Margery Phelps
Mar 24, 2016 | Paranormal, 1st pages
CHAPTER ONE
“We shall be changed”
-1 Corinthians 15:51
“No, Philip! No, Baby. Please don’t cry.”
Emma’s nightmare jerked her out of a sound sleep. Beads of sweat dripped off her forehead, her blue silk nightgown undulating with the vigorous beat of her heart.
“No, Baby, please don’t cry,” she called out, the troubling dream of her economics teacher, the handsome Philip Byrd, flashing through her mind again.
Mr. Byrd was kneeling in a muddy field; it was night; a looming shadow hung over him. He looked at his hands and cried.
Emma’s body heaved in great sobs but she stifled the troubling emotion so as not to disturb the slumbering hulk next to her. Lying back on the pillow, she rolled over to look at the clock.
“Two-thirty. God, two-thirty. Please let me get some sleep. I’m so tired.”
Jim let out a long, rumbling snore and Emma poked him gently with a finger. He mumbled in his sleep and turned over, oblivious to his wife’s distress.
Emma tossed and turned until five a.m. when she was finally rescued by sleep. She had thirty minutes of blessed peace before the alarm clock rudely awakened her. Reluctantly opening her eyes, she stretched and yawned.
“Come on, Honey. Time to rise and shine!”
The tall redhead was usually cheerful. This morning her pleasantries felt and sounded contrived. Emma was morose about dropping Mr. Byrd’s economics class but she assumed it was her only way out of the troubling nightmares about her teacher.
“Jim’s business is a mess; I’ll have to work all weekend to get ready for taxes. The last thing I need is nightmares about a teacher.”
Emma rose slowly from the king-size brass bed and shuffled toward the spacious bathroom she shared with her husband of twenty-two years. Jim was already dressed and passed her in the alcove between the closet and dressing room.
“Breakfast in thirty minutes, Baby,” he said, patting her on the fanny. Jim’s fat feet fell silently on plush carpet as he ambled through the bedroom and went downstairs to cook their morning meal.
Alone in their suite, Emma searched her mind for answers to puzzling questions about the teacher while brushing her teeth and washing her face. Staring into the mirror, she talked to the brown-eyed, fair skinned forty-two year old woman who gazed back at her.
“I’ve never had such feelings.”
A shiver ran down her spine.
Monette Bebow-Reinhard
Mar 23, 2016 | Paranormal, 1st pages
Chapter One:
Greece during Ottoman Rule, 1503:
An unmarked grave stirred, as unmarked graves were rumored to do when not properly weighted with stone. This grave had been hurriedly and callously dug. As clouds swept the moon in overhead and a woman’s pleas to fight this evil drifted away, hands burst up through the ground, seeking freedom and vengeance for murder.
Three Bashi-bazouk soldiers, with hands dirtied from killings and a grave-digging, returned their friend Calab’s body to the encampment for disposal. They weren’t ready to sleep for the night, so they wandered to the shore where the sea sat lightly rippling to break the silence, the moon a sliver in the distance. The mellow fragrance of the night air swept around them in the wind.
“Such a lovely whore,” murmured Beck as he stopped to watch the sea’s ripples in the moonlight.
Toros nodded, feeling a similar stir in his loins. “I wonder what Dimitri did with her body. Do you suppose she still lived and Dimitri found her ripe for his thrust?”
“No matter, alive or dead, as long as she was limp. Most women act as though dead.” Beck swallowed hard at a sudden wet thickness in his throat.
“Oh-ho, for you maybe, for me they come alive!” Toros laughed with a thrust of his hip.
Beular paid no attention to their foreplay. “The foreboding has not left me.”
“Enough of your whining!” Beck punched Beular to the ground. “Call yourself Bashi-bazouk? Not by any proud reckoning of the word! We are fearless! We do not whine as women.”
Beular landed on his stomach in shocked surprise and sputtered with the dirt in his mouth before turning back, hands up in submission. “It is not womanly to fear a gypsy’s curse. What protection have we against air breathed with evil?”
“That was no curse.”
“She was a gypsy!” Beular stood and wiped off. “That means—.”
