NaNoWriMo - the prologue to this year's novel.

My entry this year for National Novel Writing Month - or #NaNoWriMo wherever you find hashtags - is all about Juniper Arkwright, witch turned President of the United States, bringing sorcery to the Scandal and hoping not to get a reputation as the Wicked Witch of the West Wing. Working title: Hocus Potus. Below is the prologue. Fellow participants are welcome to buddy up with me on the nanowrimo site here. 

She hadn't intended to become the President; but then, she hadn't intended to become a witch either.

Being a witch came first of course - even though it was just one of those things that happened. It was Juniper Arkwright's curiosity that was to blame there.

Poking around her best friend Molly's bedroom when she wasn't around led to all manner of discoveries that she shouldn't have made, but it was the battered old book with a name too faded to see but that her fingers could find their way around that really caught her attention. The Way Of Odd. As titles go, it certainly was odd. By the time Molly found her an hour later with a hoarse shriek of anger that her friend would be going through her things, Juniper was fascinated. She was hooked. Molly was only too happy to let her clutch on to the book as she scurried home as long as Juniper didn't tell Molly's mother about anything else she found, so off she went, and poked her nose into its pages for the next month.

The more she read, the more she realised that The Way Of Odd was very odd indeed. It taught her how to do Odd Things. At least, odd in the sense that the world would describe them. To Juniper, they were wonders.

To her great surprise, magic existed. To her even greater surprise, she was good at it. And she tried to do good with it. No toil or trouble for Juniper, although plenty of hubble and bubble as she stirred and peppered her potions with light seasonings for flavour. (Her Potion of Knowledge had a particularly wonderful apple zing, and she would slip some into a glass when joining Molly for the local quiz night. Lovely as a wine spritzer.)

But becoming the President? Of the United States? Well, she always seemed so smart to everyone. And when they asked, she denied any interest - which of course confirmed in everyone's minds that she wanted to be President.

“Well, why don't you?” sighed an exasperated Molly one night after perhaps one or two spritzers too many. “You're smart and sensible and you'd know what to do.”

“That's precisely why,” said Juniper. “No one will vote for me!”

“Sure they will,” insisted Molly. “And you can use a little bit of witchcraft to help yourself along. Lord knows that book proved far more useful to you than it did me. You got a husband! Even if he is a bit dim. Still he could be First La... wait. What would they call him?”

“Useless.”

Molly made a raspberry noise. “Nonsense. Brian's perfectly lovely. He'd be a charming First... Gentleman? Why would they call him useless?”

“They call all the Presidents' partners useless. It's nothing against Brian. Not to their faces, sure, but they sit and stare at the President and then sometime during a speech their eyes drift over to their other half and think 'What DO they do exactly?'.”

“That's not fair,” said Molly.

“Maybe it is,” answered Juniper. “After all, where else do you get a job and your spouse has to be part of it all day? Have their own secretary, their own schedule? They have to invent things for them to do. Cutting ribbons. Naming things that need names. Kissing babies. But no kissing adults. None of that. Brian can cross that off his to-do list.”

“I don't know,” smiled Molly. “There's been a few...”

That earned a harrumph from Juniper, who raised her glass for another sip of apple zest.

And then came the moment. With a smile and a shrug and a little laugh from Molly.

“You're right,” she said. “It's a perfectly silly idea now I come to think of it. Just imagine! You! As President of the United States! POTUS!”

She clinked glasses with Juniper.

“Now that,” she said. “That would indeed be very, very odd!”

FREE STORY The Intruder by Brent A Harris

Brent A Harris is a fellow author, a comrade, a colleague, a man whose pen sparks with wit and glides with elegance. He guest blogs here with a story of horror, a story written with that same pen dipped in blood...

The Intruder

By Brent A. Harris

Based on an original story idea by Ricardo Victoria

Edited by Stephen Hunt

The knife. I need to get to the knife. It was the same knife Beth and I used to cut our wedding cake not long ago. And it was there, on the counter of our home… just out of my reach. There was someone in our house. The intruder was dressed all in black, though his face was not covered. Beth, was in her bathrobe. Alarm screamed across her face. She was near tears. My attention was drawn to a bruise across her left check which contrasted sickly against her pale skin and blonde locks. I had to get to that knife.

The man in black drew towards me. I was caught stuck between the microwave and toaster, unable to get to that knife. The intruder must have felt my presence. I was frantic now, trapped as I was in the kitchen, my wife beyond my capacity to save. But I had to do something. I suppressed my fear and replaced it with a growing, boiling rage.

I burst forward, leaping through the air towards my assailant. I seemed to hover over him. I would have collapsed down on him, if it were not for a quick stab of white-hot pain. It crackled over my whole body. I felt shock and then went still for a moment, my anger bursting forth, overcoming the agony until the whole room started spinning out of control.

The man in black must surely have stabbed me, but with what, I could not tell. The lone lightbulb which hung on a cord above him started to swing wildly, spotlighting the dim room’s cheap particle-board furniture. I swung along with it. Then, the lightbulb exploded, showering the room in luminescent sparks while glass shards stabbed into the yellowing linoleum.

I felt myself suddenly drawn into the living room, static sparking around me from the shaggy brown carpet. I tried to catch my breath as my hand slammed against the glass of the tv set. Beth and the intruder jumped at the noise. The soft brilliance of the static danced across the living room as I looked outward onto the scene.

Beth stood in the middle of the cramped room. Somehow, she had managed to clutch ahold of her rosary beads. I saw a streak of red cut across her forearm. The wound looked vaguely familiar to me. Then, she moved her eyes toward the tv screen. They were wide with alarm. The man in black approached again, this time, holding some sort of weapon—I think—stretched out in his hands before him.

“Inside the tv!” I heard my wife cry out. The man in black snapped his eyes towards me. The tv clicked off. For a moment, I was lost. But I found my way and then discovered that I was finally beside my wife. I clicked on the light to the lamp, but to my surprise, she jumped with fear. She had no reason to be afraid of me. Still, she looked at the lamp long and hard for a moment… then she picked it up. It started to flicker wildly in her hands.

“He’s here!” She cried out again, “inside the lamp!” The man in black began speaking, although I did not understand the words he said. I only wanted to get to Beth, but an unseen force prevented me from reaching her.

Beth took the lamp and raised it above her head. She threatened to throw it down. That was our lamp, our wedding gift, just six months ago. Up until a few days ago, we had a matching set. They were the nicest things in the house. Beth had broken one. I remember the cut on her arm, her falling onto it as if pushed. Now, she threatened to bring that second lamp crashing onto the floor. As she stood there, with the lamp overhead, the intruder opened a book that had been held tightly in his hands and began to chant again. I looked on in confusion.

A swirling vortex opened beneath me. I felt its pull. I used every ounce of my strength to remain free. The man in black continued his assault on me, his words growing louder, more focused and commanding. Sweat soaked into his starched-white collar. Every electrical device in the house flickered on and off, in rapid succession, triggering alarms and noise, and battering Beth and the man within a cacophony of light and sound. But that did not stop them.

Beth brought the lamp down in one smooth motion, sending it cascading into fragments across the carpet and that was it, the vortex had me. A whirlwind of rage swirled around, sucking me into the tempest below. But I couldn’t let her go. She is my Beth. She doesn’t belong to anyone but me. I know my anger sometimes got the better of me, but I loved her. I won’t harm her. Not ever again.

I didn’t mean to hit her the other day. I didn’t mean to explode into rage.
“I saw you talking with that guy again!” I yelled, shoving her into the lamp. It broke as she crashed into the floor, a piece of porcelain cutting through her arm. I didn’t mean to do it, just as I know she didn’t mean to race into the kitchen as I chased her. She didn’t mean to grab that knife—I know she didn’t—as it slid into my heart just as it had sliced through our wedding cake. It was all an accident. I can forgive you Beth, just don’t make me leave you!

