Mud, Blood, and Banyan Roots

The following is based on under-reported hotspots in South Africa...

July 10, 2025.

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Thabiso Mokoena, a burned-out social worker with a rusted Corolla and a restless conscience, didn’t believe in the devil. But the charred bones behind the school, chants carved into abandoned shacks, and a boy who returned with glassy eyes and a silent tongue—those were harder to explain.

“The Inkatha Nyoka aren’t kids with knives,” said a trembling teen at the shelter, eyes flicking toward the door. “They pray with blood... and things answer.”

Thabiso wanted to dismiss it. But he’d seen the marks—burned into skin, scrawled in salt and ash. He’d found the book too, buried beneath a ruined hostel. Thick as a cinderblock, bound in hyena hide, its pages slick with something dark. On the cover: a red sigil stitched like a wound.

The gang’s rituals twisted sacred practices into something feral—muti from stolen organs, animal sacrifice turned initiation. Children chanting in forgotten dialects while smoke filled the air.

Then he saw the video. Grainy, low light. A boy masked in clay, dancing around fire—Sipho. His brother. Missing for two years. The one he’d stopped searching for.

“He’s Mkhulu waMimoya now,” whispered a local priest, standing in the ruins of a burned church speaking of the Great Spirit. “Leader of spirits. It’s not a gang anymore. He’s building something.”

Days went by, and Thabiso didn’t sleep. Every witness gave the same story in different words—riddles wrapped in fear. He traced the path through morgues, sangomas, derelict train stations. Each step blurred the line between reality and nightmare.

When he reached the cult’s gathering place—an old colonial orphanage tangled in banyan roots—he carried the book, a river-mud-soaked blade, and a prayer he couldn’t finish.

He had come to rescue his brother, but instead, he found a god of bones and flesh on a throne of teeth.

“You took too long,” Sipho said, voice layered with others. “Now you’ll serve.”

The Hollow Signal

The following is based on recently unearthed documents, with names changed to protect the innocent...

June 2025.

Hugh Tyler had sworn off the psychic games. Tall, broad-shouldered, with prematurely graying temples, he looked built for physical wars, not psychic ones—but his mind had once been one of the CIA's sharpest weapons. He hadn’t used remote viewing since the Stargate Project collapsed in the mid-90s, leaving him fractured and forgotten. But when a decrypted Cold War document crossed his path—referencing “Base H-7, interior Mount Hayes, neural harvesting ongoing”—something inside him stirred.

“Jesus,” he muttered, thumbing through brittle pages in his frostbitten cabin. “They weren’t kidding.”

The file included sketches: humanoid figures at glowing, circular consoles with thought-maps projected above their heads. Coordinates pointed to the Alaskan Triangle—a vast, bleak swath of wilderness where compasses spun and entire planes vanished without trace.

Enter Jared Augustin. Barrel-chested, mid-forties, with a permanent five o’clock shadow, the former security officer still bore the clipped speech and cautious gait of someone who’d seen too much. Hugh found him near Delta Junction, holed up with three German shepherds and a rusting radar array aimed squarely at Mount Hayes.

“You’re looking for ghosts,” Jared said flatly when Hugh arrived. “They’re real. Don’t think they’re dead.”

“You saw it?”

“Ten years back. Ball of green light split into three. Didn’t glide, didn’t float—snapped across the sky like it was cutting through spacetime. Then it was gone. Took my buddy with it.”

The two men—reluctant allies bound by trauma and suspicion—trekked toward Mount Hayes, snow crunching beneath their boots, radios crackling with interference. The deeper they pushed into the wilderness, the stranger things became. Time warped. Watches froze. Jared swore he saw a version of himself, older and thinner, watching from across a ridge. Hugh’s visions intensified—silver-skinned humanoids communicating soundlessly, hands on biometric orbs, scanning memories like files.

Inside the mountain, they found it—not tunnels, but angled hallways, shaped by non-Euclidean geometry, pulsing with violet light. The air buzzed—not with electricity, but thought. Jared touched a wall and recoiled.

“Feels alive,” he whispered.

Then came the truth.

The base wasn’t alien in any familiar sense. It was a neural farm—a repository of consciousness pulled from abductees and explorers, fed into a collective intelligence older than human civilization. Hugh, once drawn into its frequency through the Stargate Project, had never fully left.

A voice echoed in his mind. "Return complete."

