Silent Spaces

A selection of speculative short stories on life, death, and change. 

1. Dig - A conversation between a gravedigger and a strange visitor to the cemetery. (April 30, 2019)

2. Wildmoore - An intellectual physician confronts memories of the past when he attempts to cure a young heiress who has come down with a mysterious illness. (May 31, 2019)

3. Letters - After the death of her mother, Eliza discovers more than junk when cleaning out the attic. (June 30, 2019)

4. Small Magic - Bee's grandmother feels a change in the wind. Soon, Bee does, too. (August 31, 2019)

The Typist

In the vein of classics from Lovecraft and Poe comes the horror tale of Henry Pickman. A disillusioned newspaper editor down on his luck, Pickman's fate takes terrifying twist when he finds an antique typewriter with a dark secret and the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to fade.

The Last Minuters

When recent divorcee Margaret Ayinger decides to end her life, she wants to go out in style.  For those who have done their homework and for whom money is no object there is only one place for that: The Precipice Hotel.  Like a hospice for the terminally eccentric, it has stood for over a hundred years in a region plagued by yearly forest fires.  Upon arrival, Margaret finds the old place nothing like what was advertised. 

Oh sure, the staff are friendly.  And the food?  Positively four star!  Something about it though just doesn't sit well with her.  For instance, the people who randomly swan dive from their balconies late at night, the impossible thing living in her bedroom, and the automatons in black body stockings roaming the halls.  Oh, and the purple monster named Fred who lives in the gorge.  

Lot 149

“It’s just a light flickering, must be faulty wiring or something – isn’t it?”

Lot 149 is a paranormal story about Keira, a recently divorced woman who purchases a decaying old farmhouse with a truly spectacular history. Country living, a tidy divorce settlement and a job promotion that allowed telecommuting – this farmhouse would be a fresh start for both Keira and her son Tad, a break they so badly needed.

"Sure it needs work -- but don't we all?"

Leaving a big city job behind, Kiera embraces country living and is intent on raising pasture-fed pork and free-range chickens and the latest developments in organic farming; however, she soon realizes how much work is involved in restoring the farmhouse. To help with repairs, she calls in Frank, a local handyman and pest control guy.

“It’s a house with a history, that’s all. Plays tricks with your mind. Most old houses are like that.”

As Keira and Frank work on the house, several unnerving things begin to happen, and the secrets of the house begin to revel themselves. One of the locals, Joe Adams, fills Keira in on the previous owners:

They had two boys, long time ago, one of them had fits or somethin’.

Ain’t nobody seen that boy for decades. Most of us though they put him away –

He had a thing for cattle – bit of a freak, strange things always happened when he was around.

Ol’ Johnston down the way said he did in his whole herd, but nobody could prove nothing. And then there was the Smith child –

Now, decades later, Keira is the owner in full possession of the old farmhouse on Lot 149.

To check out this novel, please go to https://www.amazon.com/author/lizmcadams

Madness Intact

A young woman undergoes various physical and emotional changes as she clings desperately to her insanity, all the while watching the relationships around her crumble and fall. As time carries on, new truths are revealed and old secrets emerge with the arrival of the nefarious "they". Watch and witness a verifiable plunge into the depths of madness and mania. 

Red Sky: Rising

Winner of Ilbn's "Best New Science Fiction Author"  

Hayden Flynn is no hero. In fact, he's on the run from monsters. Not the kind that go bump in the night, but the kind that eat away at your soul. He's crossed countless miles and decades trying to escape them; however, when a legendary evil is reborn in the body of a powerful child, Hayden becomes trapped in a hunt where survival is no guarantee. 

Now, the salvation of our deeply divided world rests on the weary shoulders of one vampire and the curiously quiet girl, Quinn Merrin, who crosses his path. Is it destiny or divine intervention that brought them together? Either way, they'll stop at nothing to find the new Prince of Darkness―even if it means leaving a path of bodies and blood in their wake. Because, after all, what price is too high for salvation?

Ben Archer burst on the scene by deftly ignoring the traditional boundaries found in the publishing world. In this genre bending mash-up of science fiction, horror, and comedy, he's created a world that can only be defined as "delightfully unique." It will spin you around, leave you swooning, then steal your wallet while you're not looking.