“I love you…I love you,” I wailed as I was sucked down into the bottomless pit. The last thing I saw was the look of relief on Beth’s face as I disappeared into the depths below.

© Brent A Harris

All rights reserved

Brent A Harris is featured in the fantasy short story anthology Tales From The Tavern, available here. He is also featured in the new horror short story anthology Tales From The Mists from Inklings Press. The latest anthology is available here. You can follow him on Twitter here. 

I'm doing NaNoWriMo - who's with me?

Every November, there is an event. A huge, glorious event. They call it National Novel Writing Month - but this is an event that has long spilled past the borders of any nation, as writers from around the world surge towards the challenge. A simply-stated, impossibly-daunting challenge. Can you write a novel in a month?

I have a chequered history with the event. Put another way, I have failed every time I've tried. That final word count has proven hopelessly elusive. But - in another way I have succeeded. Each of the times I have tried it I have emerged with more written than I would have done without it. The seeds of the novel I hope to publish next year were first planted when I wrote 30,000 words in that first month of trying. 

Last year's event I swooshed and missed completely. I struggled to get the tone I wanted for that book - but I'm going to give it another shot this time. And the reason I'm doing that is precisely because it's in a tone that I don't normally lean towards, something more light-hearted, something more jolly.

There's magic loose in the White House and the President is a witch. President Juniper Arkwright is at your service, and her Air Force One is a broom. I give you... Hocus Potus. 

I'm going with an outline this time round - planning rather than pantsing - as I think that was what got me nowhere last year. Time to focus on the hocus and deliver the potus. Planning I'm doing with nothing more than a pen and paper. I'll share at some point if people ask. But what I'm doing now is issuing a rallying cry. Who's with me? Let's be one another's support. I'll keep updating here through the month and comments are welcome - but you can also keep up with me on Twitter through my @chippychatty handle. 

So how does doing NaNoWriMo help you? First, you sign in with your book at nanowrimo.org and you'll have access to forums full of advice and, here's the bit I found most useful, local group leaders who host gatherings where you come together to encourage one another on. When the typing gets tough, the tough get typing - but sometimes you need voices urging you on, not to give up, to tell us what happens in the next chapter. 

If you're on Twitter, then both @Nanowrimo and, perhaps more importantly, @Nanowordsprints are worth following - the latter having timed challenges to sit down and start writing. 

On the main website, you'll also find advice articles and tools to monitor your progress. In short, they're there to help. 

And hopefully, collectively, so can we be. Not me, not you, but us collectively, together. Let's do this.

You can follow my progress on the NaNo site here. 

Why we choose pseudonyns - two authors share their reasons

TWO of the authors who write for Inklings Press - including the host of this blog - write under an assumed name when it comes to fiction. Alei Kotdaishura and Leo McBride are both pseudonyms that the writers have taken on for their fictional work. We chatted to both about their reasons for putting on a mask as a writer. 

Alei Kotdaishura 

For starters, what are pseudonyms? (We may have someone who doesn’t understand the term)

I see some reasons to use them:

• You don’t want your real name to be known
• Your name is too common
• Some writers use it to dissociate their usual writing style with another kind of writings they actually publish
• Your name might be confused with someone else’s

In my case, it is a mix of the first two cases. I began using an alias when I was a teenager in order to maintain privacy. Internet was new and the paranoia about using real names was high, especially with parents that didn’t understand much about computing. Besides, I liked the idea of having an alternate self with a name chosen by myself.

As the years passed, I began using my real name, but since I studied Chemistry, I still hope to be able to publish some scientific articles in the future, even though I am more focused on the administrative areas of the pharmaceutical business, so having an author name and a scientifically recognized name separated works for me.

For example, Mayim Bialik has a PhD in Neuroscience. I don’t know whether her acting name is the same she uses for her scientific research, but you could question just how serious she is when you see her playing a goofy character on TV, right? That is one of the cases where a pseudonym actually works.

For the third case, one of the latest examples is JK Rowling, who used a pseudonym in order to publish something different than the Harry Potter series. I don’t recall the name of the book [Editor's note: The Cuckoo Calling, published under the name Robert Galbraith], but it might have been published after the Unexpected Vacancy, which at the time of publishing was expensive and many fans of Harry Potter bought it expecting to read another book regarding magic… Only to find out that the book was about the day-to-day life in a small English town, where almost nothing happens, and certainly, no magic. Rather disappointing and boring, actually. Yes, I read it. I knew it was not about magic, but I still wanted to see whether she could write something else and actually pull it off. To me, it didn’t but I am still interested on giving her another chance - having a popular series behind you can be a very big shadow to shake off when you want to write about other subjects.

Elena Poniatowska, a Mexican writer since the 60s, at the beginning of 2000 entered a contest for new authors using a pseudonym and actually won the first price. When asked, she explained that she wanted to know whether she was still good at her writing, or whether she heard her books were good due to flattery. (Personally, I am still angry at her about this. She robbed the chance of success from a beginner because of self-esteem problems. But that’s just me.)

Now, advantages:

• You can keep going with your life without fame bothering you (if you become famous, of course!).
• You can actually write different kinds of books and articles without both identities being confused.

      Disadvantages:

• Unless someone actually sees your face on the book cover or blog or facebook page, they won’t believe you truly are a writer.
• You may not be able to demonstrate your identity for writing events where you’re invited if they have your pseudonym instead of your real name

Leo McBride

It was an easy choice for me to use a pseudonym. My real name is Stephen Hunt - and as fans of fantasy and science fiction will likely know, there is already an author by that name, whose Jackelian series of steampunk-influenced magical fantasy I've even reviewed in the past (Mr Hunt's website is here). I tell you, it's hard when you see your name on the cover of a book not to feel envious and wish you'd done it already! As an aside, he's well worth a look, tremendously fun writing. 

More than that, though, because I work in newspapers and my name is publicly out there on a regular basis, it's useful to create that separation between my factual work and my fiction. 

Finally, there is a personal reason in that the surname I've chosen is a tribute to my mother, who always encouraged my writing. And yes, choosing that name means I can never have particular security question!

I think there are definite advantages and disadvantages. I'm open about writing under a pseudonym and have put my face to articles appearing in the press about my work but if you're using it for anonymity reasons, then it's a hindrance to a publicity drive. Of course, historically there are the cases where women wrote under a male pseudonym in order to have their work viewed in a different light - thankfully, those days are gone but perhaps we have our own modern demon in that context with the harassment that many female writers - heck, women in general - suffer online. 

An article featured in The Tribune in The Bahamas highlighting the writing of Leo McBride - but how does promotion and publicity fit alongside writing behind a pseudonym?

Also, if you're creating that pseudonym from scratch, then it is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. The pseudonym has no friends to say "Hey, I didn't know you wrote, let me buy your book!", it has no network ready there for a head start as you take your first steps out into the world saying "This is me, here's what I wrote, here is my heart." Now perhaps that gets you more honest responses to the quality of your work, I'm not sure, but it's certainly a few steps further down the hill when you get started. 

As an advantage, though, I find people accept that clear distinction - so far, at least. And those who are genuinely interested can follow more easily when you have drawn that line between the two different strands of your professional life. I'm still struggling with some aspects of that - I'm weighing up whether to launch a separate Twitter account for example, for my author identity. But then you start wondering how far that should go. I have a Facebook page already for my pseudonym, and that's easy to manage without separate log-ins - but what about Goodreads, or Google+ or Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, all those things? There's only so much time in the day and the more time you spend on all those different things, the less time you spend actually writing - or living your life! So it's still a learning process for me and I'm sure I'll experiment with different aspects as I go. It's tricky because you give of yourself when you write, but then you don't want to push it too much onto people in the other aspects of your life. Finding the right balance is a difficult thing. 

Am I glad to have taken the path of writing under a pseudonym? Yes. It has its challenges, but for the personal reason alone, every time I have a measure of success, it's a tribute to the belief given to me in the past. And for that, I'm very thankful. 

