Showing results by author "Stephen Donald" in All Categories

It shapes our cosmos by confining the stars and is, perhaps, the interstellar sire of human spawn. Within each mind Dark Matter abides, the primordial ancestor of all things chaotic, violent and destructive. Gravitational and inert, it unyieldingly obsesses our most deviant desires while alternately flinging our most violent impulses into the fringes of destructive behavior. Take time to embrace the Dark Matter of life, if only because it is utterly inescapable. Explore the horror of contemporary darkness when you read “Ogre”, “Cassandra's Cat”, “Redemption”, “King Charlemagne...

Calamity often follows a violent shout, but we have more to fear from the occasional wee, wicked whisper. This is the medium of humanity’s most despicable tongue, for a quick whisper is the requisite mode of lies, the self-serving gloat of torment, the insidious confidence of slander, and the preferred protocol of psychosis. Lovers reveal their most intimate and personal secrets on a breathless hiss, while murderous psychopaths use the same hushed voice to lure intended victims. Listen to the wicked whispers of vain success in “Ravenous Is the Void” and “She Comes, the Devil”. ...

Forty years a soldier. Forty years a spy. Forty years an international trafficker of weapons and drugs. All, the accomplishments of one nameless man, a “spook”. From the frozen highlands of Korea, through the sweltering hinterlands of Vietnam, into the arid wastes of Afghanistan and Iraq, then across the Atlantic to the oppressive deserts of Mexico, his career followed an opium highway through the highlights of modern history. His perspective will change you. With all the powerful innovations of modern technology, no nation on Earth has succeeded in closing its borders to the illegal ...

Humankind totters on the brink of extinction. Soon, a superior alien race will dominate Earth. Our greatest hope lies within the ranks of an elite cadre of anonymous combatants called Ghost Warriors. He is of that number. All but mortally wounded, he has crawled into a hidden hole to heal. When he rises again, alien blood will flow! He’s the last survivor. And he's pissed!

While waiting for his wife to finish shopping, he stumbles across a strangely ornate spiral stairway hidden away at the back of the local mall. Bored, he decides to descend a flight or two to examine the strange window displays arranged along its outer wall. With each downward step, he realizes the displays progressively reflect history long since passed. Intrigued, he delves deeper and deeper into the stairwell's many mysteries. Has he gone too far? It's a deep, dark hole hidden away at the back of a suburban sanctuary. Lured by its presence, he loses his sense of time and then he loses ...

Alter the future today by reading this story. Edited untold eons into our future to manipulate their past, our present, the message of this story is tailored word-by-word to exact a desired effect from each reader. The resultant distortion of space and time has a subtle but powerful ability to alter the individual psyche, which exerts an exponential force on the future as it propagates through our population and then countless generations of our progeny to come. The editor of this tale is the last standing Veer, the lone survivor of a time war devastating humankind's future, and she needs ...

She is the most devestating weapon known to a galaxy filled with violence, and tonight she has come to Planet Earth aboard an alien spacecraft. To save us all. The key to unlocking this mysterious device is a naive, unassuming young cheerleader named Dee. Selected among the dwindling remnants of a population in the last throes of extinction, she alone has the power to control the terrible entity known as "Super B**ch".

Nightland resides within an extraordinary region of time and space bound only by limits of sheer imagination. Its ephemeral pinnacles soar near the apex of human aspiration while its abysmal valleys plunge deeply into the darkest landscapes of global apocalypse. It is alternately violently wild and oppressively regimented. Nightland is older than all of recorded human history and it is many things to come. Remember the past with a robust, bloody gaze when you read “Saga of the Never Seen” and “The Templar Chalice”. Linger there awhile to ponder a few of our most disturbing ancestors...

Tired of the endless lies of youth and the unfulfilled promises of adulthood, one man decides to put reality to the ultimate test. Standing in line at a bank to make a final withdrawal with a handgun in his pocket, he remains unconcerned when a gang of criminals burst into the lobby. After all, they still believe in the lies he has long since abandoned, and he is of the violent kind. He's bound to snap and today is the day. Sometimes goodness spoils the bad.