“That meant nothing.” Beck walked across the rocks to the water’s edge.
“One gypsy’s curse made one gypsy die. Now her sex, that meant something.” He walked into the sea and splashed some cool water over his sweat. “Such a body that one had! Walk on, both of you. We were promised a romp and were robbed by her unwillingness. I must quench this lingering desire.” He tossed his weapons to the shore and walked deeper into the water. “Unless one of you volunteers to service me.”
Toros laughed. “Oh no, you have never appealed to me. Come, Beular, let him have his fill of himself.”
They walked on, laughing.
Alone, Beck submerged himself in the warm water and his thoughts heated his groin with pleasure, stimulated by memories of two lovers with blood mingling as they pressed their lips together. Someone was sure to write a ballad about this day and make him the hero. Heroes are well cared for, with women to feed their every desire.
Once satisfied, he swam out into deeper water, on his back first and then with easy strokes on his front. He often boasted that he learned to swim with the dolphins. No one knew that his father, in disgust over the boy’s perversions, threw him overboard to kill him. But Beck refused to die.
He ignored the winged movement over him, still tingling with the ripe loosening of desire. But then it returned, a shadow too big for even an albatross. So, with caution as his natural state, Beck swam back to shore and crawled onto the rocks toward his saber.
AUTHOR NOTES: It sounds cliched, but Arabus was born in a dream, an erotic dream and I became obsessed with him. I wouldn't call his novels erotica but he is sensual and there are sex scenes. Instead he is imbued with conflict, the kind that can be found in all mortals, and he demonstrates how this continues in a much more powerful way, with his expanded consciousness and demons controlling his abnormal abilities and thirst. I don't know why – or maybe I do. The inability to die fascinates me. What better way to explore life and death through history than with someone who never dies. Creating Arabus subconsciously encouraged me to begin the conscious dive into various time periods, leading to my eventual master's in history.
Nicholas Paschall
Mar 21, 2016 | Paranormal, 1st pages
“I don’t see why I have to stay here Mom, I really don’t!” David O’Leary sulked behind his mother as they walked up the path to the overgrown yard. Jane looked back at her eighteen-year-old son and frowned, stopping to smooth out his wild hair. David wiggled, trying to get his mother to stop.
“You listen here! This is only for a few days while I visit your father.” Jane said, frowning as she continued to try and pet down her son’s hair. “Should have brought a hairbrush… I can’t leave you with your Grandmother like this!”
“My hairs fine Mom, geez… why can’t I just come with you? I wanna see Dad too y’know!” David said, looking off towards the forested area flanking the old house in front of him.
“I’ve already explained this to you, your father is working at a government installation, and he can only have one guest. And after the party you threw when I left you at home, there’s no way we’re taking that chance again. Your Grandmother is a really nice woman, and she would love to spend some time with you.”
Andrea Waltz
Mar 17, 2016 | Paranormal, 1st pages
From the Journal of Onyx Webb
I want to be alive again, feel wind blow through my hair. Take a deep, glorious breath, have my lungs fill up with air. I even want to feel the pain as thorns draw drops of blood. Run outside in a pouring rain, dance barefoot in the mud.
What good is hearing music when you cannot sense the beat? What purpose does passion serve for a soul that feels no heat? Why pray for more tomorrows when your present is such hell? Why hope to one day fall in love if you have no heart to swell?
There was a time when I believed that I would do it all— Climb the Eiffel Tower; walk China’s long Great Wall. Dance on my wedding night, in the arms of the perfect man, But life did not turn out that way, for fate had other plans.
What good is one more day on Earth? I ask myself again. I know that I was happy once, yet cannot remember when. Why continue on this way, doing nothing but survive? Why stay among the living, simply dying to be alive?
Crimson Cove, Oregon March, 2010
Samantha Scantlebury
Mar 17, 2016 | Paranormal, 1st pages
CLAUDIA RACED TO the bus stop after school, to avoid sharing her journey with those unmanly kids from the neighbouring school, who always misbehaved and spoke about their personal business in front of all the passengers.
