"People think OCD is hand washing and checking, counting and rubbing. That it’s all about cute quirks and endearing eccentricities. The compulsions.
What bothered Helen most were the images."
Read "Flash/Flash/Flash" by C. J. Subko in our latest issue.
(Goes hard from the start, please note the CWs)
https://inner-worlds.ghost.io/flash-flash-flash-c-j-subko/
#horror #HorrorCommunity #HorrorFiction #HorrorFam #HorrorStories
Every Friday, I meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Given it's Friday 13th, and StokerCon is kicking off Stateside, I'm meeting up with horror's Mr London, C.C. Adams, to chat about sibling influence and building a body of work.
https://britishfantasysociety.org/meet-c-c-adams/
#writers #horror #writersofmastodon #horrorwriter #horrorfiction
Some doors are better left closed. But where’s the thrill in that?
Step into the unknown with Dark Descent: Whispers From Beyond — exclusive stories crafted to haunt, linger, and pull you deeper into the dark.
🩸 Fear that lingers.
🩸 Wonder that chills.
🩸 A descent you’ll never forget.
Your journey begins here: https://www.darkholmepublishing.uk/darkdescentsubscribe
Curious what else stirs beyond the veil? https://www.darkholmepublishing.uk
#HorrorReaders #HorrorFiction #IndieAuthors #HorrorAddict #Microfiction #HorrorLife
Story Hour celebrated StokerCon Eve with phenomenal horror stories from Robert Nazar Arjoyan and Can Wiggins. Wonderful stuff, beautifully handled by guest host Douglas Gwilym. If you're at StokerCon, look for Douglas—and whether you are or not, treat yourself to this scary episode! #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading #Horror #HorrorFiction #CanWiggins #RobertNazarArjoyan #DouglasGwilym https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0p2fd7CrZk
Like Oil
“I don’t know what makes this art? What makes this so important? We went all the way up into the woods to this little cabin of a museum to stare at this all afternoon, and I just don’t get it,” Brandon said. He was short, thin, with black skin and a thin jaw. He had big, square glasses, which magnified his brown eyes that were skeptically squinting like a beam out of a gloomy lighthouse. There was a solitary picture on a large, wood wall with dust in the corners. The painting was of a streetlight beaming in a blanket of shadow. It was a simple string of metal, curled over like an eyelash, with a pimple of orange light spawning a wide ray into the walls of darkness. Brandon could have painted it in his sleep. It was simple oil on canvas. He’d been taught this technique his freshman year in painting class.
“This is just the first museum we will be stopping at on our way to Duluth. Highway 35 is full of them. I think you should soak in as much as you can, Brandon. These pictures might look simplistic, but you need to consider what was happening when they were made,” Dorothy said. She was short, with curly brown hair and a red flannel dress. She looked as old as the students, but she was their art history instructor. She had red eyes and some green stitches on her left wrist. She rarely hid the fact that she had ancestry from the Reanimated. Most people were progressive enough not to care.
“Can you imagine living while the Drum was going? Many people who captured those scenes had nothing to work with. They couldn’t charge their phones or cameras. They had to paint, sculpt, and draw what was happening,” she said, walking up to the portrait.
“They couldn’t just take pictures with their phones?” Brandon said. He pulled his smartphone out from his pocket. He didn’t even know why he grabbed it. It was like a part of his muscle memory when he heard the word phone.
“The Unnamed destroyed most technology and were proficient at avoiding photography. Besides, none of those digital images really captured the emotion of the moment. I mean look at this streetlight, can’t you feel the fear of seeing that turn on when the Drum was at full strength? I imagine the artist felt just like that streetlight hiding from the Unnamed every single day. A solitary piece of light surrounded by darkness,” Dorothy said.
“I get it, but how long ago did it happen?”
“You know there are still Unnamed around today, and pieces of the Russian Federation still have a working Drum. No humans go within a hundred miles of its green walls.”
“Of course, I know that I’m a kid and kids love monsters.”
“Right, of course, I had no idea. Anyways, don’t you think it is cool? Think of their position, like in the diaries, think about running between houses like mice trying to stay away from a ghostly cat.”
