Showing results by author "Mace Styx" in All Categories

Enjoy this short story by Mace Styx. “Guys, it’s open!” Robert inspected the door and called them. When they turned their heads, they saw him standing right next to the opened door of the dead tree. “I’m not getting inside that creepy thing,” said Marcela. “But we don’t have a choice. These crows are crazy. With that large number, we’ll be brutally torn to pieces if they attack us. Come on,” said Regan. He grabbed Marcela’s hand and walked back to the old tree. “Wait!” their guide Freddie suddenly yelled".

Perhaps some heavy sheet of twisted metal, the engine or outer frame of his vehicle. He scoured his memory, trying to recall what he had been doing immediately before he had awoken, but the account came back blank. Like the times he had drunken himself into a blackout, he had clearly lost time; where the memory should be, there was nothing - just a blank void, a gap in the recording.

"The light from the fire against the tent cast some strange shadows, but nothing out of the ordinary, as Tony whispered that it was probably Bumi going to pee in the foliage. Leaning slowly to one side I raised the flap of the tent and stared out. Panic gripped me when I suddenly realized that the tent opposite, Bumi’s tent, was empty. Not only that, but his backpack was missing. Why would he take his stuff if he’s just going to pee? I asked myself and then Tony, out loud. In response he told me not to panic. Surely wherever Bumi had gone he would be back by morning".

In reality, in real actual life, that kind of magic doesn’t belong to one group and the object doesn’t have to look like them at all. It doesn't even have to look like a person. As long as you wish, dream, and know hard enough, it can be anything. A stick, a leaf, a piece of fruit, a candle. My grandmother used to do with an egg. She would write the name of the person onto the surface of a hen’s egg and then...picking up a rock, she would smash - Smash! Smash! - the top, so that it fractured and dented, yolk spilling and oozing out everywhere!

Enjoy this short story by Mace Styx: "Standing in a room filled with sharp and heavy objects I had seen some form of I don’t know what, an apparition? A ghost? Yet, I had not been harmed. Standing stock still, I considered. In those stories, those urban legends and public warnings about the dangers of discarded appliances there was no malevolent element, no wicked long toothed demon emerging through the wires. Shaking my head and sure that I would probably regret the decision, I did possibly the bravest and possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done. I went back into the room".

I wiped the sweat of my face and the fear that I felt in my dream was translated into reality when I noticed something on my arm. There were marks around my wrist that eerily resembled the exact spot Randy grabbed me. I wanted to fool myself and think that it was just a crazy coincidence, but I could clearly see the mark of his long fingers.

James. Was he inside the house, alive? There was nobody else at the scene of this horrendous crime. James was missing and nowhere to be found. The couple had multiple stab wounds and even bite marks all over their bodies. And their attention turned to suspecting that James was the one who murdered his own parents.

Especially when they were exposed to more people when they started schooling. Their fellow kindergarteners did not become an issue since they were all too young to judge. But the parents and a few teachers had thought of the twins as freaks of nature. They began to get harassed by the local tabloids and fanatics of bizarre scopes, until it became overwhelming and intolerable. Before their home could turn into a circus, they were forced to move out for the sake of their children.

Enjoy this short story by Mace Styx: "Still, despite my mother’s warnings and the strange feelings that her less specific warnings gave me. I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Andy and Mike, so instead of protesting or sharing what my mom had said. I instead clambered up the iron ladder, plonked myself down cross legged on the roof and prepared myself for the process by cracking open a preparatory beer. Andy, as always, was marvelously melodramatic".

When Tim, one day, made the mistake of wearing shorts at school, revealing how sticklike and sickly thin his legs were, one of the many vitriolic idiots referred to them as "spindle" legs. The comparison wasn’t entirely accurate, but somehow the word had a particular connotation of legs that were twig thin, willowy, and bone-like.

So it was with a great wave of relief that we approached the scene and found blue flashing lights already throwing their ominous glow on the road when we arrived. Somewhere to the left of where the ambulance was parked, two paramedics were hunched over a figure that had been covered with several of those tinfoil like sheets stopping people from going into shock as a result of exposure to the cold. I remember seeing that small silver mass, a hunched lump like a giant jacket potato and seeing from the bottom left of the mass one perfectly formed female foot.

Big BiIl’s voice was getting louder and louder. I was pretty sure that it was reaching the restaurant and was starting to feel a bit embarrassed since I didn’t want to be a part of the scene he was causing. However, I didn’t not hear anything from inside as I walked toward the hallway. Another crew member came from inside the restaurant and walked past me.

Most often were those inner thoughts that were full of hate. And just like any other ordinary bloke who obtained such remarkable skill, I used it to gain some practical advantage for my daily needs and leisure. With an ability to hear thoughts, winning on a poker game was a breeze. It was quite handy for picking up women, as well, and it was easy to impress other people by presenting it as some kind of magic or a trick.

More tendrils wrapped around Pearl and lifted her bodily into the air. She shrieked, but the sound was drowned out by the screaming of the gulls and the deep rumbling from the creature. It held her high up in the air, above that glowing amber eye, which seemed to drink in the sight of the squirming creature in its grip, easily stripping away her defenses. In fact, there almost seemed to be something wise in its lone eye, like it could understand her suffering. Perhaps it was unfair to assign malice to the creature.

While the image of Boris Karloff slowly shuffling across the screen with wraps of what looked like toilet paper wound around him may not have frightened me. The less well lit corners of esoteric magic did. As a scholar of history and particularly folklore, I had occasion to research the origins and uses of ritual magic within the Middle Ages. I was stunned by how much of what we think of as "medieval" magic actually finds its roots with the Ancient Egyptians.

I had no choice but to lift up the bed, and Becca aggressively grabbed our daughter to stop her from behaving wildly. She struggled to get out of her arms, and she succeeded when she sank her teeth into her mother’s shoulder. I ran immediately to the medicine cabinet. My wife was crying as she tried to lull our little Matthew back to sleep. He was awakened because of the loud ruckus in the house. With my youngest child and my wife in tears as I was patching up the wound on her shoulder, my heart was crushed while I was looking at the bite mark of my daughter.

The line on the map, where they had permission to go, brought them very close to the place where Andrew had to go. So they started out, leaving their Jeep at a secure place in the village, and taking all essential gear with them into the jungle. They didn’t take their cell phones, because they were out of cell range, even before they entered the jungle. But Andrew had his satellite phone. And the moment Andrew entered the jungle, he knew they were going in the right direction.

I took a short break a few hours later. Breaking through the curtains of vines and intertwined stalks was tiring, especially when I had to fight through the boggy soil that was weighing down my feet. It was then when I suddenly heard some rustling from the shrubs as I was taking out my supplies. I paused for a moment to closely observe. A few seconds later, I heard some subtle grunting close by.

Becca was not allowed to be touched by other men, not even the tip of her fingers nor a strand of her hair. The very first time I witnessed this issue was when a male customer shook Becca’s hand when he made a hefty purchase of her designs. Anybody would have known that it was a mere form of polite gesture, but I noticed that her husband was staring at them until the customer walked out of the shop.

I called for Archie then, shouting at the top of my lungs and hoping that perhaps she had escaped to the outside, or was on her way to my house. I lifted my phone to call her and saw a video clip she had sent. Feeling the tension drain from my body as relief washed over me like a wave, I sighed, assuming that this message would tell me exactly where she was, that she was safe and that the worst I would then be faced with was an embarrassing conversation with the police. As it turned out, only the last of these was true.