The Grotto

Matt was beginning to feel rather nauseous, while everything outside sped past in a blur. He turned his head and looked back down the road. With the car on the verge of taking flight, and Caroline happily behind the wheel, it was a good time to start praying, he thought. Due to her current love affair with K-Pop, she had the volume cranked up on the stereo, blasting boyband music through the speakers. It almost made him wish he had stayed home. But he was captive as her passenger, and nothing was going to change the fact. He only hoped it would make the trip faster. Suddenly, she tapped the brakes to slow down, and ended up jerking the wheel a bit, before abruptly righting it again. "Oh, no, I think I missed the turn," she said and looked around, checking out through the windows. "This isn't the road we’re supposed to be on. I think we were supposed to turn back there." Matt looked out across the field on his side, and, by the rows of large hay bales at the back...

The Mortuary Assistant Phil double checked the orders for the body and it was due to be incinerated. He pulled the sheet back and looked at the man, and, by his moderately youthful appearance, suspected it had been a widowmaker. "Well, Jim," he said, as if to an old friend, "though it’s a shame we had to meet like this, it looks like this is where we say 'goodbye.'" Wheeling the gurney down the hall and through the doors, he then parked it before the furnace. When he whisked off the sheet in one quick motion. "Hope you don't mind, but this is by request. Don't worry, it's as good an end as any." With a grunt, he slid the heavy iron door open and pulled out the tray for the body. But when he went to grab the corpse, its hand reached over and took hold of him. He jumped, but the man on the table was alive, glaring up at him with a frightened look! "Jesus!" he blurted out. "You're still alive!?" The man could only s...

The Garden ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ - John Keats, from the opening line of ‘Endymion.’ Heather adored her garden. Now that spring was here, it was her only wish to watch it grow and see it thrive, the flowers bloom. With time, it would become a place of beauty, where she just might pass the time, serenely. Since her husband had passed, it was the only thing she had left that seemed the same. Just like other years the sole upkeep fell to her, and although Phil was gone, it was still there for her to tend and it gave her a sense of normalcy, despite these new hardships. Today, she would be planting the rosebushes. Kneeling down upon the soft dirt, she grabbed her hand shovel to dig a hole for a sapling. She struck into the dirt with the shovel tip, when she hit something in the ground that jarred her wrist and sent a jolt coursing up her arm. Pausing to rub the kink out of her wrist, she shook her head as she peered in the hole. She could see the top portion of an object and...

The pain Dave felt was almost unspeakable. He sat there in the waiting room, the nail still in his foot. It had gone through his boot and foot both. And that is how he had left it. It was lodged in there good, he'd give it that. When he had tried to pry it loose, it only took the first tug before he’d given up, the shock of pain too much for him to handle. The slightest movement and the nail would tweak, and, each time it did, it caused him to wince, curl up his toes and grit his teeth and groan. And not only was he dealing with the pain, but his sock was thoroughly soaked with blood, making him feel that much more miserable. "Sir," the receptionist spoke from the window, "I'm so sorry you had to wait so long. They're getting you a wheelchair, as we speak." "It's okay," Dave replied, with a pained smile, "It’s really not that bad. I’ve been through worse." He lied. It was nearly unbearable. In fact, at times, he wanted to holler. ...

The legend he had heard so long ago came rushing back to mind, as he recalled an event he had thought of over the years. It foretold this specific day in time, it seemed, so he turned to his crystal ball. The mage reached out his hands and waved them over the scrying orb. If the old prophecies were true, tonight would be the end of days, and, with the precious implement, he was able to view the length of the whole heavens while he ran his hands in mystic passes and manipulated it with his gestures. Mist swirled around inside the crystal ball, before a sight he recognized appeared that showed the universe sprawled before him, and he began searching for familiar stars to find a pathway back to his home planet. At last, the glowing, blue-green orb of Thule came into view and he went stock-still as he peered at the image. Just now, passing the moon, there was an entity of sorts, or giant asteroid, in its approach, on a course to collide into the planet. Though doom was imminent, he saw no ...

 Here's my new book, the entirety of which is found below.