40 Frightful Flash Fictions
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About this ebook
From the perils of The First Crusade to the tempestuous skies over war-torn China in the 1940s, death, danger and destruction lurk everywhere ... and can strike before you know what hit you. Devastation is served with a smile in this creepy collection of flash tales! Do you trust your best friend? Your spouse? Your doctor? Maybe you shouldn’t.
Allan M. Heller
Allan is the author of five non-fiction books, numerous short stories and dozens of poems. In February of 2014, he was appointed poet laureate of Hatboro, Pennsylvania. He resides with his dear wife, Tatiana, and their wonderful cat, Rocky. Other Titles by Allan: Fabjob Guide to Become a Life Coach Fabjob, Ltd. (2003), Philadelphia Area Cemeteries, Monuments and Memorials of Washington, D.C. and Monuments and Memorials of Philadelphia (2004, 2005 and 2010, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd)., Graveyards of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (2014, Bygone Era Books).
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40 Frightful Flash Fictions - Allan M. Heller
40 Frightful Flash Fictions
Allan M. Heller
Night to Dawn Magazine & Books LLC
P. O. Box 643
Abington, PA 19001
www.bloodredshadow.com
ISBN: 978-1-937769-41-3
Copyright by Allan M. Heller
First Edition 2015
Smashwords Edition
Photographer/Illustrator: Stan Horwitz
Calligraphy & design: Teresa Tunaley
Tree photograph by Debra Regis
Editor: Barbara Custer
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental, and is not to be construed as truth or fact.
All rights reserved:
It is illegal for you to copy or distribute copies of this or any copyright written work in print or electronic form without expressed written consent from the publisher. Please do not purchase unauthorized copies. For information, contact Barbara Custer, c/o Night to Dawn Magazine & Books LLC, P. O. Box 643, Abington, PA 19001
To my loving (and lovely) wife, Tatiana, who patiently reads all of my writing (and gives sound editorial advice)!
I wish to thank Barbara (of the Balloons) Custer, for her friendship and encouragement, the members of the Hatboro Writers' Group, Ruth Z. Deming and the members of the Coffee House Writers, my in-laws, Martin and Elena Greendlinger; my mother and stepfather, Cynthia and David Jones; my brother and sister-in-law, Laurence and Stacey Heller, and my late father, Stuart H. Heller, whom I miss sorely every day.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Tenant from 417
The Horse Trader
The Last Templar
Reflections
Wedded Bliss
Fortune Cookie Messages
Which is Witch?
Safety First
The Mortician’s Assistant
As Clear as Daylight
Red Sky at Morning
As One That on a Lonesome Road
Fly by Night
The Holdup
The Recliner That Ate Mrs. Mulligan
Dr. Drill
The Protégé
Texting One, Two, Three
A Keen Acquisition
Joyride
Flash in the Field
Automatic Writing
Writers, Retreat!
Ghost of a Chance
Dark Desires
Where There’s One
Pal’s Tickets
Hide and Seek
The Assignment
Zero at Six O’clock
Folly Fulfilled
Tiger, Tiger
The Possession
The Caller
The Reunion
Right of Way
During the Heat Wave
Keeping Your Head above Water
Just Because You’re Paranoid
The Bunk Bed Incident
About the Contributors
Introduction
Proclaiming that flash fiction
is the future may be a premature, if alliterative claim. At the same time, denying the huge impact that this diminutive discipline has is inaccurate. Readers will not sit down with Tom Jones or Moby Dick, and why should they with a myriad other distractions vying for their attention? But fear not! Reading is not defunct, just becoming more compact, generally between 50 to as much as 1,000 words.
Horror, or dark fantasy, is also an attractive venue. People like to be scared, armed with the knowledge that they can always retreat back into the real world, close their eyes, or click their ruby slippers together.
I have sought to combine the public’s preference for pithiness with their fancying fear, in this modest 40-tale collection titled, you can guess, 40 Frightful Flash Fictions. Some stories are supernatural yarns; others cull trepidation from mundane situations. They range in length from the 105-word The Possession
to the 695-word Keeping Your Head above Water.
Flash fiction may be a trend, but looks to be a long-lived one. So enter the dark chambers of the imagination, and hang on to every concentrated phrase. You won’t want to miss anything.
A.M.H., July13, 2015.
Hatboro, Pennsylvania
The Tenant from 417
Elmore the janitor found him lying face down in the laundry room, wearing a blue bathrobe and one slipper, the second of which had most likely come off when he slid from the chair by the window and onto the floor. The last person to see Stillman Meckler alive had been Bruce, the hunchbacked octogenarian from apartment 208 who wandered the building after dark like some bored apparition. That was around three o’clock in the morning. Four hours later came the grim discovery.
A heart attack, I guess,
Elmore suggested.
But the tenant from 417, who lived on the same floor as the deceased had, didn’t buy it. Why had Stillman locked himself in the laundry room? He