As he stepped forward, consoles lit up in recognition. His mind flooded with foreign memories—starscapes, dying worlds, warnings lost to time. Jared pulled his sidearm, but Hugh smiled, eyes shimmering silver.

“I didn’t come to infiltrate it,” he said. “I came to wake it up.”

The Dollmaker's Wake

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a story that sees a skeptic racing to return a haunted doll before unleashed chaos consumes the living.

The following is based on a claim of a missing doll...

May 25, 2025.

Rain struck the van windshield in rhythmic sheets as Teej stared out at the empty highway, fingers clenched white on the steering wheel. “I told them this was a mistake,” she muttered, steam fogging the glass. In the back, swaddled in thick velvet and latched in a crate marked DO NOT OPEN, the doll gave off a hum—not a sound, but a pressure throbbing behind her eyes.

A week ago, she’d laughed when asked to escort Annabelle. “You don’t believe in this crap, do you?” she asked the tour director. He handed her a check and a manifest and told her not to open the case. Under any circumstances.

Louisiana smoked behind her—the plantation reduced to ash, the prison break still dominating every news cycle. “Coincidence,” she told herself for the fifth time. But she’d seen the whispers in every town, seen how animals refused to go near the doll. And she hadn’t missed the sigils—etched, scorched—into the crate’s underside when it jostled open in Shreveport.

“You were locked up for a reason,” she said, glancing in the rearview. The doll sat as always—unblinking, red yarn hair askew. But the glass was fogged. From the inside.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Dan Rivera, all caps: “WHERE IS SHE? VIDEO WAS PRE-RECORDED. ANNABELLE NEVER CAME BACK.”

Teej’s heart dropped. “What do you mean never came back?”

The doll moved its head. Slightly.

She slammed the brakes. Tires screamed.

In the silence, Teej stepped into the storm with the crate in her arms and whispered to the dark, “If you're listening... I'm bringing her home.”

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Exciting news! My book, "Cumberland Chronicles" is now available at Books2Read! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!

The Thirteenth Vision

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into the story of a skeptic journalist, who must stop an ancient evil foretold in a mystic's apocalyptic prophecy.

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The following is based on predictions for 2025, with names changed to protect the innocent...

Before 1996.

The wind bit at Elena Markov’s coat as she climbed the cracked steps of the ruined house, the scent of burnt wood and rain-soaked earth lingering in the air. “No one’s lived here since ’96,” the taxi driver had muttered before peeling off, eyes fixed on the rearview mirror as if the ruin might follow him.

Inside, the air thickened with dust and something older—damp pages, mold, time. Her boots creaked over warped floorboards while her flashlight jittered over faded portraits and a toppled rocking chair. Then she saw it: a loose stone in the fireplace. Her fingers trembled, but she pried it loose anyway. Behind it lay a thin, cloth-wrapped bundle, brittle with age. She unwrapped it.

A diary.

Its pages, written in Cyrillic script, seemed to breathe under her touch. The ink hadn’t faded—it pulsed, veins on parchment. Baba Vanga’s name sprawled across the inside cover.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Elena whispered, thumbing to a date: April 14, 2025. Tomorrow.

A low hum rose from the walls, subtle at first. Then, the air shifted. Her flashlight flickered. Through the window, lightning flashed—illuminating a figure in the field, arms outstretched, unmoving.

Later, in her cramped Sofia apartment, she translated the next passage aloud, voice shaking. “When the Earth splits and fire takes the sky, Volkran shall walk once more, born of man’s war and his greed.”

She blinked. Volkran? That word didn’t appear in any Slavic myth she knew. Her fingers darted over the keyboard, searching forums, archives, even blacklisted cryptology servers. But the anonymous message in her inbox froze her.

“He wakes. Burn the diary. Or you’ll be the door.”

At first, she laughed it off. Until the power cut. Until she saw the man from the field—reflected in the hallway mirror, expressionless, pupils pitch black.

The days that followed spun like a reel unraveling. Earthquakes ravaged Southeast Asia. Markets crashed. A NATO convoy vanished in the Carpathians without a trace.

Then came the visit.

An older woman in a wool cloak appeared at her threshold. “You’re blood-tied,” she said in perfect Bulgarian. “You think you found the book. But it found you.”

“Who are you?” Elena asked.

The woman didn’t blink. “Custodian. Your grandmother before you was one. We sealed Volkran. You… opened it.”

Reality cracked, a hairline fracture—enough for Elena to see through. Her family’s strange silences, her childhood dreams of fire and stone—all warnings.

