Tag Archives: dark fantasy

My Progress ?


Booklight

 

Thought I would update everyone on the progress on my Book I plan on putting out this year as a collection of  Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction all in one.

Shooting for a Lucky 13 stories to go into the Book… Hey!  Maybe that phrase could be part of the Title of the Book. Nah,  it’s probably been over done…I will have to think on it…. 🙂

Check out my progress so far in my writing on the various titles going in the book.

BTW I still need artists for various small sketches to donate an original drawing or artwork based a story or two. Nothing big. just some original stuff would be nice to give it a little pizzazz!

OKAY see below my list of stories either done or in the work.  WISH me luck!

Go HERE for Synopsis of some of the stories below:

Finished Stories

  1. The Summoning *
  2. Witch Hunt *
  3. Bits and Pieces*
  4. Flight Through the Forest
  5. Demon in the Details*
  6. Time Stopped
  7. Roadkill (Novella)
  8. Fire Extinguished

Stories at about 90% Done**

  1. Power in Me

Stories about 25% Done***

  1. The Well
  2. Sinkhole
  3. To Take a Life

Stories at intro to 10%

  1. Alphabet Killer
  2. Thousand Years
  3. Year of the Crow
  4. The Circuit Board

 

TheReader

 

 

 

What Lurks in me….


Lurking

 

Do you wish to know what lurks and crawls in this brain of mine? Do you wish to know the avenues it takes , the good and the bad, the beautiful, the bloody, the bombastic, and the golden moments that drown?  Well welcome I say with a  devilish grin wearing my suit of pure white for we are all aspects of all the shades that color the world.

YOU are not exempt.  Perhaps in your readings of me and the stories you hear  you will see a little into yourself, filtering out all the crap that seems that so often gets in the way of the truth that is you.

So read on, to three  of my eclectic samples not quite finished  in my future collection of the macabre, to the fun, to the poignant, to the mysterious “what if” of it all… 🙂

 

I ASK YOU, MY READERS, MY FOLLOWERS, TO PICK ONE OF THE THREE STORIES FOR ME TO FINISH BASED ON THE EXCERPT OF EACH BELOW.

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#1 To Take a Life

 

Sebastian saw the woman sitting in her favorite spot yet again this early Saturday night. Always the same table, the one right at the edge of the dance floor and closest to the bar. She would start the night ordering drink after drink, usually a red wine sometimes a white and just stare ahead seemingly at nothing.

Hours would pass and the club would slowly fill with people and there she would be sitting. Alone. No man had ever approached her to ask her for a dance as she sat. Perhaps they were afraid to approach her, perhaps they thought she wanted to be left alone, perhaps they thought she was out of their league. Perhaps, the word, NO, was already written on her face before they ever would have approached to pose the question in the first place.

Sebastian knew secretly, if they had asked, she probably would have said yes to every one of them. But they never had. So she would sit andvampire watch them all dance from her place at the table. Watch, as the men and women moved on the floor to the seductive beat which pulsed and coursed through the club and bodies wanting to find release from the week’s drudgery called life. Sebastian knew their every whim, their every desire as he always did. They were an open book to him. All you had to do was listen.

This night however he only had ears for the woman who had come here every Saturday night for the last three weeks. Her name was Ms. Evelyn Greer , a pale face contrasted with short shoulder length dark auburn hair, green almond shaped eyes, and full red lips. If she were to ever break a smile he was sure it would have been stunning. A beauty of a woman, majestic in a certain way she held her self. But there was a dullness to her, muted was the word that came to mind, like a dimmer switch to a light turned way down low.

She was to be his tonight. She had marked been many nights ago. She was the one and she had only but to ask him to end her.

 

 

#2 From a Dark Place

 

Joseph carefully placed the five white candles he had just purchased into the big brown suitcase amidst the other items he had already collected. He hands went to close the suitcase but instead they caressed a black leather bound book which lay inside. His eyes went wide and his pupils dilated ever so slightly as he stared at it. He traced the raised symbol on its cover emblazoned in red with his index finger. His finger ran along the entire perimeter of the symbol at all its five points where the continuous line was traced. The symbol was five lines in the form of a star where each point touched the raised circle which surrounded it,  what a lovely symbol he mused. Could there be anything more perfect he wondered. A sly smile came to his lips because for all his studies he new the true power of that symbol while others only thought they knew. He had become an adept at the mysteries of it.

“Joseph!” a woman’s voice called to him in a wail from somewhere downstairs in the house.

