Tag: Science Fiction

Kuchisake-onna On Teesside

 
They often say that there’s no place like home. I would often agree to this, except for the times where the job makes me want to wish I was somewhere else. The case of the Kuchisake-onna is one of those times.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Peter James Martin’s Kuchisake-onna On Teesside along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Follow Peter James Martin on Twitter.

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the last few weeks.

 
Read

• Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.
• Day 2’s Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”
• Day 3’s Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”
• Day 4’s Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”
• Day 5’s Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”
• Day 6’s Crysta Coburn’s “Smoke”
• Day 7’s Davia Sack’s “The Curse of Beauty”
• Day 8’s Muriel “iPad” Blytheman’s “Ye Olde Ship Inn”
• Day 9’s Jack Pentire’s “Time will say Nothing”
• Day 10’s Me! Four Flash Pieces
• Day 11’s Kate Baucherel’s “Firebird”
• Day 12’s Liz Tuckwell’s “Some People Smell Roses”
• Day 13’s Mark Hayes’s “Mandrake”
• Day 14’s Melissa Wuidart Phillips’s “The Rainbow Has Many Colours”

Enjoy!

The Rainbow Has Many Colours

 
Zara crouched down behind the pile of crates on the airship’s deck, the wind fiercely whipping at her blonde hair, making her wish she was inside the body of the ship with the other passengers, not out here in the dark night at the mercy of the elements. Her fingertips were turning white where she clutched at the metal rim of the container, fiercely holding on, knowing it was her only choice. This was the only way she got to live.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Melissa Wuidart Phillips’s The Rainbow Has Many Colours along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Watch Mellisa Wuidart Phillips’s amazing short film (3m19s) Unbroken and listen to her internet radio work on Chapel FM.

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the last few weeks.

 
Read

• Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.
• Day 2’s Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”
• Day 3’s Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”
• Day 4’s Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”
• Day 5’s Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”
• Day 6’s Crysta Coburn’s “Smoke”
• Day 7’s Davia Sack’s “The Curse of Beauty”
• Day 8’s Muriel “iPad” Blytheman’s “Ye Olde Ship Inn”
• Day 9’s Jack Pentire’s “Time will say Nothing”
• Day 10’s Me! Four Flash Pieces
• Day 11’s Kate Baucherel’s “Firebird”
• Day 12’s Liz Tuckwell’s “Some People Smell Roses”
• Day 13’s Mark Hayes’s “Mandrake”

Next up, a taste of Peter James Martin’s Kuchisake-onna On Teesside.

Enjoy!

Mandrake

 
“Hendricks? He’s dead, I believe. Murdered, if I recall correctly, a month ago. By members of his own coven, or so I am told.”
This was a reasonable summing up of the facts. Which is to say, to the best of my knowledge that Jacob Hendricks, third Earl of Cleethorpes and mediocre occultist, was indeed deceased. As such, until any evidence to the contrary was presented, I laboured under the assumption that this was indeed the case. One does not as a rule presume notices of death in The Times obituary column to be falsehoods.
It is The Times, after all.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Mark Hayes’s Mandrake along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Read

• Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.
• Day 2’s Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”
• Day 3’s Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”
• Day 4’s Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”
• Day 5’s Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”
• Day 6’s Crysta Coburn’s “Smoke”
• Day 7’s Davia Sack’s “The Curse of Beauty”
• Day 8’s Muriel “iPad” Blytheman’s “Ye Olde Ship Inn”
• Day 9’s Jack Pentire’s “Time will say Nothing”
• Day 10’s Me! Four Flash Pieces
• Day 11’s Kate Baucherel’s “Firebird”
• Day 12’s Liz Tuckwell’s “Some People Smell Roses”

Next up, a taste of Melissa Wuidart Phillips’s The Rainbow Has Many Colours.

Enjoy!

Some People Smell Roses

 
Some people smell roses when death approaches. For me, it’s a stench.
I was sitting at the airport with my boyfriend Jay, waiting to fly to Lanzarote for a week’s holiday. I’d known him for about six months and it was a leap of faith going with him at this point in our relationship. He was tall, dark, very good looking. Jay never passed a shop window without checking his appearance. He believed in equality of the sexes unlike some guys I’ve met. He was always happy to let me pay my way.
I suppose I was using this as a test to see whether our relationship had any future. Would we get on ok on holiday? How would he cope with the tedium of waiting for the plane? He sat there, frowning at the noisy, blond toddler playing planes, zooming around near our seats.
I smelled a nauseating odour at the crowded gate, where we would be shortly departing. It was so bad I had to rush past the curious, staring faces to the Ladies to throw up. I knelt on the floor, gasping, retching, and clutched the cold white ceramic toilet bowl. I remembered this stink from before.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Liz Tuckwell’s Some People Smell Roses along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Find Liz Tuckwell online at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Instagram, Amazon, and her website.

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Read

• Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.
• Day 2’s Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”
• Day 3’s Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”
• Day 4’s Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”
• Day 5’s Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”
• Day 6’s Crysta Coburn’s “Smoke”
• Day 7’s Davia Sack’s “The Curse of Beauty”
• Day 8’s Muriel “iPad” Blytheman’s “Ye Olde Ship Inn”
• Day 9’s Jack Pentire’s “Time will say Nothing”
• Day 10’s Me! Four Flash Pieces
• Day 11’s Kate Baucherel’s “Firebird”

Next up, a taste of Mark Hayes’s Mandrake.

Enjoy!