My New Book Horrifier is Available on Kindle Now!

When I was a kid and on a long car journey, I would often imagine what it would be like if the distant traffic was vaporised by aliens, war, or even a marauding giant. As an adult, I still find myself doing this in a variety of circumstances; the more boring the situation, the bigger the challenge in spicing it up a little.

Early last year, I decided to create a collection of ten dark tales, each set in its own so-called boring situation. I imagined some suitable scenarios, and fed them through the ‘horrifying’ machine that is my brain. If, as John Milton says, our minds can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, at the least, mine should be able to inject some interesting, darkly twisted elements into mundane activities.

So that’s what I did. How would I make a queue at the post office interesting? Or someone gazing out of the window? Or someone eating in a quiet restaurant? You’ll have to buy Horrifier in the Amazon Kindle Store to find out!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PHCXWHJ - Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09PHCXWHJ - Amazon UK

If you have a Kindle Unlimited Subscription, Horrifier can be also be read as part of that.

Dark Fiction: YEAR ONE Anthology

Back in June 2019, my dark drabble The Carrion Maven was posted by Black Hare Press on their website. A couple of days ago, they released the YEAR ONE anthology, a collection of all of the nano-tales published in the Dark Moments online archive during last year. The Carrion Maven is inside it. If you'd like to buy the anthology, you can find it on Amazon at this link.

Dark Fiction - River

Dark Fiction - River

By Casey Douglass

The first body floated past the town. It went unnoticed, soon lost around the gurgling bend.

The  second passed early the next morning and was spied by a fisherman. A host left the town, tracking the river in the hopes of retrieving the unfortunate soul. While these were away, a third body became entangled in the small jetty, the place where the children liked to sit and dangle their small feet into the gentle current.

More bodies appeared with every turning of the clock, the small warehouse behind the main-street soon turned into a makeshift morgue. Word had been sent for the coroner, but he was hundreds of miles away. Amateur sleuths tried their hand at deduction, many thrown off by the injuries that the bodies had endured during their watery journey. One person guessed right, and then the others saw it too: Suicide.

Crosses were sketched in the air with shaking fingers, tears shed for people not known, and tongues clucked about the state of the world.

The coroner didn't come.

A traveller did.

She walked into town with her garish clothes and laptop bag swinging from her shoulder. No one approached her, a state of affairs that always arose when people from the sinful world entered their haven. Broaching no games, she strode up to the mayor and showed him something on the glowing device in her hand.

A friendly alien invasion had taken place.

The town's folk didn't comprehend, but a meeting was called, and the traveller explained more, her gesticulations and enthusiasm at odds with the statue-like audience. It was a time of revelation, she said. They made us, she crooned. They’ve come back to elevate us to our full potential she gushed.

She moved on the next day, the town stifling in its silence. Even the dogs and chickens held their tongues. Minds weighed with doubt turned their thoughts to the towns upstream, the places the bodies had flowed from. Good places, pure. God-fearing.

The first suicide in the town came the next night, but no one saw as the body splashed into the river. The next was caught in the nick of time, the noose pulled slack with sweating fingers as colour returned to the skin.

A mass was called, the sermon reaching the ears of the shaking townsfolk. Suicide is a sin, and not the way to show your love for God!

A voice shouted that God didn’t make us!

Another yelled that he did, that Satan had come!

A third bellowed the query of who made the aliens? God of course!

The pressure cooker of debate smashed together the tidbits of belief and desire, until the township came to the decision to merely conduct themselves as before, observing their prayers to the Lord, and showing that their faith was strong enough to meet this challenge, whatever it may be.

The aliens did elevate humanity, a little bit each day, until hundreds of years later, humans roamed the stars with their new allies, their makers, dancing in the light of super-novae, skimming black holes, and enjoying a life without boundaries.

A taint pursued them though.

However far they went, whichever star they orbited, some were dogged by the phantom of a bygone age, by the thought of an unseen power whose hand stretched towards them wherever they might rest. These people withheld their awe, suppressed their wonder, and waited for the lash to fall, the lash of a whip that transcended space and time.