As war drums echoed across Europe and lightning carved symbols into the sky, Elena stood atop the ruins of Rila Monastery, chanting a rite older than empire. Pages from the diary burned in her hands. The air shimmered. Shadows screamed. When the storm died and silence returned, Elena stepped down alone.

Her world had changed. So had its fate.

She had turned the key. Then, in time, locked the door.

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I’m excited to announce that Cumberland Chronicles is now live on Books2Read! If supernatural, horror, and weird tales are your thing, this one's for you. If not, sharing it with others who might enjoy it would be a huge help. Thanks for all the support!

The Last Throne of Saint Peter

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into the story of a reluctant cardinal, who battles prophecy and fate as Rome collapses under apocalyptic, supernatural forces.

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The following is based on a thousand-year-old prophecy...

April 21, 2025.

The Vatican was dark, the kind of unsettling quiet that pressed against your ears, making the air seem heavier than it should be. In his chambers, Cardinal Pietro Luciani sat by the window, his worn fingers gliding along the edge of ancient papal documents. Beyond the glass, black clouds churned with violent, unnatural intent. The storm was coming—it always was, creeping closer with each breath.

"Cardinal," a soft voice broke the silence. Cardinal Maria Verdi, young, sharp-eyed, far too quick to judge, entered the room. "The conclave is beginning. We need you."

Rooted in place, Pietro kept his gaze on the cracked glass, unmoving as thoughts churned beneath the surface. The prophecy—the prophecy—pressed in, heavy and unshakable. One hundred twelve popes. One hundred twelve fates. And the last: Peter the Roman. Rome would burn, Christ would return, and he—he—was foretold to lead them into the fire, if the ancient words held true.

"I know," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

Maria hesitated, stepping closer. "Do you believe it, Pietro? The prophecy? Or are we—"

He cut her off with a sharp glance. "It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s written. And it’s real." His voice trembled, betraying his calm exterior.

With a hollow rush, a gust of wind swept through the room, rattling the old shutters against their frames. The signs had begun. Beyond the walls, bells tolled, their deep, resonant hum rolling over the city like a slow drumbeat. When the final toll sounded—deafening and sharp—it hung in the air like a warning no one could ignore.

"You think you can escape it?" Maria’s voice was firm, insistent. "They’ll choose you, Pietro. Peter the Roman. That’s what it says. The Church needs you, even if you don’t want it."

"Let them choose," Pietro muttered. "I’ll decline."

Maria frowned. "It’s not that simple. You know what happens to the one who refuses."

His hands clenched into fists. Refuse? Renounce? Could he? Would the blood that had soaked this place for centuries stain him too?

Beneath their feet, the ground trembled—not with the roughness of an earthquake, but with something far more unnatural. Overhead, the lights flickered, casting frantic shadows along the walls. The air thinned, turning bitter and cold. "Pietro…" Maria whispered, her voice barely rising above a breath, her wide eyes snapping toward the door, where something—someone—waited in the gloom.

A shadow flickered between the doorframe like a broken image.

"Is it him?" she breathed.

Pietro’s heart pounded. Out of the shadows, the figure stepped forward—an old man draped in tattered robes, hollow eyes brimming with endless sorrow—Saint Malachy himself, or something far worse. Never had the prophecy been a mere metaphor; Pietro saw it clearly now, written in the ghost’s empty gaze—the cold inevitability of it all.

"You cannot run," the figure rasped. "Fate binds you, Peter. You will wear the crown, and the fires will consume all."

Pietro rose slowly, legs unsteady, the weight of history pressing against him. "Then let the fires come," he said through gritted teeth, stepping past Maria and into the hall. "Let them come."

As the shadows thickened, the storm roared in an unholy chorus overhead. From the heart of the city, the bells tolled again—louder, heavier—each strike signaling the end of something: an era, a prophecy, perhaps even his soul.

"Rome is already lost," he muttered. "And with it, my soul."

Outside, the world had already begun to break.

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Exciting news! Cumberland Chronicles has officially launched on Books2Read! If you're a fan of supernatural, horror, or weird stories, I’d love for you to give it a read. If it’s not quite your style, a quick share would go a long way in helping me connect with the right audience. Thank you for the support!

The Rougarou Heist

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a desperate young drifter who seeks a quick score to escape poverty, but when he dons a cursed werewolf mask that begins to consume his soul, he must fight the growing beast within or lose himself to an ancient hunger stalking the shadows of New Orleans.