Brandon walked away without replying. The entire museum felt like a cabin they should be camping in. Instead, there were oil paintings hanging on the walls, windows to the past that couldn’t be closed. There was the smell of dust and wood, and some light jazz playing in the background. Brandon couldn’t even believe what he was looking at. Each painting was of something simple. A caved-in school with lines of ivy and flowers crawling over it. Random crushed cars sitting in the road like dead fish with green bones instead of white. It was just scenery of devastation, nothing beyond that. Sure, they were painted well, but other than that it was meaningless.
“I’m done. I’m going outside. I need a break,” Brandon said, walking towards a glass door in the middle of the building.
He was outside before Dorothy could say anything.
It was a late summer day just outside Duluth, Minnesota. The air had a subtle crispness to it. The leaves were braced to change colors and split from their beams in twirling requiems of fire. The museum was on a bit of a hill in the forest with a small brown path that led down to the parking lot, plus another trail through the woods to a vantage point to stare at Lake Superior. It took fifty years for the weather in Duluth to somewhat normalize after the Drum was burned down. Brandon walked past the parking lot without looking up and down into the forest. He needed a break from looking at all the devilries. Learning about the Drum, Unnamed, and everything else was interesting, but school had just started, and Brandon had spent summer being home alone while his parents worked. Socializing was the toughest curriculum to get adjusted to.
The forest was quiet, deep, and bustling about in jade waves. There were small slivers of autumn creeping onto the foliage in bright yellow patterns. Brandon pawed his phone in his right hand while balancing the notebook he was supposed to be using in his left. He wasn’t getting a good signal where they were, and he needed to check on anything that would distract him from the natural world around him. He kept walking and walking, but the small bars of service refused to expand on his digital screen. He stopped and sat down next to a stump just off the path. The air smelled so sweet with flowers and sap it felt artificial. Something stirred across the path from him.
It was tall, flowing, and as wide as a truck. It stood up slowly over him, shedding leaves, dirt, dust, insects, and birds. There was an aching sound as it moved, as if the earth was being forced open beneath his feet. In a few moments, the figure was free of the ground. It was the Unnamed. It was trembling in and out of Brandon’s vision. There were gold claws, ribs, and horns, plus a cloak weaved of leaves and thorns. There was no face, just an outline of a head from the hanging hood. Brandon held up his phone to take a picture. It hissed and dropped back into the trees. Brandon screamed and sprinted uphill towards the museum. The Unnamed weren’t violent unless provoked. There were still many around but were hidden throughout the undergrowth and terrain of post-Drum America.
When Dorothy heard the scream, she laughed as Brandon came running back to the front door. This hadn’t been the first time an art student had been spooked by a nearby Unnamed. Scientists discovered they had complex personalities.
The ones by the museum certainly had a sense of humor.
Some more Greenland Diaries fiction. This story is many years after the destruction of the Drum. It is meant to inject a little complexity into the Unnamed. If you want to learn more about the series, hit it here. Thank you for reading my work.
#blogging #books #fiction #horror #horrorFiction #horrorShortStory #monsters #patrickWMarsh #shortStory #theGreenlandDiaries #writing
Halloween People, whet your appetite for horror! On this eve of StokerCon, Robert Nazar Arjoyan and Can Wiggins will read us stories. Join us Wednesday at 7:00 PDT! #Horror #HorrorFiction #CanWiggins #RobertNazarArjoyan #Douglas Gwilym #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading https://www.storyhour2020.com/
"Now, as the moon rose at last in all its fullness and my pain reached a zenith and edged past it, I arranged all the small mirrors so I could see deeply into myself."
Read "Vestigial" by Jennifer Lesh Fleck (note those CWs):
https://inner-worlds.ghost.io/vestigial-jennifer-lesh-fleck/
Day six of my apocalyptic horror series the Greenland Diaries. I'm sharing it all. Enjoy it. The monsters are a thing. So unique. Enjoy!