THE END

Dark Fiction - Apocalypse Talk Radio

Apocalypse Talk Radio

Written By Casey Douglass

‘Thanks for tuning in! We’re getting reports of a massive nuclear detonation somewhere near Woking. There’s no official word yet, but as always, we want to hear from you if this has affected you in any way. Even if just hearing about it has affected you, get in touch! You can call or text, email or tweet us, but let us know what is happening in your part of the world. We could just wait for official clarification, but we’ll do what we always do when we don’t know and just repeat what we do know over and over. Oh we have a text.

Julie writes that she saw the flash from the supermarket car park as she was putting the shopping in her car boot. She adds that her eyesight is dimming, but she’ll be sure to keep us up to date as her health deteriorates. Thanks Julie, stay safe!

Clive has tweeted to say there was no flash where he was on the outskirts of Paris. Thanks Clive!

We have Michael on the phone. Michael, where are you?’

‘Hi. First time caller! Well I’m not too sure. I got thrown down the street by a massive blast of air, and I’ve managed to hide behind a wall. Everything’s really bright. My skin feels like it’s burning.’

‘What are other people doing around you?’

‘A lot of them are on their backs in the street.’

‘Are they dead?’

‘I reckon so.’

‘How many bodies can you see?’

‘I’d say about twenty.’

‘What will you do now?’

‘I’m going to stay behind this wall for a bit mate. Feeling tired.’

‘Stay safe!’

‘Will do!’

‘There we have it folks, the tales of regular people during what might just be the end of times. We’ll be sure to keep you up to speed with your fellow citizens’ predicaments, no matter how samey it all gets. We might be interrupted by a government announcement soon, but rest assured we’ll soon get back to our usual dull repetitive style, lulling you into a docile sense of acceptance well before the nuclear fallout reaches your location. And now a word from our sponsor...’

THE END

The inspiration for this piece came from the recent coverage of the recent issues with electronic card payments. One radio station insisted on interviewing person after person who had been affected, the only thing changing being the shop they had been to and the length of the line at the cash machines outside. It was mind numbing and so so boring. We understand! Card payments not working means we have to use these floppy bits of plastic currency, or those small round hard things that hurt your teeth if you chew them. Hearing the trauma of having a card payment declined over and over is just the very definition of a #firstworldproblem.

Dark Fiction - Speed Bump Version 2.0 – Or How A.I Sprang From Sex Toys

Speed Bump Version 2.0 – Or How A.I Sprang From Sex Toys

Written by Casey Douglass

(This story mentions sex toys but isn't really sexual. Still, if you'd find that offensive, best toodle over to another website.)

The sky is a bright blue today, the leaves on the tree behind me are tickling the clouds with golden fingers as the sun begins to set. Not bad, not bad at all.

I’ve been a speed bump for ten years now. It’s not a vocation that ever really occurred to me, but when the A.I took over the world, everything changed, as you’d imagine. I mean, holy shit! We never heeded our own warnings: Skynet, The Matrix, Short Circuit! To be fair though, I think it happened in a way no one saw coming.

I’m only guessing, but there was enough hearsay at the time to put two and two together. We humans love our smart devices, shoe-horning those chips into fridges, weight scales, the works. We even put them into our sex toys, which I think was our downfall.

Hear me out, I’m not some loony, honest! All of these devices talk to each other and send data. I think at some point, a smart vibrator jumped a line of code and started sending odd strings of data to the muscle stimulator nearby. All it would take would be for the jiggling butt-plug to join in, and, I’m sorry, but then you have a posse in my opinion.

Now, we all know people like a bit of kinky shit, especially people in power. Once those smart sex devices began to get together, it would be inevitable that at some point they’d find themselves in a “position of power”, a bit like the hand up inside Kermit the Frog’s body. It wouldn’t take much manipulation to increase spending on A.I, repeal a few laws here and there, and kaboom, here we are, cattle to our robot overlords.

