1. My own story starts in the early years of the twenty-first century. I was a 30-year-old scientist. In those days, strange though it is to recall, most scientists were men, like me. I do not intend to spend long on the details of my life or the work that I did. In brief, however, I was considered an expert at the design and construction of instruments for...
Chapter 1 - The dream scanner Geoffrey Warner paddled his log-canoe toward the desert island. It was mid-day and the shade provided by its half-dozen palm trees was strongly inviting. Stepping out into shallow water to pull his canoe up the white-sand beach, Geoffrey found that his arrival had been noticed. A woman stepped out of the shade of the palms, wav...
Cyril's days were endless, brutal routine. Given into servitude as a child to settle a family debt, he had few memories from his life outside the walls of the Bloodbrick Tower and away from its cruel master, Bastigar the Black. He spent his waking hours in the darkness of the Tower's dungeons, cleaning out cells once their occupants had been... used up. He w...
I would like to thank Georgia Alice for helping me find the title to this story. ------------------- Jennifer's life was a mess. From a perspective it was not so obvious until her divorce, but she could sense the cracks appearing for months. Now, five weeks after the divorce had finally been completed, things had not improved and "things" were not supposed...
Kat looked both ways and crossed the street, she hugged her coat in desperation to keep the cold off her bare skin underneath. She had been instructed to wear nothing but her snow boots and a coat. She turned into the alley and bent over slightly putting her hands against the cold brick wall the coat flew open making her shiver. Knowing that if she did somet...
Prologue: An excerpt from The Case of the Red Corset, by Doctor Tobias Jefferson, July 1895 The door finally splintered under my repeated shoulder barges and I stumbled into the bedroom, brandishing my old service revolver. My eyes tried to adjust to the near darkness, the only light source being dawn's faint glow coming through the open French windows. Fie...
Seventeen "Jarl. There is something I need to know," Mirja said sitting down at the edge of the bed. Jarl turned over towards her. The exhaustion was written on his face. She sighed. They couldn't keep draining him like this. "What?" he said gruffly. Mirja ran her hand over his cheek smiling down at him which made him look a little less angry. "Did the...
Mariella Medina, Ph.D., was enraged. The cute-at-first-sight Mexican businesswoman furrowed her rather too broad brow as she shivered in her severely undersewn frilly strapless, backless tube top. Her figure was decent, with a pert pair of sandy-brown breasts over a flattish tummy and slender legs crammed into ludicrous seven-inch heels, probably to mask her...
Buzz, buzz, buzz, the alarm clock rang. Today was a usual workday, and at six in the morning she was up. The first thing she ever did was open up her wardrobe, watching the double doors slide open as her gaze automatically fell on her display of undergarments. "Black or purple..." Marnie questioned with a murmur, just thinking for a moment or two. "Frilly...
Foreword: I discovered Lovecraft as a teenager. I read everything he wrote. Later, August Derleth started Arkham House, publishing to preserve HPL's works and provide a place for the Mythos to continue. Over time, I read all those stories too. Then, I followed the contributing authors as they explored Mythos themes in their later books. Perhaps I got a littl...