Greetings, children of the dark. It’s the first of the month, and the first day of a new season, and we’re getting ever-closer to our favourite month of the year: Spooktober. We are, of course, running our Halloween special again this year and are still open to submissions for that—please make sure your story is themed to Halloween! If it’s a general short story, you’ll have to wait until our next submission window is open, which will be in exactly one month from now.
Let’s whet your appetites by diving into this week’s darkly speculative menu. We kick off this week by going behind the scenes of a webcam girl facing some peculiar monsters, thanks to Divo Faustino. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:
- Jen Poteet’s woodland wander,
- Shiloh Kulman’s unwanted visitor, and
- Mansi R’s visionary child.
Before you jump in, one quick plea to those who’ve been considering subbing to us: we are looking with much effort for MORE DRABBLES, as always, but also our serialised stories need some love. Have you got a longer story (up to 15,000 words) that can be easily broken into chapters for us to publish over a weekly period? We have a new serials editor who awaits your great and magnificent new worlds! Sub in the usual place.
And a final plug: on Tuesday (3 September), I’m hosting a panel of writers from across the fantasy spectrum—James Logan, Kit Whitfield, and Peter Mclean—at Waterstones Covent Garden, in central London, on behalf of Arcadia and the British Fantasy Society. Join us to hear about the speculative fiction market in the UK, and what it’s like to be navigating it in the trad pub way. Tickets and details over here.
Now, over to you, Stuart.
Join me in thanking our upcoming newsletter sponsor for the next year! Please check out Charlotte Platt’s ‘One Smile More’!
Ena Sinclair, a Scottish mage and spy, abandons her role in a prominent Edinburgh college and escapes to London to avoid an arranged marriage.
But London is not safe: a mage killer is on the hunt…
Abducted by vampires ‘for her safety’, Ena is terrified the nest owner will drain her to fuel his power but also curious to learn about his magic. Taking this once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn more about what her college had warned were dangerous creatures, Ena finds herself fond of the nest, particularly their bonded leaders, Addison and Tobias.
As survivors of the Immortal War, the pair still navigate a schism in vampire society that they are trying to heal. They now seek a peaceful life and offer Ena protection until she finds her own path.
…and dark things await them all.
Ena’s college seeks to forcibly return her to Edinburgh, and a killer is still on the loose. Hidden resentments surface, and Ena pays the price. Magically unstable and isolated, she must rely on her non-magical training to avoid being turned or used as a weapon to harm the nest she has grown to care for.
Be sure to order a copy today!
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Hi all!
I don’t really shout out our staff enough, but this week, I wanted to throw a couple of specific ones out there. Thank you to Cathy and Sarah. Our review and interview for scheduling is really on point right now and I feel like we’ve got more of a buffer than we’ve had in awhile which really helps a LOT for scheduling and whatnot. Now, for the standards:
- Thank you so much to everyone who has become a Patreon for Horror Tree. We honestly couldn’t make it without you all!
- The paperback is now live! Please be sure to order a copy of Shadowed Realms on Amazon, we’d love for you to check it out!
Offhand, if you’ve ordered Trembling With Fear Volume 6, we’d appreciate a review! 🙂
Divo Faustino
Divo Faustino is a psychology researcher who studies human behavior by day. However, as night descends, he liberates himself from the shackles of reality and lets his imagination embark on perilous journeys into the enigmatic, the dark, and the unfathomable.
The Third Eye of the Fly, by Divo Faustino
A gentle breeze swept through the room, sending a shiver down Jasmin’s spine. She shifted her gaze from the monitor to the far end of her room, where a veiled window stood.
I can’t see through the damn curtain.
“Distracted much?” a viewer commented in the live chat.
She waved a finger in the negative, accompanying it with a sweet, innocent smile. Slowly, Jasmin embraced herself, a hand on each opposite shoulder, and resumed her sensual dance.
Complaints ceased, and tips began popping up on the screen. These swine would gladly dump half of their salary in a heartbeat if she asked them to.
Jasmin closed her eyes and tried to focus on entertaining the fools. But her thoughts kept swimming back to the window drapes. Had they moved? She always checked every lock before starting a live stream. Yet, in her mind’s eye, she could clearly picture the curtains waving, ever so slightly.
Smiling at the webcam, she turned off the stream without further notice.
They’ll be back for Jasmin.
The room felt colder than before, she was sure of it. Was the window open?
Jasmin covered her underwear with a silky beige robe and cautiously approached the window. Standing an arm’s length away from it, she stopped, inspecting it. At first, the curtains seemed motionless, as they should be. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, so she avoided blinking for a few breaths, laser-focused on the deep blue curtains until her eyes began to sting and itch.
Then, she saw it. A gentle, nearly invisible sway. Yet, now it loomed as conspicuous as a mountain to her, impossible to ignore. As she stood still, trying to assess the situation, an unnatural deep buzzing coming from outside caught her attention.
Should she peek through the curtains? Or should she run? Time stretched into a slow crawl, until finally her fight instinct triumphed. With her eyes closed, she grabbed the curtains, intending to pull them just a little so she could peek through. But the adrenaline kicked in, and before she realized it, Jasmin had ripped the curtains from the window and thrown them on the carpet.
The tall window was closed, after all. However, a chilly breeze entered through the glass’s dozens of tiny round bifurcations.
“What the hell,” she murmured, wide-eyed.
