Author: Sarah Elliott

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Gone Fishing by CJ Goldberg

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Gone Fishing

 

A perfect morning for fishing. The cattails sway in the gentle breeze. I follow the well-worn path toward the water. But then, my lungs fill with sweetness, a perfume of roses and overly ripe fruit… Larry’s been missing since last week.

I pull the collar of my T-shirt over my nose and mouth and, heart pounding, emerge from the tall grass into swarming flies on the sandy bank. There, half-submerged, its fingers clawing at the shore, is a bloated rotting corpse.

Larry?

Prodding it with my fishing pole, its skin splits, and maggots spill into the river.

A trout jumps.

 

 

The River’s Secret

 

The medical examiner covers the corpse with a white sheet and glances at the chart.

“What’s strange,” she says, chewing the end of her pen, “is he died from decompression.”

“Decompression?” the detective asks, frowning.

“It happens when a diver surfaces too fast, and nitrogen bubbles form in their bloodstream.”

“That’s not possible. He was found in the river. The water’s not deep enough.”

“Look at this.” She lifts the sheet to reveal a jagged stump where the man’s leg should have been.

“What the hell?”

“It was torn off before they surfaced.”

The color drains from the detective’s face.

 

Summer’s End

 

James’s pick-up truck bounces down the country road. He glances at Annie. Her hair is pulled up, and the strap of her tank-top hangs to the side, revealing a white line on her otherwise sunbaked red skin. A bead of sweat clings to her upper lip.

“Let’s go for a swim,” Annie says.

James can’t believe he didn’t think of it. Nothing sounds better than a plunge in the ice-cold river. He knows the perfect spot, so deep you can’t touch the bottom.

They pull over and, laughing, she tugs him toward the trail.

Cattails sway in the gentle breeze.

 

CJ Goldberg

CJ Goldberg writes horror and weird fiction steeped in crime and the uncanny. Growing up in small-town Montana, he developed a love for isolated landscapes, dark forests, and the creeping dread they evoke. Now a stay-at-home father, he spends most days exhausted, searching in vain for more time to read and write scary stories. Discover more of his work at https://www.CJGoldberg.com.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Rats by Alex Grass

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

An Influx of Vermin

 

There’s a nasty dead rat on the tabletop. It’s dried out, like roadkill left on a desert road during a drought. A balloon-shaped snifter hits the table, the burning spoon goes flying, and cognac soaks the rat’s tail. The air is dense with fumes like old furniture and dried fruit. The rat’s tail fattens like a dry paper towel eating up a spill.

No one else watches, no one else notices, but fascination keeps his eyes on the rat. There’s a creaking sound like a branch groaning just before it breaks. The rat’s eyes open. The rat looks at him.

 

A Wriggling Purge

 

The woman’s flesh looked like someone took a cheese grater to it, unevenly scraped off her eyebrows, scalped her, dragged her lips from her face. I’ve seen her walking outside Emory University, and today I saw her when I pulled into the Headquarters’ parking lot off off Clifton Road. I stopped my car and rolled down the window. There aren’t that many people to talk to anymore; beggars can’t be choosers.“Afternoon,” I said.

The woman smiled. Then she started retching. I was about to perform CPR. But I was paralyzed by the sight of her mouth spewing out rats.  

 

The Bubonic Transfiguration

 

People used to kill each other over this place. There’s blood in the stones, soaked into the ground. The sun rises over the temple wall. It reminds the boy of the floating ball illusion; the sun is the magician’s ball, the limestone wall a two-thousand year old prestidigitator’s rag.

The boy thought he was the only one alive who didn’t have a tail like a worm with fur. Then, the old man came and started praying. With each day of supplication, his head worn raw from pressing it to the stones, the old man changed. He became like a vermin.

 

Alex Grass

I am a writer born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I live in Brooklyn now with my wife and kids. It’s important to me that I find the readers who I can make feel about my writing the way I feel about my favorite authors.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Hide Seek Find by Devlin Giroux

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Hide

 

Champion. Talented. So good.

I was always good at hiding. So I was told. No seeker found me unless I let them. Up high is good, but plain sight is more fun. For best hiding, though, be small. Keep tiny and quiet. Even the best eyes overlook the small and silent.

Don’t gasp at the footsteps. Shallow breaths.

