Online Publications
A Night in the Neighborhood
Originally published by Sirens Call Publications in October 2020.
I just bought an old, Victorian house. Supposedly, the original owner murdered a dozen trick-or-treaters on Halloween night decades ago.
Neighbourhood’s nice though. Julie even met some twins and is going trick-or-treating with them and their mother.
I go next door to introduce myself, but no one answers. A silhouette passes a curtain upstairs. Julie says she’s shy. They’re leaving soon, but I have work and can’t see them off.
I call Julie from work. No answer.
Curious about the next-door neighbour, I call our realtor.
“Next door? No one’s lived there since that crazy woman murdered those poor twins.”
Archer Avenue
Originally published by Horror Tree's Trembling with Fear in November 2020 and reprinted by Sirens Call Publications in December 2020.
“Don’t step on a crack or you’ll fall and break your back!”
The neighborhood kids chant as they leapfrog each crevice of Archer Avenue’s sidewalk, blissfully ignorant of the twelve children that had already gone missing.
But they play on, walking and singing, jumping gaps overgrown with weeds.
Until little Davey Brown thinks it’s funny to push Hannah Cole a moment before her leap.
The kids watch, horror-stricken, as the pavement rips open, revealing a grotesque tongue and deadly, pointed teeth. The mouth viciously swallows her up, then quickly reseals, muffling her screams as she’s lost to its cavernous depths
Shattered
Originally published by Siren's Call Publications in October 2020. Reprinted by Black Hare Press in October 2021.
She was watching me again, the woman in the window. Crazed, blood-tinted eyes. Cold, haunting smile. Always watching. Judging behind glass.
I saw what she did—cringed, as the kitchen knife punctured his heart, ripping through flesh and bone like paper. Bloody bullets splattered the glass. She glanced toward the window—toward me—as she dragged her husband’s corpse across blood-soaked linoleum.
She saw me. She knows I know. And ever since, she won’t stop staring. Smirking. Laughing!
I can’t take it. I grab the bloody knife and strike the glass and laugh as she shatters into a thousand pieces.
The Fortune
Originally published by The Raven Review in October 2020.
"Stepping out of my car, I'm careful not to hit the black Volvo parked crookedly in the spot next to me as my gaze drifts to the peeling paint and tilted letters of the restaurant's signage. 'Wok Away,' I read out loud. 'I think it's trying to tell us something...'"
Summer Camp
Originally Published by Sirens Call Publications in December 2020.
The first night at summer camp, we told stories around the campfire. One counselor spoke of a monster that dwelled in the camp’s lake. He said to never swim in the deep part or its tentacles would pull you under. We thought it was a scary story to get us to follow camp rules, but Bobby Schafer didn’t like rules. He dove in and swam until he couldn’t touch the bottom—dead center of the lake. When he flailed his arms and struggled to stay afloat, we all laughed. It wasn’t until the bubbles stopped surfacing that we stopped laughing.
Dehydration
Originally published by Sirens Call Publications in December 2020.
“Pardon me, miss, but would you fancy a drink?”
The dark figure alarms the woman. Stopping mid-step, she’s chilled by the October breeze as she peers around the empty streets. She laughs. “How can we get drinks when nothing’s open?”
“I’ll show you,” he hisses, and suddenly he’s standing over her, intoxicated by the familiar flash of fear in her eyes. His skeletal fingers curl around her jaw until he rips it open, the crack of breaking bones muffled by her shrieks. He inhales as her soul wisps from her throat like black smoke, slithering into his dark, abyssal mouth.
Judgement Day
Originally published by Black Hare Press in September 2021.
“Hear about that Phillips guy you locked up, Barb?” came Susan’s voice through my speaker phone. “His execution was today.”
“Jackson Phillips?” I asked, lounging on my sofa. “Yep. His final words were ‘Tell Judge Barbara I was just having fun.’”
“Twenty-seven murders were ‘fun’? That sick son of a—”
Lucky Day
Originally published by Black Hare Press in August 2025.
“Tough luck, Tortoise!” heckled Hare from the hilltop. “I might just take a nap. It’ll be a miracle if you make it here by dawn.”
Tortoise pressed on, inch by inch, beneath the setting sun. When darkness finally fell, he reached the sleeping hare.
Hare’s eyes opened. “Think you can win?” he said, smirking.
Breathless
Originally published by Black Hare Press in September 2025.
They say a ghost ship haunts these depths, with a crew of 50 souls and enough gold to leave you breathless. Though treasure awaits the brave, so too does a curse. Still, 30 meters down, I dive, past groupers and rays, until barnacle-covered beams peek through dim grey water. As I swim toward the warped bow below, my breathing turns shallow, lungs heavy as they desperately seek oxygen. After the world fades, I awaken on a silt-coated deck. Ghostly figures stagger past a brazen chest, bearing depleted oxygen tanks. I adjust my own empty tank and aimlessly walk among them.
