100 Word Horrors: An Anthology of Horror Drabbles Read online

  100 Word Horrors

  Presented by

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  100 Word Horrors © 2018 Kevin J. Kennedy

  Compiled by Kevin J. Kennedy

  Edited by Brandy Yassa

  Cover design by Michael Bray

  Each story in this book has been published with the authors’ permission. They are all copyrighted by the author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  First Printing, 2018

  Acknowledgements

  I would firstly like to thank Brandy Yassa. Brandy is the editor of everything published by KJK Publishing and without her I would probably still be spending most of my time sending stories into other peoples books, rather than putting them together. She does an amazing job and is a pleasure to work with. We have worked on four anthologies together and one novella, so far, and I can only hope that we will work on many more projects in the years to come.

  I’d also like to thank every author that has worked with me so far. I’m very early in my career and it means a lot to me that authors trust me with their work. I only hope that I can continue to publish books that make the authors proud to be a part of what I’m doing.

  Thanks to Michael Bray for an amazing cover and Ronald Malfi, for providing the cover blurb.

  Thanks to my mother and father for everything.

  Most importantly, thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy of the book. Without you, none of us would be doing this. Writing stories is a pointless endeavour if no one reads them. You give us the opportunity to try and be who we want to be, and for that I can’t thank you enough.

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  The Dead Thing

  Lisa Morton

  Hide and Seek

  Matthew Brockmeyer

  They Came for Me

  Glenn Rolfe

  Lunchtime

  Andrew Lennon

  Strength in the Blood

  A.J. Brown

  It is Just Local Gossip

  Norbert Gora

  Just A Game

  Christopher Motz

  Firing Squad

  Mark Fleming

  Alone

  Brandy Yassa

  Baby Steps

  Michael A. Arnzen

  A Song For Them

  Mark Cassell

  The Other Me

  P.J. Blakey-Novis

  Late Night Drive

  John Dover

  Hobby

  Matt Hickman

  Beauty Mask

  Sara Tantlinger

  Bessy

  Mark Lumby

  Heart Shaped Box

  Pippa Bailey

  Post Halloween

  Veronica Smith

  The Man in the Black Sweater

  Richard Chizmar

  Virtual Reality

  David Owain Hughes

  I Was Loved

  P.J. Blakey-Novis

  The End of the Pier

  Amy Cross

  The Dublin Pub

  Veronica Smith

  I Am The End

  Michael Bray

  Beasts from Below

  Alex Laybourne

  Coming Home

  Suzanne Fox

  Stone Dry

  Sara Tantlinger

  The Box

  Valerie Lioudis

  Best of Friends

  Stefan Lear

  It Came

  Mark Lumby

  Cold Toes

  Georgia Lennon

  Edmond

  James Matthew Buyers

  Knock Knock..

  C.S Anderson

  Delusional

  Suzanne Fox

  Disregarded Advice

  Ike Hamill

  Harsh Sentence

  P. Mattern

  No More

  Mike Duke

  What is Schizophrenia, Anyway?

  Robert W. Easton

  Shower Thoughts

  Peter Oliver Wonder

  A Caring Community?

  Suzanne Fox

  Lightbulb

  Matthew Brockmeyer

  A Demonic Pact

  Billy San Juan

  Till Death do us Part

  Derek Shupert

  Someone’s in my House

  Gord Rollo

  It

  Billy Chizmar

  Checkmate Roommate

  Michael A. Arnzen

  Silence

  Pippa Bailey

  Jolly Ol' Infiltrator

  Weston Kincade

  Shadows

  Antonio Simon, Jr.

  Winter’s Embrace

  Duncan P. Bradshaw

  Cut Down to Size

  David Owain Hughes

  Children of the Carnival

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  The Grave

  Amy Cross

  Will-o'-the-Wisp

  Nicholas Diak

  Stone

  Becky Narron

  Meal for One

  Howard Carlyle

  Don’t Look Back

  James Matthew Buyers

  Street-Hearts

  Chris Kelso

  Consumed by Desire

  Adriaan Brae

  Another Tonight?

