Trembling With Fear 8-18-24
Greetings, children of the dark. I’m officially on hols this week – well, technically as you read this I’m back home, but I was away while the boss man needed this week’s edition – so we’re going to jump straight in.
This week’s menu of dark speculative fiction kicks off with a haunting piece of art from the pen of Caitlin Upshall. That’s followed by the short, sharp speculations of:
- Debbie Paterson’s coming dark,
- Jack Fennell’s nightmare harvest, and
- DJ Tyrer’s abandoned jungle.
And remember, we’re always looking for submissions to our drabbles (insatiable need!!), as well as the unholy trinities of three interconnected drabbles and the much longer serialised fiction column. Our special editions and short stories, however, have very specific windows.
If you want to remind yourself of our various deadlines, you’ll find them always on our submissions guidelines page. To recap, our open windows are:
Special editions
- Valentine’s: 1 December and 31 January.
- Summer: 1 April to 31 July.
- Halloween: 1 August to 13 October.
- Christmas: 1 November to 7 December.
Short stories for the weekly edition
- Winter: 1-15 January
- Spring: 1-15 April
- Summer: 1-15 July
- Fall: 1-15 October
Next week, I’ll hopefully be over the post-con blues after a few days in England’s northern witch country surrounded by the moors of Wuthering Heights.
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!
So, big changes are coming to our newsletter. We’re switching writers and it is so strange to be saying farewell to Holley (well, when it comes to the newsletter, not from Horror Tree, as she’ll still be making the occasional article or review appearances!) Her taking over the newsletter from me was an absolutely huge lift on my time and being able to try to make progress in other areas. Holley, you’ve been absolutely amazing, and I appreciate all of the work that you’ve put into our newsletter over the past few years! You’ve really made it your own and have give me a huge relief of time!
With that in mind, I’d like to welcome our very own Corinne Pollard, who already writes for the site, to be taking over newsletter writing! Please send her a follow on Instagram and Twitter as well as a warm welcome if you haven’t already 🙂
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! 🙂
Fragments of Her, by Caitlin Upshall
She doesn’t remember the wording in the advertisement but she remembers how it made her feel. Small and important like a keystone at the apex of an arch. It is an advertisement seeking a model to pose for an oil painting, and she agrees because what good is an arch without a keystone?
The Painter is kind and has a vision for the painting. The Painter speaks often of flesh and bone and light and dark. Of how paint is the great equalizer and can stop time to capture beauty.
She starts to notice art in common and uncommon places. It is in the murals of the town square or portraits framed on desks. It is found between trees and stares up at her from storm drains. Sometimes it looks like the art is trying to speak to her but she cannot hear what it is saying.
The Painter is demanding but she doesn’t mind. She moves to the left, flexes her hands in front of her breasts, cranes her neck. He tells her to crane her neck further, to stretch more, to all but break herself. The painting is coming along nicely, the Painter says, and she wonders if the woman in the oil is all but breaking herself, too.
She often leaves the sessions with drops of oil on her skin. Usually, it washes off but one night, it refuses. It sticks to her and in the morning, when she has bathed and changed her clothes, there is even more of it on her arms. She walks to the Painter with two shadows; one, slick and dark and spreading with each step.
The Painter smiles as she holds out her oil-laden arms. And when she looks at the canvas, it is blank. When she leaves the studio, her shadow sticks to her. When she walks to the town square, the oil leaks from her hair and burns her eyes.
She can only move slowly and when she stops to rest against a wall, her skin peels from her body and stays stuck to the stone. Her body contorts around the curves of rock, her expression loses its changeability, and though she tries to speak to people passing by, no one seems to hear. She is there for a while, long enough to watch the seasons change and others glance at that same paper hung on the notices board, and to be honest, she doesn’t remember the wording in the advertisement but she remembers how it made her feel.
Eight Minutes
Eight minutes.
Eight minutes and no one is any the wiser. The sun is gone already, burnt out, the gas fueling it depleted. The flash illuminates the solar system one last time before darkness falls.
Night turns to day, eight minutes later. Then night falls again, bathing the world in darkness.
The world wonders what’s happened, where has the light gone? Why does darkness reign?
The answer comes with fire, blazing through the sky. It burns and burns, raging at its death, raging at the way it has been extinguished.
When the flames subside, only darkness and oblivion are left.
Debbie Paterson
Debbie Paterson is a 38-year-old writer from Scotland. She lives with her partner, an elderly dog, two cats and a grumpy talking catfish. She enjoys cooking, reading and playing video games. She is passionate about games and books that tell a great story along with strong characters.
Troubled Asset
We need a carnivorous one for this to work.
No more loans and collateral, buying one mild anxiety dream just to finance another, hoping to someday catch a proper nightmare. It ends tonight.
I did my research. I’m an expert on boogeymen now. I can catch one.
The application is already with the Dream Vault, son: an account in your name, topped up regularly straight from the source. We’ll catch others. We’ll farm the things, milking fresh nightmares out of them.
Your part is easy, baby boy: keep sleeping. I pray I’ll be quick enough with the net and stun-gun.
Jack Fennell
Jack Fennell is a writer, researcher and editor based in Limerick, Ireland. He is the editor of the science fiction and fantasy anthologies A Brilliant Void and It Rose Up; a third anthology in this series, Your Own Dark Shadow, will be published in November 2024. His work has been published in a number of anthologies, and is a returning HorrorTree drabbler.
Lost
Vines entwine a city, blending with jungle fronds. Only now, with satellite and aircraft, can the lost lines of streets and walls be discerned beneath the canopy.
Expedition heads there to explore in detail what was mapped from above, discovers ruins of primordial antiquity. It may be they hold the secrets of humanity’s past.
But, why was it abandoned?
Too soon, the answer becomes apparent as members vanish, snatched away into overgrown buildings, unseen.
Motile vines seize victims, the limbs of something strange and formless hidden in a cavern below the city.
Soon all are devoured, the city empty again.
DJ Tyrer
DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Chilling Horror Short Stories (Flame Tree), All The Petty Myths (18th Wall), Steampunk Cthulhu (Chaosium), What Dwells Below (Sirens Call), The Horror Zine’s Book of Ghost Stories (Hellbound Books), and EOM: Equal Opportunity Madness (Otter Libris), and issues of Sirens Call, Occult Detective Magazine, parABnormal, Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and Weirdbook, and in addition, has a novella available in paperback and on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor). You can follow their work on Facebook, on their blog or on the Atlantean Publishing website.
- About the Author
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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.