Outside were what she could only describe as a small swarm of strange fat flies. They were about the size of a child’s fist and had three eyes – two semi-regular black ones and a third peculiar eye on top of their heads that glowed fluorescent green. Their mouths had an elongated, needle-like spine that creeped her out.
Jasmin flinched as one of the critters lunged at the window, spine first, punching a new hole. Half a dozen more followed its lead in a chaotic symphony. Despite the punctures, the glass held.
“What do you want? Go away!” she shrieked.
In an attempt to scare the monsters, she swatted wildly at the window. In her disconcerted efforts, the robe slid off her shoulders and fell on the carpet, leaving her exposed in her underwear.
The flies ignored her swatting but seemed oddly interested in her recently disrobed body. Instead of buzzing around erratically, they stopped, levitating in place. Then, in striking synchrony, they began rubbing two of their front legs together while oozing a gelatinous green substance from their mouth spines. Jasmin’s heart lurched, and she instinctively covered her chest.
Their third eye glowed furiously now, shifting between shades of green and turquoise. It morphed from a circle to an octagon before regaining its original shape. Jasmin felt as though the creatures were peering directly into her soul, but she couldn’t look away. She could hear their wants echoing in her mind, their desires burning hot.
We want you, Jasmin.
She felt numb and tired. Her body stopped responding to her commands, and she found herself unable to run or scream. It took all the strength in her body to look away from the mesmerizing third eye of one of the flies. When she finally managed to, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window.
Jasmin’s left eye was bloodshot, twitching furiously, and she was grinning a toothy unnatural smile.
“No! That’s not me,” she wanted to say. “Come in,” she croaked instead.
Stunned, she found herself unlocking the window, no more than a spectator to the horror unfolding before her eyes. Then, devoid of any semblance of control, Jasmin opened the window.
Dozens of flies darted inside frenetically, slamming into her and driving her to the carpet. She screamed as the monsters plunged their filthy green needles into her flesh in a mad feeding-frenzy.
The flies were starving for her, and she could see her blood being drained through their spines. The beasts gulped madly, paused, then plunged back into her in a chaotic sequence. Soon, she began feeling numb, all pain a thing of the past.
I’m so tired. Is this not enough? Surely, you’ve had your fill of Jasmin.
But the flies kept attacking, piercing, their bodies swelling with each gulp.
I’ll just sleep for a bit.
With her eyes half shut, she found herself entranced by the flies’ hunger. One of them was swallowing blood from a gaping hole in her leg. The fly was already five times its original size but kept feeding vigorously. Fading in and out of consciousness, she saw that the fly’s eyes had turned red.
I wonder how long they’ll be interested in me.
A pop brought Jasmin back to her senses. Several flies had suddenly exploded like balloons, their entire bodies gone, except for their mouth spines which remained planted in her body, as if to mark it as their own. There was no trace of her own blood or the monster’s guts anywhere, the thing had popped as cleanly as a balloon.
That’ll be $250 for a belly empty of Jasmin, you hollow swine.
In her final moments, she decided to glance at her precious body. One last look at her treasure. But her sculpted belly was gone, and she could see the bloody carpet beneath herself, covered by nothing more than the pink bony outline of her own spine.
Jasmin laughed and laughed, contemplating her state, with a single thought accompanying her to her last breath.
Empty. I’m empty.
What Comes When You Whistle?
Under a starless sky, my Labrador takes off, swallowed by the black between trees. I stand at the underbrush and brambles, whistling and calling her name.
Finally, leaves rustle with her return. I’m relieved – until I hear it. My whistle repeated from the forest’s edge, just beyond the shadows. I want to run but terror roots my legs to the earth. The scent of decay hits me, dense and sweet. Clawed hands grip my sweat slick body. Red eyes meet mine. A whimper escapes me.
As my throat is torn out. My last thought: I hope my dog is okay.
Jen Poteet
Jen Poteet dwells in foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her family and menagerie of pets. She has written two novels—Secondhand Heart (a gothic romcom) and Bones Picked Clean (a coming of age tale set in modern day Appalachia)—and written and illustrated the children’s book A Night Under the Circus Tent. When not writing unconventional character driven fiction she can be found at Black Sheep Studios, the tattoo studio she owns with her husband.
The Woman at the Window
She had been tapping on the door. Now, she’s breathing on the window.
She doesn’t look well, nor quite human. She has the body of a woman, but no face. And she knows my name, though I’ve never told her.
I tell her to leave, but she says she’ll kill me. I close my eyes and tell her again to leave my home.
When I open them she’s not at the window anymore. But a crashing sound comes from upstairs. Is she inside?
I turn to the stairs, but from the corner of my eye… she’s outside the window. Smiling.
Shiloh Kuhlman
Shiloh Kuhlman is an author from the state of Michigan, USA. He has independently written a novella, titled “Funny Pages”, and an anthology titled “Peripheral Landscapes”. Both can be found on schulerbooks.
After Goodbye
My husband died; a week later my daughter started talking to herself.
“Dad, you look different.”
“Dad, why are your eyes so red?”
“Mama cries all the time. Will you come back?”
So I took her to a psychiatrist believing she might be struggling to let go of her father’s memories.
The doctor asked: “When did you first see dad after he was taken away in the casket?”
She answered: “He wasn’t in it. He was standing with mama, like he is now.”
She turned to me and smiled at something to my right. I felt a rush of chill.
Mansi R
Mansi R is a fiction horror/ thriller writer. They have several published ebooks and constantly write poetry for their personal blog.
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