Tagged: Horror
New Game: Blue Light
Back in 2020 I wrote a story for Flash Fiction Month titled Blue Light: it’s a stream-of-consciousness piece about a guy who gets lost in the Paris catacombs and discovers (or at least starts to believe) that the blue light from the phone screen he’s using to navigate is making the skeletons restless. I’d originally planned to turn that idea into a game, but the need to come up with a story for that particular day of Flash Fiction Month meant it ended up becoming a short story first. However, I’ve now finally got around to making the playable version I initially imagined!
The game – which you can play online right in your browser – presents exactly the same scenario as the short story, but you’re in charge of where you point the phone screen and it’s up to you to navigate your way out of the catacombs in a way that doesn’t see you constantly flashing your light in the faces of the skeletons in the walls.
Continue reading
Air Gap
Flash Fiction Month 2023, Day 28
“Remind me again why they didn’t just drop this thing out of orbit?”
“It’s a lot easier to scrub a computer virus out of an existing refinery platform than it is to launch the million tons of metal it would take to build a new one.”
Hash cast a glance around the bodies strewn around the docking bay. “I’m worried that’s not all we’ll be scrubbing.”
“Be glad this place depressurised.” Shim tapped his helmet. “No decomposition in a vacuum.”
Hash took a closer look at the nearest corpse, sprawled by the airlock. There was a scar at the base of the skull, and the telltale outline of a battery harness beneath the neoprene jumpsuit. “That just trades one problem for another. There’s a lot of silicon in these stiffs…” Continue reading
New Game: Rainbow Bears Fun Maze
Hello everybody, please enjoy Rainbow Bears Fun Maze, a bright and colourful maze game that contains no jumpscares.
That’s right. Where much of my other work has some kind of sinister twist to it, Rainbow Bears Fun Maze is exactly what it looks like and 100% jumpscare free. No jumpscares, just gentle maze-exploring fun. Explore the maze confident in the knowledge that nothing will suddenly pop out at you.
So to sum up: no jumpscares, just brightly coloured teddy bears having a wonderful time.
RESIST! Now Available on itch.io
You might have already seen Resist! as my entry for IntroComp 2021 – it ultimately won third place!* Well, it’s no longer just an intro: the whole thing is available to play over on itch.io! The promise of prize money is always a great incentive to get things done, and this was no exception.
*I feel obliged to mention that it was third out of four, making this the only competition I’ve both placed in and failed to make it into the top 50% of entrants.
I’m just going to copy/paste my earlier description here because I don’t think I’m going to top it:
It’s set in an extremely generic zombie apocalypse. There is, however, a pretty big twist: your character is one of the zombies, and being a zombie you don’t really get a whole lot of say in what you do. Your first instinct is primarily to shamble around aimlessly and chomp anybody who gets close. Your options consist primarily of not doing whatever it is you’re thinking about doing.
~Me, almost exactly a year ago.
The two big things to mention about Resist! gameplay-wise are that it’s real-time – the text will appear on screen without any input from you (and auto-scroll the page as necessary!) – and that you can control it with your keyboard! Since it could be rather fiddly to mouseover and click the links within the mere seconds they’re visible on screen, you can just keep your finger on the “R” key of your keyboard and smash that thing when necessary.
I actually did a complete overhaul of both the auto-scrolling and the live text between IntroComp and the final version: the auto-scrolling because an update to Twine apparently broke that functionality, and the live text because I discovered a much more convenient method of doing it. I may put out a new Twine for Beginners tutorial on this because it’s really not too hard, but if you want to use any of these features in your own Twine projects in the meantime then you’re entirely welcome to download the game (Right Click, This Frame > Save Frame As… in Firefox, and likely similar in other browsers) and import it into Twine to see how it all works. All I ask is that if you end up making something cool by borrowing my Twine techniques, you send me a link to it!
Witness Not the Watcher
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 24
“Has Harry told you about tulpas yet?”
“That Spanish thing?” Ryan had seen a restaurant in town.
“I dunno if it’s Spanish, but it’s like…” Anton leaned in closer “…an imaginary friend! Like he’s gonna think about this anime girlfriend really hard—he’s way into anime—and that’ll make her real. It’s way sad!”
“Yeah, sounds weird.” It did sound sad, but Ryan hadn’t actually heard Harry say any of this. He wasn’t even positive he knew who Harry was, except that he strongly suspected he was the fat guy with the Bleach t-shirt.
“You here for pre-drinks?” asked Anton.
“No, I’m…” Ryan had been thinking of heading down to the club later, but since it was 4pm and Anton already had a Strongbow he got the feeling this might be one of those days they never made it out of the communal kitchen. “Was there a torch in here?”
“Don’t think so.”
Ryan spotted it by the microwave and picked it up.
“What do you want with that anyway?”
“Gotta grab a book for ‘Literature in Translation,’ but all the lights are out on the third floor.” Continue reading
The Little Enchilada That Could
Flash Fiction Month 2022, Day 11
“I think I can! I think I can!” said the enchilada.
“What, uhhh…” Bethany looked around. “What do you think you can?”
“I think I can! I think I can!” the enchilada repeated.
“Right. You said that. It’s just, I’m not sure exactly what it is an enchilada is supposed to do.”
