Granny Shakes
Elmer slid his chair back and started to stand. The creak of the wooden chair against the wooden floor reverberated through the cabin.
“Sit down, young man. You must eat your vegetables,” his mom said.
Elmer scrunched up his face and crossed his arms.
“I do not want vegetables tonight and you cannot make me eat them,” he stated.
His mom looked to his dad.
“Do you hear him, Boone? This is how he speaks to me!”
His dad just grunted, then stood from the table and left the...
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Santa Claus
Something was wrong with the reindeer. They’d been sluggish throughout the night, movements erratic. The sun was peeking over the horizon, a blazing threat of impending failure.
“Just one more present to deliver, then we’ll get you all help,” Santa said.
Rudolph dipped his head low, then twisted his body, freeing himself from the harness. He looked back at Santa, eyes filled with sorrow and blood. Then he fell from the sky.
“Rudolph!” Santa screamed.
The rest of the reindeer...
Jurgen Gyotespiel
Andy cursed under his breath as a woman ran into the back of his leg with a stroller. Normally, he would turn around and give her a piece of his mind, but the crowd was pressed so thick around him he could barely move. It seemed he wasn’t the only person who had put off Christmas shopping until the last day, as the mall was busier than he’d ever seen it. Garbled Christmas songs played over the loudspeaker, hurting his ears, and the heaters were on full blast, turning the...
Freaky Fetus
Amir stepped through the door, thankful to be home after a long day on the job. For a moment, he hesitated in the entryway, eyes drifting longingly to his recliner. His usual routine after work was to crack a beer, kick up his feet, and play hours of video games.
But that was before.
Instead, he headed upstairs.
“Babe, I’m home,” he said, keeping his voice low in case she was napping.
He walked to what used to be the room where all of his action figures and comic books were...
Dancin' Danny
It was gloomy outside. A perfect match to Danny's mood as he left his apartment. He felt a rush of anxiety as he walked past his empty parking spot. His car was at the shop, held hostage by the shop owner, who threatened legal action if Danny didn't pay the $4,000 repair bill soon. Danny scoffed. He wouldn't even be able to pay if the bill were $40. He'd given every penny he had to his brother to go towards a surgery for his newborn daughter. The hospital refused to do the...
Professor Horrorwyrm
Marvin yawned as he walked into the lecture hall, thinking he must’ve been out of his mind when he enrolled in the 7 am class. It’s the reason he’d almost immediately stopped attending. But through a brilliant gaslighting email campaign, he had the professor convinced he was suffering from a breakup-induced bout of severe depression. Professor Clornix, having just gone through a bad breakup himself, excused all of Marvin’s absences and was letting him coast by on remote...
Pantry Prowler
Heather was surprised to hear the doorbell. It had been some time since anyone visited. She raised her head off the kitchen table, realizing the entire house was dark. Had she fallen asleep? It was hard to tell, sometimes, with her constant drifting in and out of dark dreams. The doorbell chimed again, and Heather stood. She started to walk toward the kitchen light switch, but stopped when she heard a low rumble from inside the pantry. The switch was right beside it, but she...
Mr. Slithers
Carter cursed as his keys fell out of his hand and smacked the tile. His hands were full, he was exhausted, and in desperate need of a shower. A planned two-week vacation to Thailand had somehow morphed into five weeks of zipping around South Asia in a rickety jeep with an enchanting woman named Buppha. He never would’ve left, but someone had stolen his identity back in his home area in upstate New York and run up crazy charges on his credit cards. He planned to get that all...
It’s release day and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Endless Christmas: And Other Short Tales combines all of my favorite things in one place: Christmas, absurdity, madness, monsters, action, comedy, and a few weird twists to keep things interesting. Some of my favorite writing I’ve ever done (and read) are when my brother and I used to do holiday fiction at our old publishing company. Getting back to that spirit and anchoring an entire novel-length collection in and around Christmas and...
George Washington
“Becky, I told you we should’ve stopped coming,” Elise said, gesturing to the snack table. “This selection is GRIM.”
As much as Becky wanted to argue, she frowned as she inspected the goods. Stale cookies, out-of-date chips, and room-temperature generic sports hydration drinks were all that were on offer at tonight’s meeting. It was a far cry from the fully catered snack table at the first two meetings.