Both Alei Kotdaishura and Leo McBride are featured in Tales From The Mists, now available on Amazon. It is available on Amazon.com here. For other territories around the world, check our list here. You can find both writers on Twitter, as @chippychatty and @aleikotdaishura. 

Where in the world do I buy Tales From The Mists?

One of the oddities with selling on Amazon is that it has stores around the world. You might click on a link we've tweeted out only to find yourself in a different regional store. So... to make life easier for you, here are the collected links to stores around the world selling the creepy collection from Inklings Press.

The US and associated countries using Amazon.com: Buy here. 

The UK: Buy here. 

Canada: Buy here.
Mexico: Buy here.
Australia: Buy here.
Germany: Buy here.
France: Buy here.
Spain: Buy here.
Italy: Buy here.
Netherlands: Buy here.
Japan: Buy here.
Brazil: Buy here.
India: Buy here.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the book - so if you have posted any reviews you could tweet our way that would be great. Or just catch up with us for a chat at @inklingspress.

No trick, all treat - a Halloween movie list to die for

Guest blogger Ricardo Victoria pops in as Halloween approaches to mix murder and mirth with his countdown of some of the more fun movies of the season. 

It is no secret that Halloween is one of my favorite celebrations of the year. It has some mystical aura where you can mix the fun with the scary. And in this line of thought I consider than one of the best ways to spend the day is with a movie marathon. Now, for me not any movie makes it because let's be frank, for the past decade most of the horror movies show gratuitous violence for the sake of it. Therefore I consider that a true Halloween movie must mix some elements of humor, suspense and horror or simply be a classic where the true horror is a tool used to narrate a good story. So no Saw, zombiefest (I hate zombie stories with passion, aside from the one mentioned here) nor gore classics in my list.

And to show my point, here is my list of recommendations for the day when the dead and the monsters walk the Earth in search of candies and horror. I'm posting this before the actual date so you can have time to track some of them down.

1. Ghostbusters:

A true classic in all sense. When i was a kid this movie made me laugh in the same amounts that it scared me (especially the library scene). Now it might not be at all scary, but more than two decades after, it is still pulling its weight. If you haven't seen it, stop wasting your time on the internet and do it. If you don't like it, then you are a soulless creature and I would like you to introduce my friends Stantz, Spengler and Venkman, they might want to have a few words with you. And avoid marshmallows, trust me. Bottom line, if you don't like this movie you are either dead or souless. In either case, I know who I'm gonna call to deal with you.

2. Fright Night

Seductive vampires? Check. 'Intrepid' (in the loosest definition of the word) hunters? Check. Scary story? Hell yeah. Unlike the current sissy, teenaged vampyre crap of recent memory, the Fright Night really delivered the goods. A forgotten classic by now, it is still an enjoyable piece of horror film from the 80's. The remake is not bad (thanks mostly to David Tennant who is always awesome), but it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

3. Re-animator

I know I said no zombie films and this is considered a zombie film. However, it is one of those movies that have become really good on the basis of being soooo bad. Inspired by a short story from a true master of horror, H.P Lovecraft. Maybe what makes this movie a classic is not the story nor the (excessive gore), but the large, ham-fisted acting of Jeffrey Combs (better known as The Question from JLU). He eats the scenery like a zombie eats a brain. If I have to break one of my movie rules for Halloween, it has to be for this one.

4. Sleepy Hollow

Unlike many of my friends, I'm not a fan of Mr. Burton's work in general (my opinion is quite similar to Kevin Smith's in that regard). However, I recognize that this particular work, always including the master of the strange that is Johnny Depp captures to a 't' the spirit of the legend of the Headless Horseman like no one else did since Disney filmed that short movie with the narration of Bing Crosby (which you need to see as well).

5. Gremlins

Granted, the second one is funnier, but honestly? It is also kinda lame. But man the first one was really scary and good for the time it was released. It was at what I consider the peak of Spielberg's work and whether you laughed at the antics of the green menaces or you were downright scared of them, this movie is a great fit for Halloween. Ironically enough, it was released as a Christmas movie. Take that as you wish.

6. Bram Stoker's Dracula

Vampires have been part of the Halloween mystique from ages and what better than watching a movie inspired by the novel that practically launched the bloodsuckers to the stardom. This movie is ripe with good actors (yes even Keanu) and for what I remember, follows the book pretty well. Highly recommended, if only because of Gary Oldman's portrayal of the Count, sexy and scary at the same time. Or if you want to go for a more alternative route, watch The Shadow of the Vampire with Willem Defoe.

7. The Exorcist

C'mon, just the theme tune of this movie gives you the chills. The movie will leave you with nightmares. Just avoid the sequels and prequels. Nuff said.

9. Legend

Someone will ask why I put a somewhat obscure epic fantasy movie with Tom Cruise as an elf that reminds you of Link in this list. But hey when you have Tim Curry characterized as one of the most scary, well-done devils ever made in film history, you can't go wrong.

10. Pet shop of horrors

For the anime fans, now, while most anime fans would tell you that Mermaid's Scar is the quintessential anime horror by excellence (amidst a very decent record of horror animes, man the Japanese writers know how to do scary stuff), I would argue that Pet Shop of Horrors is a good alternative, especially if like Brent, you are more into Twilight Zone kind of stories. This is an anthology of four bizarre short stories, that will keep you glued to your seat while realizing that more often than not, humans are the true monsters.

11. Event Horizon

My favorite proper horror movie: Event Horizon. A movie which is the result of mixing the old haunted house trope (lightning storm included) with the ghost ship trope and a heavy dose of Lovecraft. Most people in geekdom consider this an unofficial prequel to Warhammer 40k (if you don't know what's that, let's say that is the most grimdark tabletop wargame known to man and wickedly fun); I consider it a sci-fi version of At the Mountain of Madness, but with a bit more gore. Also a good horror movie for dates (trust my teenager self on this one). Sam Neill aces it on this film.

12. 30 Days of Night.

I can't believe I almost forgot to put this one. maybe it was because when I went to see it I was with a friend in a cinema in the middle of nowhere, mist all over the place (like is typical of UK) and it was the midnight release, but this movie made for a tense return to home and me starting to plan how to deal with something like this. Everything in this movie is pitch perfect to scare you. These are not sexy vampires, these are predators and we are their food. Also the design of the monsters is disturbing to say the least. And the music, eerie as hell.

Well this is my list. Obviously, with the current output of films, this reads more like a classic list than a modern one. I know there are other movies worth watching today like Ringu or The Grudge, but I think this list captures pretty well the spirit of Halloween (not of Samhain, that is different, but I will talk about that later). Also, later I will write a list of the best Mexican horror movies, where Carlos Taboada and Guillermo del Toro pretty much steal the show and the soul of the whole thing.

Do you think a movie is missing? Want to talk about your personal list? Please go ahead and join the conversation in the comments below.

 Enjoy and 'trick or treat!!!'

You can enjoy the continuing adventures of Ricardo Victoria on Twitter here. 

A Q&A; with author Morgan Porter

Inklings Press sits down for a chat with Morgan Porter, the newest author to feature in the imprint's anthologies. Morgan's story, The Pillar of Hendarac, is included in Tales From The Mists, the latest collection of short stories published by Inklings Press on Amazon. 

Hi Morgan, and welcome to the Inklings club! You join a group that is widely scattered around the globe - some in Mexico, the UK, the US, The Bahamas... whereabouts are you based, and how did you come to connect with the crew? Also, does your location inform your writing in any way?

I am living in Bluefield, West Virginia but I am originally from PA. I connected to the crew through a friend who had published in your previous anthology, he basically told me I had to write a piece for this new one coming out so I did and the rest is history. I have lived in multiple places in the US and in Lousa, Portugal, mainly what inspires my stories is something absurd happening not the place in which it happens. 

Was there any difficulty caused during the creation of the publication by the distance between the different members of the group, and the different time zones and such? 

