July 29, 2019, in the Bisti Wilderness south of Farmington, NM
One playlist that I neglected to mention during my most recent post on my playlists is one entitled “Tales of Hell“. As you know, I am working on a supernatural horror novel called The Man Who Escaped from Hell. In my research for the novel I have read a few books on hell, read several articles, and so forth (mostly though I will rely on my own concepts and imagination).
However, as I watch a lot of YouTube and I fond of horror and supernatural tales, I am collecting any videos on people who say that they have actually been to hell into a playlist called “Tales of Hell.” No surprises there. This will allow me to gain a few different perspectives, but it will also allow me to see the similarities between the stories. I feel certain that most people’s concept of hell will be the same because of cultural biases; hearing the same tales, myths, and legends; and because of certain archetypes in human psychology. If you have read Joseph Campbell or have seen any of his interviews with Bill Moyers from a few decades back, you will know that Professor Campbell that commonalities in religions and mythologies worldwide are due to commonalities in the human psyche.
The Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium, from ‘Paradise Lost’, Book 1.
I don’t believe that anyone has actually been to hell and returned to tell the story. I think these stories are hallucinations experienced during the changes in brain functioning and body chemistry while being influenced by a person’s guilty conscience while that person dies. On those rare occasions that someone returns to life after being clinically dead for a few minutes, they report the experience of having gone to hell, but which is probably more closely related to the ultimate “bad trip”.
But my novel is a work of fiction, not a documentary. In it, I try to make a few points about life and death and the spirit and conscientiousness and several other things. The best way to do that is by showing the protagonist actually going through hell.
It will be interesting to see how this playlist develops. It will probably make a great horror anthology in its own right.
By the way, I have written around 80,000 words for The Man Who Escaped from Hell. I hope to finish it soon after I have finished Shadows and Stars. I put it on hiatus until I can finish Shadows and Stars because I have been getting more and more ideas for Shadows and Stars than I have for The Man Who Escaped from Hell.
Falls cold and ceaseless, wore her heart away.” – Lalla Rookh
Perfectly overcome by the heat of an Italian evening at Venice, I quitted the bustling gaiety of St Mark’s Place for the quiet of a gondola, and directing the man to shape his course for the island of Lido, (a narrow strip of land dividing the “lagunes,” or shallows beyond the city, from the open sea,) I seated myself on the prow of the vessel, with a firm determination to make the most of the flimsy wafts of air that every now and then ruffled the surface of the still, dark waters.
Wilkie Collins circa 1871(?)
Nothing intercepted my view of the distant city, whose mighty buildings glowed beneath the long, red rays of the setting sun, save occasionally, when a market boat on its return floated lazily past us, or the hull of some tall merchantman shut out for an instant the dome of a magnificent church or the deep red brickwork of the Ducal Palace. Inexpressibly beautiful was the glimmering of the far off lights in the houses, as, one after another, they seemed to start out of the bosom of the deep; and at that quiet hour the repose – the peculiar repose of Venice – seemed mellowed into perfect harmony with the delicious languor of the atmosphere. The sounds of laughter, or snatches of rude songs that now and then came over the waves, instead of interupting [sic], invested with fresh charms the luxurious silence of the moment. We touched the narrow strip of sand that forms the beach of the little island, and stepping ashore, I enjoyed the only particle of green sward in all Venice.
I walked backward and forward for some time, thinking of England and English friends, (for at such hours the mind wanders to distant scenes and old customs,) without interruption, until a slight rustling among the bushes of the island reminded me that I was not the only tenant of the garden of the Lido, and looking through the fast gathering darkness, I discovered an aged female pacing the smooth walk near, apparently lost in contemplation.
My curiosity was rather excited by the presence of a lone old woman in such an unfrequented place; but the haze of the evening prevented my observing her with any degree of accuracy, and as I feared to disturb her by advancing too near, I could only guess at her features. At last the dwarf trees in the island “began to glitter with the climbing moon,” and I saw that she was weeping bitterly. Her thick gray tresses were braided over a face that had evidently once been beautiful, and there was a dignity and propriety in her demeanour, and a native nobleness of expression in her countenance, which told me that I looked on no common person. She continued her solitary walk for some time, occasionally pausing to look up to the stars that now gemmed the clear glowing firmament, or to pluck a few dead leaves from a little rose bush that grew in an obscure corner of the garden, until a thought seemed suddenly to strike her, and hastening to the shore she stepped into a small gondola that was in waiting and rapidly disappeared.
On my return to Venice, I mentioned the circumstance to my cicerone, or guide, a remarkably intelligent fellow; and much to my astonishment, he solved the mystery of the lonely lady to me immediately. As her history is one of great devotion and misfortune, it may perhaps merit repetition.
