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What remained of the ruins held more than memories. They waited patiently for him to enter. And stay.
#horrorstory#fiction#horror#amwriting#author#flash fiction#microblog#micro fiction#scarystory#scary stories
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The forest encircled her. Closer, then closer still, until there was no room to breathe.
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Secretly Bill wanted a surprise birthday party. What he got was a surprise, indeed...
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It slumbered for an eon until the wildfires awakened it. My home was among the first to fall.
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Jaime investigated the tapping on his bedroom window by himself, a decision he would not live long to regret.
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Blood of Royals - My Lady Em (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1286461576-blood-of-royals-my-lady-em?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=tomleveen&wp_originator=VBfviL%2B8W8pXQT1eRs28IorcyNG%2BpfUQku7G8O%2BHC1woXhIIdOF0aP6eXs9Zgozq3OhyuaqgCozNGHQREMq6EUE1RRcJX1eFrGz94lZTCp5Sh5kJ1wU2PvMyWW1t6h8D Two households, unalike in dignity... Lieutentant Mero is passionately in love with Yetta, daughter of a powerful religious leader in their nation-state of Seena. That's problematic: Mero is off fighting a war to protect Seena's access to clean water, and he happens to be engaged to a noblewoman, My Lady Em, who is paying to care for Mero's ill father. Back in Seena, two factions vie for power: The Victrix and the Cerchi, and words are giving way to violence in the city streets. After Mero discovers a traitor in the ranks and is wounded, he is sent home to recover. His best friend, Leance, runs afoul of a Cerchi troublemaker--a conflict that ends in death. When the reigning monarch of Seena refuses to press charges in the name of keeping peace, My Lady Em convinces Mero to assassinate her and ascend the throne as a war hero. All they need do first is get married . . . In this passionate mixture of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, author Tom Leveen weaves an epic tale of passion, murder, and war that will leave you breathless until the last word.
#drama#dramatic#fantasy-romance#fantasyadventure#macbeth#romeoandjuliet#fantasy#books#wattpad#amreading
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flash fiction to chill your bones
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You Will Play Until I Say You Stop
It crept from the dollhouse on spiderlegs, too many joints, too many limbs.
Alexandra watched it first in fascination then with a growing dread that made her kidneys shrivel.
She’d named the doll Admordeo, a name which had merely slipped into her mind the moment the porcelain-cotton thing had been placed into her hands by her odd Aunt Chelsea. Aunt Chelsea, who favored the macabre in her dress, her entertainment, and her thought.
But Admordeo was a mouthful, just like Alexendra, so Alex started calling her Addie.
That had been yesterday. No — today. Earlier today.
Alex wanted to look at her green digital clock, but was afraid that if she took her eyes off the slowly crawling thing from the dollhouse, Addie would disappear, just like spiders always disappeared the very instant you went to get a swatter or shoe.
So Alex didn’t look away, though she intuited it was quite late. Too late to shout for Mom or Dad — they’d be so angry if she woke them again.
Addie, on her delicate hands and feet, crept closer still, her head up and bright black eyes staring at Alex. Some starlight filtered through Alex’s window, softened by sheer curtains, but she could see. Yes, she could see the doll’s eyes as black as sharks’ and the way Addie’s small mouth slowly began to grin.
“Stop,” Alex whispered.
The doll shot across the floor. It skittered, and Alex heard its little feet tittering across the floorboards like tiny wooden giggles.
Then the toy was up the quilt and racing toward Alex’s face. Addie’s grin grew wider, splitting her white face at the cheeks.
Alex inhaled for a scream — she’d risk waking up her parents — but the doll was faster. Alex felt its slight weight on her legs, her hips, her chest, and now her throat.
An inhuman hiss issued from the doll’s gaping maw, smelling briefly of garlic and old urine. It gagged the little girl, and then it was too late.