No not really, I tend to be a night owl so the four-hour difference between Brent, who was doing the primary editing, and myself actually worked out in my favor. We would be up at the same time (times? Does one take into account time zones when speaking about a fixed general universal vs a grounded man-made construct?) so we could pretty much bounce ideas back and forth in real time.  

Tell us more about how you got started in writing - how long have you been a writer and what is it that drives you towards it?

I haven't been a writer in a professional sense for very long, this is actually my first published story outside of school publications, but I have been writing on and off for most of my life. I like to write, it gives me an outlet for any odd thoughts I have that I think need to be jotted down somewhere.  

So, Tales From The Mists is a horror-themed collection - is horror the natural home for your writing? Tell us some more about the kind of writing you do and what draws you to the genres you write in. 

I like horror and I am at home writing it, but I prefer comedy, I was originally going to go humorous in my horror story but I couldn't get the tone right in my first few drafts so I went with a more traditional weird fiction Lovecraftian motif, if we do another one next year I will work towards a more early Sam Raimi/David Wong-style story. I think about the only thing I can't write is a love story, they bore me, the closest I ever got was a story about my car deciding to break up with me and drive away over putting the wrong type of gas in it. 

What is it about horror that works for you? What makes you tingle?

I have always loved cheesy horror movies and stories of the macabre. I have always loved the special effects in movies, monster make-up effects, haunted houses. It's not really scary for me, horror is more exciting than well horrifying. I think the horror tales that give me the closest thing to a fright are the ones that don't have easily identifiable villains, the twist ending where the protagonist turns out to be the true evil mastermind, or the heroes go crazy and land up doing more damage to themselves then any monster could, are just so much more interesting to me. I said before that Session 9 is one of my all time favourite movies mainly because the movie itself wasn't all that frightening but the implications of how the entity moved around was truly horrific and extremely plausible. OK after all that rambling I think I finally have an answer, the horror that makes me tingle is the horror that could actually happen without a great deal of outside help, a good psychological horror can keep me up during the day.    

In our other Q&A with all the authors on the subject of horror, you talked about François Viète “whose works lead to countless terrifying hours of trying to figure out how a letter could also be a number and the dreaded Q.E.D”. OK, I gotta know more - what's all that about and where does a reader dive in to find out more?

It was a joke,  François Viète was considered a father of Algebra, I hated Algebra in school, and basically any form of math or science that used it. I am a divergent thinker and Algebra goes the wrong way for my brain it goes to the specific detail where as my brain goes towards the general applications of the entire equation so it was a horrible fit for me. I loved Calculus, because it goes towards practical application not specific detail, and if I had known Calculus was as much fun as it was I would have asked to forgo taking Algebra entirely and would have asked my teachers to teach me how to do the problems in Calculus as opposed to Algebra. Q.E.D. Always bugged me because it wanted you to Prove Your Work... but the equation was already there, smarter men and women then I had tested it to hell and back, what was the point of having me test it as well? And the worst part was then on tests where the teacher gave you these long chains of equations and asked you to prove how another equation was derived from it... without EVER teaching you how to do so in the first place. I spent so much time with tutors and worksheets and being miserable because I just didn't see the numbers the way I was supposed and no one seemed to be able to make Algebra make sense at all, that I never wanted to have anything to do with that particular mathematical field ever again.  So yeah, an Algebra book would probably be the most horrifying book someone could put in front of me. 

I am going to beat you with an Algebra book! What are you reading at the moment? And what's the best book you've read this year? 

An Algebra book, just kidding, I am reading The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, the best book I ever read... hmm... its a toss up between The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy Series by Douglas Adams, The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett and the Drenai Series by David Gemmell. 

Have you been published before? If so, where might readers find your work and, if not, how does it feel to have gone through the process from submission through editing to holding the published product in your hand? 

I have never been published, but I have had things added to school “How To” books and if the place is still in business I translated a menu for a restaurant in Lousa, Portugal. 

So Tales From The Mists is published now - with some very nice reviews coming in! What comes next for you? What are your plans? 

I have started my next story for the next anthology, although with the way it is shaping up it may go longer than a short story, so we will see how it goes with it. 

Splendid. And one last thing, for the people who have just finished reading this and having a hankering to go read something new - your best recommendation for a book for a reader to go pick up next. 

It would depend on the reader, John Dies at the End is a fun one by David Wong, it's about two slackers who have to save the world from an inter-dimensional horror, very funny. Any of the series I mentioned above are also good. If you want to stay in the same vain as the anthology, The Necronomicon , it is a collections of stories by H.P. Lovecraft, and  is pretty entertaining. Thanks for having me and I hope you all enjoyed my tale.

Many thanks, Morgan. 

Tales From The Mists is available on Amazon here, featuring Morgan's story The Pillar of Hendarac as well as stories by Ricardo Victoria, Alei Kotdaishura, Brent A Harris and Leo McBride. You can follow Morgan on Twitter here. 

NOW AVAILABLE: Tales From The Mists, on Amazon.

Tales From The Mists - a new anthology of horror stories - is now available.

Inklings Press brings you five tales of horror from writers from around the world. What will emerge from the mists, what can we know of the creatures that lurk beyond that veil? Open the covers of this book - and discover.

Leo McBride writes about a creature of Bahamas folklore - The Chickcharney, stepping into the woods of the island of Andros where it is said to dwell.

Ricardo Victoria takes us on a trip into drug-addled madness in Bone Peyote, as old traditions and Old Ones converge during the Mexican celebration of Dia de Muertos - the Day of the Dead.

Morgan Porter brings a Lovecraftian chill to affairs in his story The Pillar of Hendarac as he explores to find the truth that lurks beneath the surface, and the creatures that linger there.

Driven mad by work? Alei Kotdaishura's story Beast introduces us to a woman on the edge, but what will happen if she pushes over that edge - and will there be any way to come back?

Finally, Brent A Harris takes us a step into the future, into a world where Death may no longer touch us - only to discover there is a fate far worse than dying. 

Join us in our journey into the deepest cracks of the mind, as we delve into these stories of the strange and the cerebral. You are about to turn a page into the unknown.

Tales From The Mists is available on Amazon.com here. It is also available in all other Amazon territories, including the UK. It has already picked up a five-star review - and we'd love to see more reviews!

Short and scary - horror stories in a tweet!

To mark the launch of the new Inklings Press anthology Tales From The Mists (available from all good retailers specifically named Amazon), a hashtag contest was launched, encouraging people to write a super short horror story. How short? As short as a tweet, including the #inklings hashtag. A sprinkling of winners were sent copies of the new ebook as a prize - and here are some of the entries.

I saved my Weight Watchers points all week. My phone vibrates. The screen reads "Sunday dinner cancelled." #SuperShortHorror #Inklings

— Alicia Audrey (@_AliciaAudrey) October 25, 2026

As one, they all put their clocks back, deferring the apocalypse by just another hour. #inklings #scaryshortstory

— Inklings Press (@InklingsPress) October 25, 2026

Dead, you think you're dead? You're not dead, now quit screaming, at least until the oven warms, then scream all you want. #inklings

— Morgan Porter (@MorgWriter) October 24, 2026

Wing b-beats of s-screeching hate. H-head full of s-shrieking pain. Just a day by the sea? #thegulls. #inklings

— Mad Robot Comics (@MadRobotComics) October 24, 2026

'Maybe I should keep her.' His mind toyed with the idea, wondering how she would dance and sing. How she would bleed for him. #inklings

— D. Ann Williams (@CreateEditPub) October 24, 2026

The fog settled on the city like a hand, he thought, grasping the skyscrapers. He wondered if they would be there when it lifted. #inklings

— Stephen Hunt (@chippychatty) October 24, 2026

He came home, took off his jacket, shirt, tie, pants. He looked at his skin, smiled, then began to peel. #inklings

— Inklings Press (@InklingsPress) October 24, 2026

Smelling her own blood made her realize that the dream was not a dream and as she looked at the fang marks she knew. Goodbye world #inklings

— Carly Monteith (@MonteithCarly) October 24, 2026

"What do you mean, 'we are out of coffee'?!" #supershorthorror #inklings

— Brent A Harris (@BrentAHarris1) October 24, 2026

We've even had our first review, a five-star review exclaiming "Exciting!" Short and to the point. Thank you! We'd love to hear more feedback from reviewers. Let us know what you think!