“Joseph, what the hell are you doing? Spaghettis all done! Christ on a crutch, move your ass!” she yelled again. Joseph could almost picture the spit flying from her mouth as she yelled at him. Fucking fat cow. He would be glad when he was done with her. Joseph couldn’tpentagram remember choosing such a bitch of a woman for a wife but he must have, for she lived in his home and occasionally wanted to have sex because of that damn ring on her finger and his own. The weight of the ring seemed to increase more everyday. He wanted to stuff it down her damn throat. It was maddening. No more, no fucking more. Tomorrow, Joseph’s life was about to change.

“Joseph!” she wailed again.

Joseph slammed the suitcase shut, secured the latches and locked them by rotating the combination on each with his thumbs all at once.

“Coming Elizabeth!…..you bitch.” Joseph said the last to himself in a whisper as he tucked the suitcase deep up under his side of the bed and quickly got up to go downstairs for dinner. He would suffer through it with the heifer just for one more night. Spaghetti was his favorite he thought idly to himself.

 

#3 The Power In Me

 

Three ping pong balls revolved in midair, each one following the other in a tight circle as they flew.

“I shouldn’t be able to be doing this Carl!” she yelled at the bald little man, sitting across the table from her in the kitchen of her house. Carl was wearing a smug little grin on his face that annoyed the hell out of her. He was always full of himself, today more than usual. He knew something he wasn’t telling her. Shit! She was losing her concentration. One of the balls slipped out of its rotation and fell.

“True and not true,” he replied back glibly to her, as he deftly caught the fallen ball with his left hand inches before it hit the table.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her eyes staring ahead at the two remaining balls still rotating in front of her. She thought of a figure eight, and immediately the balls begin to swirl in that configuration. It was equally cool and frightening at the same time, she thought, but Carl didn’t have to know that.

“Angela, you have taken to this extremely well. It seems you are a natural. I have to give our co-workers credit. They were betting you would do well the first time right out the gate. Not many can pull off even one ball this quickly, let alone three. Guess I will have to pay up when I get back to the office.” Carl chuckled to himself, rolling the little white ball he had caught, back and forth between his hands on the dining room table still smiling at her smugly.

Angela took her eyes from the two remaining balls which spun and looked directly at Carl.

“You mean there are others who can do this? Out with it Carl, I’m sick of the games. You’ve been playing them too long, first with my husband now with me. Be straight for once, or for god sakes I’ll shove these balls down your goddamn throat.”

Carl’s smiled slipped a little her under dark stare. Carl involuntarily swallowed when he suddenly realized the balls were still continuing to spin in their figure eight pattern without her looking at them. Damn, she is good, he thought. But she didn’t have to know that; she was arrogant enough as it was. A lot like him more or less, he thought, but still soft.

“Well.” Angela said to him, more of a command than a question.

Carl ignored her tone. “You remember that project three years ago that kept Scott away so many hours at night?”

She remembered all too well, the late nights, and all the arguments that followed, telling her he couldn’t discuss his work with her because she didn’t have the clearance. It still rankled her a little still to this day. Angela only nodded as she looked at him as the balls continued to spin, so Clark continued.

“We had found something amazing. To be more exact it found us. One of the lab geeks directed to synthesize some of the proteins from a plant brought back from Brazil accidentally combined two cultures in the synthesis we were working on with the lot. The other plant was from an older expedition we had done years ago in the Congo in Africa. Scott himself had pulled it from the incubator a few days later. Lot forty-two.”

Angela noticed Carl’s eyes dilating as his hand gestures became more animated as he spoke. This disturbed her for some reason and she didn’t know why.

“Oh, the things Lot Forty-two revealed to us Angela!” Carl found it hard to contain himself as he talked.

“We didn’t know how much until we began the human trials. You did not know this, but Scott your husband, was one of the first volunteers. The committee had been paranoid of it getting out to the general public so everything was done in house; very hush, hush.”

“I am sorry to say this Angela, but he was a fool.” Carl said flatly to her from across the table.

Angela’s eyes suddenly flared from a dull to electric green.

An invisible force compressed against Carl’s chest, to send him flying and to go slamming into the wall behind him. Plaster crumbled around his head and tumbled off his nice black suit coat he wore.

Now I am going to have to go to the dry cleaners tomorrow, Carl thought idly….

Powerinme

 

 

 

 

Cracks and Crevasses – A short little horror story


 

cracky

 

 

Her leaving was quite sudden.  Her warmth will be missed,  but  my love that I had known for these many years  turned out to be simply a bitch.

