Tag Archives: horror

The Lady By Night

mysterious woman

Image: TVTropes.org

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

The life of a private detective is a lot less exciting than you see on TV or in the movies. Okay, I’m not really a private detective, I just work for one. You see, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.

I recently discovered there’s a whole underground of vampires and human sympathizers who try to support the undead, usually by providing us with safe places to sleep during the day, night jobs, the occasional support group. That’s how I got my job working for Aidan Burke.

A kid, a vampire named Artemus, who is more than he appears to be, even for a night walker, hooked me up with Burke. I even get to sleep in Burke’s spare bedroom. Convenient for remaining safe while I’m unconscious during the daylight hours.

So I’ve got gainful employment with an understanding boss and a place to stay. Now, I can buy clothes and whatever else I need instead of stealing. I don’t have to be a loner anymore.

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The Old Elf Of Christmas

Warning: This is not a tale of heartwarming enchantment.

Seven-year-old Shelley thought it was a little strange that there was a Department Store Santa seated at the far end of the playground. It was Christmas Eve and so much snow had fallen that Daddy had to spend hours yesterday and today just shoveling it all off of the driveway.

After lunch, she begged Daddy to take her to the playground. She could see it from her backyard and there were other kids playing on the snow-covered swings, slides, and other equipment. Mommy had just put her little brother down for his nap and agreed Daddy should take Shelley out to play. She had a lot of cooking to do to get ready for the rest of the family to come over on Christmas, and wanted them both out of the way.

Daddy took a folding chair with him and sat at the edge of the playground with his cell phone surfing the web.

Shelley took off to play with the other kids, but now they were all gone. Instead, there was Santa sitting on a red chair smiling at her.

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The Stalker: I’ve Been Published Again at “Theme of Absence”

Theme of Absence, an online magazine of fantasy, horror, and science fiction has posted another of my stories, The Stalker. I originally submitted that piece of flash fiction for their Halloween Contest, and while it wasn’t selected as a winner, Jason Bougger, the site owner, suggested I resubmit for regular publication. I did and this morning, my story is online.

As you may recall, Theme of Absence was the first to publish an original fiction piece of mine, a story called The Anything Box. I’m very excited to see another of my creations published at their site.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Stalker”.

The girl panicked when she literally stumbled over my last victim. The body had been steadily decomposing at the bottom of that shallow gully for months, and it must have been pretty disgusting to trip over and nearly fall on top of a rotting corpse.

The poor girl. She can’t be older than sixteen. She had gone for a walk through the forest near the cabin her friends had rented, the sun went down, and she got lost.

She’s running blindly now, certain she can hear my breathing, my heavy footfalls, the rustling of tree branches I push aside as I stalk her. It’s a deception to get her moving. She could hardly suspect the truth.

For the rest, visit Theme of Absence and read The Stalker.

Two Eternals

shadow man

Image: jimharold.com

“Rafe Johnson.”

At first, Rafe thought he was dreaming. He rolled over in bed, grabbed his mobile, and looked at the time: 2:31 a.m.

“Rafe Johnson.”

He sat bolt upright in bed. It was no dream. He looked around the darkened room in the basement of his Mom’s house and saw no one.

“Who’s there?”

A shape slowly coalesced near the foot of the bed. It was a shadow, then it was a man.

“Do you remember me, Rafe?”

“What the fu…”

“If you kill a man, you should at least remember what he looked like.”

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Living One Night At A Time

dark web

Image: Digital Trends

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

I can’t believe that kid Artemus knew all about this. Of course, because he’s a vampire, he may be a lot older than he looks, so “kid” might not be accurate.

We spotted each other about the same time in a public library branch in Las Vegas. I was browsing the stacks while he was surfing the web on one of the library’s public access computers.

Spotted might not be the right word, since appearance isn’t a very good indicator of our kind. It was like there was something in the air, more like a vibration than a scent. The last time I had this feeling was when I was in the presence of Moshe Cohen, the vampire who had created me. I didn’t know what that feeling was at the time, but the second I locked eyes with Artemus, I knew. So did he.

