Fugues + Fairy Tales
The long barbed tongue chanted its electric vocabulary-- 
shooting pulses of language through Audrey’s spine--
I put together an e-book collecting five of my short stories:

Moonboots and Monsters: Secrets of the Eyebringer • The House That Jack Built • Goodbye, She Said • The Loser • And Worms Do Not Destroy
You can buy my short story collection on my Patreon.
Read the first page of each story, and listen to four of these stories below.
Secrets of the Eyebringer
Moonboots and Monsters: Secrets of the Eyebringer
A pair of high school girls in 1985 are forced to fight together during an alien occupation as the American Midwest is transformed through Medieval regression into a world of brutal survival.
Audrey nocked an arrow and let it fly from her slippery grip. Samantha heaved her axe in a wide arc. Both women hit their separate marks.
One Slemmig fell forward at the knees. The other spun to the side and crumpled to the ground.
They were both dead.
Greg slipped and fell. He turned over and fired behind him. But the living Slemmig had shut their eyes, and it was too dark to see. Greg fired again. The blaster’s energy took apart distant trees. The kickback bruised Greg’s shoulder. The gun was not made for human hands. A rainbow of contusions arced down his arm.
“Gnnn,” he winced.
“Hurry!” cried Audrey, nearly at the cabin door.
Greg shuffled to rise, but the ice side-swiped his balance. He fell again.
A pair of eyes opened near him.
There was dark no more.
This short story is also available to read serialized on my Patreon.
The House That Jack Built
When newlyweds Jack and Liz move into their new house on a small island, a nearly-forgotten arson casts a fiery shadow over their marital bliss— and the strange creature haunting them.
This is the gardener, sowing his corn—
The knife slipped and Jack nicked his skin just beneath a knuckle.
“Sssnnn,” he winced, hissing at his finger, angry that it could know pain. He threw the knife against the wall.
The deep brown blood dripped like molasses.
There, in the choppy, wind-beat North Atlantic, just off center on an olive-sienna island, in the middle of an unassuming valley, in the center of a field of autumnal grass—
The house that Jack built.
Just a box, really, opened at the back for easy access. Three floors sized just right for the miniature grandfather clock, the minuscule hobbyhorse, and a handful of bureaus whose drawers would never open.
You can listen to this short story on my Patreon.
This individual short story is also available in an audio fiction bundle on my Patreon.
Goodbye, She Said
When ‘She’ loses her boyfriend and her sister on the same day, ‘She’ indulges in a newfound compulsion for horror. ‘He’ begins to investigate, believing the rumored monster cult is responsible for all their woes.
“Goodbye,” she said.
It wasn't the first time. It would be the last.
Her first goodbye had been playful, he recalled. A dismissal of that awkward pause that precedes every first kiss.
She hovered in front of him, poised. He lifted up to meet her, crooked— a caricature of an amorous position.
She smiled. He smiled. Their lips parted.
But they did not kiss.
She jerked her head away, giggling.
Their first date was in a graveyard.
He hoped they would be far enough away from the intrusion of the light-posts. Those manufactured suns, numerous and sallow, that buzzed like perturbed hornets. Their dim glow deprived God’s rapturous domain of its precious emptiness. He did not want the meteor shower robbed of its due glory.
You can listen to this short story on my Patreon.
This individual short story is also available in an audio fiction bundle on my Patreon.
The Loser
Jordan’s new best friend has a cruel surprise in store for her on their shared birthday, not suspecting the wicked scheme could lead to a paranormal disaster.
A land of shadow and fog. Blue shadow. Pink fog.
She crouched in the blue shadow and watched the pink fog.
She was hiding from dinosaurs.
Not true dinosaurs, mind you, but herky-jerky ones. Lumbering, tail-dragging. Always angry. Always hungry. Rubbery. Smelled funny. Eyes afire. Mouths agape.
She captured the oldest known bird, snatched it out of the air with her teeth, clutched it tightly in both hands as it squawked its last.
Archaeopteryx.
Not that she could pronounce it.
Arkeyopturtrucks.
But she liked the taste.
She huddled low under its airplane wings with its nosecone of a head dangling over her shoulder. She wore the nasty carcass as proof of her stalwart courage, even as she hid from the larger predators.
She squinted into the fog. Its fluff rolled near.
You can listen to this short story on my Patreon.
This Individual short story is also available in an audio fiction bundle on my Patreon.
And Worms Do Not Destroy
Somewhere and somewhen on the perilous island of Naosaleyn, a mythic odyssey challenges a pair of barbarian brothers as they set off on an arduous pilgrimage to beseech The Blessed Immortal King​​.
He could hear the waterfall in full power.
Hear, but could not see.
He could imagine the house with imposing walls, just as he had built it— tall, and set apart from the forest.
Imagine, but could not see.
He could recall, with some effort, the thick slate walkway properly aligned to glorify the benevolent Sefirot.
Recall, but could not see.
Now the walkway no longer connected his home to the King’s Road, for time had administered its relentless beatings, and the liver-brown slates had all but vanished. The road itself diminished this far south, becoming an irregular deer trail, now only used for rutting.
And his house had toppled.
The once fine building— raised with his very hands— was now only piles of stone and splinters of wood. Rubble gathered upon a small hill of earth. Atop that hill grew a gnarled tree.
This individual short story is also available in an audio fiction bundle on my Patreon.