Tagged: Unholy Trinity

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Last Note by F.P. Jones

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.

 

Rose Piano

 

Drawn by an inexplicable allure, Amelia steps into the forbidden room in the crumbling mansion. Her heart pulses to the rhythm of a haunting melody only she hears. Inside, she finds an ornate, dust-covered piano. She plays, tracing the eerie tune that called to her. The air thickens as her fingers dance across the keys. Beautiful figures materialize, circling her. They whisper, their voices both chilling and compelling, urging her to continue playing. Realizing her grave mistake, she jerks her hands away. Still, the figures remain–Amelia’s eyes betray an unnatural glint; the spirits have found a new home.

 

Lilac Souls

 

In a secluded European village, Viktor, the piano maker, crafted a grand piano from wood sourced from a cursed forest. Ignoring warnings, he embellished it with arcane symbols, seeking to harness the forest’s dark energies for unparalleled sound. When he played the first note, the piano’s timbre was surreal, almost otherworldly. But that note also served as an invitation. Spirits from beyond the veil seeped into the piano, infusing it with malevolent sentience. Viktor vanished mysteriously, but the piano was found untouched and sold. A wealthy patron of the arts purchased it–the piano awaited its next opportunity. 

 

Vintage Promise

 

We sat dormant, an elegant relic in a forgotten chamber. Then, a curious musician named Oliver arrived, intrigued by whispers of Amelia’s madness. Unlike her, he was not swayed by our haunting melody but by ambition—eager to uncover our arcane secrets for fame. When his fingers touched our keys, we felt the voracity of his intent. He played, and we unleashed not just ethereal figures but twisted reflections of his avarice. Our insatiable greed made Oliver one with us, his essence captured within our wooden form. Now, we sleep, harmonizing in sinister silence for the next curious soul.

 

 

F.P. Jones

Jones received his bachelor from the University of Arkansas and a Juris Doctor from William H. Brown School of Law. The Arkansas native currently divides his time between the state he loves and traveling for inspiration, most likely stopping frequently for a selfie. He now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. My current projects include tales for a upcoming dark fiction anthology and a serialized dark fiction short stories.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Emergence, The March & Necromancer by Martin P. Fuller

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.

 

Emergence

 

The grave is cold, devoid of light. Something urges it to lift decaying limbs, breaking the rotting coffins lid. A cascade of soil crashes through. It digs, claws, and pushes upwards.

Time is irrelevant as it tunnels higher. A fierce desire to bite and devour settles in what passes for its mind. 

A fist breaks the surface. A final lunge. Rebirth from the womb of the tomb. It is compelled to wander the world, driven by a voracious need to sate a taste for flesh, the drip of blood on dry withered lips, and the crunch of bone. 

 

It walks.

 

The March

 

The dead thing was joined by a fellow journeying cadaver. They walked abroad, stumbling occasionally, decaying legs almost crumbling beneath them. Something had changed their rotting tissue, making it harder, stronger. Muscle and tendon transformed, becoming similar to rusted iron. Regeneration, especially after the first victim’s been torn apart by sharpened teeth. Flesh invigorated and restored. Their addiction to consume human meat increases. The companionship of other reanimated corpses returns a memory of community. They are given purpose. Hunt, kill, render, and feed. Bring the living into the herd of the dead.

All travel on into a blood red future.

 

Necromancer

 

He falls to his knees, exhausted after the incantation, hands and chest smeared with the sacrificial victims blood. The cemetery trembles with a shimmer of movement as the dead arose through the cold earth. Their decomposed brains were congealed into instruments of his will, and his will was strong.

The world would fall with his army of the dead, each containing the seeds of death and re-birth in their bite and scratch. The hellish host would thus increase and march on, blood and flesh their payment for being soldiers of the grave.

The Necromancer stands, ready to own the world.

 

 

Martin P. Fuller

Martin lives in Menston in West Yorkshire. He was in previous exitances: beer salesman, pall bearer, car delivery driver, and oh yes… a police officer for over 34
years. He now runs a small antique shop selling haunted and cursed items to the public. He started to writing in 2013, preferring the darker genre’s. He’s been published in Horror Tree, Sirens Call and a number of anthologies.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Monstrous Reflection by Hannah Foster

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.

