Dull light seeped through the yellowed Perspex of the school toilet skylights. It was late, but the summer evening would linger for an hour yet. In sepia, the cracked, grubby surface of a mirror reflected the face of a living dead girl. Framed by bedraggled hair, soulless eyes stared dully from sockets surrounded by half-healed bruise smudging. The mouth hung slack, the split, swollen lips revealed teeth discoloured by blood, blood which was now slowly trickling down the chin.

A deep wrenching sob abruptly convulsed the frame of the girl and the sudden defocusing of the image shattered the illusion. She wasn’t dead, she just looked it and she knew it. (more…)

If you haven’t caught it before, or delved deep enough into our archives, here’s a holiday treat: Night of the Frozen Elf

-Ed.

“Ramon nudged the body with his foot. “I’ve gotta apologize, Nash. You were right. This vehicle was a great idea.”

“Thanks!” Nash beamed as he pulled off his plastic clown mask. “It was more than that, it was brilliant.”

Ramon set his clown mask on the narrow counter inside the ice cream wagon, inspecting the body on the floor. “Easiest kill in a long time. The vehicle is perfect camouflage.  No one’s frightened of us when we’re wearing the clown masks. We can cut him up at our leisure and haul the entire carcass back to camp.” (more…)

Out here, he thought, a man can be himself. To the west the sun was beginning to fold in on itself, an origami illusion whereby its roundness divided into thirds, refracted light from the cold earth compressing it as it fell, flattening, deforming. Still, there was an hour of daylight, and no one to see his hands shake or ask why it was he kept looking nervously down the hill toward the house and beyond to the town  whose roofs were burnished copper in the late of the evening. He thought of gold and precious things and his thumb subconsciously curled under the two tall fingers of his left hand and pressured downward on the warm band that had ringed this finger for so long it had worried an indentation below the first knuckle. (more…)

PREQUEL TO GRUBBY ANGELS

Father Ronan McGuiness woke up with a snort. His bleary red eyes opened for a second then quickly closed again as pain shot through his skull.

The pounding in his head seemed to match the relentless pounding he could hear on the massive church doors.

He opened his eyes again, this time a little more cautiously and tried to lift his head. It seemed to be too heavy to lift until he realised his face was stuck to the desk with a combination of dried whiskey and drool. With an effort he pulled his head clear and was rewarded with more pain and nausea. (more…)

“Your real father, Devil’s Palm, he is a very bad man. He killed thousands of innocent people, and most of them died in a cruel and horrible fashion, either by his devices, diseases, or by his insane experimentations. You must understand, I ended him, for the greater good,” the Herbalist said before he left.

“And how dare he insult my father! So what if he killed many people? In this world, in this jianghu, it is kill or be killed! Much must be sacrificed to push the boundaries further in the name of science. My father was a radical man, but the Herbalist is not that different. He kills too. He uses beautiful reasons and excuses, the ‘failures’ he regretted. And no one blames him for that. But I know his dirty secrets,” (more…)

Josh shielded his eyes from the hot sun, and saw the same unremarkable view he had seen for about a week now; nothing but blue, rolling waves. He reached down and grabbed a half-full bottle of water, taking a sip. He sat back down onto the bow and let his head hang between his knees while the cruel rays of the summer sun beat on the back of his neck. (more…)

Often, more than not, he is in two places at the one time.

This place, now, he is known as Mad Dog. (more…)

How did I meet Rosie? Well, it wasn’t under normal circumstances – the world being the way it is. It wasn’t through mutual friends for example, or in a nightclub or at a party. No, I met her in a romantic slime filled ditch. She was the one in the ditch, by the way. Not me. (more…)

The old farmer awoke when heard the whomp-whomp of a helicopter’s blades echoing down the valley with its steep rocky walls.  It reminded him of the American military helicopters he had fought when he was young.  As quickly as the noise came, it left.  (more…)

Lieutenant  Penny  Warren,  former  SAS  now Republican New Zealand Army, slouched  in her chair, wearily  glowering  at  her  Deep  Reconnaisance  Activities  Patrol  Echelon  attaché in the  confines  of the debriefing  and  interrogation  room. (more…)