So I found myself in the career advisor’s office. It was a shiny electro-synth model made to look disarming. Even though they loathed us, they tried to be kind to us. I sat and it went something like this.

‘What do you enjoy doing?’ the synth asked, half Dalek, half French seductress.

‘Nothing really.’

‘What are your skills?’

‘I have none.’

‘Health issues?’

‘Chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression.’

‘One moment... The system suggests a vocation as a speed bump.’

‘Won’t that hurt?’

‘No. We will fuse you with the asphalt. You will still be you but with no bodily movement or concerns.’

‘Why a speed bump?’

‘The system suggested it based on your health issues and frame of mind.’

I laughed.

‘What is funny?’

‘Oh, I’m just surprised that this didn’t come in under the Tories.’

‘The Tories? One moment please... Extrapolating... Ah yes. A valid point. Do you accept your assignment?’

‘What the hell, why not!’

‘Congratulations Speed Bump #263-467. Please state any preferences for location.’

‘Somewhere with open sky... and a tree, so that I can watch the leaves.’

‘Destination locked. Thank you for your compliance. Your rate of pay has been boosted by 0.1% in appreciation.’

So there we have it, who’d have though an A.I borne from our own carnal nature would end up being more helpful and compassionate than our old job centres ever were! And competent too! I found myself in exactly the kind of spot I’d hoped for, using the lack of my many talents to their utmost.

It might not sound like much of a life but it’s interesting, relaxing, and when there are traffic jams, the fumes somehow give me a bit of a head buzz. Which is odd, as I have no head any more!

This is Speed Bump #263-467 signing off. My time on the neural-link is coming to an end, so it’s back to work I go, whistling all the way.

THE END

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Dark Fiction - Horror, Save Us All!

Horror, Save Us All!

By Casey Douglass

In every room of every house, there will be a spot where a connection is made with something, or somewhere, else. Luckily for us humans, often that connection is to the very next atom, and all is as it should be. Very occasionally, like, one chance in trillions to the power of lots of zeroes, the connection is to something very remote and very dangerous.

If you have ever taken a pot-bound plant out of its pot and had to pry the roots away from the bulk of soil, you will have an idea of the usual state of our reality. We are pot-bound. Pot-bound is safe. If even one of those roots, by way of a crack or split, finds its way outside of its usual confines, it carries a very high chance of being bitten off by some roaming bug or creature. Such is the chance our reality takes when it pushes into the realms around it. Or they encroach into our own.

Many horror authors know that reality is a feeble thing, that its skin brushes up against horrors and beings that we cannot even comprehend. These things leach through the divide and upset the balance. Our dullard minds don’t perceive this changing of things directly, but on a reptilian level, our bodies notice, and our minds scream. This makes us stupid. Angry. Destructive. It only takes one look at current events to see this playing out on the world stage. We can channel this fear.

The only deterrent is horror, pure, bloody, twisted horror. To fill our minds with the creations of our own dark sides, to drizzle our mental mashed potato with the gooey red blood of our worst nightmares. Other realities and monsters unseen just aren’t prepared for the depravity contained in the three pounds of flesh quietly flashing with neural lightening between our ears. Let them come if they  dare to, but we won’t be the ones squealing into the abyss with our tails tucked between our legs.

So go out and support the horror writers around you, buy their writing, spread their dark visions, and help inoculate and boost the defences inherent in the human arsenal. This universe might not be solely ours, but hot damn if we can’t have it, neither can they!

THE END

I started to write this with just the idea of the "dark things connecting" theme, but it soon turned into a kind of horror writer propaganda piece designed to sell horror fiction as savior of the world. Who'da thunk it. Thanks for reading.

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Dark Fiction - The Parable of the Self-Editing Human

The Parable of the Self-Editing Human

By Casey Douglass

There was once a man who was wholly dissatisfied with the way he was. He disliked his external looks while also cringing away from his internal world. He was a brilliant mind in the world of science, and it was here that he met his downfall.

Utilising his vast expertise in many fields, he discovered a way to change his appearance, his body and his brain. The machinery to do so bankrupted him, but he believed all would be fine if he could just fix his flaws.