It appeared, then, from the statement of the cicerone, that the elderly lady was an English woman who had once been the beauty of the gay circles of Venice. She had there met with a student in astronomy; and whether it was his lonely mystic life, the charm of his conversation and person, or his scientific attainments, that won her, I know not, but he gained her affections, and it is still remembered by those acquainted with her at the time, that her attachment to him so intensely passive in its devotion as to seem almost unearthly, and that very Lido, now the scene of her affliction, was once the favourite spot for their early love greetings.
He was a strange, wild creature, that student – his family were natives of a distant land, and he had travelled to Italy to devote himself, body and mind, to his favourite pursuit. From the after testimony of one of his friends, it appeared that in childhood he had been attacked with fits of temporary derangement, and his extraordinary application to the mysterious, exciting study of astronomy had increased this infirmity in a most extraordinary and terrible manner. At times he was haunted by a vision of a woman of disgusting ugliness who seemed to pursue and torment him wherever he went. In a few hours, delirium, and sometimes raging madness, would ensue from this hallucination, and though he regularly recovered free from the terrible creation of his mind, it was with a constitution more and more decayed by each successive ravage of his disorder. As he advanced, however, to manhood, these violent and destructive fits became less and less frequent and at the time that he met with the beautiful English lady, though his conscience seemed to tell him that he was no companion for a delicate woman, he tried to persuade himself that his constitution had at last mastered his imagination and that he was as fit for society as his less excitable fellow men. And he thought there was much excuse for him, for who could withstand the quiet yet intense affection of the English woman? Who could resist the temptation of listening to her sweet musical voice, of watching her sad soft blue eyes, or of hearing her fascinating conversation? She was so devoted, so gentle, so enthusiastic on his favourite subject, so patient of his little fits of peevishness, and melancholy, so considerate of his enjoyments, so comforting in his afflictions, he must surely have been without heart or feeling to have been coldly calculating on possibilities at such a time. He schooled himself to think that it was his solitary life that had so affected his faculties, and that a companion – and such a companion as his betrothed – would drive out all remains of his disorder, even supposing it to be still existing. In short, the eloquent pleading of the heart prevailed over the still small whisper of conscience; the wedding day was fixed, and it was remarked with surprise that the nearer it approached, the more melancholy did Volpurno become. However, the ceremony was performed with great splendour, and the bridal party set out to spend the day on the mainland, where the friends of the bride were to say farewell before she proceeded with her husband on the wedding tour. They were chatting merrily in the little hotel at Mestri, on the mainland, when they were horrified by suddenly hearing sounds of frantic laughter, followed by wild shrieks of agony, and the student rushed into the room, his frame convulsed with horror, with a drawn sword in his hand, as if pursuing something a few yards before him, with an expression of mingled fury and despair. Before the horrified guests could interfere, he had jumped from the window, and with the same shrieks of laughter, sped across the country in pursuit of his phantom enemy.
Assistance was at hand; he was instantly followed; but with supernatural strength he held on his course for hours. He was occasionally seen, as he paused for an instant to strike furiously in the air, and his cries of anguish were sometimes borne by the wind to the ears of his pursuers; but they never gained on him, and unless he neared a village, and was stopped by the inhabitants, his capture seemed impracticable. At last, as night grew on, he sunk exhausted at a lone hovel by the way side, and the bride and her party came up with the maniac bridegroom. But the stern fit was past and gone, and he was lifted insensible upon a coarse pallet in the hut. The Englishwoman sat by his side and bathed his temples, and watched his deep, long slumber, from the rise of the moon to the bright advent of day. And thus passed the bridal night of the heiress and the beauty.
Towards the going down of the sun, Volpurno became conscious, and though the fit had left him, the agony of his situation allowed no repose to his jarred, disordered nerves. His remorse was terrible to behold: over and over again did he heap curses on his selfishness in drawing an innocent. Trusting woman into such a labyrinth of suffering. All her repeated assurances of her forgiveness, of her happiness at his recovery, of her hopes for the future, failed to quiet him; and so, between soothing his anguish and administering his remedies, three days passed, and on the third a material changed took place. The dim eye of the student brightened, and his wan cheek flushed with the hue of health. He commanded all to leave the room but his bride, and to her he made full confession of his terrible infirmity, and of its seizing him with tenfold violence at the inn at Mestri, and of the frightful forebodings he had felt as their wedding approached. And then he grew calmer, and the smile again came forth upon his lip, and the melody returned to his voice, and at his favourite hour of midnight, – in a peaceful quietude that had been unknown to him in his life, – Volpurno died.
The corpse was carried to Venice and interred by the Englishwoman by her former trysting-place on the Lido. People wondered at her calmness under such an affliction, for she lived on, but little changed – save that she was paler and thinner – from the quiet creature that had won the fatal affection of Volpurno.
