Dedication
“Gooooood afternoon! You’re listening to Stewie Carson on CityRadio103 and it’s a beautiful day for lovers. I’m with you for the next three hours, playing romantic tunes to get you in the mood for love…” DJ Stewie’s used to attracting attention. But this Valentine’s Day someone really wants to be noticed. And their dedication is deadly.
Winter Storm
Through trees that reached dead winter branches to scratch her face, the cold air tearing tears from her eyes and scraping at her throat with each breath, she hurtled.
“I’m coming Sophie! Mummy’s coming!”
Then a high, child’s scream, and her foot snagged in a root, pitching her into the snow’s chill embrace.
The Abbey
The leaping flames threw crazed shadows on the abbey’s ruined walls, making them flicker with phantom life. The whole place gave her the creeps, but you couldn’t say that kind of thing when you were the new kid in school.
“What happened here?” she asked, half to Dylan, who was a local boy and knew such things, half to the stars spreading like a rash across the deepening night. “Why was it left to fall down?”
Dylan’s voice was low and sly with the freight of a secret. “You sure you want to know? Might scare you.”
Live Feed
“Hallowe’en,” he intoned, “with night falling. My destination: a haunted house so terrifying no kid will come near it. Nobody will. Except me.”
His breath was coming roughly now, there was just enough light to make out little white wisps of it in the October air. To his left was a shaggy hedge, its ragged middle festooned with yellow tape. DANGER. DO NOT CROSS. The same kind of tape a lot of the houses down the hill had, only here no plastic skeletons hung from trees, no pumpkins grinned. He took a slow, lingering shot. Then he pushed open the gate.
Forbidden Fruits
“God help us if she ever finds out. She’s got ice where her heart should be, my wife.”
Love You To Bits
Tash downloaded the app for a laugh. At least that’s what she told herself. But things are about to become decidedly unamusing.
Notice Me
“Go on then! Jump!” he said, and she did.
Maybe she thought he’d go after her. Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe she would just have done anything, at that point, to get his attention. But there on the bridge, in her expensive, ill-fitting ballgown, with the sun just coming up over Magdalen Tower, she pushed her way through the crowd, and she jumped.
The Confessor
Now he’s thinking of faces covered in thick, grey liquid that washes over them like milk, smothering and slowing until it starts to harden, and the dead faces of Old Dom’s past are stone angels in a churchyard…
Indelible
“Nah, she ain’t in today. Never is on Valentines. Can’t stand all the hearts and the lovey dovey stuff.
Debbie loves Damon.
Stacey forever.
All that shit.
Yeah, I know it’s her you wanted. Best tattoo artist in the place. Hell, best one in the whole city, even with her little impediment. Ain’t happening though. Big Mike’ll fit you in. Or Kirstin, if you can come back this afternoon. Sure, go off, have a nice meal first. Just don’t get drunk – company policy. No permanently marking the inebriated."
Should Old Acquaintance…
Season’s Greetings, Mrs Hillier!
I bet you get loads of Christmas cards from old pupils. I doubt you even remember me. But I remember you, and the impact you had on my life.
They say you never forget a good teacher. Turns out you don’t forget the bad ones, either.
The Descent
She stared down at the whiteness below, still remote enough to send a jolt of pins and needles through her legs at the thought of how little separated her from plunging into that great emptiness. Just a few inches of wooden seat, a thin iron bar at chest height. Between them, ample room to slip down.
Dark Candy
Gabe hadn’t wanted to go Trick or Treating in the first place. It was stupid, they were way too old for it to be cool, and he didn’t even like candy. When they’d knocked on the old guy’s door and he’d invited them in, asking “What’s all this trick or treating idea anyway?” in a voice thick as tar, his eyes hidden behind those dark glasses, Gabe had known it was a bad idea.
Deep Water
Kay lets herself fall forward, feels the water catch her, lift her up. The sun blazes on her back as her limbs slide, silky, through the blissful cool. Before she knows it, she’s left Greg far behind, just a dot near the shoreline, waving frantically.
What? Treading water, she snaps her head left and right, searching for whatever he sees. A speedboat? Something in the water? Her stomach lurches; in her mind, some slick beast gliding through the dark under her feet…
Dirty Work
Charles glides through the lobby like he owns the place. He doesn’t, not this one. It’s four in the afternoon and his suit’s still spotless, his shirt crisp, despite the dirty sandboxes he’s been playing in all day, one way and another…
A Fearie Tale
It started small. Just a tooth. A baby one at that. Lying there, under the pillow, all tiny and white and pretty. The Fearie stretched out a cunning, clawed hand and the warm little head on the pillow didn’t stir.
The creature withdrew its hand, uncurled its claws to examine the pearly treasure. Pretty. It stroked a gentle talon over the smooth upper surface, then flipped it to inspect the rough, blood-speckled underside. A croon of pleasure escaped its grey lips at the mixture of beauty and gore, and something inside its belly stirred.
The next night it was back. The long arm extended, claws scrabbled furtively under the pillow, but came out empty. No tooth.
The Fearie growled. On its finger the baby tooth shone like moonlight, fixed in a ring of elven silver. The setting was hollow, allowing the tooth’s rough, tainted underside to scrape gently against the creature’s scaly skin. The rub was comforting and exciting all at once. But it was so small. The Fearie wanted more.
It sniffed about the room in the darkness, huge, lamp-like eyes searching corners obscured by shadows, but to no avail. No more teeth hidden here. Out of the door and up the hallway it went, trailing its shadow into one room after another, until it came to one where the head on the pillow was grey.
Instinct told it to hurry, night was paling and daylight on its way. Its gaze flickered about the room, predatory, until it spied the table beside the bed, where a glass cup held undreamed of riches. Teeth. Big ones. Not one, or two, but a whole mouthful of them.
The Fearie slid across the room, plunging its fingers into the strange-smelling water just as the head on the pillow shifted, coughed. Claws gripped the bounty and the creature slipped from the room while the unsteady hand from the bed was still groping for glasses.
Racing shadows over the rooftops as they fled the dawn, the Fearie cradled its haul, shiny and white, enough for a necklace. It shivered in pleasure at the thought of the pretty baubles gleaming against the dull slate of its skin, the coarse kiss of the jagged undersides on its throat.
Only once it crawled into its lair did it realise the trick. Its shriek of rage when the fake treasure shattered under its fingers rattled the branches above.
All day it seethed and plotted, waiting for the sun to set. Out it crept with the shadows, intent on revenge.
In the darkness of the room, the face on the pillow was a pale smudge. The Fearie stared down at it in fury. As the mouth dropped open in a soft snore it noted the naked gums in disgust.
Sharp claws curled into the open mouth, groped their way down the throat. The body on the bed jolted, then convulsed, choking, as the wrist extended, twisted, fingers searching.
The Fearie grunted with effort. Its talons pushed through membrane and sinew, found purchase, grasped, pulled. It took a few minutes of tugging until the thrashing body on the bed finally stilled and the creature held its prize, gloating. This was better than teeth! The interlocked bones were elegant, snakelike. The spine was slick with red.
It would make an exquisite belt.
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