The Martuk Series: A Collection of Short Fiction, Vol. 1
“Powerful and brutally honest. Assassin’s Creed meets a darker and more ancient mythology. Winn sees the world like no other author I’ve ever read.” – Joe Mynhardt, Publisher, Crystal Lake Publishing
COMING SOON
A brand new FREE short story from the Eidolon Avenue universe.
A heartbroken widow. An infamous building. A darkness desperate to feed. This is Eidolon Avenue.
Young, bereaved and abandoned, the recent Knickerbocker Crash having taken more than just her savings, Mrs. Artatlan Fogoly considered herself lucky to have found a room to let. But when devout visitors refused to darken her door and an impossible stain appeared on the wall, what had felt like the beginning of something new and wonderful soon became a dangerous path to a surprising end.
The Realtor, an Eidolon Avenue Short, is the tale of how a heartbroken widow turned into Eidolon Avenue’s constant revenant. A siren call for those destined to end their wretched days in that wood, those bricks, that stone. The captive wraith who opened the door and brought the damned home to die.
And what of those wretched damned? Their stories are found in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast as well as the upcoming Eidolon Avenue: The Second Feast.
This story is merely a glimpse of Jonathan Winn’s work, so if you enjoy this introductory story, be sure to pick up Winn’s Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast, available from Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
Isn’t it cool how you can do so much with so few words?
I love it. 😁
It started as a mark.
By lunch, it burned, snaking past her wrist to wind ‘round the elbow and onto the bicep.
At day’s end, it spanned shoulder to shoulder, a wide band of flaking grey weeping crimson and cream.
Come morning, she stood,
swallowed head to toe,
in the bark of a ravening tree.
***
If anyone ever asks me how I get past writer’s block or get myself ready for the day, I’m gonna lead them to these 55-word shorts.
I love ’em.
Dainty girls break too easy.
Which is why, after the effortless snapping of bones
and easy tearing of too-tender flesh,
he craved a Stout Girl.
One with meat on her legs, a heft to her stride.
Pudgy arms, thick wrists.
Yes, that’s the ticket,
he thought
as Stout Girl bashed his head with a brick.
***
Just another little something I wrote – a fairly complete, hopefully intriguing story with a 55 word limit – while loosening the ol’ writing muscles for the day’s work.
I do think I’ll compile these into a collection someday. 🙃
I’ve knitted a shroud.
Or perhaps sewn is the right word.
Dollar store linen and bone-white thread beginning at my purple feet, past my arthritic knees and swollen stomach, onto my weeping breasts and blackened throat.
My knuckles knitting my sins into seclusion and shadow
where,
once the smell becomes toxic,
I will be found.
***
See? You don’t need a ton of words to tell a good, creepy, screwed up story. Fifty-five words – maybe even less – is sometimes all it takes.
Perhaps I should publish a collection. 🤔
Coming soon from one of the top publishers of dark fiction and horror, the award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing (click link for author bio), here’s the tiniest taste of my current WIP, Eidolon Avenue, a collection of novellas and short stories due out in early-2016.
Can’t WAIT to see the cover for this one.
Okay, EXCERPT TIME —
“Cool tats,” she’d said. It was afternoon. Late afternoon. The sun wasn’t as bright. The shadows were long. And the shop had tossed his ass out. Had gone around the corner to take a leak and then puke the pancakes up by a dumpster.
Shitty stomach couldn’t keep anything down these days.
“Cool tats.” Those were the first words from the girl with the forked tongue. “I’m Eve.” She’d stood near, her eyes sleepy and dark.
“Of course you are,” he remembered saying. He’d wished he had a mint.
Coming closer, she’d dragged her thumb through the puke along his bottom lip. Stuck it in her mouth. Sucked and then smiled.
Fuck yeah. Twisted chicks. Loved ‘em.
“I do tats,” she’d said. Goth chick with a Daddy’s Girl Gone Bad vibe. Hair fifty shades of black. Bangs chopped with a razor. Big eyes rimmed with black. Skin as pale as ice with dark blue smeared on her lips. Metal in her ears, nose, chin. Her small white teeth chewing the bright blue from her stubby nails.
Tiny and thin, her nipples poking from a thin tank that ended right below her tits, she stood there with a skirt the size of a bandaid and legs like a fuckin’ Halloween skeleton. The kind you’d stick in your yard and take down right before Thanksgiving. Only this one wore thick blue socks and battered combat boots.
What he wouldn’t give to see those boots up by her fuckin’ ears.
“You do tats?” His stomach had moved again.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Where do you want it?” She’d taken the fingers from her mouth and stuck ‘em down the front of her skirt.
He’d puked.
He turned over and pushed his face into the mattress. The rest was just dark. Clouds and confusion. Walking nowhere. Talking about nothing. The feel of her arm around his waist. Her thin hair in his fist as she gripped his cock through his faded jeans. Night falling. The sound of sirens. The whirling flash of red in the dark. The chill in the air. His face hot. His bones cold. His muscles seizing. His heart racing. The air like knives stabbing his lungs as he tried to breathe. Trying to act like everything was okay when he knew something was very wrong.
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