By degrees her more immediate friends died, or were called into other countries, and she was left alone in Venice: and then her solitary pilgrimages to the Lido became more and more frequent. As years grew on, and the finger of time imprinted the first furrows on the fair, delicate cheek, and planted the grey among the rich beauties of her hair, these visits increased. While, from day to day, the powers of her body became older, the faculties of her heart grew greener and younger. Years dulled not the pristine delicacy of her feelings, and age seemed in her to nourish instead of impairing the silent growth of memory.
* * * * * * *
A few months afterwards I again visited the Lido at the same hour, but the Englishwoman did not appear. I walked towards the rose bush which I conjectured grew over the grave of Volpurno; its withered leaves were untrimmed, and the earth around it was newly heaped up. I asked no more questions; the freshness of the mould, and the neglect of the rose tree, were eloquent informers.
The last face Jack saw was the executioner’s as he slid the needle into Jack’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Jack.
“The jury decided that you did,” replied the executioner.
What seemed like several minutes passed while Jack, strapped to the gurney, sweated and waited, head throbbing with tension, watching the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, until a black fog enveloped him.
He awoke standing naked holding two buckets overflowing with concentrated sewage. Sweat mixed with grime and soot rolled down his arms. The atmosphere, a mixture of steam, tear gas, sulfur, and the smell of death, burned his throat and stung his eyes, filling them with tears. What little he could see glowed mottled orange and red. Thousands of naked men and women, covered in grime and sweat, cringed whimpering among jagged rocks or ran about in terror while lugging buckets of sewage, blood, or God knew what else.
From the short story “A Tale of Hell” by Phil Slattery
My e-book collection of horror shorts A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror” is free today on Amazon Kindle. For your copy, go to my Amazon author’s page where you can find links to my other works as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Comments on previously published stories include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
Get your copy today and check for other free works of mine as well while you are on Amazon.
The last face Jack saw was the executioner’s as he slid the needle into Jack’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Jack.
“The jury decided that you did,” replied the executioner.
What seemed like several minutes passed while Jack, strapped to the gurney, sweated and waited, head throbbing with tension, watching the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, until a black fog enveloped him.
He awoke standing naked holding two buckets overflowing with concentrated sewage. Sweat mixed with grime and soot rolled down his arms. The atmosphere, a mixture of steam, tear gas, sulfur, and the smell of death, burned his throat and stung his eyes, filling them with tears. What little he could see glowed mottled orange and red. Thousands of naked men and women, covered in grime and sweat, cringed whimpering among jagged rocks or ran about in terror while lugging buckets of sewage, blood, or God knew what else.
From the short story “A Tale of Hell” by Phil Slattery
My e-book collection of horror shorts A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror” is free today on Amazon Kindle. For your copy, go to my Amazon author’s page where you can find links to my other works as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Edward Z gave the collection five stars on Amazon and commented:
There is a lot of sorcery and dark magic in this collection and the main characters are mostly evil or morally bad in some way. Plenty about Hell, demons, and psychopaths too. This led to some dark and violent stories. But there was a great variety of plots that kept it going along nicely and made it enjoyable to read.
Two werewolf stories are in here, and they are both done in clever and original ways, one being done partly from a wolf’s point of view. It had sort of a dark comedy thing going on and was rather amusing. Three of the stories feature a sorcerer named Jack Thurston, who is a really well done evil sort of character and the best of the bunch in my opinion. The author methodically goes through his rather complicated and gross preparations for the spells and it adds a bit more weight to them then usually found in these kinds of stories.
The short stories section ends with a great Sci-Fi story that is a complete change of pace compared to the rest. The insect alien was given a lot of personality and the entire backstory created for the spacefaring humans and the alien planet was well done and detailed considering it’s a short story.
The Flash fiction and Microfiction sections then take it back to the dark characters and/or wizardry and are quick, fun reads to end the collection.
P.S. Winn gave the collection four stars on Amazon and commented:
The author has given readers a fantastic collection of varied horror stories. Short stories, flash fiction and even shorter micro fiction tales are included in a collection that might have readers keeping their lights on. I have read other books by this author and love the writing style and the way his words draw one into the tales.
Comments on previously published stories in the collection include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
Get your copy today and check for other free works of mine as well while you are on Amazon.
I am seeking people to review my works and who post their reviews to markets in the US, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. I offer my Kindle e-books for free periodically according to Amazon policy. You can find my works on my Amazon author’s page. Let me know which you would like to review and I will let you know when it available for free or set up a date that you can have it for fee. I am most interested in having reviewed either my short horror (A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror), my collected poetry (Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover), my short fiction on relationships (The Scent and Other Stories), or my action-adventure novelette (Click). The other two works are contained in A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror.