Stolen Moments

A series of short stories composed over the years, ranging from horror, to character studies, speculative fiction and a lot in between. ;-)

The Phantoms of Lillicrap Manor

The hotheaded Hal Baker, middle-aged physics professor and skeptical Bostonian, arrives in England for a guest-lecturing stint at the University of York. This is a temporary gig maneuvered by his daughter to keep him out of her hair as she plans a wedding of which he disapproves. He stays at the ancestral home of his noble British forbears, Lillicrap Manor, which has a name analogous to both the rundown condition of the estate and to the generations of familial dysfunction that has plagued his extended family on both continents. Hal enters into a close, albeit unlikely, friendship with the manor’s only domestic, Christopher, who is the epitome of British protocol and decorum. Together they embark upon a whimsical scheme of strategic ploy mystically mirrored by an alternate scheme having occurred almost a full century beforehand, this one involving Hal’s maternal ancestor, Elizabeth, and her maid.

Love me a myth!

This is a series about myths and the creatures and beast that populate them. Yet, human imagination is vast and tireless, and despite my best efforts, cataloguing every single creature that human kind has imagined throughout the centuries is an unachievable—not to mention very intimidating—goal. Nonetheless, I searched and researched the peculiarities and identities of as many mythical creatures as possible, particularly those that are most cryptic and which nature is less known and I'll introduce them to you. All their biographical data and peculiarities but not without adding a tiny touch of my own, as each week each mythical being will be introduce with a short story, mostly of the flash type, of my own creation.

Enjoy!

Into the Shadows

These are stories from those who live in the shadows. We've all played in the shadows, balancing our loyalty between the darkness and the light. Some finally choose a side, while others remain torn between the two, constantly wandering through life, in search of solace. 

Mouths of the Dark

Eric Neal's life changes on the night he sees the eyes glowing in the depths of his backyard. He becomes obsessed with what is watching him from the shadows, and his world begins to decay around him...

All we have left is Eric's journal. It is a chronicle of a young man's descent into a consuming darkness...

Warning: this series contains adult content.

The Mouths of the Dark series is complete. Watch for more stories set in the same world of shadows and light!

The Moon is Crying

What monsters lurk in your mind? Why does The Hollow One wait? Who made the stars dance?

The Moon is Crying is a collection of contemplative microfiction with a touch of magic. Stories are bite-sized (under 1,000 words) and aim to explore the depths of human nature. Elements of fantasy and horror may be included.

The Moon is Crying is a Channillo for Charity series.

Dark World

In 2078, sixteen-year-old Ruby R-1046 is introduced to her future mate, Connor C-2246. Over half a century after an alien invasion pilaged our oceans and messed up Earth's natural orbit, what is left of humanity has survived by living in a large underground fall-out shelter that began construction after satellites first picked up alien transmissions in 2016. The complex is governed by strict, almost sadistic laws such as once you reach age sixty, you are “put to sleep” because you are too old to be of use, and your life-mate is chosen for you via a genetic assessment for optimum breeding. No one is allowed near the surface and people are told the only living things above them in the wastelands that used to be our continents are cannibalistic monsters.

Ruby is ordered to marry Connor on her eighteenth birthday, but her heart wants someone else. She is in love with one of her best friends, Reese. On Ruby's sixteenth Birthday, Reese takes Ruby to a forbidden, sealed off passageway and introduces her to Silver, a strange and unkept young girl who has no ID chip and seems to know nothing about the complex. She tells them she is from Earth’s surface. As Ruby and Reese attempt to find out the truth about this unique stranger they slowly begin to uncover a sinister entanglement of lies, genocide and the governments willingness to destroy an entire planet in an attempt to control and “genetically improve” a whole new wave of humanity.

“Dark World” is formatted as a series of novellas, each one focusing on a particular event in the story as each event piles on top of the other to unravel the dystopian tyranny the government has managed to create underground. Although the plot itself is action-packed and designed to keep the readers on the edge of their seats, its the characters themselves that fuel the story with their passion, sense of adventure, love and dedication to one another. The main protagonist, Ruby, is the sixteen year old girl that almost every woman has been at some point. She enters this life-defining story at a pivotal place in her adolescence as she strives to make the leap from childhood to adulthood while caught in the middle of a world of lies that begins to crumble around her. As her beliefs are challenged and tested by these extraordinary events, she responds by clinging naively to love while also digging deep within herself to find her own personal signature of autonomy and bravery, a unique and solidified identity that we all search for as we face impending adulthood.

Cabin 18

Delia Osmond embarks on a solo venture, deep into the Olympic National Forest, in a state known for its serial killers and local hauntings. As she settles into her home for the next few days, Delia discovers she is not alone. Between the sounds of the ocean and those of her uninvited companions, she treads the impossible line between survival and sanity. Follow Delia's journey as she finds relief from the treacherous drive to an eerily beautiful cabin in the middle of nowhere, only to find herself battling demons she never expected to face.