Now I sit in this house we once shared…its a big bold hold of a house, with cracks in the walls and crevices in the floor boards that lead to the in between spaces and nowhere.

I would have fixed them all, all those broken pieces left unattended over the years, but now what’s the use.  There really is no call to repair something that only brought me to despair.

Never good enough.  “A hole in the wall, ” was my only gift to her,  she had ever said.

Now gone.

Then they began to come.

Out of all the those holes and cracks they seeped.

The Monsters liked to crawl  from where they laid hidden and nip at me when I turned away.  They are an annoyance, their pestering, their little pains. I have gotten scratched on many a occasion,  a bite mark or two when ever deep asleep or not quite quick enough on my feet at night.

I felt them grinning there in the dark.  I couldn’t  see them in the cold dead spaces of the room as they hid but I knew there was  an upturned lip or a crinkling of the eyes. I felt them there drinking me in.

I tried not to think about  them as I drove to work,  or as I sat at my desk, or went to the bathroom or ate my lunch in the  breakroom. Sometimes, I even thought one or two had hidden in the trunk of my car and came to work with me.  For I felt their presence always….

Its was oppressive.

It hadn’t  always been like this. Once I had been free. No monster nipped, scratched or bit.  For they didn’t exist in my home.  Back then, there were no shadows to hide them. No cold spaces to give them comfort.

I am not sure how they found me. For I sure as hell didn’t let them in. I never asked them to come into my home.  I hate them. All of them and they hate me.

There are so many,   skinny ones, fat ones, ugly ones,  ugly skinny ones, ugly fat ones,  foul smelly ones, red eyed, green eyed, black eyed, no-eyed even. So, so many.

I keep them back.  Even though there are many, they are not very brave, not at all. They may grin from the dark but they cower. They are afraid of me in some  small way.  I have yet to figure out why.

I know they don’t like my boot when I give one or two of them a good kick.  Oh no, they don’t like the boot, not at all. Then I grin back at them and I sense them cowering more.

They are weak little Monsters and I have my big black steel toed boots to keep them at bay. I wear them all the time even in bed. Not in the shower though. That would be silly. I lock the bathroom door tight, remove my boots in a flourish, still laced but loose, enough to slip back on in a flash.

Naked, I jump in the shower, scrub scrub scrub, then out in a moment between a heartbeat  of their indecision to possibly break down the door.  I scramble for my towel, dry off and put on my clothes for the next day, slip into my boots and crawl into bed.

They are not as clever as me. Not by far you see.

Until I wake up and find my legs secured, and tied tightly  to the bed .

Hmmm…my arms won’t move… they seem to be tied at my sides as well. I am all snug, snug, snug

They all are there, perched on my footboard.  Waiting for me to wake up this whole time. They just stare at me, colored eyes shining and no eyes and lifeless and all.

Why do they wait?

Why don’t they  rent, why don’t they tear and rip and claw?

A taloned appendage slips off my  boots and with a clunk they both hit the bedroom floor.

Then the grins began. This time I can see them.  Some toothless, or black and decayed as death,

some mouths with lolling tongues licking lips which drip, milk white saliva which issue a delicate hiss

upon my sheets.

They creep as one …like a low rolling wave they come. Up my body, over my feet, calves and knees…blood seeps, staining the white bed red.

Thighs are on fire as they continue to eat and eat…

All I can do is look on…pain, oh the overwhelming pain, drowns me as the wave of teeth and claws and malice munches me, a wide awake nightmare…of my Monsters finally taking their due.

Darkness falls complete as my eyes are plucked and eaten…how is it that I still live?

My mad mind is all that remains intact.

Until they reach my brains for their final snack.

My mind settles….then drifts…the pain is gone and  I meander in a pool of blood red mist…

Images come,  blurred and dim,  a focus , a purpose coalesces ….

A man sleeps before me angry and mean, fear filled and hopeless as I sit looking through a lit crack into his room and give him a little grin.

 

by Philip Wardlow 2015

The Well – short story Prompt


I follow a fellow writer named MC Hunton over at her blog. She recently started challenging herself and fellow followers to do a writing piece based on a certain writing prompt every Monday . I finally got off my lazy butt and did one like I promised her I would.  The writing  prompt this week was entitled  Monday Muse: Sound.  You basically have to write anything having to do with a noise or silence that won’t go away.  I believe the only rule was that you had to write for thirty minutes straight and just flow with it…..

