One of the 13 stories in A Friday the 13th Story #9: A Rattle of Skeletons by Lisbeth L. McCarty
Fun Fact:
I was inspired to write this story after hearing about a real-life condition known as AIWS (Alice in Wonderland Syndrome). This is a neurological, not a psychological, condition, with aspects such as seeing images grow large and small and experiencing other strange events.
About A Rattle of Skeletons:
Teenage Desiree suffers from AIWS, and she is conflicted about her suffering. Her life becomes even more complicated when she goes on a first date with an incredibly eerie boy.
Excerpt:
Personally, I considered myself fortunate to be level-headed and not superstitious, so I had no qualms about having my first date with Steve that night. I didn’t really believe in things that could not be seen.
Jason said, “Right, you don’t believe in anything.”
“Correct,” I said. “No religions for me. No superstitions. No horoscopes. No fortune cookies. No werewolves. No vampires. No dragons. No angels. No demons. No unicorns. No ghosts. No zombies. No Tarot cards. No ESP. No psychics. No—”
Elizabeth interrupted, saying, “No fun.”
Jason said, “It’s Friday the 13th, so maybe you can scare up some fun.”
About the Author:
Lisbeth L. McCarty has worked in the three most hated professions—as an investigative journalist, an appellate criminal defense attorney, and a mime. For more than 40 years, she explored the fascinating aspects of the criminal mind. She loves that she got paid to read and write—two of her favorite things to do. Her website is http://www.lisbethmccarty.com. You can read her monthly blog at https://lisbeth.substack.com.
One of the 13 stories in A Friday the 13th Story #9: Hell’s Boardwalk by Robert Herold
Fun Fact:
The Jersey Devil, which figures prominently in Hell’s Boardwalk, has been a legendary figure in New Jersey folklore, going back to the 18th century. Stories vary, but one attributes the origin of the creature to a woman named Leeds, who had a dozen children. When pregnant with the thirteenth, she swore that the devil could take him. (You could at least understand her frustration!) It is said to have bat-like wings, cloven hooves, and makes a blood-curdling scream. Given this, the state’s NHL hockey team adopted the name The Jersey Devils.
About Hell’s Boardwalk:
An Atlantic City realtor is hunted by the Jersey Devil, a fiery demon from hell. Steven and Hu Metcalf, who battle the occult, are asked to help and travel across the country with their associates. In doing so, they also become targeted for death. Can they defeat the demon before becoming its latest victims?
Excerpt:
“Did you have a security camera?” Steven asked Nick.
“Yeah. Top of the line. Even filmed in color.”
“The feed stored remotely on the cloud?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, I can access it on my phone. I should have thought of that earlier.” Nick fiddled with his phone for a moment, and the others gathered around to see. “The feed ends a little after three AM.”
“The witching hour,” Hu said.
Steven nodded. “Try five minutes earlier.”
Nick did so and uttered, “Whoa.”
They all watched as a thirty or forty-foot horned creature with lizard and goat-like features approached the house from across the swamp. It walked upright and glowed in the night like a burning ember.
“A fire demon,” Hu said.
“I think it’s the Jersey Devil,” Nick said. “I always dismissed it as B.S.—a legend told around campfires to scare kids.”
They watched as the creature crossed the street and approached the house. Flames filled the screen, and the feed ended.
About the Author:
Seattleite Robert Herold is a horror writer and author of the award-winning Eidola Project novels, which follow a team of 19th-century ghost hunters who become ensnared in deadly supernatural investigations, and the award-winning Seattle Coven Tales, about a grad student who gets targeted for blood sacrifice by a modern coven of witches. In addition, Mr. Herold’s work has appeared in anthologies and on the Saturday Evening Post’s website. An adaptation of his first Seattle Coven Tale, “Witch Ever Way You Go,” came in first place for Best Pilot Script in the Dublin Movie Awards.
One of the 13 stories in A Friday the 13th Story #9: Swamp Teeth by Alicia Dean
Fun Fact:
I had just finished this story, the weekend I was to upload it for pre-order, when my son, Presley and I watched the croc movie ROGUE. In the movie, one of the characters scattered ashes in the water, which happens in my story as well. Have you seen the movie? It was really good.
About Swamp Teeth:
A month after a college student is killed by a croc in a fraternity dare, his grieving father invites the friends who were with him back to the swamp for a memorial. But they soon discover the man has something more nefarious in mind.
Excerpt:
He stood and walked to the back door. Outside, the swamp stretched into darkness. The water moved slowly through the mangroves, reflecting the moon in broken silver fragments. The air smelled like salt and mud. He had run airboats through these channels for twenty years. Every narrow path. Every shallow cut. Every place where the water deepened suddenly. He knew them all.
Tobias stepped onto the porch. The boards creaked softly under his weight. Out beyond the mangroves, something moved in the water. A low ripple. Then stillness.
