Allow me to welcome distinguished author, Kat Heckenbach as today's guest post contributor. I recommend her writing to avid readers of speculative fiction, and look forward to each new release. When I started writing Relent, I used the working title Guilty. My goal was to show that anyone, no matter how…
The creature stabbed his fingertips into Christie's side. Pain shot through her gut, but the grip at her throat muffled her cry. He licked her blood from his fingertips. “Sweet liver, but I came for the whole deal—from your heart to the marrow of your soul.” The monster allowed Christie to drop…
Steeple chimes echoed through the clapboard chapel’s rafters. Christie raised her forehead from the altar railing. Polished oak furnishings glinted in the candlelight, while darkness oozed through the stained glass windows. Perspiration trickled from her temples and followed the lines of her long neck. She wiped her moist palms across the…
Is reality defined within physical and measurable parameters? Can one discern the boundaries of truth by ruling out supernatural elements as fiction? Should we accept metaphysical factors as fringe science? Human nature drives us to boast of our ability to discern truth with our senses. But in reality, our mortal experience…
Laina took a shaky step into the luminous circle around the pillar candle on the floor. The amulet lay just beyond the light puddle. The flame's reflection flickered in its emerald stone. "Why isn't it over?" She bent and stretched her hand toward the medallion. "Don't touch that." Arden fetched a bar rag…
"Thanks for the ride." Laina entered her apartment and turned to face Rory. "Goodnight." "You sure you don't want me to stay a while?" The starched collar of his indigo shirt gave a faint rustle as he leaned against the inner frame of the doorway. The scent of his musky-pine cologne…
Laina stirred her float and studied its milky spirals. Greasy aromas flooded the diner, so she could almost taste the burger she ordered--she glanced at her watch--twenty minutes ago. "Got another date later?" Rory asked. "Huh?" She looked up from the entrancing eddies of her root beer. He propped his elbows…
At the right of the doorway, a fountain gurgled over an iron spire. Ornate moldings with gilded leaves framed a second door. At the cherry desk guarding it, a gaunt woman peered over her bifocals. Lines deepened around her lips as she spoke. "Go on in. Do not impose upon our…
Dusk cast its amber glow across the sliver of overcast sky peering between the city's concrete shoulders. Laina's knee-high boot clanged over a sidewalk grate as a plume of sulphurous steam burned into her nostrils. She grimaced and shook her head, hustling to the cafe door. Jayme rose from the corner booth and…
Trillions of subatomic energy particles streak across space and dive into the atmosphere. Their scintillating wake revitalizes the air, illuminates my window, and massages vital warmth into cell tissues as they pass through my body. I cannot sense this process any more than I can discern which gases comprise my breath-concoction or count…