Addie the doll, her slender hands as sharp as tacks, tore into Alex’s open mouth. Alex instinctively bit down, and felt the wriggling and writhing of the doll’s arms like earthworms between her lips.
The toy hissed again, its features twisting into a mask of rage and hate. Alex coughed as blood ran down her throat and into her belly. This freed Admordeo to resume her attack with more ferocity. She tore the child’s tongue, bit her cheeks, scratched her face.
In mortal terror, Alex fought to push the wicked thing off her. Addie’s strength, she discovered, came from some other place, some magic from beyond this world that only a child could ever understand.
When Addie plunged her sharp hands into Alex’s eyes, the child was mercifully already gone.
THE END
Wow, what the hell was THAT? I dunno, but it creeped me out, and I guess that’s all that matters. If you dig haunted dolls and such, be sure to read my short novel Those We Bury Back. Excellent killer doll sequences! (That is an affiliate link, BTW.)
Happy Halloween… :)
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“The chances for an incoming freshman to get into Harvard with no legacy behind her are about twenty-nine percent,” Cam said. “The chances of successfully pulling off an armored car robbery are forty percent.”
https://tomleveen.substack.com/p/partner-in-crime?r=ghm4v&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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Portal
The start of a middle-grade adventure we’ve all been on.
PORTAL
by Tom Leveen
© 2022
The four of us skid our bikes to a halt at the same time, skidding a little on the wet blacktop.
“Holy shit!” Paulie shouted, because Paulie loves pretty much anything to do with swearing.
The sun had gone down an hour ago and we were all late getting home. Well, all of us but Paulie, but it’s not like anyone said anything about it. Paulie could do whatever he wanted, and his dad would never say a word. That might sound cool when you’re 12, but trust me, it’s not.
“Okay, so, I’m not the only one seeing that,” I said to everyone, but I was looking at Kaney.
Kaney Usagi tightened the band around her pony tail in that way she always does when she’s deciding what to do next. I had a pretty good idea what she was thinking, because Kaney is way, way too predictable.
“Let’s go through it,” she said, retuning my look.
Yep. Just what I thought.
I shook my head, not because I didn’t want to ride my bike right through that big black tunnel, but to let Kaney know I knew she would say that. She just grinned back at me in that beautiful way she does.
I mean, people say she is beautiful, that’s all I mean. I’m not saying I think that, I’m saying there are people who say that, that’s all.
Shut up.
Squire, who’s bigger than the three of us combined, frowned and stared at the giant black circle in front of us. Squire’s hard to read, and he doesn’t say much, but for every type of trouble Kaney inevitably gets us into, I’m always glad to have a kid like Squire around who looks like he could pull the ears off a gundark.
Squire caught me looking at him and shrugged. He was always ready for anything. We all kind of have to be, if we’re going to be friends with Kaney.
“So let’s go!” Kaney said, and put one foot on a pedal of her Roadmaster.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” I said, lifting a hand. “You guys, seriously. There’s no tunnel here. So what he heck is this thing? It just showed up out of nowhere.”
Nobody argued, because I was totally right.
We were on 56th Street, headed toward our neighborhoods, and there are no tunnels there. As a matter of fact, as I stood there staring at the giant black hole about fifty yards ahead of us, I couldn’t think of any tunnels in our area. The nearest was maybe an underpass downtown, unless you counted like drainage pipe type stuff.
The black circle in front of us had no real border that I could see, but it had to be the height of a two-story apartment building, and it was as wide as the two-lane street. It reminded me of the portal in Stargate, except there was no giant structure, and no shimmering waves or anything. Just a giant black circle.
“And maybe,” I added as we all stared at it, “it’s not even a tunnel. I mean, look how dark it is. Maybe it’s solid.”
“Well let’s go see.”
That was Kaney, of course. Without waiting, she pushed off and rode right for the circle.
“Kaney!”
That was me. I probably shouted her name ten times a day, just before she did something reckless.
But, like always, us three boys followed right behind her.
“Where is everyone?” Paulie said as we pumped our legs.