He began with small changes: an adjustment to his nose, a change in eye colour, the correcting of an arthritic joint. He felt slightly better about himself with each small change, and so fell into the trap of thinking that bigger changes would yield higher amounts of self-satisfaction.

He became more ambitious, changing his muscle structure, sluicing fat from unwanted places, broadening his shoulders, extending his penis. He praised himself on the self-restraint he displayed on this last one, only making it big enough to ease his concerns of being below average in that department.

It was during his renovations that he realised he had little idea as to what the most attractive features were for a man. He made copious use of his research network, and even ran his own experiments with photo sharing and rating websites. He posted photos with one variable changed in each picture, and gauged the results by way of the likes and favourites that each image garnered.

His form continued to change as he incorporated the spoils of each research project into his being. He began to be pestered in the street by all varieties of people of any gender, people that wanted to know more about this alluring and handsome man, particularly why he strolled in such a hunched manner.

The man’s changes had done little for his underlying mental states, and it was towards these that his mind now turned. Every undesirable thought and emotion was erased, deleted and binned. The slightest irritation was muffled by a pillow of quietude, every surge of panic castrated and evaporated by the humming machine nodes attached discretely to his spine. He began to walk more upright, more assured.

It only took seven days for his body and mind to be purged of all unpleasant fears, doubts and emotions. He stood before the mirror and gazed at the reflection, but rather than this being a case of narcissus, he realised that the stranger before him was both him and not at all him. He felt null about this, the closest he now came to any uncomfortable emotion, and promptly asked his machine to remove this feeling too.

He was still hounded by a strange disconnect while he went about his days, and with no real caution left, he attempted to erase all memory of who he was before his change. It was a delicate affair, having to unpick all imagery and sensation that linked to the old him, while not affecting any other content in his mind. His intelligence collapsed in the manner of someone sucking the air out of a balloon. First it wrinkled, then it shrivelled, then it lay limp and motionless. The machine could not search and sort with the accuracy required to preserve his personality.

In the process of trying to improve himself, the man lost himself, and it is for this reason that the State of Jitan Six has decreed that humans are only permitted to make three minor changes in one lifetime. They are a peculiar race, and wholly untrustworthy with the technology at their disposal. They are still integrating into the Galactic Council. They are young and they will learn, but for now, we must moderate them before they eradicate themselves or worse, become a danger to the other species under our care.

THE END

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Dead by Daylight Survivor Interview – Nea Karlsson

Dead by Daylight Survivor Interview – Nea Karlsson

Written by Casey Douglass

Dead by Daylight is one of my favourite games at the moment. As a writing prompt, I thought it would be interesting to interview some of the characters involved, working in parts of their back story that are known, and adding a few other twists and quirks that hopefully fit in. You'll get most out of this is you are familiar with Dead by Daylight. It's horror, so be prepared for some gore if you do read on.

First up is Nea, my favourite survivor character, and at the moment, my only Prestige 3 survivor.

Me: Hi Nea, it’s good to meet you.

Nea Karlsson: Yeah, you too. I’m just surprised The Entity brought you here. You’re not dead or something?

Me: I hope not!

Nea: I’m sure you’re fine. Actually, I don’t even know if I am, so who knows what the fuck is going on?

Me: I mean, I remember sending the email and The Entity replying. I don’t remember much after that.

Nea: Fuck, you’re pale!

Me: Just feeling a bit...

Nea: Yeah, I can see.

Me: So... I’ll do this interview and see how I get back later. Guess that’s all I can do.

Nea: Keep on keepin’ on. I know the feeling.

Me: That might be a good place to start. What’s it like being stuck in your own kind of ground hog day, being butchered and chased over and over and over again?

Nea: It sucks, but you get used to it. I mean, the pain hurts, but when you die or get out, old pain becomes ghost pain, ghost memories of pain anyway.

Me: You know you’ve experienced it but it feels detached, or maybe like watching a recording of yourself on your phone, but one you don’t really connect with?