“I think I can! I think I can!” said the enchilada once more.
“Am I… Should I eat you?” Bethany looked around again. “Being eaten seems like the main thing an enchilada could do, but I feel weird about it given that you can talk.”
“I think I can! I think I can!”
“It thinks it can! It thinks it can!” proclaimed an ominous crowd of men in black robes.
“Aaah!” yelled Bethany. “What are all you guys doing in Outback Taco?”
The sky darkened. The clouds above the car park were rent asunder by streaks of lightning, and thunder like the laugh of a mad god soon followed.
“I think I can! I think I can!
“It thinks it can! It thinks it can!”
Suddenly…
It did.
If you’ve enjoyed this story, you can find my work from previous Flash Fiction Months collected in these books:
Click any cover to find that book in your choice of format.
Crossing the Line
Flash Fiction Month 2020, Day 28
Challenge #12: Write a story including a bargain, a liminal space, a sacrifice, or a stranger. It cannot include the following verbs: believed, imagined, knew, loved, hated, noticed, realised, remembered, seemed, thought, understood, wanted, or wondered.
The trespasser topples a cart as he runs, scattering dust and packing material across the floor. She vaults the cart, lands on a sheet of styrofoam, skids into a steel shelving unit. Her right leg buckles. She tries to stand. A jet of hydraulic fluid arcs into the air.
I halt beside her. “Assist?”
“Pursue.”
I run. The trespasser is at a distance of thirty metres. Twenty. Ten. His breath is ragged. The crowbar he carries makes his gait unbalanced.
He reaches the door, swings it closed, jams the crowbar between door and ground. He does not look back.
I give a gentle push. I must not damage the glass.
She runs for the next exit over, right leg dragging. He is nearing exhaustion, his footfalls erratic. She is adapting, her movements becoming more efficient. Continue reading
Blue Light
Flash Fiction Month 2020, Day 23
Challenge #10: Write a stream of consciousness story embracing one of the five elements of Discordianism: Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle, or Orange. Its word count should be a multiple of 14.
He shouts as he stumbles through the half-foot of milky water, no longer concerned about the €60 fine. There are 280km of tunnels here. Many began as mines in the 12th century. Most were uncharted, many forgotten. The guidebook was little help even before he dropped it. The sodden pages are worthless now his torch is too dim to read.
“Hello?” he calls. There is a shout back, or an echo, impossible to tell.
“Hello?” he tries. Again, the same reply.
He hasn’t seen another living person since slipping off the metro platform and along the tracks. At this point he’d be happy just to find a corpse. Only a portion of the tunnels had been turned into ossuaries, and they’ll be full of tourists—people who didn’t crawl through two chatières with no clue where they went—people who came down with a guide.
The guides don’t cost €60. Even €60 would be money well spent. Continue reading
424 Failed Dependency
Flash Fiction Month 2020, Day 20
“She’s still out there.” Abbie turned away from the window for a moment. “I don’t like this. Should we call someone?”
“Over some kid standing outside?” Ethan shook his head. “She must be staying in one of the other cabins.”
“I didn’t see a car outside any of them. And she’s right outside ours!”
Ethan shrugged. “Well, that’s allowed.”
“I still don’t like it. She hasn’t moved once. She’s just standing there, staring at the lake. And in this weather!”
Ethan stood up and took another look at the figure in the little yellow raincoat. “At least she’s dressed for it!”
“Ethan!”
“Fine! If you’re that worried about it I’ll go out and make sure she’s okay.”
He walked into the little porch at the front of the cabin and stood there with his hand an inch from the doorknob. Continue reading
This Animal is a Creation
Flash Fiction Month 2020, Day 16
Challenge #7: Write a story produced using ten prompts generated by the cut-up technique. The source texts must include the lyrics of one David Bowie Song, the lyrics of one other song, and two or three news articles.
- Fall Dog Bombs the Moon – David Bowie
- Snuff – Slipknot
- James Johnson wears bra and fills hotel bath full of potatoes during ‘bizarre’ binge – Daily Echo
- Ghost ship carrying cannibal rats could be heading for Britain – The Telegraph
- Meet the coywolf – The Star
- His hotel bath with potatoes.
- The substances had been inert.
- Unknown despite several attempts to find it.
- 10-year-old Soviet vessel.
- Is that supposed to be a dog?
- The number of drugs he took into the Travelodge in Eastleigh.
- In order to cash in on beacons activated last March.
- This animal is a creation.
- The woman’s bra over his shirt.
- Explain how a coyote brings down the west coast of Ireland.
“The lights are on.”
“What?”
“The lights are on.”
“It’s a 40-year-old Soviet vessel! The country that built this thing doesn’t even exist any more!”
“Yeah, but…the lights are on.”
James poked his head around the doorway.
“See?” said Tony. The lights were indeed on.
“There’s nothing on the beach, is there?” James asked.
“No. Well, nothing except…”
James walked—with considerable effort—to the railing and grabbed hold, careful not to put his head too far above it. The creature was waiting exactly where it had been when they scoped out the grounded boat from inland. He got out his binoculars.
Tony walked over unsteadily to join him. “Is that supposed to be a dog?” Continue reading
Damon L. Wakes 