“Crucifix?”
“Check.”
“Holy water?”
“Check.”
“Stake?”
“Check.”
“The Vampire Hunter’s Apprentice VII”
“How well do you read Norse runes?”
Month: October 2019
“Hot Air Balloon Ride from Hell”
I wrote this science fiction short story in the autumn of 2016. Radically different from my other work at that time, I had this piece published under the name of a friend. Twisted Sister Lit Mag, an online magazine, was the original publisher. This post consists of a slightly reworked and updated “Hot Air Balloon Ride from Hell”.
I definitely had too much fun writing this one.
Savannah pulled her shirt over her head, and Gabe couldn’t help but stare as the two triangular Confederate battle flags of her bikini top Continue reading ““Hot Air Balloon Ride from Hell””
“A Chilling Discovery”
“I don’t believe these are natural,” he explained. “These appear to be of intelligent origin.”
The mission confirmed the existence of microbial life within a subsurface ocean on Enceladus, but a far more bizarre discovery was made inside an apparently dormant cryovolcano on the distant moon.
Scenes and Sounds from Summer
A few quick lines about the sunny season previously submitted to 121 Words.
The wrecking ball sent shards of ancient brick toward many sweaty brows.
“Doom Beyond Neptune”
“The nineth planet will soon reach a projected perihelion,” one of the pair finally said.
The conference room at the Mount Graham International Observatory was silent for several moments.
“A Fine Place to Die”
Each man cupped his hands to drink, only noticing skeletons littering the grassy strand between the pond and tree after regaining their senses.
Lost in the desert, two surviving deserters spied an oasis. A single gnarled baobab dominated an island of green and blue in a sea of sand.
“Terminator Line”
Facing certain death, the astronauts chuckled at their trivial fortune: the shuttle wreckage rested at the terminator line of the planet.
The shuttle had crashed into the surface of Mercury. Within minutes of the disaster, injuries claimed the lives of the navigator and geologist. Continue reading ““Terminator Line””
“Big Game Hunting in Nepal”
“I’m definitely interested.”
“Have you ever hunted a yeti before?”
“A Qianzhousaurus in the House”
“I may have just successfully built a time machine,” Owen stammered.
Susan was familiar with the defeated expression that often dominated the face of her husband, Owen, after an evening tinkering in the basement.
“The Haunted Church”
What the pretend spirit didn’t know was that, as the result of an earlier round of truth or dare, the youths had graduated to arson.
The local teenagers played a lively version of hide and seek inside the abandoned church, eventually catching the attention of a former parishioner.
A Visit to the Idea Factory 