Some cool supernatural short stories from around the Internet
Over the last few days, I came across a couple of pretty interesting short stories. They all deal with the supernatural, but the way they deal with it couldn't be any more different.
And I figured that they are the sort of stories many people reading this would be interested in
First, we have The Lion by Linus Recht. Originally published in the inaugural lit issue of the South Side Weekly newspaper, this Chicago-based fairy tale takes us to a South Side school that has a unique way of enforcing discipline.
For as long as anyone could remember, there had been a lion on the second floor of A. B. Calloway elementary school. It had always been school policy that if a student misbehaved, he or she’d be sent to see the lion and never be seen or heard from again. But even so, the lion was very highly respected. Sure, technically he was a disciplinary figure, but he was just doing his job; nobody held it against him. In fact, at some point (about thirty years ago? something like that) he had been voted the school mascot. Really, everybody loved the lion.
Click here to read the rest
Next, we have Is It Me?. In this spooky story by
BethanyTheMartian, a writer finds herself alone with the thoughts that may not be entirely her own.
(In the interest of full-disclosure - I beta-read it before it was posted)
Every writer knows this feeling, I think.
Staring at your work in progress, watching the cursor blink at you.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
It almost seems to mock, doesn't it?
I'd been writing, white hot. Going like blazes-
-and suddenly I caught up to what I was writing.
It was a sudden stop, my stomach lurching inside of me.
Like thinking there's one more step to a staircase you're going down a little too fast, and stumbling.
Like that.
I was alone in the house. I'm always alone in the house, anymore. I have a roommate, but she's got a new girlfriend and is spending most of her time away.
No big deal.
Continue reading here
And finally, we have a supernatural tale of a whole other kind. In The Red Woman, ladysisyphus takes us to a fantastic world where a world-weary sorceress meets a dragon who arrives with a very peculiar proposition.
In her ninety-fifth summer, Mayrat af-Qash met the dragon.
She'd been expecting something to happen; ninety-five was an auspicious number, after all, and to make it to one's ninety-fifth year was an auspicious thing. Of course, most people lacked the heavy preservation of magic saturating their bones, making them look no more than four decades old, but Mayrat hardly considered that cheating. She'd given much of her life to her magic, and thus she thought it only fair it gave back.
She was working in her garden, tending to the grapevines that hung heavy with black summer fruit, when the evening air stirred and she looked over just in time to see a red dragon roughly the size of a large horse land on her roof. Most humans were struck dumb with awe and terror upon seeing a dragon; Mayrat was just irritated. "Get off!" she shouted, sweeping her arms in a great shooing motion. "You fat awful lizard, get off! You'll cave the thatch in!"
For a moment, the dragon just looked at her, and Mayrat had cause to wonder whether or not all dragons were capable of understanding human speech, or whether they only sent forth as their envoys the ones who did.
Click here to keep reading
If you have any feedback about the stories, I'd suggest you leave them at the original posts, where the authors are that much more likely to see them. But if you have any suggestions about similar short stories in this vein, please feel free to drop a comment here.
And I figured that they are the sort of stories many people reading this would be interested in
First, we have The Lion by Linus Recht. Originally published in the inaugural lit issue of the South Side Weekly newspaper, this Chicago-based fairy tale takes us to a South Side school that has a unique way of enforcing discipline.
For as long as anyone could remember, there had been a lion on the second floor of A. B. Calloway elementary school. It had always been school policy that if a student misbehaved, he or she’d be sent to see the lion and never be seen or heard from again. But even so, the lion was very highly respected. Sure, technically he was a disciplinary figure, but he was just doing his job; nobody held it against him. In fact, at some point (about thirty years ago? something like that) he had been voted the school mascot. Really, everybody loved the lion.
Click here to read the rest
Next, we have Is It Me?. In this spooky story by
BethanyTheMartian, a writer finds herself alone with the thoughts that may not be entirely her own.
(In the interest of full-disclosure - I beta-read it before it was posted)
Every writer knows this feeling, I think.
Staring at your work in progress, watching the cursor blink at you.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
It almost seems to mock, doesn't it?
I'd been writing, white hot. Going like blazes-
-and suddenly I caught up to what I was writing.
It was a sudden stop, my stomach lurching inside of me.
Like thinking there's one more step to a staircase you're going down a little too fast, and stumbling.
Like that.
I was alone in the house. I'm always alone in the house, anymore. I have a roommate, but she's got a new girlfriend and is spending most of her time away.
No big deal.
Continue reading here
And finally, we have a supernatural tale of a whole other kind. In The Red Woman, ladysisyphus takes us to a fantastic world where a world-weary sorceress meets a dragon who arrives with a very peculiar proposition.
In her ninety-fifth summer, Mayrat af-Qash met the dragon.
She'd been expecting something to happen; ninety-five was an auspicious number, after all, and to make it to one's ninety-fifth year was an auspicious thing. Of course, most people lacked the heavy preservation of magic saturating their bones, making them look no more than four decades old, but Mayrat hardly considered that cheating. She'd given much of her life to her magic, and thus she thought it only fair it gave back.
She was working in her garden, tending to the grapevines that hung heavy with black summer fruit, when the evening air stirred and she looked over just in time to see a red dragon roughly the size of a large horse land on her roof. Most humans were struck dumb with awe and terror upon seeing a dragon; Mayrat was just irritated. "Get off!" she shouted, sweeping her arms in a great shooing motion. "You fat awful lizard, get off! You'll cave the thatch in!"
For a moment, the dragon just looked at her, and Mayrat had cause to wonder whether or not all dragons were capable of understanding human speech, or whether they only sent forth as their envoys the ones who did.
Click here to keep reading
If you have any feedback about the stories, I'd suggest you leave them at the original posts, where the authors are that much more likely to see them. But if you have any suggestions about similar short stories in this vein, please feel free to drop a comment here.