I was shocked and just stood there staring, but he got up and walked right up to me.

“Hey, brother. Why don’t we step outside and have a chat.”

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You Can Never Go Home, Especially If You’re A Vampire

neighborhood

Image: University of Dayton

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

Can a vampire still love? I know that’s probably a hard question to answer. I feel the same way for my wife Janet as always. I feel the same love for my children as I did before I died. Perhaps that’s what’s driven me back home…to see them again.

I know it’s crazy. If I’m seen by my family or anyone I used to know, they’ll recognize me and I have no explanation for how I can be here, well, no sane explanation.

Can you imagine me saying, “It’s okay. It’s me, Sean Becker. Yes, I died, but you see, I was killed by a vampire, so guess what I woke up as three days after you buried me?”

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In Sunlight

sunlight

Image: Fox News

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

I can’t sleep.

I know that most people occasionally have to deal with insomnia, but I’m not most people. My name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.

As near as I can tell, vampires are severely allergic to natural sunlight. One of the effects of this is that I become lethargic as the night wanes and dawn approaches. By full day, I’m out, you should pardon the expression, like a light.

Except I fell asleep in my little shelter fashioned in a crawl way of an abandoned warehouse four hours ago, and now I’m wide awake.

Stranger than that, I’m hungry.

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Prey and Prayers in the Night

alley

From the film “Red Fog” (2013)

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

Heaven help me, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire. I figured I’d better write all this down. Maybe it’ll help someone else facing the life or non-life I have now. Maybe it’ll just help normal people understand that we’re not all monsters.

I’d been casing the Red Cross blood bank for days. I figured out their schedule. They ship blood out by all kinds of methods including car, bus, and plane depending on the need and the distance it has to go. Blood shipments are sent day and night. It was the night I was interested in.

But in the end, I couldn’t go through with it. Sure, stealing from a blood bank means I don’t have to attack anyone. It would be a victimless crime, right?

Wrong.

Blood being shipped somewhere means a hospital or other medical facility has requested it. If it didn’t arrive, it would mean I’d taken blood that was meant for someone else, someone who could die without it.

Attacking people for their blood is reprehensible, but I don’t kill for it. But I hate preying on the innocent.

So I’ll prey on the guilty.

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The Last Woman

seedy bar bangkok

Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Harvey couldn’t believe how easily he’d lured his latest victim out of that seedy bar and into an even more seedy motel room across the street. She was a beauty, a bit of a rarity in the places where he normally sought his prey.

The news media called him a serial killer. Seven women between the ages of 19 and 37 all strangled during the act of sex over the past fifteen months. The police couldn’t catch him. They had his DNA but it wasn’t on record anywhere else that would identify him. He moved from city to city, chose different venues to pick up women, a bar here, a concert there. He kept shifting his pattern around so they couldn’t predict where he’d strike next.

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The Shadow Meeting

shadow

Image: Business Insider

From the Life and Curse of Sean Becker

“My name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire. There, I said it out loud like I’m at some sort of Vampire’s Anonymous meeting. Satisfied?”

They met for the second time in a ground floor apartment in an abandoned tenement slated to be torn down. It was the first time he’d been to Pittsburgh, and from Sean’s point of view, the “pitts” part of this burgh fit perfectly.

Sean stared at the other and shuddered at the thought of the first time they met. This was the man, if you could call him that, who he hated more than anyone else on Earth. Sean wasn’t used to hating anyone. Before the change, he thought of himself as a pretty nice guy. Somewhere inside, he still was that guy, but the man who had tracked him down imposed something else on him, something horrible.

“I suppose you have a lot of questions.”

The other looked to be about fifty years old and spoke with a slight accent Sean couldn’t identify. He was totally bald, which in his case suited him. He dressed like what the kids call “Goth,” all in black, which also fit not only his appearance but his function.

“Starting with how you managed to find me. I thought I covered my tracks pretty well.” Sean had been running away from everything he’d ever known since he had died six months ago. Died that is, as far as his wife, kids, the rest of his family and friends all knew. Three days after death, in spite of being embalmed and buried, he rose again after sunset as one of the undead, a vampire.

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