I am seeking people to review my works and who post their reviews to markets in the US, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. I offer my Kindle e-books for free periodically according to Amazon policy. You can find my works on my Amazon author’s page. Let me know which you would like to review and I will let you know when it available for free or set up a date that you can have it for fee. I am most interested in having reviewed either my short horror (A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror), my collected poetry (Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover), my short fiction on relationships (The Scent and Other Stories), or my action-adventure novelette (Click). The other two works are contained in A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror.
The last face Jack saw was the executioner’s as he slid the needle into Jack’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Jack.
“The jury decided that you did,” replied the executioner.
What seemed like several minutes passed while Jack, strapped to the gurney, sweated and waited, head throbbing with tension, watching the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, until a black fog enveloped him.
He awoke standing naked holding two buckets overflowing with concentrated sewage. Sweat mixed with grime and soot rolled down his arms. The atmosphere, a mixture of steam, tear gas, sulfur, and the smell of death, burned his throat and stung his eyes, filling them with tears. What little he could see glowed mottled orange and red. Thousands of naked men and women, covered in grime and sweat, cringed whimpering among jagged rocks or ran about in terror while lugging buckets of sewage, blood, or God knew what else.
From the short story “A Tale of Hell” by Phil Slattery
My e-book collection of horror shorts A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror” is free today on Amazon Kindle. For your copy, go to my Amazon author’s page where you can find links to my other works as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Edward Z gave the collection five stars on Amazon and commented:
There is a lot of sorcery and dark magic in this collection and the main characters are mostly evil or morally bad in some way. Plenty about Hell, demons, and psychopaths too. This led to some dark and violent stories. But there was a great variety of plots that kept it going along nicely and made it enjoyable to read.
Two werewolf stories are in here, and they are both done in clever and original ways, one being done partly from a wolf’s point of view. It had sort of a dark comedy thing going on and was rather amusing. Three of the stories feature a sorcerer named Jack Thurston, who is a really well done evil sort of character and the best of the bunch in my opinion. The author methodically goes through his rather complicated and gross preparations for the spells and it adds a bit more weight to them then usually found in these kinds of stories.
The short stories section ends with a great Sci-Fi story that is a complete change of pace compared to the rest. The insect alien was given a lot of personality and the entire backstory created for the spacefaring humans and the alien planet was well done and detailed considering it’s a short story.
The Flash fiction and Microfiction sections then take it back to the dark characters and/or wizardry and are quick, fun reads to end the collection.
P.S. Winn gave the collection four stars on Amazon and commented:
The author has given readers a fantastic collection of varied horror stories. Short stories, flash fiction and even shorter micro fiction tales are included in a collection that might have readers keeping their lights on. I have read other books by this author and love the writing style and the way his words draw one into the tales.
Comments on previously published stories in the collection include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
Get your copy today and check for other free works of mine as well while you are on Amazon.
Last night, I started listening to The Exorcist, read by its author (William Peter Blatty) on Youtube. This is great stuff. Blatty has a terrific voice for narrating horror. I recommend listening to it, particularly as Halloween is rapidly approaching. I am not far into it now, The narrative is approaching the evening party where Regan first shows evidence of her possession to the world.
Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Reader Charles Stacey gave “Click” five stars on Amazon and commented:
“Author has a wonderful ability to develop the characters using few words. Great foreshadowing to build suspense. And then a really outstanding twist at the end that left me smiling.”
Joe Leonardi gave Click five stars on Amazon commenting: “An interesting story with a double twist ending that left this reader wanting more….” while he also reviewed Click on his website, ShortStoryScribe.com, saying:
Author Phil Slattery takes us on an interesting ride. He gives a twist ending to the story, that once revealed, you realize he peppered the story with clues. The second twist ending hits out of left field, and left this reader wanting for more.
The motivation is as old as storytelling, but that doesn’t make it bad. Slattery’s words make us care for the main character and seeing his view of his marriage leave us, in the end, feeling sad for him in his moment of triumph.
Edward Z gave Click five stars on Amazon and commented:
A policeman on leave on a secluded island after shooting an unarmed man with a toy gun finds himself under siege by two criminals looking to use the place themselves…
A lot of detail goes into both the psychological aspects of the story as well as the action. This one is packed with every character’s motives, inner dialogue, and very well thought out. When it gets to the action it keeps this up as well as adding a lot of excitement.
Smart, fast-paced, and full of action. The characters are well done and don’t suffer from the usual boring tropes too much, and the two criminals are interesting as the author knows how to do ‘bad guys’ rather well.
An Amazon customer gave Click five stars and commented:
“This novelette is a quick and very entertaining read. It opened with a grabber (“Tell me again whey we have to kill this guy…”) and kept pulling me in from there. Frank Martinez is a cop trying to recover from a shooting incident in solitude on an island off the Texas gulf coast. T.J. and Benny are the bad guys. Their hunt and chase on the small island kept me in suspense. It ends with a surprise twist. Slattery proves here he is a good storyteller.”