 

The glass windows of the office reflected a hideous stranger.

Steven leaned back in his chair. His breath stuttered from his open mouth. Lukewarm coffee spilled across a manila folder as the porcelain mug clinked against his desk.

Behind the reflection, lights from the city twinkled in the darkness. 

“Steve, you good? You should be celebrating.” Someone—he couldn’t remember the name—poked his head in as he unfastened his tie.

“I’m fine,” Steven muttered, staring at the stranger in the window.

The monster stared back for a moment, then slowly pointed an emaciated finger at the man facing him.

 

II.

 

The last mirror. 

Erik’s gaze traced his features, the mottled, inhuman skin and protruding horns. Hideous. 

“Erik?” His sister. She was peeking around the cellar door above him. “Come back. It’s freezing down here.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” he mumbled, staring at himself. That reflection. 

Her hand touched his spined back. Her reflection joined his, a pale, delicate figure standing stalwart next to him.

With a roar, he slammed his horns into the glass. It splintered, sending shards everywhere. His sister shrieked and cringed away, blood smeared across her cheek.

The last mirror, and the last of his humanity, gone.

 

III.

 

The guard lay motionless in a pool of sunlight, veins branching dark across his cheeks and forehead.

I killed him.

The truth uncoiled in the princess’s mind.

My venom. My fangs. My fault. 

Footsteps, three sharp raps on the door; she swayed in the middle of the room.

Please go away. I could hurt you.

But the transformation had begun, a twisting agony that started in her feet and took hold of her body.

Go away…I’m dangerous…I will kill you.

She saw herself reflected as she changed, fangs slick and inhuman eyes slitted with malice: those of a giant serpent.

 

Hannah Foster

Hannah Foster is a writer and artist based in northern Nevada. Fed on a steady diet of fantasy and Gothic literature, her imagination provides an endless supply of quirky stories, mainly in the form of flash fiction. She lives with her husband and a fluffy Aussiedoodle doggo named Mabel.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Deathbed, Probe & Postmortem by Paul Lonardo

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.

 

Deathbed

 

On his deathbed, the retired NASA Administrator David McCaffrey told his son Carl never to tamper with the box under the stairs. A month after the man passed, while cleaning out the house, Carl discovered a seamless, metallic box. The imaginative young man wondered what extraterrestrial secrets it contained. Using a sledgehammer, he smashed the mysterious object, which was part of a global protection grid against alien invasion. Now compromised, sparks sizzled from tiny cracks and an alarm chirped while directly overhead the skies glowed with brilliant points of light and the contrails of interstellar missiles descending at hypersonic speed.

 

Probe

 

The alien set the anal probes on the counter, taking all that was left on the shelf. “I also need one of those large, gray-headed masks with the big black eyes?”

The attendant reached beneath the counter and pulled up the mask. “You must be going to Earth,” he said, scanning the items. “Tell me, why does everyone who visits Earth bring these masks?”

“Humans freak out if we probe them without the mask on.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because we’re physically identical in every way. Amazing, that of all the different lifeforms out there, humans happen to look just like us.”

 

Postmortem

 

Lying naked on the table, the cold metal pressed against Vincent’s back, butt, and calves. When the white sheet over his face was pulled down, there was an explosion of intense light. He saw a blurry figure holding a scalpel and tried to move but he could not. As the blade cut through the frigid flesh of his chest, it made a soft crackling sound. The Y-incision across his shoulders extended down his stomach, but he felt no pain. When the skin was pulled back, it was red inside, though blood did not flow. He screamed but made no sound.

 

 

Paul Lonardo

Paul Lonardo is a freelance writer and author with numerous titles of both fiction and nonfiction books. He’s placed short stories and nonfiction articles in various genre magazines and ezines. In June 2023, he released Penny Dreadfuls, a collection of haiku horror poems, and in October, Small Dark Things, his latest anthology of all new dark fantasy stories was published. Paul is a contributing writer for Tales from the Moonlit Path and an active HWA member. You find him on Instagram @PaulLonardo13, on X @PaulLondardo and on his website: www.thegoblinpitcher.com.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Call by Kai Delmas

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.

 

Rise

 

The dead call to me. I hear them whisper from their graves. They haunt my dreams, begging to be set free.

