The fourth of thirteen creepy tales of murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th…
Broken by Laura Strickland
Fun Fact:
I’m a great believer in Karma, Fate, Cosmic Justice or whatever you’d like to call it. What goes around comes around, and stories of retribution satisfy me deeply. This tale takes that concept through several centuries and gives it a twist of horror. I’ve seen these karmic consequences come true in real life. But that’s another tale…
Find Laura’s Friday the 13th story here…
Blurb:
When Burton Renfrow awakens from his thirteenth nightmare in a row early on the morning of Friday the thirteenth, he doesn’t expect to be drawn into a tale of betrayal and retribution. But there’s a dead woman in his studio, a shard of broken mirror embedded in her breast. And when Burton falls into the mirror, he faces his own past, one so terrible it changes who he thinks he is, and who he’s always been.
How long might it take for a man’s misdeeds to catch up with him? Is there any escape, once vengeance tracks him down? What is the just punishment for rampant greed and selfishness? The answer just may leave him broken.
Excerpt:
As he moves into the studio, he senses something. Something amiss. Despite the darkness and the clutter, he knows this space. After spending untold hours here indulging his passion, its details are imprinted on his brain.
Even when he steps out of the light spilling from the bedroom, he can see enough. Ambient radiance shed by the street lights bleeds through the tall windows.
Bleeds.
He can smell blood.
A shiver travels down his spine, one that reaches right in and twists his bowels. No, surely not. He’s carried that from the dream.
On soundless feet, he pads forward. Weaves his way between the pieces of furniture that now seem marooned without purpose. The canvasses. The draped forms. Toward the tall mirror which should, as it always does, wink at him through its oval eye.
Mr. Bolton wants his daughter painted as if framed by that mirror, so Burton has left it out in the center of the room.
It does not wink at him now.
The smell of blood grows stronger as he crosses the floor toward the wooden chair, which sits in the center of an open space where he surely did not leave it.
Something is in the chair.
Something that should not be there.
His breath catches and then rattles in his throat. He doesn’t want to see.
He must see.
The overhead lights, as he knows, will illuminate the place to an almost unbearable degree. He does not want that.
There’s a lamp he uses for shadowing on the table to his left. He steps over and switches it on.
The light, soft as it is, makes him blink. At first he doesn’t comprehend what he is seeing. Because it shouldn’t be there. It can’t possibly be there. All in black. And red. A glitter of light where there should be none. An impossible juxtaposition of visuals.
He jerks his gaze up and encounters the cheval mirror. The frame of the mirror, he corrects himself, for the glass has been shattered and lies about the base in shards.
All but the largest of them, which is embedded in the breast of the woman in the chair.
About the Author:
Laura Strickland delights in time traveling to the past and searching out settings for her books, be they Historical Romance, Steampunk or something in between. Her lifelong interest in Celtic history, magic and music are all reflected in her writing.
*** Find all the stories here: https://linktr.ee/fridaythe13thstories
Author Alicia Dean 
Thanks so much for hosting me today! I had a blast writing this story.
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You are so welcome. I had a blast reading it. Really creepy and awesome story.
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No wonder your story is so spooky! Anyone who looks a bit saintly, yet a tad ominous, in a picture like a tintype photo slipped behind a dresser drawer longer than anyone can remember, well, could she write anything that wasn’t less than memorable?
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