Grim

“Okay, what’s your problem?” said Sonya, coming to a dead stop on the sidewalk and wheeling around.
A tall guy in a black trench coat, five paces behind her, pointed at his chest, looked over his shoulder and then back again. The universal “Who me?”
“Don’t come the innocent,” she said. “I clocked you ages ago, been following me all night.”
He shrugged.
She stepped forward. “And this isn’t the first time, is it? I saw you last night.”
The look of puzzlement on his face gave way to a smirk. “Extraordinary,” he said.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you.” He just stood there, smiling at her. Vacant.
“What are you? Some kind of God botherer?”
He laughed. “Sort of.”
“Why are you following me?” she said.
“It’s my job.”

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No Excuses Now

Andrew reached across the workbench and took the axe down from where it hung on the pegboard. He peeled the protective sleeve off its head and regarded the blade, took in how the light glinted on the steel.
This would make a great story.
Except…
He had nowhere to write. He didn’t have a place to call his own, in which to summon the muse. He knew she was there, waiting to descend upon him with the inspiration and the words he craved, but it wasn’t going to happen at a place as mundane and distraction-filled as the kitchen table, was it?

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Mayday Mayday

My short stories are what they say on the tin. Short.
Sometimes, really short.
A few hundred words. Maybe fifteen hundred on a good day.
And they are also stories. As in made up.
Often I write about creepy, freaky, scary kids.
This story is about a kid.
But this one is true.
It’s about one of my kids.
And it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever written.
From my point of view, anyway.
Let me tell you a story.

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The End

Jesus.
They were coming back.
Hadn’t they had enough?
Didn’t they get tired?
I was exhausted, physically and mentally. The last few weeks had left me spent. And yet here they were back to wring the last of my reserves.
Their feral eyes glinted in the orange evening light reflected in the fresh puddles. I’d hoped, prayed, the afternoon rain would have driven them away for the day. But as soon as it stopped and the sun tore a hole in the cloud overhead, they tore a hole in the silence, howling, squealing, growling and nipping at each other as they returned to dish out more of their onslaught, the very thought of more of this torment a torment all of its own

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