Author's Notes: 'A Shepherd's Crook' is a new tale in the Chronicles of Ben Shepherd. The chronological order of the stories is: The Shepherd of Ashburn Court -- Parts 1 - 5 A Shepherd in France -- Parts 1 & 2 A Shepherd Afield -- Parts 1 - 5 The Shepherd's Crook -- Part 1 & 2 Minimal effort is made in this tale to explain t...
Beyond the Walls of Sleep, They Lie... Author's note: This is my entry for the 2019 Gothic Horror event, Beyond the Walls of Sleep, hosted by BlackRandal1958. I truly appreciate an opportunity to be included in this themed event. Thanks, Randi! I especially appreciate the guide to Gothic Horror written by Todd172 and shared by Randi. This isn't as dark as t...
Act 2 -- Play Games Chapter 1 -- Only women bleed Kelsey and Sydney walked back towards their motel around midnight. Kelsey was a little tipsy as she giggled beside the warm body that held her up helping her keep one foot in front of the other as they walked in the moonlight. Suddenly she stopped. "Syddy," she cried, "didn't Alfie want you to do something...
Life is what you make it, make your luck, destiny is in your own hands. Prologue I might as well own up right at the front of our short-term hopefully intimate but rather one-sided relationship between you the reader and myself: I'm an arsehole, no, let's be brutally frank with you, I am one dumb stupid arsehole. And an unlucky one at that. I never knew h...
Scent Marked: A biologist learns her true power on the trail of the snow leopard My heartfelt thanks to mollycactus and Brittni4u for their generosity in reading and editing this story. Chapter 1 "Fucking bollocks!" I uttered softly as I watched the large chunk of ice break away from the cliff where my axe had struck it, trying to give myself an anchor...
Backroads or: On Being Blown Sideways Down the Road Less Traveled There's something peculiarly energizing about a road trip, even if, as is so often the case, it's a journey to nowhere in particular. Even if you've been down the same road a hundred times before, there's always the hint of something new in the air, some new adventure at hand right around t...
Chapter one Past Scientists were working on a miracle cure that could possibly destroy any terminal illness known to man. They have tested the new drug on rats and chimps but not on humans. This would be the first human trial thus far. Thousands of terminal ill people are waiting in line for their one shot to being free of their chains linking them with de...
Author's Notes: Full disclaimer, Teacher's Crossroad, contains scenes of sex. It also includes scenes that may disturb sensitive readers. That sounds darker than I intended, but I suppose that's what disclaimers do. All that said, it's a Burnt Redstone story, so truthfully, how dark do you think it's gonna get? Originally intended to be three separate s...
Nicolaus's eyes snapped open after a long and deep slumber, something had disturbed him, the sounds of an alarm waking him from his sleep, looking over he found his alarm clock making the most annoying sound possible, effectively waking him, he grumbled, raising from his bed scratching his dark brown hair and yawning loudly. Looking around in his bedroom i...
In loving memory of Grace. Gone too soon, but not forgotten. ~~~~~~~ "That's terrible." "Yeah." Claire nodded, taking a sip of her whisky. She'd already downed three more before that, trying to forget that she was single again. Had been for the last week or so, when she'd packed her stuff and left, no clue where to find a place to stay at two in the night...