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The following is based on a report in the New York Post...

April, 1:15 am.

Along Chef Menteur Highway, the air reeked of saltwater rot and long-buried secrets. In the hollowed-out shell of a once-bustling corner store, Keddrick Demon Jones Jr. crouched by the back fence, eyes scanning the empty street. He was tall—too tall for his frame—but it didn’t matter. After the storm swept through, it stripped away any hope of a quiet life, leaving hunger and frustration to gnaw at him from within. 

He glanced over his shoulder, made sure the street was empty, then slid the mask over his face—a moldy, cracked thing he’d found in a voodoo shop’s forgotten chest. Dark and tattered, it resembled no man, more beast: a rougarou, a shapeshifter cursed to haunt the night.

When the mask settled in place, something stirred within. From his backpack, he pulled the crowbar and crept to the shattered door. Inside, cold emptiness pressed in as he moved with quick, practiced motions—smashing glass, rifling drawers, and stuffing valuables into black plastic bags, scavenging the easy pickings of a forgotten world.

“You won’t get caught,” Keddrick muttered, but his voice sounded hollow, distant, as if it came from somewhere deeper. The mask pulsed against his skin, the stench of old leather filling his nostrils.

As the crowbar struck the register, the mask’s edges curled, tightening around his skull. With a sharp, quick tremor coursing through him, his breath hitched—not from bodily unease, but something deeper. Something else had awakened. Something old.

When the alarm screamed, Keddrick didn’t flinch. He moved faster, grabbing the last bag of cash, bolting for the exit. “Not today,” he muttered again, but his focus slipped. 

Near the fence, he heard it—claws scraping concrete. Not his. As his heart pounded fiercely, he pressed on, unable to pause. Against his face, the mask pulsed, while his trembling hands betrayed his resolve. The stolen bags dragged at him.

He ducked beneath the fence, stumbling into the alley. As he ran toward Stemway Drive, the darkness seemed to close in, curling at the edges of his vision. Something followed, breath hot on his neck. He turned—nothing. Only moonlight, filtering through thinning trees.

“Dream,” Keddrick whispered, wiping sweat from his brow. But the mask—the thing behind it—wasn’t listening. It waited. Every step dragged him deeper into the myth.

At the end of the street, the bags were gone. The hunger, the feeling of being hunted, hadn’t faded. It had only begun.

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Exciting news! Cumberland Chronicles has officially launched on Books2Read! If you're a fan of supernatural, horror, or weird stories, I’d love for you to give it a read. If it’s not quite your style, a quick share would go a long way in helping me connect with the right audience. Thank you for the support!

The Howl Beneath the Ice

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a story that sees a geneticist who unleashes cursed dire wolves and must sacrifice herself to seal their ancient evil.

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The following is based on research and development at Colossal Biosciences...

March 2025.

Dr. Evelyn Marris stood in the cold, sterile light of the lab, her fingers trembling slightly as she reviewed the data. The pups—those unnervingly large, white-furred wolves—had grown at an exponential rate. Only six months old, and already, they were the size of full-grown gray wolves. She tried to tell herself it was normal. After all, she had engineered them to be genetically superior, their cells altered with ancient dire wolf DNA. But nothing about them felt natural.

"You saw it, too, didn't you?" Dr. Rhee asked, his voice tight with tension as he approached her side. His eyes flicked nervously to the monitor, then back to the trio of wolves pacing in their pen. "Their eyes... they don't look like wolves anymore."

Evelyn didn’t respond immediately. She just stared at the pack, their amber eyes flickering in the dim glow of the observation room. The way they moved—too deliberate, too aware—sent a chill down her spine. "It's just a side effect of the gene-editing," she said, more to herself than to him, though even she didn't believe the words. "We’ve altered their brain chemistry. They’re smarter. More... perceptive."

"Smarter doesn’t explain the way they’re watching us," Rhee muttered, his voice cracking.

The door to the pen rattled, and Evelyn’s eyes shot to the steel frame. The youngest pup, the one with the scar-like marking across its snout, had its nose pressed against the thick glass. Its head tilted, ears back, as though studying her. As though understanding her.

It wasn’t until the first disappearance that the fear set in. Dr. Jacobs, one of the senior geneticists, had gone missing without a trace, the only clue a smear of blood on the fence surrounding the preserve. Evelyn had chalked it up to a freak accident—until another team member vanished, and another. There were no signs of struggle, no bodies, just... absence. 