While on my author’s page, check out my other works.
Don’t forget to leave your own review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.
The last face Jack saw was the executioner’s as he slid the needle into Jack’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Jack.
“The jury decided that you did,” replied the executioner.
What seemed like several minutes passed while Jack, strapped to the gurney, sweated and waited, head throbbing with tension, watching the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, until a black fog enveloped him.
He awoke standing naked holding two buckets overflowing with concentrated sewage. Sweat mixed with grime and soot rolled down his arms. The atmosphere, a mixture of steam, tear gas, sulfur, and the smell of death, burned his throat and stung his eyes, filling them with tears. What little he could see glowed mottled orange and red. Thousands of naked men and women, covered in grime and sweat, cringed whimpering among jagged rocks or ran about in terror while lugging buckets of sewage, blood, or God knew what else.
From the short story “A Tale of Hell” by Phil Slattery
My e-book collection of horror shorts A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror” is free today on Amazon Kindle. For your copy, go to my Amazon author’s page where you can find links to my other works as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Edward Z gave the collection five stars on Amazon and commented:
There is a lot of sorcery and dark magic in this collection and the main characters are mostly evil or morally bad in some way. Plenty about Hell, demons, and psychopaths too. This led to some dark and violent stories. But there was a great variety of plots that kept it going along nicely and made it enjoyable to read.
Two werewolf stories are in here, and they are both done in clever and original ways, one being done partly from a wolf’s point of view. It had sort of a dark comedy thing going on and was rather amusing. Three of the stories feature a sorcerer named Jack Thurston, who is a really well done evil sort of character and the best of the bunch in my opinion. The author methodically goes through his rather complicated and gross preparations for the spells and it adds a bit more weight to them then usually found in these kinds of stories.
The short stories section ends with a great Sci-Fi story that is a complete change of pace compared to the rest. The insect alien was given a lot of personality and the entire backstory created for the spacefaring humans and the alien planet was well done and detailed considering it’s a short story.
The Flash fiction and Microfiction sections then take it back to the dark characters and/or wizardry and are quick, fun reads to end the collection.
P.S. Winn gave the collection four stars on Amazon and commented:
The author has given readers a fantastic collection of varied horror stories. Short stories, flash fiction and even shorter micro fiction tales are included in a collection that might have readers keeping their lights on. I have read other books by this author and love the writing style and the way his words draw one into the tales.
Comments on previously published stories in the collection include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
Get your copy today and check for other free works of mine as well while you are on Amazon.
Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Reader Charles Stacey gave “Click” five stars on Amazon and commented:
“Author has a wonderful ability to develop the characters using few words. Great foreshadowing to build suspense. And then a really outstanding twist at the end that left me smiling.”
Joe Leonardi gave Click five stars on Amazon commenting: “An interesting story with a double twist ending that left this reader wanting more….” while he also reviewed Click on his website, ShortStoryScribe.com, saying:
Author Phil Slattery takes us on an interesting ride. He gives a twist ending to the story, that once revealed, you realize he peppered the story with clues. The second twist ending hits out of left field, and left this reader wanting for more.
The motivation is as old as storytelling, but that doesn’t make it bad. Slattery’s words make us care for the main character and seeing his view of his marriage leave us, in the end, feeling sad for him in his moment of triumph.
Edward Z gave Click five stars on Amazon and commented:
A policeman on leave on a secluded island after shooting an unarmed man with a toy gun finds himself under siege by two criminals looking to use the place themselves…
A lot of detail goes into both the psychological aspects of the story as well as the action. This one is packed with every character’s motives, inner dialogue, and very well thought out. When it gets to the action it keeps this up as well as adding a lot of excitement.
Smart, fast-paced, and full of action. The characters are well done and don’t suffer from the usual boring tropes too much, and the two criminals are interesting as the author knows how to do ‘bad guys’ rather well.
An Amazon customer gave Click five stars and commented:
“This novelette is a quick and very entertaining read. It opened with a grabber (“Tell me again whey we have to kill this guy…”) and kept pulling me in from there. Frank Martinez is a cop trying to recover from a shooting incident in solitude on an island off the Texas gulf coast. T.J. and Benny are the bad guys. Their hunt and chase on the small island kept me in suspense. It ends with a surprise twist. Slattery proves here he is a good storyteller.”
While on my author’s page, check out my other works.
Don’t forget to leave your own review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.
Just now, I posted a review of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones on Goodreads. I am posting only the opening two paragraphs here, because the rest of the review contains spoilers. If you would like to read the entire review, please look me up on Goodreads or look up reviews of The Lovely Bones and search for mine among the hundreds already there.