A Q&A; with horror anthology writers from Tales From The Mists

As Inklings Press marks the launch of its new horror anthology, Tales From The Mists, our authors, Ricardo Victoria, Morgan Porter, Alei Kotdaishura, Brent A Harris and Leo McBride, sat down for a discussion on what they love - and fear - about the things that go bump in the night.

Hi all, so here we are on launch day - there may not be anything more terrifying than that for us all! But let's see what makes each of you tick. So, first up, who is your favourite horror writer - and what is it about them that scares the bejeezus out of you?

Ricardo: My favorite horror writer ever is H.P. Lovecraft. The mythos he created, the way he managed to write creepy atmospheres in his stories and the creatures that populate his New England are superb. Ironically enough, his stories, while I enjoy them, don’t scare me as much as when as I was a kid, when The Dunwich Horror (incidentally the first book I bought with my allowance) and At the Mountains of Madness did scare the bejeezus out of me back then. Nowadays the only horror book that has managed to do that is World War Z by Max Brooks. I hate zombies with fiery passion -at least as far as the modern zombie story derived from George Romero. I prefer instead the magical voodoo zombie of the Caribbean. But man, WWZ had me in the edge every single page, maybe because of my overactive imagination or maybe because the way is written takes you to a situation that might happen. And for once, humans in the story are not the real monsters (‘cept the Dick Cheney expy). It’s a shame how Hollywood ruined the idea.

Morgan: My first horror writer was R.L. Stine and I will always think of his work fondly and with a hint of nostalgia. I got into H.P Lovecraft in high school and enjoyed the other-worldliness of his antagonists and the rich backdrops found with in his stories. Reanimator, The Call of Cthulhu , and Dagon were some of my all time favorite short stories written by H.P. Lovecraft. I was never really scared by either author. I was more afraid of failing Algebra tests than Cthulhu or any other creature from a book. I guess you could say the most horrifying author I can think of is François Viète, whose works lead to countless terrifying hours of trying to figure out how a letter could also be a number and the dreaded Q.E.D.

Brent: Horror is not my typical genre. I’ve always been fascinated by it, which is why I pushed myself to write one. It’s not an easy feat and I’m not sure how writers like Lovecraft, King, and A.A. Milne do it. (My fear of being trapped in an enclosed space until I lose enough weight to escape was never a fear of mine until Winnie the Pooh nearly starved to death for a year after eating too much honey and getting stuck halfway in Rabbit’s rabbit-hole. Thanks A.A.!)

I can find horror in nearly everything, so the genre itself is quite large and perhaps undefined. I prefer horror of a cerebral nature. And I prefer stories of science-gone-wrong. My favorite horror writers then are just—writers.

Alei: Horror stories don’t really scare me. I have mostly read classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, Poe, Lovecraft and Morris West, and one book from Stephen King. I find horror stories interesting with all their twisted characters and plots, but to be honest I haven’t found one that really makes me scared yet.

Leo: Man, I get freaked out all the time by horror stories. I love it too - that tingling at the back of your neck when something is really getting to you and you have to turn the pages faster, and faster. I've devoured everything by Lovecraft - though I love his ideas more than his execution sometimes. Man doesn't use a small word when a paragraph full of big ones will do. I've mentioned before my love of Ray Bradbury - his short stories are where his horror talent really shines, in stories such as The Town Where No One Got Off. Stephen King is great - particularly books such as Salem's Lot or The Stand, and Dean Koontz has some smashing stuff too. Phantoms is a great book, and of course Ben Affleck was the bomb in the movie, yo. I find what scares me is the personal - when stories really lock into the characters and you feel their fear as they face whatever challenge awaits them. I think that's part of why I don't lock into Lovecraft so much, you don't often feel as much for his characters. His ideas, though? Brilliant, a magnificent world of horror. 

Away from books, what about film? What's your favourite horror film - and again, what was it about the film that freaked you out?

Morgan: Session 9 is probably one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen, the simple fact that the monster is a physiological concept rather than an actual creature or ghost has always stuck with me as being more terrifying than any run of the mill zombie or vampire. The movie is actually on the more cerebral side (read low action) but if one stops to think about the actual implications of having an “entity” that is more a state of mind and therefore something that could become real under the right circumstances, makes one a bit weary around other people. It is probably one of the more physiologically scarring films I have ever watched. Would I watch it again? Absolutely.

Leo: Session 9? Adding that one to my list, not seen that one! For me, I'm going old school. My favourite all-time horror movie is the 1963 black and white film The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise. A group spends a weekend in a supposedly haunted mansion and... things develop. The best thing about the movie is that you never ever really see anything. Everything is hinted at, and the horror is all in the mind. Superb performances and perfectly paced, it gives me the heebie jeebies every time. Just... don't watch the remake. In fact, kill the remake with fire. Very, very honourable mention too to the works of John Carpenter - The Fog, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13 and more. Chills me every time. 

Alei: Though I’m no horror movie fan, Asian horror films freak me out, they can mix the supernatural with the common and aren’t usually that easy to predict. I think the one I remember the most is The Grudge (Ju-On). There’s a scene in an elevator where suddenly you see a ghost’s face between the doors while the elevator is moving. At the time I watched it, I was working at a place that had an elevator as the only way to reach my boss’s archive, and he sent me to fetch some documents one winter night when the place was empty… I freaked out and returned to the office faster than expected.

Brent: I suppose my favorite horror movie would be Jurassic Park, which is not considered horror at all. But it is about science gone wonky, or the creations of scientists eating said scientists, or whatever human-sized snacks are visiting the park that day. Jurassic Park is frightening not just because I don’t want to face down a T-Rex, (luckily, I won’t be wearing high-heels, I think) but because at the time, it was scientifically probable—and the potential of what we could do with that science was quite frankly, terrifying.

Plus, nothing beats the sheer terror of the T-Rex chasing you down on the big screen.

Ricardo: Event Horizon, which is basically At the Mountains of Madness in Space!!! Or a haunted house story in Space!!! It is probably the most Lovecraftian commercial film so far, with a really simple premise that shows that not because you can do something, you are meant to do so. It hasn’t aged well, true, but back then it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. The arc words still haunt me to this day: Where we are going, we don’t need eyes. True horror it is only implied, uses your mind to fill the spaces, instead of showing you the gory details. Those arc words are the best summary I’ve heard on what is meant to be a horror story.

Ok, ok, second from last question - last horror that you indulged in, be it book, film or even podcast?

Ricardo: Deliver us from Evil, with Eric Bana. I caught it on TV and I admit it was a decent scare. Being Catholic, the exorcism feels like a very unique, cool part of our cultural view of the world. Book wise, I’m starting to read Red Equinox by Douglas Wynne. I haven’t made much progress yet, but looks like a great Lovecraftian story.

Brent: Stephen King’s Christine. I wanted to go back to a classic to see how it was done. After re-reading it with a more analytical take, I’m convinced that the writing process behind horror involves witchcraft and ritualistic sacrifice. Honestly, the story of a sentient automobile that runs down its victims out of jealousy shouldn’t work at all. So there must have been some bargaining going on with Satan. It’s a masterful story.

Alei: I read and watched Stephen King’s It. I found the book somewhat long for my taste, but not scary at all. The movie adaptation was so boring that I fell asleep through the middle to the end.

Morgan: Into the Mouth of Madness, another of my all-time favorite horror movies.