Tobias leaned against the railing and stared into the dark water. A memorial would make sense. People understood memorials. Ashes scattered in the place someone loved. It was a simple idea. A respectful one. He had texted them a few days ago. The boys and Landon’s girlfriend, too. Teddi. She had been there that night as well but had been gone by the time Tobias arrived at the scene.
He had invited them all to come down to the Keys and spend a few days. He told them they could help scatter Landon’s ashes. Said he would take them into the backcountry. The water where Landon had grown up. The water where he had died.
Tobias watched the moonlight move across the swamp. Five people had stood on that shore and watched his son disappear. They had all walked away. Tomorrow night, he would take them back onto the water.
The swamp had teeth.
And it remembered.
About the Author:
Alicia Dean lives in Edmond, Oklahoma where she enjoys writing dark and creepy stories. Her other passions are Elvis Presley, true crime, MLB, NFL and watching too much TV.
Please help me welcome today’s guest, Susie Black…
How an Apparel Career Led to a Writing Gig
Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, I was a ladies’ apparel sales executive. The most critical skill a sales executive must have to succeed is storytelling. Fortunately, I’ve been telling stories since I learned to talk. One thing I was told over and over as a sales executive was to know your product inside and out. I heard the same thing when I started writing cozy mysteries: write what you know. If you don’t know it, either do the research and learn it, or don’t dare to write it. Whether you’re an author or a sales executive, you’re selling yourself, and readers, like buyers, can sniff out a phony in a heartbeat. Then you and the story you’re telling are toast.
I came to write in the cozy mystery genre because I love solving puzzles. My parents would certainly confirm that I always asked a lot of questions. I am naturally curious (some narrow-minded people say I am nosy…go figure…LOL). So, writing mysteries was my natural next step. Since I’d never written a novel before, the only thing I knew to do was to apply the same storytelling skills I’d successfully used hawking bikinis to writing a tale. It turns out that how you present an apparel line is the same way you write a story. Both have a beginning, a middle, an ending, and a point of view.
So, where did my story ideas come from? From the start of my career, I kept a daily journal that chronicled the quirky, interesting, and often challenging people I encountered as well as the crazy situations I’d gotten myself into and out of. The journal entries are the foundation of all my writing for the stories that comprise the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. With a dollop of imagination, a pinch of angst, and a decades-long career chocked to the gills with juicy characters, I had more stories itching to be told in my daily journal than time to write them.
Who could push a sales exec to dream of murder and mayhem? Who else but a buyer? After completing a rather challenging conversation with an important but difficult customer, I imagined how good it would feel with my hands around her scrawny neck, squeezing the life out of her. While the notion of knocking off my annoying buyers was wildly appealing, a horizontally striped prison uniform making my four-foot, eight-inch body look like a barbershop pole and a fire hydrant had a child wasn’t a pretty sight. The viable alternative? Writing humorous murder mysteries set in the Los Angeles garment center with a protagonist based on me. Brilliant and cathartic! In one fell swoop, eliminate a pain-in-the-patootie buyer, avoid life in prison, and still get the order. It doesn’t get any better than that.
About the Author
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Originally, I was going to have the killer play “I Put A Spell On You” by Creedence Clearwater Revival during the murders. But since I wanted to include Elvis in my story, I changed it to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Sweet and romantic, right? 😀
In Ashwick, Massachusetts, every year on Valentine’s Day, a young woman is found murdered and ritualistically displayed. With another Valentine’s Day approaching, Rayna Jennings has come to Ashwick in search of her missing sister and to find answers to the burning questions…could her sister still be alive? Or was she the victim of the same killer?
Excerpt:
The streets of Ashwick were silent and dark. The only place that stayed open past nine was his tavern, and the streets rolled up at nightfall. He loved this time of morning. The peace…the solitude. Well, it was mostly peaceful. Except once a year when another woman was killed. Who the hell was doing it? Was it someone here in town? Maybe someone he knew? Must be someone in Ashwick, right? Why else would the bodies be dumped here?
He was near his car and was reaching to pull his keys out of his pocket when a sound broke the stillness of the night. Footsteps. Sounding very, very close.
Who would be out this late? He turned and peered behind him. A large, hulking figure stood ten feet away. Shadows hid the features, leaving nothing but a darkened figure with no definition. Like some kind of evil supernatural being.
“Who is it?” His voice came out shaky, though he didn’t know why he would be scared. He was a big dude and had kicked a lot of ass in his day. But something about this…whatever it was…seemed more threatening, more dangerous than someone you’d encounter in a bar fight.
A trickle of fear turned to ice on his spine.
The figure didn’t respond. It stepped forward. One step, two, three…and then it was under the streetlight and the features came into view and recognition dawned.
Beau gasped in surprise. “What are you—” his words cut off when he saw the large knife in the right hand. And now he knew, he had every reason to be terrified.