I’ve stayed away from graveyards ever since my grandfather’s burial. When his coffin was lowered into the earth I heard his voice in my head, asking for a second chance at life.

I was too afraid to return but that changed when I lost you. I couldn’t stay away any longer.

I hear them calling as my feet pass by their graves. They all want second chances.

But you will be the first.

Come back to me, mother.

Rise.

 

Strong. Determined. Unstoppable.

 

His call comes from above. Strong. Determined. Unstoppable.

I follow it.

Once weak, my body is no longer bound by nature’s laws. Rotting flesh pounds against wood until it splinters. Torn fingernails and exposed bone claw their way through settled dirt, sticks and rocks.

Pain is a thing of the past. Time not of my concern.

When I reach the surface I try to suck in air but my body’s no longer capable. It has no need of oxygen.

It only needs magic.

My dead eyes find my son. His call, his magic, brought me back.

He’s strong. Determined. Unstoppable.

 

The Call

 

Hallowed ground ruptures. Dozens of hands fight their way through the dirt. I answered their call but my eyes only focus on one.

My mother’s skin is gray with black veins. Her eyes are white. She doesn’t speak. I don’t think she can.

But I hear her. Like I hear the others. They called me. Begged me to bring them back. What for?

My question isn’t answered through words but through one single, crystal clear emotion.

Anger.

They want revenge. They needed me to bring them back. Now they need me to set them free.

And that’s what I do.

 

 

Kai Delmas

Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest, his fiction is forthcoming in Zooscape, and can be found in Martian, Etherea, Tree And Stone, Wyldblood, and several Shacklebound anthologies. Find him on Twitter @KaiDelmas or Bluesky @kaidelmas.bsky.social And if you like his drabbles and maybe even want to get some critiques, support him on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/kaidelmas.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: Happily Never After by Kevin M. Folliard

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.

 

Gingerbread Legacy

 

Hansel and Gretel drifted apart after they’d charred the old hag. He’d been grateful for his sister’s rescue—at first. Then cravings began for buttered brownie brick, caramel concrete, and candied windowpane. He’d lay awake, bitter and salivating. He abandoned Gretel and returned to the cursed woods. The witch’s house had melted into the marsh, but he discovered a tattered recipe book in an old chest. With time and practice, he baked a gingerbread foundation, erected four frosted walls, and set a sugar-shingled roof. Then his palate expanded, and he found himself drawn to the final chapter—Cooking the Innocent.

 

Her Sisters’ Fate

 

Doves descended upon Cinderella’s wedding procession, and the townspeople rejoiced. Her groom marveled as the flock swirled in formation. “Look, my love! An omen!”

Then the birds plunged, wings thrashing. Shrill cries swallowed the musicians. Her sisters begged for help, trapped in a feathered storm.

She attempted to approach, but her prince held her back. Still, amid the swarm, she watched as birds pecked and picked at scarlet sockets. Red rivulets streaked pale cheeks.

The spectacle, she knew, was a wedding gift sent by Mother.

Mother’s doves ascended. Her stepsisters screamed in blind agony, and Cinderella shed tears of joy.

 

Jack the Giant Disappointment

 

Jack the Giant Slayer left a colossal corpse rotting across acres of farmland. It reeked to high heavens and attracted throngs of disease-bearing pests.

The beanstalk he chopped down crushed half the town, killing dozens.

A jury of vindictive peers found Jack guilty of theft, murder, and reckless endangerment. The measly pile of gold he had smuggled to earth couldn’t begin to cover the damages, but the orphaned children were awarded the golden harp.

Soon he quivered beneath the gallows and locked eyes with his heartbroken mother. “Beans!” She spat. “You traded a perfectly good cow for beans. Hang him!”

 

 

Kevin M. Folliard

Kevin M. Folliard is a Chicagoland writer whose fiction has been collected by The Horror Tree, The Dread Machine, Demain Publishing, Dark Owl Publishing, and more. His recent publications include his NEW horror anthology The Misery King’s Country—available October 2023—his YA fantasy adventure novel Grayson North: Frost-Keeper of the Windy City, and his 2022 dinosaur adventure novel Carnivore Keepers. Kevin currently resides in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL, where he enjoys his day job in academia and membership in the La Grange Writers Group.