He was right. Once we turned on to 56th about a block ago, it got real super quiet. No cars had passed us, and I couldn’t hear the usual city traffic behind us on the main road.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not digging this.”
“But here we are, following Kaney like always,” Paulie said. “Why do we always do that, huh? Bastian, any thoughts on that topic?”
Man, he had a tone. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to. I guess maybe I sort of knew.
Kaney got to the black circle and stopped. Before the rest of us could even think about stopping her, she put her hand into the darkness.
“Kaney!”
That was me again.
The three of us rolled up to her and braked. Kaney’s arm had disappeared up to her elbow. She pulled it back and wriggled her fingers in front of her face.
“What’s it feel like?” I said.
“Like nothing,” Kaney answered. “It felt like air. It’s not colder or anything.”
Squire, still sitting on his bike like the rest of us, used his feet to roll close enough to the edge of the circle and nudge his front tire into it. He rolled it back out, looked at it, and shrugged. The tire didn’t look any different.
“Anybody got a light?” Kaney said.
There was a click, and Paulie raised a tiny flashlight. I don’t know if Kaney knew he’d have it or just guessed, but Paulie was like Inspector Gadget with all the stuff he carried around with him.
Paulie shined the light toward the circle, and that’s where things got even weirder.
“Uh, guys?” he said quietly.
We all nodded.
Paulie shone the white circle of light against his other hand. We all saw it. Then he shone it against the street. We all saw it.
Then he pointed it right at the circle of darkness, and we didn’t see jack. Whatever this thing was, it sucked up the light from Paulie’s flashlight entirely. It didn’t illuminate anything further in, it didn’t reflect any light back.
“Okay, that’s impossible,” I said. For some reason, I hadn’t been real nervous before, when we’d first seen the circle just sitting there in the middle of the road, on its edge like a balanced quarter. Now I was nervous.
“Look, it won’t hurt just to check it out,” Kaney said, and stepped off her bike.
“Technically we don’t know that,” Paulie said. He sounded as nervous as I felt. “It just hasn’t yet.”
“Well I’m going.” Kaney let her bike hit the road. She didn’t have a kickstand on it. “You guys wanna stay here, be my guests.”
She looked at each of us, ending with me. Even though it was dark out, I could see into her eyes just fine. She was daring me.
Daring, and maybe . . . I don’t know.
Asking, too?
I got of my bike. Kaney could get me to do anything.
“All right, but like, we just step in and step out, okay? This can’t possibly be safe.”
Squire cleared his throat. His voice was totally deeper than any of ours. “Can we go around it?”
Duh. I should have thought of that. I put my kickstand down and walked to the left edge of the circle. Paulie got off his bike and walked to the right edge.
We peered around it at the same time.
I could see him, moving like he was looking around a corner.
I could also see Kaney and Squire, who were looking at where we were . . . but not through the circle.
From here, the circle either didn’t exist, or was totally invisible.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” I said, which it turns out, I said a lot.
I shifted slowly from left to right and back again. The circle would appear when I moved far enough to the right, then disappear when I moved far enough to the left. Like, just gone. I couldn’t see anything even remotely indicating that it had any thickness.
The giant black circle was nothing more than a shadow. Totally two dimensional.
Except, of course, for the fact that from the front, we could move forward into it like Kaney and Squire had done.
“This is so bad,” Paulie whispered.
“This is so cool!” I said. I’m kind of the science nerd of the group. “Guys, this should not be here. This shouldn’t exist. But it’s totally a portal to another dimension!”
My friends stared at me. Then laughed.
“Well it is,” I muttered.
“Whatever it is, we found it, and we need to investigate,” Kaney said, still giggling. “So who’s with me?”
“I’m not going in there!” Paulie said.
“Fine, stay behind, see where it gets you.”
“It gets me alive!”
Kaney sniffed. “Sure. And bored.”
Paulie scowled.