Leo: In books, Malus Domestica by S.A.Hunt but the last horror of any kind was [REC 4], fourth in the Spanish zombie-ish horror franchise and getting it back on track after the awful third one. The first two are among the best horror movies of the last 15 years though, so well worth checking out if you get a chance. Also a shout out to the Pseudopod horror podcast. Found it through my review work and they have great audio readings of horror stories. 

And finally... who wins in a fight - Dracula, Wolfman or The Mummy?

Alei: Dracula, of course! Who else can survive for so long without learning a trick here and there? ;)

Ricardo: Dracula hands down. In life he was a respected military leader and showed no mercy, have you seen what he did to his enemies? You don’t get the Impaler nickname just for being a nice dude. Add all his classical powers of metamorphosis, mind control, celerity and strength and he can take down the other two. He is the ultimate predator. And he would be embarrassed by current pseudo vampires.

Brent: The Mummy. It depends on the rules you are using and the time of month and day. Dracula’s not putting up much of a fight at high-noon, and the Wolfman only gets to fight once a month. Based on those restrictions, the Mummy would win in a fight if it were cognizant enough to take out a sleeping vampire and slumbering were-wolf. But, if it were the night of a full moon, I’d give it to the Wolfman. Any other night, Dracula’s the man…er, bat.

Morgan: Ok I have some issues with this question. If we are purely going on early Hammer Films monsters and really sticking to the named characters above, I would have to go with Dracula, The Wolf Man was too caught up in his own angst to be much of a combatant and The Mummy was a bag of bones wrapped in bandages. Now if we go with more modern films and archetypes I would change it to Werewolves, the Vampires of today are too full of glitter and teenage angst to be decent combatants and Mummies have been relegated to comic relief. Werewolves still have some bite to them, pun intended. If you get into mythological entities Undead and Shapeshifters are pretty equally matched. Both sides have strengths and weaknesses that more or less balance the two forces.

Leo: The Monster Squad rules out Wolfman for me purely for the line "Kick him in the nards!... Whooooa, Wolfman's got nards!" I'll go with The Mummy, if nothing else because of all this vampire love from everyone else here! 

Thank you, all. Tales From The Mists - featuring our horror-chatting crew - is now available on Amazon here. You can find out more about Inklings Press at www.inklingspress.com or follow us on Twitter @inklingspress. We are also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/inklingspress. 

COMIC REVIEW: Madhouse issue one

When everyone else expects you to zig, zag. Confound expectations and you're already one step of the way to getting people's attention. And that's what I was left thinking as I opened the first issue of Madhouse, the new comic book from the team at Mad Robot Comics.

For if you have a new comic line, a new artist and a new world to reveal, the last thing you expect when you open the first page is... darkness. A page of blackness interspersed with dialogue. Confounded, I most certainly was.

When the artwork comes then, it comes as a glorious technicolour joy. Edward Bentley has a striking talent - his work evoking the jagged in-your-face nature of a Jamie Hewlett or the bold iconography of a Frank Quitely. In chatting with writer Matt Hardy, he noted there was a dabble of Humberto Ramos in there and you can see it in the exaggerated body shapes, particularly of our central character. 

That character, Sidney Stratton, is a man trapped in a lunatic asylum, where he swears more is going on underneath the surface, that demons walk the halls, that he has to act to put it right. It's a jumble of madness as you have no certainty about what is real and what is madness. Was he the warden here? Or was that just a fantasy too? And when he confronts the demons, are they real or is he attacking innocents? Matt Hardy leaves lots of open questions here - perhaps a couple too many as you try to get your head around who Sidney is and why you should care about him - but the tone is set just right for the feeling of oppression around him. 

There are a couple of criticisms - which you would expect as the team finds its feet and explores the format. The lettering is sometimes too small to be easily read on an electronic viewer, particularly the in-his-head dialogue as Sidney observes the world around him. And the colouring is a little uneven, deliberately so in some cases as the comic ventures into flashback territory showing how Sidney got to where he is now, but it doesn't make for a unified look across the book. And I'd love a little more substance to Sidney himself, who feels a little as if events are playing out through him to begin with rather than acting on events directly. But then, the poor man may indeed be mad - and it's hard to blame him given the creepy corridors, the unnerving nurses and demonic doctors around him. 

When he bursts into action, he is a force of nature, unstoppable even as he wrestles with the unknowable. Heaven help the world when he gets out...

You can find out more about Madhouse and its publisher, Mad Robot Comics, at www.madrobotcomics.com. The team is also on Twitter as @madrobotcomics and on Facebook. Full disclosure: I've known Matt Hardy for a while through gaming tournaments, where we would glare and scowl at one another across the table as we tried to destroy one another with our dice. 

FREE SHORT STORY: The Box by Leo McBride

The Box

By Leo McBride

THE box was the key. Simple enough. 213cm long, 71cm wide, and 59cm high, lined with melamine absorbers. Sealed at all points except one, the hatch at one end, which could only be closed from the inside. It was warmer inside the box, Johnson hadn't expected that. Perhaps something to do with the lining, he'd have to ask Carlisle later.

He had been running the experiments for months with little success before the box. First, there had been the experiments with the students taking part, but there had been nothing more notable than Rhine had found back in the Thirties. And those results that did show promise were hard to classify. Was this telepathy? Clairvoyance? For three months, he'd come home every day with results that were next to insignificant, and growled and snarled at Laura. She must have hated living with him through that.

It was when he was talking to Mayes in the refectory that he decided to quit using the students. How Mayes had become a professor, Johnson never knew, but he was good company, and one of the few to listen to Johnson's theories.

“Shit, man, why the hell you want to use them anyway?” he laughed at Johnson. “You're talking about telepathy, right? Walking in people's heads. Seeing what's going on inside their fucking minds, right? Why the hell wouldn't you want to do that yourself?”

Johnson shook his head. “It's not that, Mayes, it's...”

“I mean screw the students. Heh. Well, not literally. We got rules about that, right.”

Mayes leaned back, smiling that wide grin of his. That couldn't-give-a-damn smile.

“I mean,” he said, “why the hell wouldn’t you? Seriously, man. Think about it.”

Hell, Mayes had said. Maybe that's where I'm headed, thought Johnson. Or maybe that's just where Mayes was from.

“Shit, why’d you even get into this experiment if you didn’t have that little voice at the back of your head saying it shouldn’t be them, it should be you? You want to know what it feels like. You want to know what’s going on in there. Hell, you want to get a genuine hit? A bonafide result, and then have to report that your tiny blip was bouncing around inside the head of some dumbass jock who’s never had a thought pass through that skull of his anyhow?”

Mayes sipped his glass while Johnson thought it through. He could feel Mayes’ eyes on him, could feel that grin burning across the table.

“The students, they... they provide the objective evidence, their feedback…”

“Don’t mean squat, man. C’mon now, these are the students so damn broke they have to sign up as guinea pigs to make a buck. How reliable are they? Probably take your, what, twenty, thirty bucks and go blow it all on booze anyhow. They all sober when they show up for the experiment? Hungover? You trust them more than your own damn thoughts?”

“It's about the evidence, Mayes, it doesn't mean a thing without the evidence.”

With a laugh, Mayes slapped his glass down.

“Evidence? Figure out the process, man, then work out the evidence. Know you're right, then figure out a way to show the world. There's evidence out there already, man. Biggest damn telepathic experiment ever staged saw a thousand people sending out an image to five receivers, you know that? Two outta the five got the image, even though they were miles away.”

Johnson cocked an eyebrow at this. “Wait a minute, which experiment was that? I've not heard of that one. I mean there’s been evidence, sure, like Naumov, Swann, Edelman, but nothing on that scale.”

Mayes chuckled. “Grateful Dead, man. Jerry Garcia and co going where no psychologist has gone before.”

Johnson shook his head. “Grateful Dead, are you kidding me?”

“Yup, sure thing, Johnson. Buncha gigs where they got the crowd to send out the vibe. Serious, check it out, bound to be online somewhere, you'll find it. But right there, evidence, and who gives a damn? So prove it for your own damn self first, then figure out how to present it.”

