Seduction’s Kiss

David Conway sat at the bar of the smoke filled, crowded club, sipping from a glass of rum and coke and wincing at the loudness of the thundering techno music blaring throughout the place. Club Highwire was supposed to be the hottest dance club in town. From what his best friend and partner, Jimmy Chang, had enthusiastically exclaimed, it was […]

Red in Tooth and Claw

“Hurry up,” Lucretia laughed, pulling on Harry’s coat sleeve, “it’s freezing out here.” “Yeah yeah, babe, just a second, just a second,” Harry muttered, all his concentration on managing to get the hotel room key into the door lock. Maybe three drinks ago this wouldn’t have been such a task, but as it was, Harry was in no shape to […]

RSVP – A Halloween Story

That’s how it is supposed to work. But this year something weird(er) happened. When I opened the folder to work on my final four, there was an extra story in the folder that I didn’t write. Well, at least I didn’t remember writing it. I write a lot of my stories at two or three in the morning and I […]

The Woman He Won’t Talk About

Doug, Jeremy and I joined the queue outside for Goth Night at Ghosts, a large old two-storey house converted into a nightclub. A shapely mannequin stood covered by a white sheet near us in the queue. Doug reached over and caressed her round, inviting bottom. Three gothic women lined up behind us and scowled at Doug, not that he cared. […]

Familiar

The ancient iron gate groaned as Tanith pushed it open with one hand, while the other held a silver thurible, billowing a heady incense of deep, carnal oud, funereal flowers and dark musks. The moon shown high and bright as she stepped onto unhallowed ground. Tanith felt the presence of the dead pressing in already, their hands reaching out to […]

Hellish Halloween Harlot Harvest

I write to those who might believe my tale — and surely, understandably, most who read this will certainly not believe these words — so that others can be aware of the particular horrors upon which I incidentally stumbled in recent days. These experiences, so shocking that I can hardly believe them despite my firsthand knowledge of their truth, I […]

The House at the Top of Briggs Road

The engine roared as I piloted my car through the spooky moonlit hills out on the north edge of town. That’s one thing that’s always been perfect about my car: the sound it makes when I rev it. Of course, pretty much everything else about it is dogshit. I was studying the road ahead, partly because it twists a lot […]

A Pet for Samhain

“Don’ ya go inna dem Nor’ Woods,” Nana always used to say. “No’one leaves dere da same. An’ most ne’er leave t’all.” She would say it the same way she told me to brush my hair or Brownies would collect it for their nests, or that I should put a ring of salt round the bed to prevent the Far […]

Flesh So Tender

Women like her didn’t come into Dubert’s Bar. A lot of hookers, a lot of addicts, a lot of women ridden too hard by life to give much of a fuck if the guys grabbed their asses or groped their tits. But none like her. Never any like her. No one else wore a costume that night. Dubert’s wasn’t exactly […]

The Legend of Marty Ketchum

I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that a century from now, the good folks at Staghurst College will still speak in revered tones about Marty Ketchum’s infamous Halloween party back in 2013. Everyone who was there and saw it with their own eyes will be ‘pushing daisies’ by then of course, but the legend will live on for generations. I […]