Crazy Boy (Dream'verse)
This month's free story is another short from the Dream'verse, featuring Donte and Selene. Both have turned up before, but they get to be the main characters in my next novel, Captain's Boy. Coming out April 1st, Captain's Boy takes place about two years before the events of Knight Errant. There's a handy chronology post over here on kdsarge.com.
***
Selene tapped her fingernails on the table. She had given it plenty of time, so she would not be late--and everything had worked together so she would be very early. Now she had half an hour until her appointment. Mierda, why did it never work that way when she was late? She took out her book-pad, opened it and closed it again. The battery was dead. Viejo piece of mierda, she needed a new one.
She looked around at the coffeehouse, at college kids in their expensive casual clothes talking and laughing and eating and drinking. A few were studying, but not many. After all, the semester had just begun.
How would they do without Mama and Papa paying the bills?
To the Waters and the Wild
To The Waters and the Wild
by Kit Campbell
On some level, she was aware of how cliché it all was – the family and friends all dressed in black, the solemn preacher saying the same thing he always did, pretending it applied to the deceased more than it had the last hundred souls. And the rain – a true downpour, clacking on somber umbrellas and mixing with tears.
It clattered on the lid of the coffin, a dull, hollow noise. Fitting, as it was empty, all for show. There was no body.
Water had taken her brother, and now water welcomed him home.
Mirror
MIRROR
a horror short story by Erin Zarro
“It's a brand new surgery. We think you might be a good candidate,” Dr. Rosamann said. He sounded hopeful, and just a bit nervous.
I swallowed, my heart chasing its own tail, if it had one. “But my eyes are fine. It's my optic nerves that are messed up.”
“Actually,” Dr. Heinder, a woman, said, her voice lifting slightly, “We can fix that, give you new ones.”
“What?” The darkness swirled around me; my version of dizziness. “But that's impossible. You can't get optic nerves. At least not legally.”
Organs used for transplants were strictly regulated, and optic nerves were not deemed as important as others. In fact, it was a routine thing for the people manning the centers to leave them intact. Who, besides little 'ole me, got the rarest virus in the world? The virus had destroyed most of my optic nerves, leaving me in permanent darkness.
The Dangers of Creation; or, A Machine to Rival Man
A free short story
by
Siri Paulson
It is a sad and peculiar tale that I set to paper today, in this year of Our Lord 18--. In this modern age of science and industry, such events as I am about to relate could not have occurred. But pray cast your mind back to an earlier time, when Her Majesty was just beginning her reign and all the realms of possibility seemed open to us.
I was a young man then, a student of music at an ancient and esteemed university that you would know if I said its name, eager for knowledge and mastery of my art, and I chose as my companions those who had a similar thirst. One of them was a Mr. L---, a peculiar gentleman who was fixated on the philosophy of music with a fervour that even I could barely match. Still, he was a pleasant enough conversationalist, and when he invited me to take dinner at his home, I accepted readily with thoughts of passing the evening in stimulating discourse.
The directions he gave led me out of the university town proper and into the countryside, a charming walk. When I reached the gates he had described and passed into a dark tangled wood, I felt some hesitation. However, he had mentioned wanting to show me a most curious instrument he kept at home, and this prospect drew me onward.
Upon emerging from the wood, I beheld a grey house in a state of most magnificent ruination, many of the upper windows broken, untrimmed ivy covering the whole. From the decayed upper storey issued a wild noise that could hardly be called music. Assuming I had taken a wrong turn, I was turning away when the front door opened and a slim young servant girl emerged.
"You must be Mr. Waterton," she said, descending the steps to drop me a curtsey, her eyes lowered. "He is expecting you. Please come in."
I followed her inside, quite unsure of what to expect. To my relief, the manor was clean and neat, though the furniture was several decades out of date.
"There you are!" cried Mr. L--- over the upstairs railing. "Do come upstairs, I simply must show you—"
"Dinner is served, Master," said his servant gently. "If you would come this way, Mr. Waterton..."