Squire nodded slowly. “I’m in. If you guys are.”
Kaney swung her head to look at me. “Well, Bastian?”
I sighed. “Fine.”
All of moved to stand in front of the circle. Even Paulie. He always talked a tough game, but also always gave in to whatever we were doing. Pranks on teachers, pranks on our parents and siblings, exploring neighborhoods, climbing fences and investigating things . . . thanks to Kaney, we did stuff like that all the time, and Paulie always came with us.
“Should we, like, hold hands or something?” I said, and felt sooooo stupid the second I did it.
But then Kaney grabbed my hand, and Squire’s on the other side. I don’t know if it was the dimensional portal or what, I thought I felt like this light electricity pass from her to me when our skin touched.
I’m sure that’s what it was. The portal thing. Had to be.
Squire and Paulie traded looks, then Squire just reached over and grabbed Paulie’s hand. Paulie scowled some more, but like, kind of because he had to, not because he actually cared.
“Okay,” Kaney said. “Baz, you count us down?”
I took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. We do this together though. Whatever happens. Just like always. Right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kaney snapped, but was smiling.
“Copy that,” Squire said, staring straight ahead into the darkness.
“Paulie?”
“Right, fine, whatever.”
“All right,” I said. “Here goes nothing. On three. One . . . two . . .”
“Three!” Kaney shouted, and stepped in, taking the rest of us with her.
Well, whatever happened next . . . at least we’d be in it together.
THE END
SORTA
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From the Mixtape Files of... - Traitors - a fantasy story (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1260209073-from-the-mixtape-files-of-traitors-a-fantasy-story?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=tomleveen&wp_originator=gl3fwnpewSSfdY1ZA0VbXTtyBBedmFB06J%2Fry54as3qvBKWwxd%2FSIr8YGz1JCsngK4lfRxr821BFLvNobSXd%2Faz1tr9LJRxKvpJTa6cO46E5b%2B9dMkS3ciUfcxseLIDi This is an anthology, a collection of short stories written daily (or almost daily) ranging from YA contemp to horror to almost anything else. Short, punchy, and often either heart-breaking or terrifying, if you need just a morsel to nibble in between classes and work, this is the place!
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Sunrise
In a world where self is king, how can she overcome the cruelty?
SUNRISE
by Tom Leveen
© 2022
Sammi, with a heart to dot the I, walked toward sunset. Or was it sunrise? No, sunset. The city grew dark around her as she walked. Dark, and cold. She wasn’t dressed for it. Her 10-hole black Docs and fuzzy socks kept her feet dry as she inexorably splashed through puddles that expanded on the street all around her. But she had only a thin jacket, and no hat.
She was soaked by the time she reached the neon and sodium lights of downtown. And knew there was nothing there for her.
Sammi, with a heart to dot the I, stopped mid-street. Cars blared horns and skid on the puddles. Men cursed, women cursed. Pedestrians stopped to watch and record on their phones.
This, then, was the highlight, Sammi thought. This is the sum of my life: to be Internet famous on a dark and stormy night. The Girl Who Was Hit By A Car. No one will help, they’ll just capture and post.
Sammi, with a heart to dot the I, walked among and through the stopped cars to reach the other sidewalk. She could feel the fury behind her, but it bounced off her useless coat. It provided better armor for slurs than for rain.
Disappointed in her survival, the pedestrians scowled and went on their way. Sammi met none of their eyes.
She walked deeper into the neon, into the grime, into the flashes of light and thumps of music from brick buildings where women her age danced for money. Sammi figured she’d dance for money too if it meant getting out.
Sammi stopped her wandering an hour later, having not yet reached the city limits, and sat on the curb, knees together. She watched the crowds jostle and walk, bump and occasionally shoulder one another. No love.
Sighing, she rose and went on her way. Then, half a block ahead, she saw perhaps the most upsetting sight of all.