#greenlanddiaries #horror #horrorfiction #apocalyptic #fiction
https://patrickwmarshauthor.wordpress.com/2025/06/03/the-greenland-diaries-day-six/
🌸💀✨️ Issue 7 is out now! ✨️💀🌸
12 stories ready to break your heart, make you wince, fill you with bittersweet longing, or just make you kind of uneasy. You will feel things.
https://inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-seven-editors-note/
#SFF #Horror #SpecFic #Fantasy #ScienceFiction #SpeculativeFiction #FlashFiction #LitMag #ShortStories #SciFi #HorrorFiction #HorrorCommunity #HorrorFam
This week, Victoria Nations and Premee Mohamed told us tales of community and little guys (er, small organisms) that win! Sweet and touching, or utterly horrifying! It depends on your POV. Watch and decide! We can all agree, though, that guest host Sam Rebelein is a very welcome presence. #Horror #HorrorFiction #PremeeMohamed #SamRebelein #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading #VictoriaNations @VictoriaNations @premeesaurus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3BBQLNw9Kk
Premee Mohamed is popular here because her stories are awesome and she’s awesome at reading them. Also awesome: Gothic horror writer Victoria Nations makes her Story Hour debut this week. And Sam Rebelein is guest host! That’s more awesomeness than the average human can handle. Can YOU? Join us Wednesday at 7:00 PDT! https://www.storyhour2020.com/ #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading #Horror #HorrorFiction #PremeeMohamed #VictoriaNations @premeesaurus @VictoriaNations
Last bit of Greenland Diaries fiction from the Eye in the Lace. One of my favorite stories. Sets the stage for sequels. Enjoy!
#horrorfiction #horror #fiction #shortstory #greenlanddiaries #writing
https://patrickwmarshauthor.wordpress.com/2025/05/27/the-point-of-fire-2/
Life: chaotic
Brain: tired
Me: still pretending I’ll read 3 horror novels this week and not just scroll on my phone in bed. 🖤
Happy #DraculaDay to my fellow Gothic Fiends. Stoker's enormously influential tale first published on this day in 1897, and just like the Count himself, seemingly immortal, never out of print, endlessly adapted to stage, film, games, even to muppet form, a mythos endlessly malleable to fit each generation's fear and desires.
#books #livres #Dracula #BramStoker #Horror #Horreur #HorrorFiction #VictorianLiterature
Some doors are better left closed. But where’s the thrill in that?
Step into the unknown with Dark Descent: Whispers From Beyond — exclusive stories crafted to haunt, linger, and pull you deeper into the dark.
🩸 Fear that lingers.
🩸 Wonder that chills.
🩸 A descent you’ll never forget.
Your journey begins here: https://www.darkholmepublishing.uk/darkdescentsubscribe
Curious what else stirs beyond the veil? https://www.darkholmepublishing.uk
#HorrorReaders #HorrorFiction #IndieAuthors #HorrorAddict #Microfiction #HorrorLife
A man trembles beneath a familiar voice—one he shouldn’t recognise, yet does. The hour strikes, and something flickers beneath the words. #ShortStory #Microfiction #TwistedRoads #HorrorFiction #IndieAuthor #HorrorCommunity #DaretoShare #ScaryStories
This week's Story Hour was frightful and delightful! Angela Sylvaine and Sam Rebelein read us horror stories that ran the gamut from haunting to hilarious. You can still watch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZEIDcVal74 #Horror #HorrorFiction #SamRebelein #AngelaSylvaine #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading @angelasylvaine
Ethereal Nightmares doesn’t follow a theme—
it follows tone.
Across 3 volumes and 37 stories, it moves through surreal, brutal, and lyrical horror with one shared breath: dread.
📚 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DTFQN5DZ
📖 https://www.darkholmepublishing.uk/category/ethereal-nightmares
This week, Story Hour proves that people don’t have to be scary to write scary! Sam Rebelein continues to cosplay a jovial lumberjack, and Angela Sylvaine is the original Cheerful Goth. Their stories, now…that’s where the scary stuff is. Join us Wednesday at 7:00 PDT! #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #AuthorReading #Horror #HorrorFiction #SamRebelein #AngelaSylvaine @angelasylvaine https://www.storyhour2020.com/
This week, each story starts with an unexpected encounter in the woods. They unfold differently, though, and in unexpected ways. We'll definitely do our best to get Anneke Schwob and @jenniferhudakwrites to read for us again! Come let these stories grow into and over you! Er. #Bookstodon #StoryHour2020 #ShortStories #ShortFiction #FantasyFiction #ScienceFiction #SFF #AnnekeSchwob #JenniferHudak #Horror #HorrorFiction #AuthorReading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljbs21CTgtM
