Five April Fiction Selections

It's that time again. I have been composing

and working for several months to bring you five new short fiction selections, which I will post on the blog Shadows Lengthen each Thursday in April. Then like always, I'll share the link with you.

The stories range through variations of experiences. Some are familiar, some start familiar, maybe you even know what I'm describing firsthand. Then there's a story about a reclusive author and his final chance to end a curse. Perhaps my own favorite from this series, the End Times, is not going as promised for the people who looked forward to it the most.

Most of my ideas for stories happen spontaneously. The germ pops into my head and I get to writing it down, which is how I tell the story to myself. The ideas themselves can come from dreams or the weird realm between sleeping and waking. Other stories are generated by “what if ...?” scenarios, where I take something that feels reasonable and familiar, if unsettling, and take it to the farthest possible level of terror. As always, these are things that would, if they were real, scare the hell out of me. I find some comfort in composing them, as if the act is an apotropaic that will prevent them. If you name the scary thing, you will avoid it or take its power.

I have noticed that spooky stories, especially for kids and teens, are flying off the shelves, recently. With the world in upheaval and many actually terrifying things happening regularly, a little scary in moderation can provide a sense of control and even hope to those who need it. 

When things get hairy in real life, I turn to the masters of horror, like Poe, King, Lovecraft, Machen, Hawthorne, Jackson, Matheson, and, most recently, Stephen Graham Jones, mainly because I think they give scope and perspective to the events happening in real life. Things could, I suppose, always get worse.

Horror stories are sometimes about the inevitable. Many, people face terrible events and have to make profound decisions under duress. The supernatural or mystical or spiritual horrors they face are much more palatable because they can only happen in literature. My own stories, I hope, show that the most regular things—the ones we take for granted, or expect, or that we see as part of our stories—are the ones that provide the weakest point in our psychic armor. Our pets, gardens or plants, coworkers, the pests that dwell around us, and the people we think we can trust all speak of a deep and preternatural tendency to fear what we know best, rather than what we cannot see or understand.

Of course, if these tales are not your preference, by all means hang on until May and my regular nonfiction fare will return. In the meantime, as always, comb back through previous essays and find one you haven't read, and give it a perusal. 

In no particular order, the stories are:

Banana Tree Boulevard 

Newly-married Ellie wanders into a grove of banana trees on her new property and discovers a reality that puts her into a world that feels familiar, but is the farthest place from home.

Flies

Samuel finds himself surrounded by the oldest of all natural horrors. Like Pharaoh at the beginning of the fourth plague, he will face the filthy, fearful lepidoptera in all its earthy, disgusting majesty.

End Times Tango

The Beacons seem like a typically exuberant Evangelical family in a typical American neighborhood. But when the world ends, the Beacons find themselves on the wrong side of the tribulation with only their long-suffering and ambivalent neighbors for help.

Blood and Pages

A college student is sent to a very popular but reclusive local author for help with a Beowulf presentation paper. What he finds is a literal ancient curse and a literary fight for his life.

Alone

There is a troubling thing happening at Terry Boland's job. He very much feels as though everyone—friends, trusted colleagues, people he's known for over a decade—is changing fundamentally. Caught between suspicion and the fear of certainty, Terry only has one tough choice, but does he have the power to turn his back on his work family?