  William F. Nolan

  Destiny’s Embrace

  Michael Paul Gonzalez

  Clean

  Valerie Lioudis

  Trees

  Donelle Pardee Whiting

  Dancing

  David Owain Hughes

  Running from Him

  Michael A. Arnzen

  Night Terrors

  Lisa Vasquez

  It’s Just a Dream, Right?

  Ellen A. Easton

  Over the Edge

  Mark Cassell

  The Beauty of the Sea

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  Breadth of Bone

  Sara Tantlinger

  Never Leave Me, Nor Forsake Me

  Mike Duke

  Escape

  Megan Ince

  Forever Men

  Eric J. Guignard

  The Artist

  Howard Carlyle

  Initiation

  Mark Fleming

  What's For Dinner?

  Christopher Motz

  Vermillion

  Lisa Vasquez

  Jack Frost

  Christina Bergling

  Coming Around

  C.M. Saunders

  Bad Cop, Bad Cop

  James H Longmore

  Experimental Animal 7

  Lee McGeorge

  Bummed Light

  James Matthew Byers

  Sugar & Spice

  Chad Lutzke

  Air

  Dave McClusky

  You Don’t See Me

  Christina Bergling

  The Dead Train

  Craig Saunders

  Delivery

  Briana Robertson

  The Guest

  Dave McCluskey

  Nights in Whitechapel

  Theresa Jacobs.

 
; Betrayal

  Lee Mountford

  Beautiful Francesca

  Ike Hamill

  Priscilla’s Pugnacious Pampered Pups

  Brandy Yassa

  Mister Fancy Pants

  Rhys Hughes

  Greed Has No Heart

  Mark Lumby

  Beast in the Bedroom

  Philippa Bailey

  The Boy

  Richard Chizmar and Billy Chizmar

  Weeping Keys

  Elizabeth Cash

  Grand Slam

  Christina Bergling

  Shock Collar

  Jeff Strand

  The Festival of Gluttony

  Mike Duke

  Selfie

  Rick Gualtieri

  Jonathan

  Amy Cross

  A Flash Beginning

  Jessica Gomez

  Spellbound

  John Dover

  I Was a Teenage Eulogist

  Jason M. Light

  From the Mouths of Drunks and Babes

  Alex Laybourne

  Stage Fright

  James McCulloch

  Cupid and Death

  Rhys Hughes

  The Feast

  Rebecca Brae

  The Dolls

  Mark Lukens

  Afterword

  Also available on Amazon from KJK Publishing

  Foreword

  When I started writing, I was always looking for anthologies that were taking really short stories, as I didn’t have a lot of faith in my writing. I was working on the basis that if the stories were short I could write more, heightening my chances of getting accepted. What I later realised was that it was much harder to tell a full story in a really short piece of flash fiction. I noticed that every story that I wrote was becoming longer and longer, as I had bigger stories to tell and more I wanted to say in them, but I had already developed a love for flash fiction and had read some really good stories along the way. I had also come across ‘drabbles.’ A drabble is a story of exactly one hundred words, not including the title. Drabbles can be a lot of fun to write, but can also have you pulling your hair out. Every time you add a line, you need to take another out. As you write it you always think of things to add, but each word is so precious that the drabbles go through more re-writes than most longer stories ever will.

  I liked the idea of putting a book of drabbles together, but I knew I would need a lot of stories. I had no idea how many authors would be interested in writing a drabble, so I decided to ask them. The response was overwhelming and the drabbles started flooding in almost instantly.

  Submissions to the book were almost entirely invite only and I opened it to a few small groups. I received hundreds of drabbles. The book you hold in your hands contains the best in my opinion and each drabble is a complete little contained story.

  As always with my anthologies, you will find Bram Stoker award winners, Amazon top sellers, the best indie writers and a few newer writers, who just hit the nail on the head with their stories.

  Some people will read the book cover to cover and others will use it as a table top book and read a drabble or two a day. Whatever you do, I encourage you to take a minute after you read each drabble, and have a think about it. There is a lot packed into each of these little one hundred word stories. I only hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

  ― Mark Twain

  The Dead Thing

  By

  Lisa Morton

  I’m watching the dead thing in the corner when it moves.

