Showing results by author "Stephen Donald Huff" in All Categories

Corporate lobotomies. Psychotically amorous semi-sentient bots. Endless corridors. Countless unlabeled doors, all viciously locked. A lethally dysfunctional social infrastructure rife with corruption, inefficiency, and crime. Spiraling homicide rates… Welcome to your corpulent, overpopulated future! Good luck, and have a nice day!

The last frontier is not a destination of space, but of mind. Above the constraints and laws of human civilization, freedom is the rule and confinement the exception. Social authorities detest the ideal and all who voyage there, because therein lies the ultimate unknown, the ultimate fear. Human laws and state control are unknown in Far-World.

After the apocalyptic Terminus Signal induces worldwide slaughter, a death-weary band of survivors attempts to rebuild their ravaged civilization amid an alien wilderness that overflows with bizarre savagery. Although copious quantities of drugs and alcohol disappear inside the Village each night, these tormented holdouts struggle with unquiet consciences that are hopelessly infected by endless black thoughts. For, having survived the ultimate act of genocidal self-destruction, each one of them bear their memories and scars – and the guilt of countless wicked, homicidal crimes.

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.

She is educated, determined and ambitious. She has never failed at anything in her life until her child goes missing and is eventually found slain, in pieces. Only her anger delves deeper into hell than her unfathomable grief. She hunts her monster relentlessly in the months that follow. After she finds him, his suffering will be unspeakable.

While waiting for his wife to finish shopping, he stumbles across a strangely ornate 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, the displays progressively reflect history long since passed. Intrigued, he delves deeper and deeper into countless mysteries presented along his careless descent of the spiral stair.

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 should have died a thousand times. Though millions perished, the corporal would survive.

Civilization deconstructed itself like a riot in a madhouse. One minute it all functioned with a standard sort of craziness, and the next it devolved into ten billion psychotic inmates at each other’s throats like suddenly sprung animals. Survivors refer to civilization’s final irrational act as "Terminus", but this is an unofficial label. It simply gives them a handle with which to wield the concept of their end times. It bifurcates their memory. Before. After. In between, an unspeakable river of blood.

Lovers reveal their most intimate and personal secrets on a breathless hiss, while murderous psychopaths use the same hushed voice to lure intended victims. 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.

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.

Though doting parents often teach their children the futility of violence, every rational human being also understands the hypocrisy inherent in such lessons, since life surrounds us with countless examples of practical solutions wrought in savagery. While each act of brutality inevitably debases all humankind, a maladjusted minority also recognize in it a tempting potential to make quick return on a prized reward. Perspective, then, becomes a matter of outcomes. Most of us will experience violence demeaning; few of us will know violence redeeming.

As the zombie apocalypse begins, a small group of civil servants find themselves locked in their tollbooths, which are heavily armored against run-away automobiles. Trapped inside their hellish fishbowls, they curse their situation. Yet they are safe... for a time. Cramped, dingy and institutionally depressing, their duty station becomes a backstage view of Armageddon.

On Friday, October 13th of 1307, the Knights Templar ceased to exist. Imprisoned, tortured and executed, in a single day every soldier of that once-powerful order became a capital offender with no hope for reprieve. Fabulously wealthy at the time, the Templars owned vast estates that safeguarded legendary caches of treasure. Though their enemies seized much of their property, rumors of lost hordes echo through history to the present day.

Wrongfully convicted and long confined in one of the worst prisons in the United States, he is bitter and angry. Despite a million-dollar settlement, his thirst for vengeance cannot be peacefully appeased, and his lust for blood ultimately turns on the sort of crooked prosecutors who ruined his life. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He agrees.

He is the most prolific sniper in a long, deadly war. In fact, he succeeds to the point that his own comrades have learned to shun him. It's his job. He's good at it.

Jo-Jo's father died young and his mother, while present, never picked up the slack. It's not easy to raise an unguided young man of high school age, especially a young man as misunderstood as Jo-Jo. Life is too short to mourn the dead forever. In a smile, a frown. In laughter, sorrow. Today is Jo-Jo’s “Big Day”.

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. When he rises, alien blood will flow!

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 editor of this tale is the last standing Veer, the lone survivor of a time war devastating humankind's future, and she needs your help today!

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.

Wealthy and bored, this unique human being has discovered an unusual way to pass the time of day. This is the 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.