles as you mentally hark back to the Good Ol’ Days when you used to run up the stairs two at a time instead of an arthritis-like trek. The shock of spotting that grey hair or, worse, pube. Finding yourself, inexplicably, going willingly to a garden centre or Homebase on a Sunday — I did it today, and I am only 55! Britpop, BBC6 Music & Thinking I Was Still Cool On to the music link. I would like to think that I am…

  • abandoned lake
    horror,  short fiction

    Real Gone – a Halloween song

    What was it you said, that day at the lake?Before he pushed you in.What was it you felt , that day at the party?As she sharpened the knife.What was it you saw, that you shouldn’t have?As they whispered and plotted in that little,dark alley.Who was you touched as you smiled, self-content?As I left my seat, club in hand.What was it you wore , on that wintry, icy day?As he followed , black hearted, behind.And what is it like , on the other side of now?Gone.