Trembling With Fear

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Unholy Trinity: The Basement, The Creature & The Child by Leigh Kenny

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 Basement

 

The basement was quiet.

Conor peeked through the crack in the door and gulped. The darkness pooled around the wooden steps like water. He didn’t like the dark, or water.

Taking a deep breath, he flung the door aside and ran down the steps, grasping for the jars his mother requested before he had even reached the floor below. The moment his foot hit the rough dirt; the basement came alive.

Shadows reached for him. Unseen things growled from every corner.
Conor fled, not looking back until he had reached the light flooded kitchen.

The basement was quiet once more.

 

The Creature

 

The creature stirred, silver eyes glinting in the darkness. The sounds and smells of the house above carried into the basement, like a song on the wind.

It could hear the child.

It wanted that child, needed it to sustain itself. But the child rarely ventured down to this malodorous pit, and on the rare occasion he had to, he did not loiter.

The creature, however, was patient. Centuries of hunting created a patience unmatched. An opportunity would present itself.

A creak, and suddenly a flood of light pierced the suffocating blackness.

The child.

Growling, the creature left the shadows.

 

The Child

 

Conor woke with a start, sweat beading his brow.

Another nightmare.

The boy had been having them more frequently since he was last in the basement. His nightlight cast strange shadows on the bedroom wall. It wasn’t helping his increased heart rate so he flicked it off and closed his eyes as complete darkness washed over him.

Creak.

His eyes shot open. It sounded an awful lot like the basement door. a soft shuffling followed, growing louder as whoever or whatever was there approached his bedroom. He watched with wide, frightened eyes as the knob turned slowly.

“Mom!” he screamed.

 

Leigh Kenny

Leigh was born and raised in the beautiful garden county of Wicklow, Ireland. She is the mother and proud protector of two wonderful boys, a black Labrador, and a three-legged cat that hates people. She is also the bane of her long-suffering partner James? life. Leigh has always lived in the dark, with a fierce love for all things morbid and macabre. A voracious reader from a young age, she always knew she wanted to write, and it made sense to write about the genre she has loved for so long. She cites Ronald Malfi, Kealan Patrick Burke, and of course, Stephen King, as her most favoured authors and sources of inspiration.
You can find out more about Leigh’s work and any upcoming releases on her Instagram and Facebook pages: @LeighKennyWrites.

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Unholy Trinity: Theseus, Minotaur & Daedalus by Patrick Norris

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.

 

Theseus

 

“Get me out!” I ripped the VR headset from my head and viciously tore the wires from my sensation-suit. A sharp pain throbbed from my right arm; I could see rivulets of blood flowing from between the rubber strands of the suit.

I rushed out of the VR pod, falling to the cold floor. I survived the game.

A jovial voice resounded from the speakers above.

“Congratulations, you are the lone survivor of The Labyrinth! You have provided us with the data needed for the final phase, Release.”

“No, you can’t! You sick fucks!” 

I survived. But will anybody else?

 

Minotaur

 

Bodies hanging from chains fill the room, eviscerated, mutilated, nothing human could have done this.

“I thought you said this was supposed to be a practice run!?”

“It was captain. But the AI, it evolved into something…we couldn’t anticipate.”

“You mean turn into a goddamn butcher, doctor!?”

An ominous voice booms from beyond the rays of the overhead light.

“Into something unique.” Glowing red dots appear from the surrounding darkness, followed by loud metallic thuds encroaching on the doctor and captain’s position.

“The game has only begun.”

Cadaverous soldiers shuffle into the light, grotesque machinery protruding from their carved flesh.

 

Daedalus

 

“Gamers are tired of ineffective AI.” The man adjusts his sunglasses.

“Exactly, I want this game to feel as real as possible, the stakes as high as possible!”

“What I have to offer you is an AI program originally intended to train our Special Forces, it was abandoned after it proved…too much for the participants.”

“This sounds illegal.”

“Following the dismissal of the project all files pertaining to it have been destroyed. I, have the only living copy of the program.”

“Is it safe?”

 “We’re talking about a game; nobody will get hurt.”

 A devious smile forms across his face.

 

 

Patrick Norris

My name is Patrick Norris, and I am a starting-out author. I have spent my entire life enjoying authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, and Jules Verne. I am excited to share my stories with other individuals who share the same interests.