So here it goes… the story is NOT done but I think I made  a pretty good start.  I will definitely try and finish it up soon I hope. Let me know what you think.

Well1

The Well

by Philip Wardlow

Momma would send me every morning to go fetch the water from the well that sat behind our house some fifty yards back near where the woods started. I hated that chore more than anything something awful.

I walked sleepily to the open back porch outside in my pajamas wearing just my slippers. The sun was still trying to sneak its head over the hill as the stars were still wide awake and dancing in a dark blue shy sky. This morning was especially  chilly when I grabbed the bucket at the back door. I saw every breath I took float away like I was taking a smoke like my daddy used to do.

I stood there in the doorway staring out at the backyard all the way back to where the well was. I could tell it was just waiting for me like it always does. To me it looked a like a squat little frog made of wood and brick, staring at me. Even two of the bricks which made up the wall of it were placed just so and colored just so different from all the rest, that it made ‘em look like eyes staring back at me in the dim light of the morning night. I imagined a big tongue rolling out of the hole of the well just waiting to slurp me up all green, slimy and wet.

This morning there was a fog rolling all along the ground from account of the cold. It wasn’t too thick. Pieces of it slunk around the yard moving left to right out of the corn field to cross over and go past the chicken coop on the far side and continue on like it needed some place to be. I noticed that none of the fog got too close to the well. It seemed to want to have nothing to with it as it meandered across the yard.

I shivered and wondered if I would hear it again. I  heard the sound all the time.  Dear lord, I hope I don’t hear it again, I said in a silent prayer inside my head.

“Josephine, get your butt going with that water! It ain’t gonna get itself,” I heard my momma yell at me from inside the house.

“Yes, momma.”

I mustered my courage and walked across the dark yard toward the well with the water bucket wrapped in my arms tight to my chest.

The chicken coop was quiet as I passed by, the hens and Old mister Rudy the cranky old rooster hadn’t yet caught on to the fact of that it was a new day on hand just yet. They didn’t make a peep as I walked on by ‘em to the well.

The blue pines rose up behind the well and towered above, swaying in the breeze. My own  shadow  was swallowed by theirs as I approached the well. It was always darkest in this part of the yard as the sun was still buried deep behind ‘em.

I sat the bucket on the edge of the well and secured the hook to the rope and sent it over the edge and started to slowly lower it down.

I looked out at the thick clump of dark trees behind the well. Anything could be in there. I began to imagine that something would wait for me on my walk to the house when my arms were heavy with a bucket full of water and take me from behind and drag me into the woods and my momma would never see me again. I thought a silly thought then. My teacher calling my name at roll call.

Josephine Stevens – she would call out twice to the classroom but I wouldn’t answer her. Because I just simply wouldn’t be anymore.

I found myself cranking the line to lower the bucket even faster….

Then I heard it….the noise.

….to be Continued…….:)

Roadkill – Novella Ebook – 2day FREE Promotion Starts Today Saturday April 5th!!


amazoncoverthumbnailroadkill

ROADKILL Amazon Free Offer 

If you are new to my website you may not have realized that I Epublished a book to Amazon that sells for $2.99,  called you guessed it, “Roadkill” , back in late 2012.

If you look to the right of this article,  you will see a direct link to that story on Amazon’s website. You can also click here or above.

Starting TODAY on Saturday , April 5th  through Sunday April 6th,  it will be available for FREE for anyone to download for the Kindle. (The time for when it starts may not be Exactly  after Midnight the first day but it will start that day)

You don’t need a Kindle to download it and read it but you will  probably need to download Amazon’s small Kindle app program for viewing on your PC before being able to download and read the story. Other than that it’s a piece of cake.

Please read my little synopsis below or go to Amazon’s website to see what the story is about:

Roadkill Synopsis:

There are things that lurk in our world unseen, dark creatures lost in a time and a world so ancient as to be forgotten by the same humans who made dark dealings with them so very long ago.

Now per happenstance, on a dark shrouded road these worlds will collide briefly again….

What would you do if you hit and killed something on the road in a raging blizzard in the middle of the night and that something you killed had a companion which meant to force you to make amends for your actions?

Adrian is the thirty-something already troubled family man who suddenly finds himself in that world. Adrian soon discovers it doesn’t want him. It wants the thing he holds most dear to his heart. Whom will the thing choose as the price to be paid, Adrian’s lovely wife Elisa, or his young eight year old daughter Sylvia?

