Trembling With Fear 8-11-24
Greetings, children of the dark. Greetings from Worldcon! This is past Lauren, writing to you in the future, hoping you are fine and dandy on this August Sunday. These weeks are crazy busy for me, so I’m going to just jump into the good stuff – though if you happen to be wandering around Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus this weekend, do keep an eye out for me. Let’s compare TWF notes!
This week’s menu of dark speculative fiction kicks off with a dystopian sci-fi-ish peek into Patrick O’Malley’s head – something worthy of this big weekend of global SF celebrations. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:
- Christina Nordlander’s body troubles,
- Jamey Toner’s tech issues, and
- Sian O’Hara’s tea and cake.
I’m going to assume Stuart will share the news below about our much-beefed-up TWF team, but rest assured when I’m back at my desk I’ll do major introductions to these wonderful humans. Quick word to the wise: the British Invasion of TWF Towers is complete!
So we have a big new team, which makes it a good time to remind you that we’re open round the clock for drabbles, unholy trinities, and serialised stories. Fresh blood (and eyes) await your works!
Over to you, Stuart.
Join me in thanking our upcoming newsletter sponsor for the next year! Please check out Charlotte Platt’s ‘One Smile More’!
Ena Sinclair, a Scottish mage and spy, abandons her role in a prominent Edinburgh college and escapes to London to avoid an arranged marriage.
But London is not safe: a mage killer is on the hunt…
Abducted by vampires ‘for her safety’, Ena is terrified the nest owner will drain her to fuel his power but also curious to learn about his magic. Taking this once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn more about what her college had warned were dangerous creatures, Ena finds herself fond of the nest, particularly their bonded leaders, Addison and Tobias.
As survivors of the Immortal War, the pair still navigate a schism in vampire society that they are trying to heal. They now seek a peaceful life and offer Ena protection until she finds her own path.
…and dark things await them all.
Ena’s college seeks to forcibly return her to Edinburgh, and a killer is still on the loose. Hidden resentments surface, and Ena pays the price. Magically unstable and isolated, she must rely on her non-magical training to avoid being turned or used as a weapon to harm the nest she has grown to care for.
Be sure to order a copy today!
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Hi all!
As I mentioned last week, we’re working on getting the new Trembling With Fear staff a bit more up to speed! Progress has been made, and we’re going to be making the full announcement soon as to who has joined our editorial team, as well as giving intros to everyone! As of the time of writing this update, I have found out that we’ll be having one other staff member switching things up soon as well but more on that soon. While I was hoping to do the introductory shout-outs this week, I do believe that what we have in mind will do much better at really letting everyone get to know our new staff.
Now, for the standards:
- Thank you so much to everyone who has become a Patreon for Horror Tree. We honestly couldn’t make it without you all!
- The paperback is now live! Please be sure to order a copy of Shadowed Realms on Amazon, we’d love for you to check it out!
Offhand, if you’ve ordered Trembling With Fear Volume 6, we’d appreciate a review! 🙂
Patrick O’Malley
You can follow him on instagram.com/Patomwrites and read all of his stories on https://medium.com/@patrick.
Fawn, by Patrick O’Malley
There is a building. It is a dark, sterile maze of long hallways. Flickering fluorescent lights whine like a mosquito’s wings. Severed electrical cables litter the floor crackling with high voltage.
A soft tapping sound echoing through the hallway interrupts the white noise.
Tiny hooves clack on the hard tile floor with each nervous step. These are not the soft grasses that it knows.
The spindly little deer is lost. It does not know how it came to be here. All it wants is to find its way home.
In the corner of the ceiling a security camera twitches. Somewhere on a monitor the image of the lone fawn looks up at the camera. The green night vision filter shows the animal with glowing eyes.
A nearby door slams shut. The frightened animal jumps, narrowly missing a sparking cable. Then comes another slam. One after another more doors in the hallway are slamming shut.
The deer turns its soft head around. The hallway behind it is a pitch black void. It’s growing closer, swallowing up everything in its path.
Turning its head back around, it sees a flickering shadow of an imposing figure with large antlers coming from around the corner up ahead. The small deer sprints towards the shadow.
As it scampers, a loud, guttural scream erupts from the oncoming darkness behind it. Something in the void is chasing it.
Strobe lights flash. Heart-pounding, nearly tripping over itself, the doe turns the corner
There, past the door ahead, the stag stands proudly like a forest God. Flexing its nostrils, it slowly turns around beckoning the small creature to follow it.
As the void oozes around the corner, the deer rushes into the door. Sunlight and the sound of birdsong fill the deer’s senses.
Inside is the wide beautiful forest it knows as home. The deer skips on lush green grass and nips at colorful flowers. As it does so, the little doe spots a huddle of several deer watching it expectantly.
Perking up, it skips over happily embracing its family. The deer’s parents nuzzle the child they thought they had lost. More animals, birds, rabbits and skunks surround the reunited family joining in the happy reunion.
As the animals move joyfully, the image of the lively woodland slowly pulls away growing distant until it can barely be seen at all.
From the darkness in the hallway comes another scream as the door to the forest slams shut.
Split
I keep getting a little bloodless cut in my thumb-tip, unbearable when your job requires you to write longhand.
I closed it with a plaster. That soothed the pain. When I tore it off later, I thought it had healed.
My thumb had split to the first joint. It had two nails. They looked innocent, as if I’d been born with them.
Yesterday, I awoke from an icy crack. My thumb had separated in two. Another finger had a bloodless cut.
Sometimes, I imagine another woman lying beside me. She resembles me like a sister. Her eyes are still closed.
Christina Nordlander
SLAUGHTOCORRECT
Rear Admiral Inimi Tagret stood on the bridge of the U.S.S. Milky Way, watching the desperate battle unfold. The Jovian Armada was far stronger than his intel had led him to believe, and things were looking grim for humanity’s last line of defense. But he still had one last card up his sleeve: the Delving Model P-157 Proton Apocalypters. Feverishly, he typed in his authorization code and identified himself as the commanding officer. Then, whirling toward the gunner’s station, he roared out, “Fire!” By the time he realized the targeting system had autocorrected his name, it was already too late.
Jamey Toner
Jamey Toner is a down-and-out fighter on the comeback trail
The Ghosts You Chase You Never Catch
I never used to believe in ghosts. Hauntings were minds leaping to conclusions from limited information.
Then I met Jenny.
I was staying overnight in an empty stately home. I’d followed routine: preliminary sweep of the building, sensor network established. Careful to monitor areas where the “hunter” team had reported activity.
I camped out in the library, figuring the only spectres would be literary. Jenny brought me tea to stay awake. She had a lovely smile.
The morning logs showed no definitive readings. I wanted to thank Jenny for bringing me tea, but the crew had no record of her.
Siân O'Hara
Siân O’Hara has long been an avid reader of SFF (thanks to her mother, and then a chance encounter in her school library). With other worlds only ever a daydream away, Sian started writing as a way to get her thoughts and feelings out of her head and onto paper. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Twitter.
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Lauren McMenemy wears many hats: Editor-in-Chief at Trembling With Fear for horrortree.com; PR and marketing for the British Fantasy Society; founder of the Society of Ink Slingers; curator of the Writing the Occult virtual events. With 25+ years as a professional writer across journalism, marketing, and communications, Lauren also works as a coach and mentor to writers looking to achieve goals, get accountability, or get support with their marketing efforts. She writes gothic and folk horror stories for her own amusement, and is currently working on a novel set in the world of the Victorian occult. You’ll find Lauren haunting south London, where she lives with her Doctor Who-obsessed husband, the ghost of their aged black house rabbit, and the entity that lives in the walls.
