My cryptid horror story No Bones, Just Skin has been accepted by the Chilling Tales for Dark Nights podcast. It’s about a brother and sister who have a terrifying encounter with an abúhukü, a rainforest demon known for dissolving the bones of its prey and leaving the empty skin behind.

Manuel’s older sister, Liliana, stood next to him, looking up at the body hanging high in the tree overhead. The carcass was little more than a shriveled husk of a man, a wrinkled bag of skin draped boneless and formless across the jungle’s dense lattice of vines and branches. It was almost as if the man had been turned into a garment, as if someone had slit him down the back, extracted his skeleton, then tossed him carelessly into the tree like an old bathrobe.

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.

Two drabbles—one stalker horror, one dark sci-fi—have been accepted into the Drabbledark III anthology by Shacklebound Books.

• A Hallmark Ending is the perfect Hallmark fairy tale: a city girl returns to her small home town to reunite with her hunky high school crush … whether he likes it or not.
• A Cure for Cruelty is about a scientist who invents a serum that makes people feel more empathy. And it works. Just not like he expected.

My post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror story Die on Your Feet has been accepted by Antipodean SF for both their publication as well as their radio show.

The story is about a group of survivors huddling close to the ground to avoid whatever is lurking in the fog just overhead. It’s an allegory about what happens to people who deny the reality of their situation, despite all the evidence telling them they are wrong.

“It ain’t real,” Grady insisted. “Think! Have you ever actually seen one of the things up there?”

“No, but I’ve seen what it does to people.”

My holiday horror drabble Up on the Rooftop has been accepted into the Christmas of the Dead anthology by Wicked Shadow Press. It’s the story of a brother and sister on Christmas Eve who hear something—or someone—climbing on the roof.

My psychological horror story I Row has been accepted into the Flash of the Dead: Requiem anthology 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 dark sci-fi story Just What I Want has been accepted by The Stygian Lepus. 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 examined the shipping label. It was addressed to her. “Never mind!” she yelled back. She 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.”

Two of my dark sci-fi stories have been accepted by Last Girl’s Club.

• Just What I Want is 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.
• Troubleshooting Your American is a user’s guide for any non-corporeal artificial intelligence entity having trouble with its American(TM) model Meatslave.

Just What I Want will appear in their “Clones, Drones, and Ready Made Meals” issue, while an audio production of Troubleshooting Your American will be featured on their Blood and Jazz Podcast.

My short sci-fi story Pop’s Time Machine has been accepted by Drip Literary Magazine. It’s the story of a boy whose father insists he has a time machine in his head.

When I was eleven years old, I told my dad I wanted to invent a time machine. He told me he already had one. I asked him where it was.

“Right here,” he said. He tapped his forehead and smiled. “All I have to do is close my eyes, and I can travel back in time as far as I want.”