He thought about it. Right there at the table, with Mayes grinning at him from the other side. Finally, he nodded.

“Fair enough,” he said. “There's no harm in trying. If it works, then I replicate it.”

Mayes nodded. “So what are you using?”

“Using?” asked Johnson.

“Yeah, to kickstart it?” said Mayes. “You are using some kind of drugs, right?”

Johnson shook his head. “No, I want clean results. I don't want any confusion between genuine indications of telepathy and hallucinations.”

“You sure about that, man? I mean, seriously? You’ve wasted what, three months already and now you want to waste some more?”

Clean. It would have to be clean. He had to be sure.

Mayes saw it without Johnson having to say.

“See you in a week, man. We’ll see what tune you’re singing then.”



The experiments didn’t improve. He tried. He used some of the ganzfeld techniques, half a ping pong ball over each eye to filter out the world around him. He tried visualising, focussing on extending beyond his own awkward limits. He felt his way out, reaching, reaching. But nothing. He felt like a fool.

One week later, he was back in the refectory, with Mayes. Goddamn Mayes.

“No luck, huh?”

There was no concern in Mayes’ voice. Smug bastard. He knew. He could tell from the way Johnson sat there, shoulders slumped. Hell, even from the dark rings under his eyes, Johnson knew, from the latest damn argument with Laura last night and the lack of sleep that went with it.

“What’s the problem, man?”

So Johnson told him. Everything. How when he tried to reach out with his mind, all he got was a blank. Worse, how his head filled up with distractions. With thoughts about how he’d never keep tenure if he didn’t get results. With thinking about how he could catch the eye of the faculty. With annoyance at the essay he’d had to mark that morning littered with spelling mistakes and naïve assumptions. Hell, even with thoughts of all the crap going on with Laura. Thoughts about lunch. Absolutely anything but a genuine hint of a result.

“Maybe I should give up,” he said. “I’ve wasted the whole damn term and what have I got? Nothing. Zip.”

For the first time in a long time, Mayes looked serious.

“You can’t do that, man. You can’t.”

Johnson looked at him. He seemed to mean it. Did he?

“Well, if I’ve got no results…”

Mayes looked to one side, as if he was thinking.

“I shouldn’t tell you this…” he started.

“Tell me what?”

Mayes shrugged, then leaned forward conspiratorially, his voice lowered to a whisper.

“Cuts are coming. Now’s not a good time to have a strike on your record.”

Johnson didn’t know what to think. He felt cold. He felt something shift inside him. He… he suddenly realised what an idiot he had been. Sticking himself out on a limb on an experiment that had been likely to fail from the start. And now he…

“How do you know?” he asked. “I mean, the cuts, how could you possib-”

That brought a bit of Mayes’ grin back.

“How the hell do you think I know?”

Johnson shrugged. “Well, the only people who would know that would be the Dean, maybe one or two of the other…”

“And his secretary. Alice. Nice ass. Tells all kinds of things she shouldn’t after a few glasses of wine and a half-hour in bed.”

At once, Johnson knew it was true. Mayes was always talking about who he’d slept with. At first, Johnson had doubted him, thinking it was boasting, but the stories just kept coming. It was just Mayes’ way. An itch he kept scratching.

“When?”

Mayes sniffed. “Down the line. There’s a bunch of things they need to work out. Robbins is out as dean of engineering, Carlisle probably going to step up. There’s a couple of others they’re negotiating into retirement. So you’ve got some time. But a strikeout now? That wouldn’t look good.

“Now, I sat down here and listened to you talking about all of this back in September. Man, you were alive. Full to bursting with how this was the kind of thing that would get you a bit of the spotlight. How you could screw publishing in the dry journals that no one ever reads except your boss and your mom, how you could use it as a stepping stone to… well, whatever the hell it was you were thinking. Doesn’t matter. What was all that? Did this ever have any juice or were you just talking shit?”

It seemed so long ago now. It had been the summer. At the coast with Laura. On the beach. He loved watching her and now, they had gotten away from all the pressure. A chance to be at peace.

He watched her as she laid out on the towel, the soft breeze stirring her hair, her eyes closed. A twitch of a smile curved her lips.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, gently. One blue eye opened, peered at him, squinting slightly against the sun. She smiled again.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said.

As simple as that. Wouldn’t you like to know? And what if you could? For the rest of the holiday, he immersed himself in reading. Delving back through his half-memories of Rhine and Zener. Reading the skeptics like Randi. Even a Buddhist text on Abhijna - the supernormal knowledge said to be possessed by some monks. Laura walked the beach, or lay reading her book. Johnson’s mind buzzed with a need to know.

And that’s how he had come to Mayes at the start of the year, his mind a whirl, and a half-formed plan to prove that you could make that leap, that you could know. Except now it was a complete failure. He’d dumped the students from the program, he was all that was left of the experiment. He couldn’t damn well stop his mind buzzing, couldn’t shut out the thoughts and clamour that overwhelmed him when he tried to still his mind.

“What should I do?”

He looked up at Mayes. “What should I do? The experiments are going nowhere. I’ve tried and tried this past week, but nothing. Not a hint.”

Mayes smirked. “Told you what you should do last week, but you didn’t listen.”

Johnson looked confused for a moment. He tried to remember. Then he did. “Drugs?” he said. “No, I told you, I need…”

“You need results, man. Pure and simple. And we’re not talking about taking them just to get you high. You just need something to put you into a receptive state. Open the borders, stop that skull of yours being the limit of your horizon.”

A thousand thoughts bubbled through Johnson’s brain, thoughts that boiled down to a thousand words, words that turned into a dozen arguments, a dozen reasons why not, each of which petered out as he realised he just didn’t have the time. He needed results. And he still wanted to know.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

“Knew you’d come round,” said Mayes. “Shit, we’ll make a Deadhead out of you at this rate.”

“I’ll look into it, see what drugs might…”

Mayes cut him off. “I can tell you that now,” he said. Johnson looked at him quizzically.

“Shrooms, acid, even a bit of weed, all of those I’ve heard people say have had an effect. Bit unreliable, though, I’d say. Reckon something from the 2C family will do the trick better for you.”

“2C?”

“Dimethoxy… something or other. Anyhow, I did a bit of digging after we talked last week. Seems its had some results for people. Illegal, mind.”

“Illegal, then how…?”

“How will you get it?” Mayes spread his arms wide. “Come to your good friend Billy Mayes.”

Johnson thought it over. Finally, he nodded. Slowly. Reluctantly. But inside, a voice asked one question. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He wanted to know. He had to. “Can you help me? I mean, how much…?”

Mayes let his arms fall as his smile spread. “Heh, sure, I can sort you out. But you'll have to loan me two Bens.”

And with that, he took $200 and slipped away.



It was two days later when he took the first pill. He shut himself away in his office, pulled down the shades, sat at his desk and dry-popped it. Before the effects started to kick in, he reclined his chair a notch or two, and covered his eyes with the table tennis ball halves. He took a breath, let it out. Took a breath, let it out. And waited.

At first, there was no difference. He was sure. He tried to reach with his mind. He tried to detach himself. Nothing. But then he realised there was a difference. The hubbub of voices in his mind, the self-doubt, the worry, the thoughts of work, of Laura, they weren’t there. There was peace.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt such peace. No, wait, he could. That day on the beach. With Laura. He remembered that smile. Her face bathed in the light of the sun, that striking light at the coast that felt so different. The way it warmed the skin, the soul, the way it warmed the connection between the two of them, taking the chill away that made their love so brittle when it had to bump against the sharp corners of day-to-day life. When work got in the way. When instead of curling up in one another’s arms at the end of the day, Laura would turn away on her side to try to sleep while Johnson read his books. Or when he wouldn’t go to bed for hours, typing away on his laptop long after she had gone.

