Tag Archives: horror

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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Even Coffee Doesn’t Help

Sean Becker was working on his third cup of coffee sitting at the counter in the town’s only all-night diner. He thought it would help kill the taste, but so far nothing really helped.

“Want a refill?” The waitress looked tired and bored. The only other patrons in this dump were a couple of truckers pulling an all-nighter.

“Yes. Thanks.” He was careful not to smile too widely at her. She poured more of the bitter brown liquid into his cup.

“Sure you don’t want something to eat? It’ll be morning soon. We serve a good breakfast.” He could tell she really didn’t care. She was flying on auto-pilot.

“Actually I just ate not long ago. I came in here for something to wash it down with.” He started smiling again and then remembered what would happen if she saw too much.

“Suit yourself.” She walked away without another word.

He took another sip. He used to love coffee, even the poor quality java served in greasy spoons like this one. It was finally starting to kill the taste of his meal, but only by a little.

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Final Justice

armor

Image: ThreeZero Fallout 4 Power Armor Preview from news.toyark.com

The armored figure walked into Mickey’s Bar, his eyes glowing a murderous red. The patrons, which included several high-ranking members from the criminal underworld, four on-the-take police officers, a Judge, a Deputy County Prosecutor, and the head of the Local 453rd, all stopped as if possessing one body and stared in disbelief. Mickey, who was tending bar himself this evening, momentarily considered reaching for the shotgun he kept under the bar, but the last time he tried to shoot The Sheath, things hadn’t worked out so well.

For several seconds, no one moved and even The Sheath, his steel-alloy armor reflecting the dim light inside the bar, merely moved his head slowly from side to side taking in the scene as if deciding who to kill first.

Finally Vinnie Russo, underworld kingpin and reputedly the most powerful man in the city, stood. He was trembling, which was uncharacteristic of him, but given the circumstances, quite understandable. The cigar he had been smoking dropped unnoticed from his mouth.

“You…you’re dead! I killed you myself! I pulled off your helmet and put a bullet through your brain!”

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Halloween Horror Story Special

shadow man

Image: jimharold.com

In going through the short stories I’ve written for this the “Powered by Robots” blog so far, and keeping in mind that Halloween is coming up fast (which is the favorite celebration of some folks who like things such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror), I compiled a list of five tales for my “Halloween Special offering”.

Have a look at these:

The Oppressed People: From the Chronicles of the Diluvian Kings

Shay the Dragon had been terrorizing the People of the Village for untold generations. Today, having heard from the King’s men that the dragon had been severely injured and was lying wounded in her lair, the People decided to strike back and to kill their ancient foe. But what the People find inside that lair is far different from what their legends of the dragon tell.

Last Night of the Vampire

Adrian is a vampire trapped in downtown Los Angeles with thousands of people who have been quarantined from the rest of the city due to the outbreak of a deadly plague. Will Adrian prey on his helpless victims to their extinction or is he their only hope for survival?

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They’re Finally Here

clown

From the mini-series “It” (1990)

“I’m getting tired of all these clowns trying to lure our kids into the woods or back alleys and I’m going to stop them any way I can.” Brett stuffed the business end of his .45 into his waistband as he opened the back door.

“No, please don’t.” His wife Sheila ran up to him and grabbed his free arm, then staggered backward as her furious husband shook off her grip.

Nine-year-old Teddy and his six-year-old sister Pam were peeking into the kitchen from the hallway not knowing who to be more scared of, the clowns or Daddy.

For months, reports of clowns wandering the streets of communities all across America had been in the news, but in Alanville, Idaho, things had taken a frightening turn.

The small, rural town in the center of the state, famed for its apple orchards, had a population of barely 5,000. It was the type of American community where everyone still knew their neighbors, people waved and said hello as they passed each other on the sidewalk, and doors on cars and houses were only occasionally locked. It was what magazines called a “family friendly community,” a wonderful place to raise children, or at least it had been up until last month.

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Rising of the Ancient

tomb

Image: tvtropes.org

Adam and Sarah Hartley cautiously began their descent into the tomb. The illumination from their flashlights revealed the ancient stone steps leading down into the darkness and into history. They also believed they were being led downward into the ultimate enlightenment.

The Hartleys were the world’s most famous married Biblical Archeology team. Well regarded by both other archeologists and Christian researchers, they were credited with several important finds between 2020 and 2045, including the true burial-place of the Apostle Mark. It was long supposed that his body was stolen from Alexandria in a barrel of pork and was put to rest in the city of Venice, but the Hartleys discovered a codex that revealed this to be a ruse. The following year, they located the remains of Mark in his original tomb on the outskirts of the modern Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Now, Adam and Sarah are in Egypt again, this time investigating what could be the most important find of their careers. If the scroll they had discovered and translated last year was right, it would be the most significant discovery of the last two-thousand years: the true final resting place of Jesus Christ.

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I’m Going To Be Published on “Theme of Absence”

infinity

Image: numbersleuth.org/

Have a look at the site Theme of Absence. As it says on the main page, it’s an “Online Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction (the lack of an Oxford comma just kills me).

Anyway, the site administrator is Jason Bougger, and along with Betty Rocksteady, and Tim Bougger, they accept previously unpublished submissions of flash fiction and short stories. Here’s a link to their Submission Guidelines.

The reason I bring all this up is that one of my submissions has been accepted and will be published on Friday, September 23rd.

I’ve been published quite a few times before, but those were all technical books, self-study guides, and textbooks.

On September 23rd, one of my fiction pieces will be published online for the very first time (apart from my own blog, of course).

I’m pretty excited.

Jason also offered to do an author interview with me and I said “yes,” so that’ll appear on Theme of Absence the same day as my flash fiction (just a hair under 1,000 words) story.

It’s nothing that I’ve published on my site, so you don’t get a preview.

You don’t have to wait a whole month. Visit Theme of Absence right now and read some of the other stories they’ve published. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite author.