Wealthy and bored, this unique human being has discovered an unusual way to pass the time of day. His story will both amuse and disturb you, for you might at one time or another become the victim of his elaborate pranks. This is the story of an ordeal he calls his “Dumping Game”. As its name implies, it begins with garbage and ends with garbage, but its ultimate goal is the destruction of human lives and the dismantlement of otherwise happy families. Depending upon your own disposition, you will love him or hate him. One thing is certain, however… he loathes you! Follow along as the ...

It is lush, vibrant, and ever-changing. Though raucous and overgrown with a breathtaking variety of savory, beautiful delights, it is a deliberate expression of harsh discipline. Its keeper is a lonely old woman with a green thumb who seems harmless enough to the uninitiated. When a vagrant takes shelter in this garden, however, he learns the unspeakably evil source of her success with all things green and growing. Be careful when you wish. Homeless and wandering through a neglectful city, he ultimately finds his place in this world, tending its garden of evil.

This particular corporal served all four years of the bloodiest war in European history, many of them as a message runner - one of the most dangerous and elite jobs of trench-bound combat. By all accounts, he was a strange young man with many strange ideas. He loved the war and thought it the best time of his life. To be sure, he would survive when so many around him perished, but how? He should have died a thousand times, but nobody could kill him. Only he could do that for himself.

No matter how harsh the instruction or inhumane the conditioning, military doctrine cannot replace compassion with uncaring steel. At his post in the bowels of a Japanese submarine, one frightened boy endures the unspeakable slaughter of an illicit war until he reaches a psychological breaking point. Then he begins opening valves that should be closed and closing valves that should be open. Drafted as a teenager into one of the bloodiest and most fanatical navies in history, he will spin the wheels for ill. What causes the discipline of duty to descend into the degradations of madness?

A fleeting shadow skirting the storm-swept shoulder of an isolated country highway, she hitchhikes along the loneliest stretch of pavement in the most deserted hollows of the countryside. When the downpour presses, he insists on giving her a ride despite her demurs. It will be the most fateful companionship he will ever know.

A trusted agent in the employ of an untrustworthy corporation. He knows too much and he realizes this knowledge will soon necessitate his own liquidation. Will he retire in style to a lavish future, or will his employers violently consign his remains to an unmarked grave? He's tired of the rat race, and he has a plan for a fantastic exit. Sometimes, the rat gets the cheese and the trap springs empty.

In the Common Era year 2113, Major Maximillia Brandenburg activated humankind’s first rendition of a differential gravity drive, momentarily exiting the multiverse and consequently cheating the physical barricade prohibiting faster-than-light travel. Humanity began to fill their empty galaxy, one habitable planet at a time. Ultimately, through the course of the next three hundred years, the bulk of human travel and interstellar commerce would transpire between these established flexure-points along a cosmic highway called “The Serpentine”. Insatiable as always, humankind's thirst for ...

In this version of the future, science has learned how to identify a propensity for violence within the human mind before it manifests as action, and the violent ones have become targets for extermination. This is a humane, disciplined and well-intended social program, and civilization expects its unfortunate recipients to make dutiful sacrifices. Unfortunately, this sort of person is not likely to go without a fight. In the not-so-distant future, violence among humankind is on its way out. Almost.

At the last stop for provisions before they make their climb into the snowy mountains of Colorado, the locals tease these teenaged tourists about their lack of preparation for such a cold and unforgiving frontier. Though they scoff, these unfortunate youths will soon learn why the old-timers claim that the mountains sometimes keep their dead. When they put out the 'TIRE CHAINS' signs, beware. It's not just the ice, it's the snow, too.

A city viewed from a jet liner is eerily indistinguishable from a vast, sprawling anthill. Both are industrious mounds riddled with innumerable burrows and endless trails, which endlessly crawl with toiling creatures, all bound from one mysterious errand to another. Amid the daily crush, a hapless drone occasionally awakens to question the drudgery of its existence. Within the hive, none can help him differentiate himself, man from ant.

He recently returned from an uneventful patrol through the near space of his solar system. Though he recalls nothing odd about the voyage, something has gone terribly wrong. Standing before a mirror in his home, he realizes he has somehow found himself on the wrong side of backwards. Left to right. Right to left. Everyone knows that mirrors reflect everything backwards. Right?