But it was the warmth of that day he remembered now. That smile. Wouldn’t you like to know? That little sense of mischief in her smile. Teasing and so, so warm. That smile. Her smile. He could almost see it now. See her now. Different somehow, though. A tighter smile, more forced, not so happy. No, he could see her now. He sensed it. He was seeing her right now, in this moment. Somehow he could see her face. But not quite right in some way, different. Then he realised. He was seeing through her eyes. He was looking at her as she looked at herself in a mirror, seeing her reflection as she raised a lipstick and started to apply it. This was real, he was certain. This was now, this was…

The crash startled him. He jumped at the sound of it, shocked suddenly back into his office, his body. He heard the voices outside his office, muted apologies of a student who had dropped his books, the sound of people picking things up. Johnson cursed. He had been close. So close.

The next day, he cornered Mayes and told him everything, from the moment he realised that the noise in his head had gone away to the crash of the stupid boy who had broken his connection. He was alive again, his brain buzzing with ideas. On reflection, later, it seemed that Mayes barely heard him, just nodding in the right places, but they were the right places. And when Johnson said he was going to repeat the experiment, he asked the right question.

“So how are you going to stop yourself from being interrupted again? I mean, you don’t want another bang crash and you’re back awake.”

At the time, Johnson didn’t know. For the next two days, he thought it over, through a weekend where he made his apologies to Laura and devoted himself to his books, to his research. The ganzfeld techniques weren’t enough. He had to do more. He wrote, he scribbled and, before the weekend was over, he drew. The box. About the size of a coffin, but it would have to be lined with something to stop sound penetrating. He had the budget, he wasn’t paying the students any more.

When Monday came, he took his plans to Carlisle in engineering. He suggested the melamine sound proofing, and offered to build it. Johnson eagerly shook his hand.



The days of waiting for the box were unbearable. At first, Johnson was excited. He became a blizzard of energy, even taking Laura out for a night where he laughed and told her how wonderfully everything was going at work. He even took one pill that night, just to take the edge off. She even smiled at him. Not quite like the smile on that beach, but a smile. He’d remember that.

As the days wore on, though, he became more frustrated, growling at his students for their petty mistakes. He had Mayes get him a few more pills, just to make sure he had enough of a supply when the box arrived.

Finally, Carlisle said it was ready, and Johnson arranged for it to be delivered to one of the labs - lab four, tucked away at the back of the building, where he would be least likely to be disturbed.

That night, he waited until all the students had left the building. Even then, he waited another hour for peace and quiet to settle. Then, he picked up the small envelope of pills, left his office, and walked down to the lab. And the box.

It was warmer inside than the cool air of the lab. When he first climbed in, he felt a moment’s anxiety before he pulled the hatch closed, a feeling of claustrophobia. But somehow, that changed when the hatch gently thudded shut. It was warm, dark. Safe.

Johnson took a few minutes to adjust to his surroundings. At least it felt like a few minutes. Inside the box, there was no real way to tell how much time was passing. Johnson fleetingly wondered about bringing a clock into the box but no, he dismissed the idea. The fewer distractions, the better. He took a pill, and waited.

Her smile. He found himself thinking of her smile again. He wanted to reach out to her face, touch her cheek, watch that smile. He reached out.

“…not here.”

He heard her voice. No, wait. He heard her thought. The realisation made him jump. He could hear what she was thinking. No, not hear, but it was there in his head. Almost like a thought of his own, but definitely her voice, his Laura’s thoughts in his...

“Why the hell is he not here? Hasn’t even damn well called.”

Laura’s arm moved, and there, he could see the coffee table in their living room as she swept the books from it, scattering them on the floor.

Her thoughts were a babble now. He could sense anger, frustration, her inner thoughts not settling on one thing but leaping from one thing to another, just the way she spoke, she shouted when they were arguing. She was raging. If he was home now, she’d have probably thrown those books at him. His books, the books he had been using in his research. She swept up the last book left on the table and marched out to the kitchen, and threw it into the trash.

“No!” cried Johnson, his own anger swelling. “Pick it back out of the trash.”

And then, to his shock, Laura stopped. She had been about to whirl on her heel and leave the kitchen. But she stopped. She turned back to the trash, reached in, and took the book back out. He could see the cover stained already from the trash. Laura brushed some of the stains away, and set the book down on the worktop. Then she turned and began to walk away.

Johnson’s eyes snapped open inside the box. In the pitch black, he let out a gasp. For a moment, he struggled to control his breath. Then he laughed. He would have punched the air if he could. Not only had he sensed Laura’s thoughts, he had transmitted a thought to her! And she had listened!

He unbolted the box, and left the lab in a whirl. He hardly remembered the drive home, but he burst through the door and past Laura where she sat on the sofa to dash into the kitchen. There, on the worktop, sat a single book. Trembling, he approached it, looked at it. Laura’s voice spoke from over his shoulder.

“Where have you been? Hello? Aren’t you even going to say hello?”

Johnson barely heard. He was looking at the book, where a smudge of dirt streaked across the front cover.



The next day, he tried to find Mayes to tell him, but he was nowhere to be found. He even thought of telling Carlisle, but the engineer was too grounded in nuts and bolts, he wouldn’t want to listen. Instead, Johnson found himself watching the clock tick by until he could shoo the last of his students out of his office. He wanted to get back to the box.

Barely had the last student left when he grabbed the pills and headed to the lab, opened the box and slid in. He popped one pill, thought for a second, then took another before closing the hatch behind him and sealing himself in darkness.

Maybe it was the extra pill, but he didn’t have to wait long this time. He thought of Laura, and reached out. He reached out, and then, he could see. He could see her reaching out. Reaching out her hand to touch a shoulder, a man’s bare shoulder.

Something inside Johnson shattered. Suddenly, he felt split. He could feel himself grow cold, but at the same time he could feel Laura’s thoughts.

“He can’t ever know,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done this. I.. it’s just I’ve felt so alone.”

She looked up from the shoulder to a grinning face.

“Shit, baby, I’m not going to tell him,” said Mayes. “Why the hell would I?”

He felt Laura’s sigh, a sigh in her thoughts as well as her body. He watched as she looked down across their naked bodies, entwined in the back seat of her car.

“We should get back,” she said. “Before he comes home.”

Mayes shrugged. “Sure. We’ve had fun. Drop me over at Brody’s bar.”

Johnson watched as the two disentangled, as they pulled on their clothes. The cold Johnson had felt was fading now, the shock gone, replaced by anger. He tried to search Laura’s thoughts, but it was as if she was trying not to think, the glimpses that passed through being dismissed straight away.

How could she do this to him, he raged as she started the car and pulled away. How could she cheat on him? And with Mayes of all people? Mayes? And now just driving along ready to drop him off back at some back street bar where she must have picked him up? Johnson practically screamed. “Well if that’s what you’re going to do, you might as well just crash the damn car.”

Suddenly, his eyes snapped back open. He was back in the box. He gasped, his mind racing. Why was he suddenly back here? Why couldn't he hear Laura's thoughts? What had happened to bring him back here? He… stopped breathing, his gasp held. Yesterday, he had put his voice in Laura’s head, and she had listened. What if? What if she had listened again when he screamed?

“Oh God,” he gasped. Had he just made her crash? Had he?

He reached out to open the hatch. His fingers stopped short of the handle. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was all just a hallucination. It was impossible, it couldn’t have happened. Impossible. He wouldn’t hurt her, he only wanted to see that summer smile. Right now, she was home safe and sound, he thought. Right now, she was hurt in a crash, said the next thought. The only way to find out was to open the box. Johnson took his hand away from the handle.

I can’t do it, he thought. I can’t face it. She’s alive, she has to be. She’s alive, just as long as I stay in the box.

THE END

Leo McBride is the author of the Quartet short story collection, available here, and is featured in the fantasy short story anthology Tales From The Tavern, available here. He is also featured in the new horror short story anthology Tales From The Mists from Inklings Press. The latest anthology is available here. You can follow him on Twitter under the handle @chippychatty.