It was a bright afternoon and the last of the English summer was quickly coming to an end. Claudia had just celebrated her 13th birthday and although a new school term had begun, she was still in holiday mode.
Claudia made her way upstairs and sat at the back of the double decker bus. While she rummaged through her school bag to fi nd her chewing gum, a strange thing happened to her.
Claudia heard a softly spoken voice, which said, “You are going to find it hard to meet a boyfriend in the future.” But actually, it was more like a premonition that she got.
Claudia quickly jumped out of her thoughts and for a moment, she wondered why she would get this message at all. A relationship was the last thing on her mind, not to mention the fact that her parents would hit the roof if they knew she had a boyfriend at her young age.
The bus soon arrived at Claudia’s stop, she jumped off and walked the short distance home. After letting herself in, she made her way to the dining area, where she saw her mother and Miss Gloria watching a black and white movie.
Her mother was peeling the vegetables for dinner and Miss Gloria was helping her. “You’re home already?” Claudia’s mother, Maureen asked.
“Yes mum, I got the early bus. Hello Miss Gloria.” Miss Gloria didn’t reply, she just smiled at Claudia.
“Miss Gloria, as I was saying, when I was in labour with Claudia, the doctors realised that she was a breech baby, so her feet were down instead of her head.” Maureen explained. “The doctors turned her 3 times and each time she turned herself back the other way.” Claudia’s mother said proudly.
Claudia sighed, she had heard this same story time and time again and it defi nitely wasn’t the first time Miss Gloria was hearing it either. “She was so determined to be born feet fi rst,” Claudia’s mother continued, “So eventually the doctors gave up and let her have her way.”
“Seems like you gave your mother a lot of trouble.” Miss Gloria said to Claudia, as she patted her on the head.
Claudia responded with a fake smile. Miss Gloria was not Claudia’s favourite person. There was something about her mothers’ friend that Claudia didn’t like, but she couldn’t quite put her fi nger on it. Anyway, Claudia tried to be polite and pretend to smile whenever Miss Gloria graced them with her presence.
“You know, Claudia’s Godmother, who herself was born feet first, told me that it’s supposed to be harder for curses to harm you if you are born in this way.” Claudia’s mother revealed.
“Really?” Miss Gloria’s eyebrows rose.
Claudia left the pair laughing and joking, she couldn’t bear to hear anymore. She didn’t believe in curses and much of the things her mother had told her, she put it down to old wives tales. In Claudia’s opinion, such stories should be prohibited in these modern days.
The weekend quickly arrived and Claudia was home alone on a rainy Saturday afternoon. She decided to switch on the video recorder to watch a movie. But, before that, she went to arm herself with enough snacks to serve her throughout the film.
As she headed towards the kitchen, she noticed a small shadow on the wall in the hallway. Claudia immediately stopped, then the shadow began to move slowly along the wall. Claudia continued to watch this shadow travel down the hallway and enter her parent’s bedroom.
Tiffany FitzHenry
Mar 14, 2016 | 1st pages, Fantasy, Featured, Paranormal
Chapter 1
I was nine when my grandfather said to me, “Eve, if you’ve worked the question and come to your answer, the only way to be sure you’re correct is if the answer leads to at least two more questions.” One day soon, he said, I would start to search for questions more than answers. That “people like me” always did. It was at that moment when I realized I wanted my grandfather to live forever. Looking back, it was at this precise moment that I believe he began to die.
Now, eight years later, we’re both in heaven; only it looks a lot like Rugby, North Dakota, 58268. Total land area, a magnificent one point nine square miles. Elevation, a wonderful one thousand, five hundred, and forty-nine feet above sea level. Population, two thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-six small-town souls, plus the future resident thriving inside the pregnant woman I see from time to time at Higgins Market. I can tell by the way she tilts her head and smiles with her eyes across the produce that she’s curious, and a little worried frankly, to see such a young girl seems to do the household shopping; best guess she thinks I’m about twelve.
My seventeen-year-old body is stubbornly slight. My flat chest and sharp hipbones ruthless evidence of a currently square shape. Only as developed as it absolutely must be for today and not an ounce more. I try not to let it bother me.
