NYMPHOMANIA
He wore a mask, a white porcelain mask carved into the likeness of a bearded face, and there were little white horns molded to the top of the mask itself. There were eyeholes for the mask, of course, but she could not see this man’s eyes, so she could not read his intent…
CHANNEL 8 ACTION NEWS
The hum turns into a buzzing noise, and then large shadows fill the night sky as huge, strange, mutated, and unnatural insects sweep across the urban-lit darkness, each of these flying insects the size of a small dog…
CASTLE OF THE BETRAYED PART I
This ebon thing appeared to be an amalgamation of tar and wood, though it was dressed in the dirt-covered clothes of a child. Perhaps it had once been a child, but no longer; what stood before them was a mockery of humanity, a slathering of sticky black over plastered bark, the head wrong, all wrong, with leafless sticks making up one half of it, the left half, a great glob of pitch or tar constructing the other, the right half…
CASTLE OF THE BETRAYED PART II
The giant thing in the distance had three thick, bent, and curved roots for legs, a narrow tree trunk of a torso, an overbroad and bark-armored chest, two long arms with pillared root spikes for hands, a sloping curved head, beady orange eyes, and a maw filled with grim red fangs…
THE CHILDREN OF THE GOLDEN CRADLE
It was all gold, of course, but whether it was real gold or not was anyone’s guess. It held a wide, open smile, a broad flat nose with two huge nostrils, curved slots for the eyeholes, small pointed ears, and small horns upon its head. Its “beard” was actually a curious setting of golden metal feathers that ringed around the bottom of it…
PIED PART I
This “Joe Piper” was a tall white man, around six-one, and he had a square face with a weathered but handsome look, a middle-aged man close to Edgar’s own age of fifty. This stranger’s short, clean-cut black hair held a tinge of grey along the sides, a salt-and-pepper look that gave him a distinguished air…
PIED PART II
Three people in white suits and white fedoras, the woman out of the three in a white skirt rather than pants, had walked in and were standing near the exit and entrance to the street. One of them was a middle-aged man with broad shoulders carrying a strap drum, another was a large black man with a banjo, and the last was a red-haired woman in her thirties holding a fiddle…
THE BAD NEWS
One of these young women was a very attractive black woman with a sophisticated air, while the second was a gorgeous redhead with brown eyes. The third young lady, however, was a cute brunette with a round face, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that this little twig of a brunette shook her head a couple of times as Cathy walked past her…
DELICIOUS
It was tough to make it in advertising as a woman. As it stood, the Taste of the Moon Treats campaign was the worst of the worst…and naturally it had been handed to Deborah and Kat…naturally…
COME GET ME
In the center of the clearing is a flattop tree stump, and upon that tree stump rests a large vanilla cupcake in a pink wrapper, multicolored sprinkles upon the swirled pink frosting that tops it…
ANARCHY ROAD
Rebecca held up her big bat and gave herself a grim smile. This bat was special-made, a steel club with an aluminum core, the outside of the bat coated with real silver, that silver molded with angelic symbols…
THE NARROW TREES
Anise turned and looked toward the snow-laden copse in the distance. Dark and barren trees surrounded this sacred place on all sides, and in the center of those looming black pillars of nature was the huge slab of stone she had been looking for, a huge slab of ancient rock mounted upon two support stones, those support stones two big and jagged rocks that held up the great slab by sheer imagination…