I listened to the audio version read by the author, Alice Sebold. This version is about 10.5 hours in length and I listened to it on a trip from Midland, TX, to Gillett, AR, that lasted about 10.4 hours (counting only actual driving time). When I arrived home, I brought my baggage, groceries, and the dog in and dropped everything else until I had finished it.
This book is very well written. It is poignant, thoughtful, easy to comprehend, and reader-friendly. The title does not refer to what you probably think it does. That’s not revealed to the last chapter or two. It really makes one think about one’s relationships with one’s family and how one fits into the overall picture of life and death. I definitely recommend reading this book. It might change how you look at things.
The last face Jack saw was the executioner’s as he slid the needle into Jack’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” said Jack.
“The jury decided that you did,” replied the executioner.
What seemed like several minutes passed while Jack, strapped to the gurney, sweated and waited, head throbbing with tension, watching the buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, until a black fog enveloped him.
He awoke standing naked holding two buckets overflowing with concentrated sewage. Sweat mixed with grime and soot rolled down his arms. The atmosphere, a mixture of steam, tear gas, sulfur, and the smell of death, burned his throat and stung his eyes, filling them with tears. What little he could see glowed mottled orange and red. Thousands of naked men and women, covered in grime and sweat, cringed whimpering among jagged rocks or ran about in terror while lugging buckets of sewage, blood, or God knew what else.
From the short story “A Tale of Hell” by Phil Slattery
My e-book collection of horror shorts A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror” is free today on Amazon Kindle. For your copy, go to my Amazon author’s page where you can find links to my other works as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Edward Z gave the collection five stars on Amazon and commented:
There is a lot of sorcery and dark magic in this collection and the main characters are mostly evil or morally bad in some way. Plenty about Hell, demons, and psychopaths too. This led to some dark and violent stories. But there was a great variety of plots that kept it going along nicely and made it enjoyable to read.
Two werewolf stories are in here, and they are both done in clever and original ways, one being done partly from a wolf’s point of view. It had sort of a dark comedy thing going on and was rather amusing. Three of the stories feature a sorcerer named Jack Thurston, who is a really well done evil sort of character and the best of the bunch in my opinion. The author methodically goes through his rather complicated and gross preparations for the spells and it adds a bit more weight to them then usually found in these kinds of stories.
The short stories section ends with a great Sci-Fi story that is a complete change of pace compared to the rest. The insect alien was given a lot of personality and the entire backstory created for the spacefaring humans and the alien planet was well done and detailed considering it’s a short story.
The Flash fiction and Microfiction sections then take it back to the dark characters and/or wizardry and are quick, fun reads to end the collection.
P.S. Winn gave the collection four stars on Amazon and commented:
The author has given readers a fantastic collection of varied horror stories. Short stories, flash fiction and even shorter micro fiction tales are included in a collection that might have readers keeping their lights on. I have read other books by this author and love the writing style and the way his words draw one into the tales.
Comments on previously published stories in the collection include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
Get your copy today and check for other free works of mine as well while you are on Amazon.
[Phil Slattery’s Note: One of the interesting aspects of this story is the discussion on the types of stories passed down by school boys. They sound very much like the same motifs circulating through horror fiction and movies today.]
###
Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. ‘At our school,’ said A., ‘we had a ghost’s footmark on the staircase. What was it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think of it. Why didn’t somebody invent one, I wonder?’
‘You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own.
There’s a subject for you, by the way—”The Folklore of Private
Schools”.’
‘Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were to investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be highly-compressed versions of stories out of books.’
‘Nowadays the Strand and Pearson’s, and so on, would be extensively drawn upon.’
‘No doubt: they weren’t born or thought of in my time. Let’s see. I wonder if I can remember the staple ones that I was told. First, there was the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing a night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner, and had just time to say, “I’ve seen it,” and died.’
‘Wasn’t that the house in Berkeley Square?’
‘I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling
M.R. James 1900
towards him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides, let me think—Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also; I don’t know why. Also there was the lady who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed-curtains say, “Now we’re shut in for the night.” None of those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those stories.’
‘Oh, likely enough—with additions from the magazines, as I said. You never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? I thought not; nobody has that ever I came across.’
‘From the way in which you said that, I gather that you have.’
‘I really don’t know; but this is what was in my mind. It happened at my private school thirty odd years ago, and I haven’t any explanation of it.
‘The school I mean was near London. It was established in a large and fairly old house—a great white building with very fine grounds about it; there were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the older gardens in the Thames valley, and ancient elms in the three or four fields which we used for our games. I think probably it was quite an attractive place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any tolerable features.
‘I came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy, whom I will call McLeod. I needn’t spend time in describing him: the main thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in any way—not particularly good at books or games—but he suited me.
‘The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and there were rather frequent changes among them.
