Tag Archives: dark

The Lady Wore Red – Chapter 4

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Lily stood from the couch and looked around the little room.  She listened to the faint howl of the wind outside the house while she ordered her thoughts.  The small tree near her front window clawed the glass in slow patterns, sounding all the world like a ship groaning in high winds.  The living room lights flickered and Lily frowned in consternation.  Now, she thought.  What do I need to do?  Makeup?  Something nice to wear?  Neither thought filled her with excitement but she made her way to her bedroom to find what she could.

Every footstep and creak in the house sounded amplified as the growing storm muffled the outside world. …

The Magic School Bus: Halloween Special

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Chapter 1

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Arnold’s car rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the small two lane road, gravel crunching beneath the tires. The private road in front of him seemed to lead nowhere and even the full moon, fat and pure silver didn’t give him an idea of where it went. His old Volvo shook as it idled. I should just turn around, he told himself. This is such a bad idea. Instead, he turned on the dome light above him to read the email he’d printed yesterday.

 

“WELCOME TO THE 20TH REUNION OF MS. FRIZZLE’S 3RD GRADE CLASS!!!”…

The Lady Wore Red Chapter 3

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Her dreams were of a single flame. No source or base or anything else – a single flame in darkness. Flickering slowly as if a slight breeze chased an invisible pattern in the air. It wasn’t calming. It wasn’t frightening. It was nothing. She felt nothing – not anxious or happy or at peace or any other feeling someone might get from meditating. She thought once that something moved in the darkness. Moved as if it had always been there, watching and then decided to walk away. As if it had been there before she fell asleep. The quality of the darkness changed and moved and that was the only way she could tell something perhaps was there from before.…

The Lady Wore Red Chapter 2

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Michael woke with a groan when his bedside clock blared its siren. His body ached in weird places and he couldn’t remember exactly how he made his way home last night. The evening was a blur after his fifth glass of beer at the bar. Sixth? Seventh? There was that woman and giving her a car ride home but everything after that was fragmentary. Snatches of images and distorted sounds swam to the surface of his memory and then fled when he tried to latch on to them. He rolled over and sat up, slamming the clock to silence it. No time to think about it now – it would come to him or it wouldn’t but right now his headache was killing him.…

Unchained [The Change Universe # 2]

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PROLOGUE

 

In her dreams, the man has no face.

 

The dark, dirty room shifts and vibrates as if an earthquake is trying to open the ground under them.  Only the man is clear and unmoving.  Black lines and diagrams stand out on his body, centering around his navel and running to his feet, hands and head.  Where his face should be is a blank expanse of skin, slightly bulging as if covering his real face.  The man stands on the bare ground and thick, black smoke curls around his toes to waft lazily in the air.  Even in her dream, the smell makes her gag. …

Skin [The Change Universe # 1]

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CHAPTER 1: MONDAY

 

“So then I said, ‘Darlin, if you want to see the whole thing, you’ll need to take a bus to the next city’!”  The man’s sudden braying laughter startled the couple at the table next to him. His face was flushed from the martinis and he seemed to have no idea how loud he was talking. The clear liquid of his drink sloshed over the glass and onto the table while he tried to catch his breath.

 

Victoria had to run the last bit of the conversation in her head a few times to get the joke.…