short Fiction
You Made Me Want to Kill the World
Published by Dark Matter: Little Red Flags
COMING SOON!
“The first time Jesus died to save humankind,” you told me. “The second time she will live and it will be the world that dies on the cross.”
You made me want to kill the world. You made me feel like god.
Footprints in the Forest
Published by Five Rivers Publishing, January 2025
When I find the footprints it feels like fate. Like I knew they would be there.
I kneel, feeling the cold ground through my snow pants, and place my fingers in the icy impression. The print of the sole crumbles beneath my fingertips. I look at the icy residue on my mitten. Standing, I place my own boot next to the print. It’s the same size. I begin to follow the tracks through the wood.
It Calls to Me
Published by Infested Publishing, October 24, 2024
It calls to me. I am powerless to resist. I need to see, to know. But I am afraid.
I don’t like the texture of cardboard, the way it’s gritty and soft at the same time. I draw my nails along the flap where the tape holds it closed. Once I see I can’t go back. Some things can’t be unseen.
Five Years Later
Featured on THIRT33N Podcast, July 15, 2024
Five years later I stood contemplating the calendar on the wall beside the phone charger. I flipped to March: the photo showed a torrid, rain-drenched sky. The fourth day of March loomed like a gravestone at the beginning of every year. This would be the fifth year of My Life After Dream. I thought of it in capital letters: Before and After.
Fairy Tales
Published by Black Hare Press, 2023
I will be waiting for him when he comes, just like in a fairy tale. The sun will be setting in a perfect golden glow and he will come up my walk with the dying sun on the tips of his hair. His chin will drop in that way it does, his lips curving up in smile that I know is just for me. Beautiful death in the dying day on the edge of endless night. I am the princess and he is the prince. He will awaken me with his touch and his kiss will be for all time.
Special Agent
Featured on Creepy Pod, June 14, 2023
Fast, so fast, under the strange orange volcanic sky, she ran. Exhilarating, the way her legs pumped and she glorified in speed. Her imagination took over, unable to resist the mood of the flaming storm sky. Breath quick and sure, she ran from monsters conjured by her vivid wit, horrible mangled things with foul breath and slimy hides and yellow demon eyes, a compilation of every horror story she had ever heard.
Vestigial
Published by Dark Lit Horror, 2023
There have been many prophets before, speaking some version of truth. But I am a new thing.
I stand and lift my arms above my head. I know the spotlight catches on my cheekbones and shadows the hollows of my eyes. I know the lantern behind me diffuses through my gown, outlining my body in light. I know they find me beautiful. I am beautiful.
Maenad
Published in Moon: The Book of Lunar Horror, 2023
Elinore twisted the dial on her computer speaker, increasing the volume of the classical music playing on YouTube. She’d forgotten her headphones at home and, if she heard Cathy clear her throat one more time, she thought she might lose it.
Asherah
Published in I Cast You Out by CultureCult, 2022
I do not remember sleeping, only waking, the light against my eyes. I curled inward, shielding myself from the light, more asleep than awake. Then I found myself lifted into sunlight so intense I cried out before I could stop myself.
The last thing I remembered, a boy shining silver, bright as the moon. I had taken him in my arms and his mouth tasted of sweet honey and the sour elixir designed to slow his heart until he fell into my depths in sacrifice.
Dust
Published in The Dead Unleashed Vol. 3, by Skywatcher Press
Ashley drew her heel through the dust accumulated on the floor, leaving a streak of clean on the boards. The particles stirred by her passing sparkled in the late afternoon light. She blew out a breath and the motes swirled in the air, agitated. Outside, the wind pushed against the walls, frustrated wailing around the eves. The grit rained against the old wooden siding in a relentless roar.
Recognition
Published in Something Wicked, 2008
It felt like recognition. I did not know him but everything about him haunted my memory, the planes of his face, his scent, the taste of his skin. The buttons of his shirt melted under my fingers and I ran my hands down his stomach, nails teasing through the golden hair below his navel, a trail of starlight disappearing, tantalizing, into the waistband of his pants.
CATHARTIC UNALIVING SERIES
Fictional scenes of murder and mayhem based on reader requests
In winter, 2022 I made the mistake of sharing with my TikTok audience that writers have fun killing off people we don’t like in stories. If I need someone to die in a piece of fiction, I have been known to use the names and/or characteristics of people who annoy me. I invited my TikTok audience to share the names of people they would like to see fictionally killed off and promised to write short scenes of death. And they delivered! Turns out that it’s cathartic to fantasize about killing off people we don’t like! Because TikTok censors videos with words like “murder” or “killing,” this became the Cathartic Unaliving Series. And I bring it to you here in all its phantastical glory.