‘One term—perhaps it was my third or fourth—a new master made his appearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale, black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, and had stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was some competition among us to get within earshot of him. I remember too—dear me, I have hardly thought of it since then!—that he had a charm on his watch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it. It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth, and he had had cut on it—rather barbarously—his own initials, G.W.S., and a date, 24 July, 1865. Yes, I can see it now: he told me he had picked it up in Constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather smaller.
‘Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doing Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods—perhaps it is rather a good one—was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is a thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lots of school stories in which that happens—or anyhow there might be. But Sampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with him. Now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express remembering in Latin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb memini, “I remember.” Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such as “I remember my father,” or “He remembers his book,” or something equally uninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, and so forth: but the boy I mentioned—McLeod—was evidently thinking of something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our sentences passed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp. But he didn’t seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before and upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect. He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say to the boys who had writtenmeminiscimus patri meo and the rest of it, it turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come. He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some sort of trouble. “Well,” I said, “what did you get?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said McLeod, “nothing much: but I think Sampson’s rather sick with me.” “Why, did you show him up some rot?” “No fear,” he said. “It was all right as far as I could see: it was like this: Memento—that’s right enough for remember, and it takes a genitive,—memento putei inter quatuor taxos.” “What silly rot!” I said. “What made you shove that down? What does it mean?” “That’s the funny part,” said McLeod. “I’m not quite sure what it does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. I know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort of picture of it in my head: I believe it means ‘Remember the well among the four’—what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?” “Mountain ashes, I s’pose you mean.” “I never heard of them,” said McLeod; “no, I’ll tell you—yews.” “Well, and what did Sampson say?” “Why, he was jolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantelpiece and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me. And then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, ‘What do you suppose that means?’ I told him what I thought; only I couldn’t remember the name of the silly tree: and then he wanted to know why I put it down, and I had to say something or other. And after that he left off talking about it, and asked me how long I’d been here, and where my people lived, and things like that: and then I came away: but he wasn’t looking a bit well.”
‘I don’t remember any more that was said by either of us about this. Next day McLeod took to his bed with a chill or something of the kind, and it was a week or more before he was in school again. And as much as a month went by without anything happening that was noticeable. Whether or not Mr Sampson was really startled, as McLeod had thought, he didn’t show it. I am pretty sure, of course, now, that there was something very curious in his past history, but I’m not going to pretend that we boys were sharp enough to guess any such thing.
‘There was one other incident of the same kind as the last which I told you. Several times since that day we had had to make up examples in school to illustrate different rules, but there had never been any row except when we did them wrong. At last there came a day when we were going through those dismal things which people call Conditional Sentences, and we were told to make a conditional sentence, expressing a future consequence. We did it, right or wrong, and showed up our bits of paper, and Sampson began looking through them. All at once he got up, made some odd sort of noise in his throat, and rushed out by a door that was just by his desk. We sat there for a minute or two, and then—I suppose it was incorrect—but we went up, I and one or two others, to look at the papers on his desk. Of course I thought someone must have put down some nonsense or other, and Sampson had gone off to report him. All the same, I noticed that he hadn’t taken any of the papers with him when he ran out. Well, the top paper on the desk was written in red ink—which no one used—and it wasn’t in anyone’s hand who was in the class. They all looked at it—McLeod and all—and took their dying oaths that it wasn’t theirs. Then I thought of counting the bits of paper. And of this I made quite certain: that there were seventeen bits of paper on the desk, and sixteen boys in the form. Well, I bagged the extra paper, and kept it, and I believe I have it now. And now you will want to know what was written on it. It was simple enough, and harmless enough, I should have said.
‘”Si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te,” which means, I suppose, “If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.”‘
‘Could you show me the paper?’ interrupted the listener.
‘Yes, I could: but there’s another odd thing about it. That same afternoon I took it out of my locker—I know for certain it was the same bit, for I made a finger-mark on it—and no single trace of writing of any kind was there on it. I kept it, as I said, and since that time I have tried various experiments to see whether sympathetic ink had been used, but absolutely without result.
‘So much for that. After about half an hour Sampson looked in again: said he had felt very unwell, and told us we might go. He came rather gingerly to his desk and gave just one look at the uppermost paper: and I suppose he thought he must have been dreaming: anyhow, he asked no questions.
‘That day was a half-holiday, and next day Sampson was in school again, much as usual. That night the third and last incident in my story happened.