Following the ancient laws set forth, a balance must be kept, and Adrian the good family man, must pay the price whether he likes it or not. Will Adrian have it in him to fight to keep his family whole or will he give into his fears and past traumas that have haunted him for years and lose the ones he loves along with perhaps his own life in the process?

The Fourth World – One aspect of my Novel


Trickster – is at one and the same time the destroyer and creator, giver  and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself….He knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social…yet through his actions all values come into being.

– Definition of the Trickster was borrowed from the great Sphere of Knowledge called the internet

coyote_the_trickster_by_coyoteflutesong

Triad of Horror in Haikus – 30 Day Halloween Poem Challenge – Poem #24,25,26


PasstheTorch
Blade of souls passes,
from old to young hands gladly
to cut future fates.
Blackcat
A friend to shadows.
Tracks of misfortune follow
feline on the prowl.
CreepyImage
I see you creeping,
Big eyes, sharp teeth, wicked smile
Waiting for a hug

30day Halloween Poem Challenge Poem#18, 19 , 20


DancingSkeletons
Skeleton Jig

They hold hands at night

and dance a little jig in the graveyard.

White as bone they say because that’s

all they are.

Skeletons gotta have just a bit of fun.

What would you do on Halloween if you were dead?

Do little a jig, make a little love…get down tonight.

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the_road_to
Road and the Darkness

I can’t say why the darkness consoles me.

No fear exists as shadows flow around

and enscroll my body

in etchings of lonliness

and comforting coldness

which is all I’ve ever known.

I shall walk this long  road in silent  solace and perhaps find my

answer in the ravens which

circle overhead.

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MasksStrobe
Slipping Mask

The negative of me is the mask that I remove

when no one is looking.

It slips on and off so easily.

I forget at times which one is in control.

Perhaps one day I shall show you that piece of me

But would you run away screaming?

Tag I’m it…Wish to see into my mind? Well, here’s your chance with a little Q & A


tag-youre-it1Na na …na na na…I’m it!

A fellow blogger of mine, whom I follow and who follows me , over at Lily Wight The Arcade of Arts, tagged me and few others to answer some questions.  I guess am it.  These questions below were presented to me to answer as I see fit…perhaps you will get to know me a little better afterwards:

Q.  Have you ever been obsoleted from your job and how did you feel about it?

I will say no. I have struggled and crawled my way into my position at my job and they can’t live with out me. Now, they come to the almighty Philip and wait on my every word. (Sure they do)

SONY DSCQ.  What is your favorite board game and why?

I loved the Electronic Based Board Game Dark Tower and I miss it till this day because mine broke awhile back and they no longer sell it anymore. It was the coolest board game hands down…it was way ahead of its time and still is for a board game…Monopoly has nothing on it. Pah! I spit on your grave Monopoly.

Q.  When you look at the stars, what do you see?

I see a beautiful mystery &  potential adventure . So much potential if we only play our cards right as a planet.

Q. When you look at the ocean, what does it remind you of?

Lost stories of civilizations come and gone along with a hidden world as vast as space.

Q.  How do you overcome writer’s block?

Well, first I call it less a writer’s block and more a writer’s quicksand.  Sometimes, I stop what  I’m trying to write and stretch my brain on something else, like poetry, or I’ll blog, or a really good movie. Basically, I shift gears to something else for a bit then shift over to what got me stuck in the muck in the first place. Usually, that helps me drive through it till I hit the next bog in the road again.

Q.  If you could say 3 encouraging things to another person, what would they be?

That it’s never too late.  That doing something starts with actually trying to do it,   and that if you make a mistake don’t beat yourself up over it, learn from it and move on.

Q.  Do you prefer to write your stories/books/poetry/prose/articles on paper first, then type them upWriting and edit them, or do you like to type them straight into your computer to edit?

I used to be all over the board, but I find I do like to write my poetry on paper first  and refine it later on the computer. I will tend to scribble a few memo like notes of story ideas in a notebook and  then take that to the computer  to start the full blown story.

Q.  Do you like writing in one genre or more?

I like to mainly write urban  fantasy with a slightly dark aspect to it. I like to take a miserable character and bring the best out of them in that setting. I can apply that same theme through horror, or science fiction stories which I like to write as well sometimes.

Q.  As a writer, do you think actions speak louder than words?

I think its a combination of both juxtaposed in a nice balancing act that brings out the best in your story and characters.

Q.  What is your favorite quote and why?

Heard this  from a friend who quoted Henry David Thoreau –  “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”  –  I found that line comforting in regards to my struggles with my writing and in my life.

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