The Whispering Walls
Originally published by Black Hare Press in October 2022.
Meandering through the mysterious manor, you follow the voices that led you there. The whispering walls guide you, lure you, calling out names of people you don’t know. You wonder who they are, following the hypnotic croons down impossibly long corridors, oblivious to the decrepit portraits whose eyes wander as you pass. When the whispers start to sing your name, and the shadows stalk you through the halls, they lead you to a single door. You feel it vibrating with voices as you turn the knob and peek inside before the whispers turn to screams and pull you into darkness.
Alive
Originally published by Black Ink Fiction in October 2021. Reprinted by Black Hare Press in October 2022.
They say the house on Swanson Hill is alive. That it bleeds from the walls and inhales its victims as they ascend its creaky stairs. They land in the basement, where the house’s bile corrodes their skin and toothy floorboards feast on their bones. People have heard the screams of children. Truth or Dare. A Halloween prank gone wrong. It’s silly to believe in old wives’ tales. But lucky for me, the tale of a living house lures them into my midst as I lurk in the hollowed walls, stalking them through the floor grates. Until the moment’s just right.
Shipwrecked
Originally published by Sirens Call Publications in September 2021.
Harsh sunlight pierces my eyes. A mass of corpses. Remnants of entrails among debris. Then I hear it. Crooning—a lullaby—calling me.
Passing cragged cliffs, I discover mist-shrouded silhouettes. Glistening, golden hair. Shimmering tails. Perched on ashen rocks beyond the swelling surf.
Intoxicated by their voices, I trek on.
But soon, day ruptures into night. Their gleaming skin turns sallow; bones protrude through flaking scales. Sunken, bare-breasted chests expose blackened beating hearts.
Yet I trudge into the water, surrender to the cold, elongated fingers clutching my throat. Deafened by the sirens’ song.
Dress up
Originally published by Black Ink Fiction in October 2021.
You find it fun to dress up one day a year. A monster, devil, witch. What you don’t know is I like to dress up too. A player on your little league team. A dancer in your ballet recital. The “new kid” in your class. I befriend you. Lure you. Together, we play beneath the metal playground slide, away from prying eyes. We dig in the sand like kids do, and dig and dig until the portal appears. Your eyes grow large at the swirling reds and blacks below. Ghostly hands reach out, fingers lingering. Forgotten souls. Gullible. Like you.
Beneath the Surface
Originally published by Eerie River Publishing in February 2021.
“If she sinks, she’s pure!” the townspeople spew, tightening my knots. “But if she floats, she’s a witch. And she’ll burn!”
I’m lifted over a hoard of torches, a cacophony of sloshing boots and clanging pitchforks permeating the air.
“Witch!” they chant. “Demon! Devil!” Murky water soaks their knees. They topple my chair over, and I break the lake’s eerily placid surface.
I sink.
But soon, I transform, bursting from my bindings—from my human body—tentacles slapping the lake’s surface into raging waves. I thrash the crowd with them, torches flying, laughing as villagers fall with heavy, lifeless thumps.
Dance of the Dryad
Originally published by Eerie River Publishing in February 2021.
“Why are nymphs only female?” he asks, raising the goblet to his lips. He caresses her as they lie, unclothed, in the hollowed-out oak. “I’ve seen no males in these woods, dryad or otherwise.”
She sensually slides her legs away, her spring green skin blending with the foliage-strewn floor. Beautifully embellished vines wrap around her curves. “Men serve only a single purpose,” she says. Pressing a palm to her stomach, she senses the seedling of an unborn daughter pulsating in her womb. The dryad smiles. “More mead, my love?”
His goblet falls from hand, eyes rolling back into his head.
Retribution
Originally published by Black Ink Fiction in November 2021.
Watching the ringmaster’s whip crack against the tigers’ already welted skin was hard to bear. Seeing him shackle the elephants and separate them from their calves wasn’t any better. After setting fire to the tent, bleachers filling with screams, I thought the animals would be the end of him. I never dreamed the stampede of hysterical crowd-goers would pin him to the ground and crush his skull the way they did. So when I cut the bonds of the elephants and released the caged tigers, seeing the big cats feast on his mangled body was just icing on the cake.
Burying the Past
Originally published by Black Ink Fiction in February 2022.
I straddled the freshly dug hole, six feet below my feet, admiring the simple black dress and walnut casket I picked out for you. Fighting back tears, I took in your beauty one last time. Porcelain skin. Golden hair. Those hazel eyes. They stared up at me, pleading, as you lay eerily still, the injection still working through your body. But you did this, my sweet. I knew our love wouldn’t last when I saw you with him. I grabbed my shovel. “May death do us part,” I said, slamming the casket shut. Then I buried the earth upon you.