‘We—McLeod and I—slept in a dormitory at right angles to the main building. Sampson slept in the main building on the first floor. There was a very bright full moon. At an hour which I can’t tell exactly, but some time between one and two, I was woken up by somebody shaking me. It was McLeod; and a nice state of mind he seemed to be in. “Come,” he said,—”come! there’s a burglar getting in through Sampson’s window.” As soon as I could speak, I said, “Well, why not call out and wake everybody up?” “No, no,” he said, “I’m not sure who it is: don’t make a row: come and look.” Naturally I came and looked, and naturally there was no one there. I was cross enough, and should have called McLeod plenty of names: only—I couldn’t tell why—it seemed to me that there was something wrong—something that made me very glad I wasn’t alone to face it. We were still at the window looking out, and as soon as I could, I asked him what he had heard or seen. “I didn’t hear anything at all,” he said, “but about five minutes before I woke you, I found myself looking out of this window here, and there was a man sitting or kneeling on Sampson’s window-sill, and looking in, and I thought he was beckoning.” “What sort of man?” McLeod wriggled. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I can tell you one thing—he was beastly thin: and he looked as if he was wet all over: and,” he said, looking round and whispering as if he hardly liked to hear himself, “I’m not at all sure that he was alive.”
‘We went on talking in whispers some time longer, and eventually crept back to bed. No one else in the room woke or stirred the whole time. I believe we did sleep a bit afterwards, but we were very cheap next day.
‘And next day Mr Sampson was gone: not to be found: and I believe no trace of him has ever come to light since. In thinking it over, one of the oddest things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither McLeod nor I ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever. Of course no questions were asked on the subject, and if they had been, I am inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer: we seemed unable to speak about it.
‘That is my story,’ said the narrator. ‘The only approach to a ghost story connected with a school that I know, but still, I think, an approach to such a thing.’
* * * * *
The sequel to this may perhaps be reckoned highly conventional; but a sequel there is, and so it must be produced. There had been more than one listener to the story, and, in the latter part of that same year, or of the next, one such listener was staying at a country house in Ireland.
One evening his host was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in the smoking-room. Suddenly he put his hand upon a little box. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you know about old things; tell me what that is.’ My friend opened the little box, and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to it. He glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it more narrowly. ‘What’s the history of this?’ he asked. ‘Odd enough,’ was the answer. ‘You know the yew thicket in the shrubbery: well, a year or two back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and what do you suppose we found?’
‘Is it possible that you found a body?’ said the visitor, with an odd feeling of nervousness.
‘We did that: but what’s more, in every sense of the word, we found two.’
‘Good Heavens! Two? Was there anything to show how they got there? Was this thing found with them?’
‘It was. Amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies. A bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. One body had the arms tight round the other. They must have been there thirty years or more—long enough before we came to this place. You may judge we filled the well up fast enough. Do you make anything of what’s cut on that gold coin you have there?’
‘I think I can,’ said my friend, holding it to the light (but he read it without much difficulty); ‘it seems to be G.W.S., 24 July, 1865.’
###
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.net. This story is part of the collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James available at www.gutenberg.org.
Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Reader Charles Stacey gave “Click” five stars on Amazon and commented:
“Author has a wonderful ability to develop the characters using few words. Great foreshadowing to build suspense. And then a really outstanding twist at the end that left me smiling.”
Joe Leonardi gave Click five stars on Amazon commenting: “An interesting story with a double twist ending that left this reader wanting more….” while he also reviewed Click on his website, ShortStoryScribe.com, saying:
Author Phil Slattery takes us on an interesting ride. He gives a twist ending to the story, that once revealed, you realize he peppered the story with clues. The second twist ending hits out of left field, and left this reader wanting for more.
The motivation is as old as storytelling, but that doesn’t make it bad. Slattery’s words make us care for the main character and seeing his view of his marriage leave us, in the end, feeling sad for him in his moment of triumph.
Edward Z gave Click five stars on Amazon and commented:
A policeman on leave on a secluded island after shooting an unarmed man with a toy gun finds himself under siege by two criminals looking to use the place themselves…
A lot of detail goes into both the psychological aspects of the story as well as the action. This one is packed with every character’s motives, inner dialogue, and very well thought out. When it gets to the action it keeps this up as well as adding a lot of excitement.
Smart, fast-paced, and full of action. The characters are well done and don’t suffer from the usual boring tropes too much, and the two criminals are interesting as the author knows how to do ‘bad guys’ rather well.
An Amazon customer gave Click five stars and commented:
“This novelette is a quick and very entertaining read. It opened with a grabber (“Tell me again whey we have to kill this guy…”) and kept pulling me in from there. Frank Martinez is a cop trying to recover from a shooting incident in solitude on an island off the Texas gulf coast. T.J. and Benny are the bad guys. Their hunt and chase on the small island kept me in suspense. It ends with a surprise twist. Slattery proves here he is a good storyteller.”
While on my author’s page, check out my other works.
Don’t forget to leave your own review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.
I am seeking people to review my works and who post their reviews to markets in the US, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. I offer my Kindle e-books for free periodically according to Amazon policy. You can find my works on my 
My novelette, Click, is available free today on Amazon Kindle.
Just now, I posted a review of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones on 
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 