The Dark Stars anthology from Shacklebound Books is featured on the British Science Fiction Association Awards longlist. This anthology contains three of my original dark sci-fi drabbles.
My dark sci-fi story Just What I Want has been published in Edition Nine of The Stygian Lepus Magazine. It’s a story about what happens when your digital personal assistant understands you so well that it starts doing things for you before you even ask.
Amy carried the package into the kitchen and opened it. Her eyes lit up.
“Clara, did you order this for me?”
Blue LEDs flickered on a featureless black cube hovering over the kitchen counter. Tiny gray text on the front edge identified it as CLARA: Completely Lifelike Autonomous Robot Assistant. A woman’s voice emanated from within.
“I thought you’d like it.”
Matches, my dark(er) retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl, has been published in Edition Two of The Stygian Lepus Magazine. In it, a young peasant girl dreams of a better life while fighting off the stinging chill of the bitter winter wind.
As a frigid wind gusted down the narrow lane, the girl side-stepped into an alley to avoid the chill. She sat down cross-legged on the cobblestone, drawing her feet into her folded knees to try and restore some feeling to her toes. She was freezing, but she dared not go home. Her father would be there, waiting, expectant. How many matches had she sold? How many pennies had she earned? None? The girl winced involuntarily at the crack of her father’s belt. She knew what was in store for her if she returned empty-handed.
My modern dark fantasy Dragonsbreath has been accepted into the Streets of Fire and Shadow anthology by Treeshaker Books. It’s the story of a teen forced to wear a fireproof mask to protect himself and others from a power he can’t control.
This story is an odd one for me: a little bit fantasy, a little bit horror, and a little bit (gasp!) romance.
The woman’s head lurched forward as her SUV slowed to a jarring stop, its bumper only inches from the police car parked sideways across her lane. Half a dozen emergency vehicles crowded the street ahead of her. There were police cars. Fire trucks. An ambulance.
The woman watched with mounting horror as a pair of paramedics lifted a gurney out of the ambulance and began wheeling it up the driveway of a nearby house.
Her house.
My short horror story The Churchyard Grim has been accepted by Dark Horses Magazine. Loosely based on the English legend of Black Shuck, a young girl takes refuge in a church from the hellhound that is hunting her.
We thought we would be safe in the church. We were wrong.
My psychological horror story I Row has been published in Flash of the Dead: Requiem by Wicked Shadow Press. It’s a story about trying to escape from the past by any means necessary, no matter how many tries it takes.
The place is as idyllic a house as one can imagine, with its gables and turrets overlooking the Cape. But the house is just a facade. Its true nature isn’t visible from the outside; it can only be glimpsed from within. It’s a place that is everywhere. A place that occupies you as much as you occupy it. A place with doors but no exits. A place you can leave but can never escape.
My historical horror story Breathtaking has been published in the Ill Winds and Wild Weather anthology by Smoking Pen Press.
Set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, Breathtaking tells the story of a young girl and her brother who see a mysterious woman in white screaming outside their house during a dust storm.
“Banshee,” I whispered, mouthing the words as I read. “A spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to members of a family as a sign that …” I trailed off. I felt my stomach tighten. Icicles formed down the center of my spine. “That one of them is about to die.”
My humorous vignette Something Borrowed has been published by Rising Action Review. It’s the story of a wedding disrupted by an unfortunate disagreement about the ownership of the limousine.
“Under no circumstances are you to discuss what happened here today with anyone but people in the immediate family,” my mother said. She used the collar of her gown to dab the blood oozing from her busted lip. “This stays between us, understand?” The assembled wedding party nodded solemnly. Aunt Gracie picked another shard of a shattered champagne flute from my mom’s scalp. My mom winced in pain. “Careful, Gracie!” she hissed. “Christ.”
Two drabbles—one stalker horror, one dark sci-fi—have been accepted into the Drabbledark III anthology by Shacklebound Books.
My short story Firefly has been published by The ManifestStation. It’s a simple story about a young girl who captures a firefly in the back yard to help cheer up her ailing sister.
Content warning: terminal illness of a childMissy caught the firefly in mid-air, cupping her hands around it to form a tiny, dark cave. She could feel the insect’s delicate footsteps tickling her skin as it wandered across her palm, searching for a way out.
“Got you!” she whispered, victorious.
Warren Benedetto 