Dark Fiction
A Dark Miscellany – a series of short horror and ghost stories
Dreaming, Not Sleeping
When night falls we can venture into danger within the safety of our dreams – where nothing can really touch us… or can it? One woman’s insidious fantasy threatens everything, but some nightmares are simply too good to resist.
Excerpt:
So, I’m here. There’s no turning back.
A few steps farther off the path and I will be consumed by the dark. A few steps farther and I will be embraced by the forest, wrapped in the musty smell of decay, held in its damp caress. A few steps farther and I will be lost forever.
Fallen twigs snap beneath my feet. Leaves whisper conspiratorially as I brush past. Twisted branches snatch at my face, scratch my cheek, draw blood. I press my fingers first against the wound, then against my lips, tasting the ferrous stain on my skin. I can hear my own breathing, my own heartbeat, over the wind whipping through the canopy of trees above me.
Not long now and I’ll see him. Not long now and I’ll be held softly in his arms and loved in a way I have only briefly tasted but often imagined.
(Contains scenes of a sexual nature)
Memento Vitae
She wanted a forever home…
A ‘desirable property in need of updating’ clings on to its past, and a young couple’s future together is irrevocably changed.
A short ghost story (approx 4500 words)
Excerpt:
“Do you think the estate agent has chickened out?”
“Of course not. Try to keep an open mind. See the possibilities. Look beyond—”
“The cobwebs, rat droppings, dust and rotten floorboards? There must be a reason they had no photos of the interior on the website. Like it’s a complete wreck with water running down the walls… blood stains on the carpet…” Marie closed her eyes and shuddered.
“Do you think you can keep your imagination under control? The agent said it was remarkably well preserved—”
“He probably means there’s an embalmed cat bricked into the fireplace.”
“— given the amount of time the place has been empty! It simply needs updating. And they did take photos, but there was a fault with the camera. Hence only an exterior shot online. Open. Your. Mind.”
Safe Harbour
My short story Safe Harbour has been included in Sanitarium Magazine and also in Massacre Magazine Issue One
The Dark Heart
My shortest story, so far, The Dark Heart, has been published on The Crypt online magazine from Ghost Orchid Press.
Waiting in the Wings…
Threshold
Threshold is a dark, psychological horror/thriller set in the UK, written with fellow horror author, Steve Emmett.
Annie and Michael’s lives are worlds apart. One man’s abuse of power unites them.
Michael Wake is an ambitious psychiatrist whose perfect family life is derailed when a chance meeting with a young woman ignites his dark side. What Annie really needs is help, and if she’d met Dr. Wake as a patient she would have got that. Being thrown together on a rainy London street is another matter, and rather than what she needs, Annie gets what she wants.
The devastating consequences for each of them lead to a battle of wits only the strongest will survive.
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Editing
As well as writing horror and dark fiction, I was the Commissioning Editor/Editor at Massacre Magazine – a biannual publication featuring horror writers from around the world.
A Dark Miscellany 