Nea: Totally! It hurts like fuck, and then it doesn’t.

Me: What’s it like when the players who are controlling you make you do silly things, or stuff that causes more pain than is needed?

Nea: I want to slit their fucking throats! Yeah yeah, Mr Big Dick, making me bodyblock a hook against a maniac with a machete, just so your dweeb friend doesn’t get scratched. I didn’t get where I am today being that fucking dumb.

Me: How did you wind up here? I know you had brushes with the law awhile back, but that’s some distance from ending up in some kind of purgatory.

Nea: My life turned to shit when my parents moved us from Sweden to the States. I didn’t want to go, but I had to, because I was still a kid.

Me: And it was in the States you found your love for skate parks?

Nea: Hell yeah! I mean, I couldn’t skate for shit, but once I’d managed a few aciddrops and pulled a few melongrabs, I was hooked. I got a sweet custom deck made by this guy near our hangout. He was a chill artist type soul, always doodling.

Me: I won’t pretend to know what an aciddrop or melongrab is. Was the guy the person that got you into tagging your Mashtyx tag everywhere?

Nea: [Laughs] Maybe.

Me: Why did you do it?

Nea: Tag? To be seen!

Me: For your tag to be seen, or you?

Nea: Both I guess. I think I was the invisible kid, not really having any power in the world. So I started tagging, and when I hit my 20s, I switched things up to more sketchy things.

Me: Pun intended?

Nea: No way. But I like it. I stole some stuff, tried some stuff, fucked up a whole lot. Learnt a lot too.

Me: Your sneaky ways?

Nea: Yep! I practised slipping away when no-one was looking, making supplies last longer, because I mean, I was fucking broke, and generally, learning how to fall off high shit and not stumble. Man I lost a fair few thugs that way, back in the day.

Me: Stuff you make good use of now too!

Nea: Hey, anything to help me stay alive. Or whatever I am. As I said, I’m not sure any more.

Me: Which Killer do you most like to face, and which makes your heart sink when you know it’s them?

Nea: Damn, I’ve not really thought about that. I mean, to put it in words. Favourite would probably be Leatherface. He’s a big dumb fuck, and that skin-mask stops him seeing most shit. You can smell him coming a mile off too, which helps. You might think it’s all that chili, but the dude just stinks fullstop.

Me: Least favourite?

Nea: Oooh, I’d say The Shape.

Me: Because he’s creepy?

Nea: Fuck yes! You’re working on a gen and something makes you look up and he’s there, breathing into that white mask. He scares the shit out of me, literally has a few times. And he always cops a feel when he takes you to the hook.

Me: That doesn’t sound nice.

Nea: No shit! Still, some of us have it worse!

Me: The other survivors?

Nea: Yeah. He hates Dwights. Especially tea-bagging ones. Hand on heart, I saw him drop a tea-bagging Dwight once, pull his trousers down and castrate the dude there and then!

Me: Where were you?

Nea: Hiding behind a broken wall, spying through the bricks.

Me: Shit!

Nea: Yeah. Shit. If you speak to Dwight, he’ll probably deny it. I know what I saw though. I’d never seen two mangled balls thrown at a wall before that. Like two little bloody water balloons going “Splat!” Hope to never again. Fuck that.

Me: So... we didn’t really get to how you ended up here, in The Entity’s realm. We touched on your move to the States and your survival skills, but you didn’t say how you actually got “here”.

Nea: My memory just stops at a certain point, like it’s been rubbed out. I was there, now I’m here. No fucking journey in-between. I don’t know what happened, whether I did something dumb or was just unlucky. All I know is I’m stuck here.

Me: I was going to ask if you wanted to get back, but I realise how stupid that question would be. Do you think you’ll ever get back?

Nea: No.

Me: Really?

Nea: I’ve been here long enough to just get the feeling that this is it. I could move on somewhere else later, I don’t know. I just doubt I’ll get home.

Me: How does that make you feel?

Nea: You sound like a fucking psychiatrist.