A child—she got the impression it was a young boy, but he was swaddled against the rain and his back was to her, so she couldn’t tell—stood at a street cart vendor. The vendor was semi-dry beneath a large yellow umbrella, upon which was printed in red sans-serif letters: ICE CREAM.
Sammi, with a heart to dot the I, approached the scene, scanning left to right to left in search of a mommy or a daddy. Nothing; the little boy was all alone.
She stood next to him, looking down at his little hooded head. He was a boy, she was fairly sure, as she placed a fingertip beneath his chin and lifted it.
The boy wept defiantly; which is to say, tears and not rain cascaded down his chubby cheeks, but he did not wail or frown. The tears came because that’s what tears do, but he was fighting them every step of the way.
Sammi guessed he was perhaps eight. In ten years, he could go to one of the other buildings and dance for money if he wanted to, just like she could as of tonight.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
The vendor—a remarkably sour man considering his sweet product—answered for the boy. “He got no money. No money, no food.”
Sammi glared at him. She didn’t need a arithmetic lesson on how that math worked out. She knew.
She lowered herself to one knee and looked into the boy’s eyes. “You want an ice cream?”
The little one said nothing . . . then gave one sharp nod. Well of course he wants ice cream, Samantha, thought Sammi with a heart for the I. What else would he be doing here?
She straightened and pulled two dollar bills from her hip pocket. “Here’s the money. Give him the food.”
She cocked her head quickly to one side, pigeon like, to emphasize her point.
The vendor didn’t argue. In a flash, like a magician, he flourished a double-scoop cone and handed it over. To her, not the boy.
Sammi presented it to the boy. It was as if the tears dried on his face as he took the treat, his eyes glowing like the neon signs.
“Thank you!” he said, and his voice, while quiet, somehow drowned the thump and beat of the dancing places nearby.
“I’m happy to,” said Sammi, with a heart to dot the I.
He ran off, zipping between pedestrians. Sammi wanted to call after him, follow him, find out where his parents might be, but he disappeared in the rain.
Sammi turned to continue her walk, noting the vendor giving her an approving look and faint nod as she went.
To her surprise, she walked toward the sun now. The rain slowed to a sprinkle, then stopped. She splashed her dry feet through puddles on purpose, and remembered the taste of ice cream.
She reached the city limits—the limits of the skyscrapers, the neon, the grime. They fell behind her now as she travelled east. The neon signs went dark. The thump of music faded. The darkness went away.
Sammi, with a heart to dot the I, walked toward sunrise.
THE END
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It’s The Not-Knowing
by Tom Leveen
© 2022
A hooded figure sat at Jack’s computer when he came down that morning. Jack, quite naturally, gasped, cursed, and stepped backward at the site of the hood, bathed in the blue light of the computer monitor on the desk before it.
“The hell?” Jack demanded, feeling his shoulders tense up and hands clench into fists. He licked his lips, wishing for a weapon. None were at hand. Jack worked at home and was a CPA who barely watched action movies, never mind owning anything that might defend life and limb.
“Get out of here!”
His voice was weak and cracked at the end, making Jack wince. Dammit.
“Go on!” he tried again. “Get!”
Like the ominous figure was a misbehaving puppy. Predictably, the words had no effect.
Jack glanced behind him at the open door. Obviously, the smart move here was to run, to go back to the kitchen where he’d left his iPhone charging, and call the police. They’d deal with the intruder just fine, by God they would!
Only . . .
They wouldn’t. Jack felt this truth like knives piercing his palms and feet, pinning him to this time and this place.
The room was dark except for the monitor, and it cast its light against the robe and hood in a way that made a black hole where a face should have been. The tip of a nose, the glint of an eye . . . something should have shown the figure to be human, but the blank space in the hood offered no such consolation.
So Jack figured it was Death.
It sat still. Motionless. No bony hands rested on the desktop, and no brimstone odor leaked from the folds of its black robe. Still—Jack felt deeply that his guess was right.