“Everyone find your seats,” Rise, the leader of the group, said. “Let’...
The Scout
Jake lagged behind his teammates as they jogged back onto the field for the second half of the football game. Usually dogmatic about sticking to his pre-game routines, Jake had given in the night before at the badgering of his teammates and attended a party. Good times were had, but not without consequence. He bent over, feeling queasy and weak.
“You good, Mullens?”
Shooting upright, Jake forced confidence onto his face.
“All good, coach.”
His coach smacked his shoulder pads.
“...
Annie Eighteen-eyes
Luis bent over the kitchen sink and spat toothpaste. He started to place his toothbrush in the holder by the sink, but stopped when a voice spoke from the bedroom.
“That was only one minute and fifty-six seconds. Dentists recommend two minutes.”
It felt to him like two minutes, but he knew better than to argue. He squeezed a dab of toothpaste onto his toothbrush, then spent four more seconds brushing.
“Great job, honey,” the voice called.
After wiping his mouth, Luis...
GRAVY CHEF
Julie quickly shoved her vape into her pocket as headlights lit up the dark street. Trying to look nonchalant, she started walking, swinging her arms as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A stab of fear shot through her chest as the car slowed to a stop beside her. Picking up her pace, she intentionally didn’t look over at it, even when she heard the window rolling down.
“Julie? What are you doing out so late?”
Turning, Julie was surprised to see her sister Cathey staring...
SURGI-DOC
The Surgi-Doc beeped and whirred, then the drill at the end of one of its fingers started to spin.
"You have a 5.83 percent chance of reaching your quota before the end of your allotted work time," it said, its voice monotone and mechanical.
Alvin wasted precious seconds glancing up at it, searching the filament in its glass tube eyes for any hint of humanity.
"Demerit. You have purposefully remained unproductive for a period of ten sustained seconds. Your pay for this shift has...
My new book, Creepazoids: And Other Short Tales, released a little over two weeks ago. My goal for the year 2025 was to publish three books, and it feels awesome to be well on the way to hitting that goal. In its first two weeks of release, Creepazoids has sold a little bit slower than my first book, but has been doing really well on Kindle Unlimited, which is nice. When I add up all the pages read on Kindle Unlimited, Creepazoids is actually ahead of the first book in sales + pages read, so...
We are just one week away from the release of my latest book, Creepazoids: And Other Short Tales. Book releases are equal parts exciting and strange for me. Exciting because writing a book is hard, and editing is hard, and getting a good cover made is hard, and doing the layout is hard, and marketing is hard, and at the end of that very difficult journey, you finally get to share this labor of love with the world. You inhabit those words and that particular book for so long that it feels like...
As you may have read in my previous blog post, I am pretty far ahead of schedule with my writing plans this year. That’s a good thing, but it does mean that here in the month of March, I find myself writing Christmas fiction. Now, I consider myself something of a Christmas fanatic, but I’m generally not feeling very Christmasy in the month of March. But, a book of Christmas themed short stories is up next on my production schedule, and so I’m doing what I have to to bring the holiday season...
I find myself facing a strange dilemma. I finished my next book early. That's a good thing, but it's also driving me crazy. Late last year I mapped out my 2025 release schedule and my upcoming book was scheduled for mid-May. That was before I hit early March and had the thing written, edited, and about 94% ready for full publication. The dilemma is if I should push the release up by a month or not. I'd love to release in mid-April, but my next release is Christmas themed, which means it can't...
As I've moved into full editing mode on my next book I wanted to spend a little time talking about some editing tips and tricks I use. And yes, before you ask, this is a way for me to procrastinate from doing more editing. If I'm writing a blog about editing, it's sort of the same thing as editing, right?
FIRST TIP: MOVE SLOWLY
In my youth I was a terrible editor. The reason for this was speed. I got so excited when I'd finish the rough draft of a project that I'd race through the editing...
I'm very excited to share with you that at some point around 3 am this morning I completed the rough draft of my next novel-length short story collection. My goal for 2025 was to write two books but I didn't exactly expect to finish the first one just a little over two months into the year! Maybe I should expand the goal to three books? We'll see, but for now I just want to enjoy being done with the rough draft of this one, lol. It turned out to be longer than expected, coming in at 85,000...