Spooky and Macabre

Some of the following stories fall into the 'tales of the unexpected' variety, while others are just mysterious, macabre or just plain spooky. I hope you will find something that sends shivers down your spine, while others you may just find funny and entertaining. Enjoy!

Cottage in the forest

A weary traveller is offered succour by a charming old lady living in an isolated cottage

A macabre profession

For me the eerie silence of the secluded sepulchre was a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the wicked world outside

Trapped in the Park

Having fallen asleep in the afternoon, Pete finds he is locked in the Beckenham Recreation Ground.

A quiet night in the George Inn

Feeling a little unsettled, something was not quite right and it wasn't the beer

The witches’ granddaughters

Who sayeth the guilty shall burn?

Creepy

I sat bolt upright, as the thing floated there, right before my very eyes.

“What is it?”

“Ah… ah… ah…” I could not form the words. I could feel my blood run cold, hairs erect, my breath taking rapid short gasps. The question was repeated. “It’s a spider!” I eventually blurted out, as I tried to push myself back against the pillow behind me. The spider, unconcerned, began to tiptoe up the bedspread.

“Phooeee! it’s not that scary.”

“No,” I agreed, as I continued to tremble.

With that, the boney jaw stilled, as the skull drifted back behind the curtain.

Total darkness

A man feels he is completely engulfed by a void he cannot escape

When Piet met Hilma

Question is: how and where?

The rambler's rest

What could be more restful than sitting by the fire in a pub, listening to tales of the sea?

Where the hell is Edgar?

Spooked by a suspect's insistence that he is not mad.

Dead side down

An eccentric's Limerick

Burial party at Beckenham Parish Church

Parson William Hogarth stood at the lychgate of the Beckenham parish church of Saint George, awaiting the burial party with some foreboding. Not least because of the drunken state of the mourners.

Game

Stuart sat facing Death. Death sat opposite, a sardonic grin animating his otherwise fixed expression.

“You know you can’t win against me.”

“I’d like to try.”

The chessmen were arranged on the board. Death, of course, took black.”

“Have you ever been in love?” Asked Stuart, as Death’s grin grew across his grim face.

“Don’t you think that move has been tried before?”

“Well, have you, or haven’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Death, “and, by the way…”

Stuart followed his opponent’s gaze down to the board, noting the white king at checkmate.

“… time’s up!”

The Aquarium

A chance meeting leads to a shocking discovery.

Learning to fly part one / Part two / Part three

When a young lad turns up at Biggin Hill Airport in Kent for a flying lesson, he gets more than he bargained for.

The Earthenware Jar

A mysterious looking earthenware antique holds the key to another realm.

The treasure map

The adventure continues

Semblance

A brief encounter with a mysterious reflection.

Dreams in which I'm dying

Lying in a hospital bed, I was drifting in and out of consciousness, trying to work out what I was doing there and why all the guns

Invisible demons

A fight to the death

A time for crime

Murder, mystery, thievery, felony, true crimes, real crime, fictional crime, future crime, past time. All true (ish) crime fiction by the author.