Death faced forward—well, “faced” being a relative term in this case—while Jack stood just a bit to the side, so that the figure wasn’t looking at him head-on. Instead it faced the screen. From his position by the door, Jack couldn’t see what might be on it, nor could he remember what he might have left up on the screen yesterday when his workday was done.
An Excel sheet? Some client’s bank statement? A video game he knew spent too much time on?
The light never flickered, so Jack assumed it was a static image. Perhaps just his desktop, with whatever quasi-inspiring image Bill Gates’ people had seen fit to push through that day.
“Look,” Jack said, again trying to moisten his lips. “I get it, okay? I know who you are. So, what now, do I get another chance? Is this just a warning? Look, I’ll eat more vegetables, okay? It’s not like I smoke. I don’t even drink a lot. So, come on. Another shot, huh?”
Death didn’t move.
“Well you don’t have to be a dick about it!” Jack shouted. “If we’re going to do this, then come on, do it! I’m . . . I’m ready!”
Lie. Total and utter. He wasn’t ready.
Death didn’t make a sound.
Jack gripped his short hair in hands. It felt melodramatic, but hell, life didn’t get more melodramatic than this.
“I’m talking to you! Answer me, say something! What? What do you want?”
While the figure made no movement, Jack heard a stealthy, slithering sound emanating from the dark folds of the robe. Cloth rubbing together, like arms shifting. But he could see no movement.
It occurred to Jack then to turn on the damn overhead light, but he hesitated, afraid of what the light might reveal. What if he then could see into the hood? What sort of Lovecraftian horror might be gazing back?
Jack released his hair and hugged his own body tightly, pounding his right fist against his chest. “Come on! Just do it, okay? You’re here for a reason, just get it over with!”
No response.
Jack shrieked. The madness of not knowing his fate grew like a geyser of India ink in his belly and torso, swirling black and heavy. He stamped his feet like a child.
“What are you waiting for? I’m here, I’m right here!”
Death offered no new sound, no motion.
The strain nipped at the edges of Jack’s sanity. In an ecstasy of tension, he gripped the sleeves of his shirt and tore them away. The old fabric whispered apart in his hands.
“What do you want from me? Huh? Are you the Ghost of Christmas Wasted or something? Speak!”
At that, the hooded figure slowly turned its head.
It was a slow, deliberate motion that obeyed all known laws of physics, yet at the same time, the gesture had an ethereal quality to it Jack could not pinpoint. The closest thing his addled mind could compare it to was the movement of a snake, which always disgusted him; they had no legs, how could they move? Here it was the same: the figure did not have a visible structure, no bone, muscle, sinew. How could it move?
Despite the movement, the darkness within the hood only appeared to grow thicker, revealing nothing. No pinprick ice-blue lights for eyes, no glimmering ivory fangs. Just darkness.
Jack raked his fingernails down his face and screamed. “What, what, what, what?”
He pulled thin layers of skin off, leaving burning tracks behind. It felt good, for a moment; felt good to feel, felt good to control, felt good to hurt. Pain meant he was still here.
So he did it again, and again. Bellowing rage at the dark figure, Jack fell to his knees and dug his fingers into his mouth. Pulled, hard, until the thin flesh gave way in a flood.
“What, what, what?”
By the time Jack stuffed his fingers into the soft skin below his eyes, he was well and truly insane. He tore his face to pieces until dead, lying prone against the thick-pile carpet in his office. It sucked eagerly at his blood.
The figure observed all this without a sound. When the deed was finally done, it rose gracefully from Jack’s leather chair. The robe fell neatly into place like drapery. It moved silently across the room and stepped easily over Jack’s mutilated body.
It was not Death, but Death’s assassin.
It was the not knowing that killed them.
THE END
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New story every day, that’s the plan. This one’s about real friendship.
https://tomleveen.substack.com/p/mixtape
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I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone will ever find this . . . but, um . . . Okay. I got this. This is what happened...
(Art by Ron Williams)
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