But always…always…keep eyes open. Eyes don’t make a sound.

Wait…do they reflect light?

Footstep.

Slow breath. Mouth open. Breathing through the nose might whistle.

It’ll be okay. Champion.

The only talent I ever had.

So good at hiding. Years of doing it.

 

Seek

 

She has to die for the whole to survive. Not my rules. Just the way of the modern world.

Things don’t change. Neither do people. Decades don’t matter.

Plague. She nestles it within her. Cherishes it and thinks it’s special. To be nurtured. Can’t be allowed to spread. It will seep in and corrupt the rest. Creeping, insidious. Disguised as new and bright. That’s how it hides. In plain sight.

Or seen as small and helpless. A victim.

Not a victim. An aggressive infection to be excised and burned away.

Glint of light.
 Time to cleanse. Cleanse and protect us.

 

 

Find

 

So loud. They bicker and stalk. They run through me like I’m a game. Why do they make so much noise?

“Please no!” she said, small and scared.

“Needs to happen,” he said, stern and resolved.

Over and over. They reset and begin again. He kills without remorse or passion. She returns brimming with hope for acceptance. Over. And. Over.

And it is the same. Same noise. Same ending. Always.

They hide. They seek.

This time, I find.

Found them. They don’t see me. Nothing left after. No sound. 

All still. All silent.

Gone.

Without them, I rest. I fade.

 

Devlin Giroux

Devlin Giroux is a horror writer with some forays into high fantasy. His short stories have been published in both print and digital media with stories chosen for, and adapted to, horror podcasts such as the No Sleep Podcast. His one-act plays have been produced through La Petite Morgue and Kraine Theatre in New York.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Wicked Amber by Niko Lapidus

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

I.

 

It was amber that caused it. A yellow stone, formed of sap of a tree from a deep and dark forest. When the amber was found in Utah, nobody knew what it really was. But like true amber, it held something. Not an insect or leaf, but a presence. Something old and hateful, with hands that reached and eyes that stared. The amber seeped into the ground, and it seeped into minds. Told folks to do bad things. Flies eating people. People eating people. People eating themselves. The amber took them slow, like a tumor. All because of that amber.

 

II.

 

I ate the berries, just like we all did. It wasn’t my fault, what I did. I didn’t know. What I did to Ma and Pa and baby Paul, it wasn’t my fault. They would’ve been the same anyway ‘cause they ate the berries too. None of us knew. We had seen papers, heard what happened with that yellow stuff over in Utah. We even saw the odd yellow patches on the berries, but we were hungry. Baby Paul was weeping with hunger. So we ate them, and by the time we all knew, the amber made me eat them.

 

III.

 

They called my vessel amber, but I was more than that, more than they could ever imagine. I had fallen from the stars, dripping from the trunk of a squirming black tree beyond mortal comprehension. I saw the world of humanity, and it was ugly to my many staring eyes. In their infinite stupidity, they thought me just a mere stone. But soon they learned. With cities and minds ablaze, they learned the true power of the amber that held my will and flesh. I took them like they took me, with tumors and boils and their own rotting hands.

 

Niko Lapidus

I’m Niko Lapidus, a 14 year old fantasy and horror writer. I’m from Berkeley, CA, and currently working on my debut novel, Voidbreaker. I’m also a stand-up comedian, and you can check my work out on spotify.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Thing in the Attic by Marcus Field

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

The Daughter

 

Daddy says he killed it but he still locks the pulldown stairs. Mommy says it sleeps, dreaming of gobbling us up. Mommy’s mean when daddy’s drunk.

At night I hear the locks rattle. Something cries above my room. I think the attic must be cold and lonely in the winter. 

On Christmas Eve while daddy snores on the big chair I steal the key. I stand on a stepstool with a blanket and teddy bear. The locks fall away and the stairs come down.

Something in the darkness snuffs the air.

A shape lopes to the stairs.

Somewhere, mommy screams.

 

The Bride

 

It’s always there. A creak overhead. A scratch. A shifting shape behind the boarded up attic windows. From above, it follows my wife from room to room. My daughter thinks it’s a kitten, a puppy, or a lonely critter. My wife calls it Megory. When my wife was a little girl, it lived in her house and told her stories.

Once I beat Megory to death but it returned like a weed in a garden.