Fun Fact: Titan’s Chemistry Mirrors the Early Earth
Titan’s atmosphere is rich in complex organic molecules, so complex that scientists believe it closely resembles what Earth’s atmosphere may have looked like before life began. Sunlight and cosmic radiation constantly break apart methane high above Titan’s surface, triggering chemical reactions that create tholins: sticky, reddish organic compounds that drift down like snow and coat the moon.
Titan is silent except for the Undersong. Each transmission brings it closer to being heard.
Excerpt:
The sound emerged softly from the bridge’s audio ports, barely above a whisper. A deep pulsing rhythm, steady as a heartbeat, rose and fell like a cello repeating warm-up exercises.
“It started when we passed through the ionosphere,” she said. “It’s nearly buried under the normal communication noise. It may be deep in the subsurface ocean. That’s the source, I think. Under the ice.”
“Could it be an echo?” Ortega asked.
“The intervals are too precise and don’t fade like an echo. I’m detecting shifts in pitch like it’s reacting to my probing.”
“It’s reacting?” Deanard bent forward and replaced an earbud. “Are we saying we’ve discovered music coming from an ice moon?”
Ortega considered the waveform on the screen as it looped again. “Let’s not get too poetic,” he muttered. “You’re assigning attributes to a noise we know nothing about. We’ll classify it as an anomalous frequency. If it’s under the ice crust, label it the Undersong.”
Vossarnt smiled. “I like the name.”
“A privilege of being captain. A placeholder, not a name.”
Deanard interrupted. “Captain, it’s HQ. They want a report.”
“What?” he snorted. “Way too soon. I don’t want the science folks on Earth spinning conspiracy theories before we’ve barely settled into orbit. The less I tell them, the better for now.”
He tapped the comm interface and recorded a short transmission. Formal and only enough to be on record. He hit send, then turned back to the team.
“That should hold the bosses for a while. Let’s get the science folks to work. I want a thorough subsurface scan and tests to determine whether it is geological, atmospheric, or whatever. We’re on a discovery vehicle. Let’s explore.”
About the Author:
Mark Edward Jones is an author, editor, and former public-sector finance professional. His fiction spans crime and speculative genres, with recent work appearing in anthologies and award-winning collections.
Conversation hearts have been around for well over 100 years. The originals weren’t hearts, but circles with scalloped edges and much larger that what we’re used to today. They also used to have some pretty cringy sayings like, “Married in white you have chosen right” and “Married in pink, he’ll take a drink.”
In Redveil, love isn’t a gift. It’s a debt. When the past comes calling, there is no escaping. After all, forever means forever.
About the Author:
An avid traveler, Raven Lee, has never met a spooky tale she didn’t love. Raven haunts northeast Oklahoma with her family when she’s not showing you what lives in the dark. Learn more about Raven here: https://linktr.ee/AuthorRavenLee
Wee Willie Winkie – A Seattle Coven Tale by Robert Herold
Fun fact #1
Several months ago, one of my brothers confessed to me that when we were little nippers and our mom would recite “Wee Willie Winkie” to us at bedtime, it would freak him out. I thought: There’s a story here!
Fun fact #2:
Wee Willie Winkie is a nursery rhyme originating in 16th-century Scotland. The original rhyme had Willie Winkie rapping at the windows and calling through the locks, asking, “Were all the children in their beds? It’s now 10:00.” When The Real Mother Goose was published in the early Twentieth Century, the time was changed to 8:00. My guess is that modern parents said, “To heck with this !0:00 thing. Get to bed by 8:00!!”
About Wee Willie Winkie
Children in Edinburgh, Scotland, disappear are presumed dead. Steven and Hu Metcalf are brought over from the States to help with the investigation and they discover a curse hundreds of years old. Will they become its next victims?
Excerpt
Rory grabbed a blank sheet of paper and a black pen, then drew a large outline of a head. Now, what should it look like? He wanted to make it particularly frightening, grinning at the potential for mayhem in the future. A little payback for slamming the door in his face.
He drew two dark eyebrows slanted down with hatred above a pair of beady eyes. A nose featured a prominent wart, and a large, wide-open mouth revealed a mass of long, razor-sharp teeth. A red pen provided blood that ran from either side of the creature’s mouth. Rory used a green-colored pencil for the creature’s complexion. He held the page up to admire his handiwork.
Rory glanced at his window. A creature with a reddish face and a mouthful of sharp teeth stared in. Rory froze as it snarled and locked eyes with him.
Got the skin all wrong, he realized. It’s red.
The window glass exploded outward.
Rory gripped the edge of the desk, but it proved useless. He shot out of his chair, headfirst, toward the huge gaping mouth of the creature.
About the Author:
Seattleite Robert Herold is a horror writer and author of the award-winning Eidola Project novels, which follow a team of 19th-century ghost hunters who become ensnared in deadly supernatural investigations, and the award-winning Seattle Coven Tales, about a grad student who gets targeted for blood sacrifice by a modern coven of witches. linktr.ee/robertheroldauthor
Author Alicia Dean 