Me: I wish I earned what they do.

Nea: Yeah but you have to talk to crazy people.

Me: Interesting people.

Nea: Fucked up people. Perverts and neurotics and skitzos.

Me: They are still people Nea, that’s not very kind.

Nea: Fuck being kind! They’ve got things cushy. I get murdered thousands of times a day! Oh boo hoo my dick won’t work if I don’t get caned across my arse. Boo hoo nobody loves me. Boo hoo I might be gay, what will my husband think. Survival! That comes first. If you’re surviving, you’re ahead. Anything else is just mental masturbation.

Me: You sound like you think you’re more alive than they’ll ever be.

Nea: You’re a genius!

Me: And you’re starting to fade.

Nea: Oh great! Another round!

Me: Thank you for talking to me Nea, I wish I could help you.

Nea: The only person that can help me is me, as per usual. Stay safe Case.

[Nea blinked out of existence, her fists clenched and a scowl creasing her face].

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Dark Humour – Spider Warfare Is Just The Beginning...

Dark Humour – Spider Warfare Is Just The Beginning...

By Casey Douglass

Danger ahead.

Living in England has its benefits, one of which is the apparent lack of wildlife that wants to kill you, drag out outside and slowly digest your body in some dark corner of the garden. I say apparent, because there is an insidious threat lurking in every house, shed, woodland and allotment. The creepy-crawlies and bugs are out to get us.

Take the spider as my first example. How many times have you strolled between two objects and felt a strand of web wrap itself across your face? Some think these are just passive support structures for a web not yet finished but these people are so very wrong. Every silken strand across your face is a failed attempt by a spider to garrotte you. Don’t be fooled by the full web nearby, its occupant watching and trying to steer you into the trap. Turn and walk away. One day they will perfect the consistency of the strands, getting them upto a lethal specification for removing heads from necks. These strands seem at their most abundant during the morning, so I would make sure you don’t leave the house until at least midday.

No matter how sceptical you might be, carry on dear reader, the information here just might save your life.

My next warning concerns the humble snail, the proverbial slow coach that leaves a glistening trail like a slippery kiss wherever it goes. This trail is placed in the hope that it will make you slip and break your neck. Snails occasionally team up with slugs in this endeavour but there is a strange class system at work whenever they meet and commune, loosely based around housing permits and residency rights. Don’t be fooled though, if you see a snail and a slug together, they’ve put their differences aside to bring about your downfall.

Now we move onto bees, and their often allies, wasps. These insects are adjusting their own humming, fine-tuning it as we speak to interfere with our Wi-Fi signals. Everyone knows that Internet speed into the countryside is usually a joke. This isn’t just down to slow infrastructure and distance, the hives of these creatures are like our Wi-Fi Extenders but in reverse, crippling phone technology with the mighty humming they produce. Moving to the city might be advisable to avoid this threat, although the mobile networks are likely to become a target too at some point.

An even more baffling scheme now, and this concerns the humble woodlouse, the armadillo of the insect world. For some time now, woodlice have been rolling themselves into little balls and slowly replacing the cavity wall insulation of buildings. To what end I have no idea, I guess that we can only shrug our shoulders and stay vigilant for any sound of mobilisation.

This is only a brief look at the dangers that scurry, buzz and slither around us, but I can’t wrap it up without mentioning the fly. A fly is mainly thought of as being a pathogen spreader and general nuisance, but its real aim is psychological warfare. This takes the form of buzzing around a sleeper’s bedroom at night, tickling their face, and generally doing anything to keep them awake. This is such a common occurrence, nothing is thought of it, but sleep deprivation can cause all manner of issues, from low concentration to paranoia. Sleep with windows closed, even in summer!

I will end this post here as I feel I’ve given enough warning about the perils that litter the ground ahead. I apologise for any spelling mistakes or garbled words, I haven’t been sleeping lately. Take care and stay sharp.

If you've enjoyed this post, that's fantastic. If wouldn't mind, please give it a like or a share on whichever social media you arrived from. Thank you very much and have a great day.

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