One Christmas Eve, I wake up to see my daughter disappear into the attic. 

Something in a wedding dress of shadows spills down the stairs.

 

The Bargain

 

“You’re comfortable with the history?”

“It’s a fair price. I do wish they were found.”

“Don’t we all?”

“They searched the whole house?”

“If they were here, we’d know.”

“And well, it’s a fair price. A house can have so many hiding places.”

“Indeed.”

“The police found the attic stairs down?

“Nothing there, of course.”

“Of course. And the basement?”

“No basement.”

“At least the daughter is fine. Poor thing. I noticed pest control across the street?”

“Rat problems in their attic, they think. You’ll want to trim back the trees but nothing to worry about.”

“It’s a fair price.”

 

 

Marcus Field

Marcus Field lives with his partner, son, and dog in Sacramento, CA, where he spends too much time doing math and not enough time writing.

Articles / Interviews

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An Interview With R. B. Wood on ‘Winter in the City’ and More!

Winter in the City

An interview with R. B. Wood

By Sarah Elliott

 

It feels like winter is coming. Long nights herald the chills: physical, psychological and perhaps emotional. For some, it may already be here. That time of hibernation. Time to retreat to the safety of the sofa and lose yourself in a book, choosing total immersion in the words of others. Winter in the City is the first anthology to be published by Ruadán books, run by R.B. Wood. Want to know more? Read on.

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Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Nightmare Bird by Jane Bryan

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

 

Dark Scavenger

 

A moonless night falls heavily across clustered rooftops. Wings beat shabby black feathers against its weight. A blue-black heart throbs perceptibly behind gore-mottled ribs as scabbed talons catch the roof-spine ridge that is the apex of a church. Time-tattered wings fold. A raucous caw tears the sky. Red eyes scan a dreaming village.

The first dream comes. 

Red eyes flare to a brilliance that dims the stars. A black tongue flits in pleasure within a cracked beak. A tapped mind nourishes a bottomless dark gullet. 

Dreams flow in succession. 

Dawn stains the horizon. The scavenger reluctantly departs from the banquet.

 

Dream Smoke

 

Valerian, mugwort, passionflower, chamomile. Dried, crumbled, and laced with extract from the blood-red plant that exists outside of man’s nomenclature. The apprentice’s eyes follow intently every measurement, every movement of the master’s hands, knowing the responsibility of the smoke will soon enough fall to him.

“The Nightmare Bird cannot overlook any dream,” the master speaks. “It is compelled to collect all it encounters.” The apprentice holds the pipe, watches the master pack its bowl.  “The smoke will bring the dreams that hold the Nightmare Bird to our village and shield the dreamers’ souls.”

The apprentice nods and swallows his fear.

 

The Nightmare Bird

 

The new moon hides, and my sanity slips. The stars bear down, biding time. Their malevolence is palpable, terrifying. The trees snicker at my fears from the dark. Do I trust my eyes full of profaned bodies of the fallen, or am I the fallen one?

The stray newcomer destroyed the pipe in reckless incredulity. Too few inhaled the smoke that brings the dreaming. No sleep to dream, no dream as offering, the Nightmare Bird has roosted in my mind.

Beyond the village, an unnatural avian cry rends the heavens like a chorus of countless screams.

The world is forfeit.

 

Jane Bryan

Jane Bryan was born and grew up (kind of). She is bipedal, omnivorous, and carbon-based. Her interests include speculative fiction, amateur phrenology, air sculpture, and sarcasm. She lives where her stuff is.

Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Beneath by Steven S. DeKnight and Michael Gaydos

Disclosure:

Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Beneath
Author: Steven S. DeKnight and Michael Gaydos
Genre: Supernatural Graphic Novels
Publisher: DeKnight Industries
Publication Date: 6th August, 2024

Synopsis: Deputy Sheriff Jess Delgado is tasked with transporting the sole survivor of a mysterious attack along the Texas-Mexico border to CoreCivil, a for-profit immigration detention center closing down due to wide-spread protests. Housing only a handful remaining detainees and manned by a skeleton crew of disgruntled guards, the detention center becomes a desperate battle ground when something otherworldly emerges from deep below the earth. Something that only fears the light. Deputy Delgado must pull together the guards and detainees – two groups that hate and fear each other – to survive the night. Or fall to the vengeance of the things that live beneath. 

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