  It’s a big black mass, tall, like Mama, with the rough shape of a body, a head, and legs. I’ve been watching it since we came here, but this is the first time it’s moved.

  Mama doesn’t see it. Or can’t. She just keeps sitting in the chair not far away, watching me instead of it.

  “What are you looking at?”

  It hovers away from the wall.

  It floats toward Mama.

  And then it goes into Mama.

  “Come here, you stupid cat,” she says as she reaches for me.

  Hide and Seek

  By

  Matthew Brockmeyer

  There was nothing I loved more than playing hide and seek at the dump with my friends on warm summer evenings. And I was always the best at it. Searching out the most imaginative places to hide amongst the piles of trash and rows of wrecked cars, and remain so still and quiet. Like the time I squeezed into that dirty, old-fashioned refrigerator.

  They’ll never find me here, I thought, pulling the door shut and hearing the lock click shut.

  And they never did.

  Never found me, no matter how hard I pounded against the door and screamed for help.

  They Came for Me

  By

  Glenn Rolfe

  The spiders crawled through the bedroom window. Ice spilled down my spine as I clenched the sheets over my nose, hiding, but unable to look away. They chose Billy first. An avalanche of arachnids the size of baseballs spilled through the broken screen and flowed to my older brother’s bed as if carried on the sea. Up they went, thousands of legs. They covered every inch of his exposed body, and then stopped. One climbed over the rest and disappeared into Billy’s mouth. All at once, his body jolted, and then lay still.

  I screamed.

  Then they came for me.

  Lunchtime

  By

  Andrew Lennon

  Alex mixed his minced meat into his mashed potato, the moistness of the gravy created a slurping sound as the fork pushed and pulled through the meal. Alex continued to stir, waiting for the meal to cool enough to be able to eat, the smell of pepper filling his nose.

  Jonny entered the office. “Oh, that smells good, mate. What are you eating today?”

  “Cottage pie,” Alex replied.

  “Nice, not had that in ages.”

  “Do you want some?” Alex asked.

  Jonny took a bite and savoured the flavour. “Hey, where’s Anne?”

  Alex smiled and raised the plate to offer more.

  Strength in the Blood

  By

  A.J. Brown

  I knelt in the kitchen, hands folded in prayer.

  “You gave me strength.”

  Eyes open, I stared. I cleaned up my wife’s blood there.

  “You gave me strength,” I repeated in the den. I cleaned Paul’s blood from the carpet.

  “You gave me strength.”

  In the bathroom, I washed Kerri’s blood off the walls.

  In the baby’s room, I closed my eyes against tears.

  “Give me strength.”

  Red stains soaked the crib where Charlotte once slept.

  In the half bathroom I stared at my reflection. A shadow grinned back, it’s eyes red.

  “I am strength,” it said. And it laughed.

  It is Just Local Gossip

  By

  Norbert Gora

  I came to this backwater where (or because) the inhabitants swore that there was a miracle at the local cemetery.

  On a starry night, a dead man would appear at his tombstone.

  What fool would believe it?

  Camera clenched firmly in hand, I boldly crossed the graveyard boundary.

  As expected, there was nothing to see, but emptiness.

  Before a curse word could leave my lips, I felt an agonizing chill upon my neck.

  “It’s just local gossip. Dead men don’t leave their coffins,” a cold voice suddenly whispered behind my back.

  I didn’t have to turn around to know it was over.

  Just A Game

  By

  Christopher Motz

  Jack gave each of his four friends a small, clear capsule and took his place in the circle.

  "How does this game work?" Jenna asked.

  "You all wait and see who can last the longest," he replied.

  "
But if we're all going to be trippin', who's going to be keeping time?" Mary asked.

  "I will," Jack replied.

  "This is stupid," Brian laughed. "Who ever heard of a game where the point is to stay high the longest?"

  "Well that's the fun part," Jack smiled. "I didn't give you acid."

  "Oh, it's Ecstasy," Jason shouted happily.

  "Nope," Jack laughed, "it's cyanide."