"We should have shut this down weeks ago," Rhee said, pacing now, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the desk. "What the hell were we thinking, Evelyn? This—this was never supposed to be possible."

Evelyn swallowed, her throat dry. "I don’t think it was us... not entirely. This wasn’t just science. There’s something else here."

The walls around them seemed to hum, a low, vibrating frequency, and the wolves, now gathered in a perfect circle in the pen, turned their heads toward the lab. Their bodies rippled beneath the fur, muscles shifting in unnatural harmony. 

"Listen to me," Evelyn whispered, gripping Rhee’s arm as she pointed to the monitor. "My brother... he left something behind. In the journal, he described the curse—the Vargstyrka. The ancient spirits bound to these creatures. I think... I think we’ve unleashed something that’s been dormant for millennia."

Rhee’s face went ashen. "You have to be kidding me. You're saying these things... they’re—what? Possessed?"

"I don’t know," Evelyn muttered, shaking her head. "But I’ve seen the signs. The claw marks on the doors... facing inward. The howls at night, only they don’t sound right—too deep, too... human."

A scream echoed from the compound's east end, the sound distorted, cut short. Rhee took a step back, panic flooding his features. "We need to get out. Now."

But Evelyn remained rooted in place. "We can’t run. Not anymore. If we don’t stop them now... they'll spread. They’re not just wolves. They’re something... older."

As the storm outside intensified, the wind howling against the windows, Evelyn’s voice dropped to a near whisper. "We have one chance. If I perform the ritual—the one in his journal—I can trap them. But..." She hesitated, her gaze meeting his. "I’ll have to stay. Bind myself to them, like he did. If I fail, they’ll take us all."

Rhee’s eyes widened, his lips parted to argue, but the words died in his throat as the wolves’ eyes glowed brighter, more intense, their howls rising in unison. The air grew thick with an unnatural weight, pressing down on them, suffocating. 

“I’m not letting them take you,” Rhee said, his voice hoarse, but Evelyn was already moving toward the door, pulling a vial from her pocket. Her brother’s relic—a bone carved with symbols, pulsing with a faint, eerie light.

"You have to trust me," she said, her voice steady as she turned to face the wolves. "This is the only way."

As the first howl split the air, Evelyn closed her eyes, preparing to sacrifice herself to the spirits she had awakened, and as the wolves charged, she felt her soul rip free—pulled into the darkness, bound to the pack forever.

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Big news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles, is officially available on Books2Read! If you're into supernatural thrills, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to dive in. Even if that's not your usual read, a quick share would mean the world to me. Thanks for helping me spread the word!

The Covenant Engine

The following is based on a review on The Jerusalem Post, with names changed to protect the innocent...

1988.

Caleb Rourke’s fingers trembled as the vision took hold of him. In the darkness before his mind’s eye, an image twisted into view—a long-forgotten chamber, its walls slick with moisture and draped in shadows and ruin. He stood at its threshold, alone, breath shallow, yet the air inside carried an electric hum, as if the room itself was alive—waiting. Before him lay a gilded, coffin-like container, its surface etched with symbols of an ancient covenant. Within its walls, six-winged angels pulsed with an otherworldly light, their forms glowing in rhythmic, silent motion.

It’s real, Caleb thought, heart racing, pulse drowning out his thoughts. 

“The Ark,” he muttered, knowing the word would haunt him forever.

“You know nothing,” a voice—deep, omnipotent—crashed through his mind. The words sent a shock through his chest. “You cannot fathom the weight of what you seek.”

“Who are you?” Caleb whispered, voice barely rising above the hum, as if speaking louder might shatter his fragile grip on the vision. "What is this place?"

“You are trespassing,” the voice intoned, cold and distant. “The protectors will rise when the Ark is disturbed.”

With suffocating intensity, a wave of dread washed over him. Around him, the air in the chamber seemed to stretch and warp, as if the room itself were breathing. Caleb stepped forward, hypnotized by the golden glow emanating from the Ark. Beneath his feet, he felt a faint tremor, a pulse—sharp—as if something ancient and unforgiving had noticed his intrusion.

“You can’t,” the voice warned again, though this time, it sounded more like a plea.

“Too late.” Caleb’s voice was grim, resigned. Temptation surged within him, an insatiable curiosity he couldn’t ignore. He reached out, fingers brushing the surface of the Ark, feeling a jolt of heat shoot through his hand.

The room trembled violently. The protective wards, the sealed forces of millennia, shattered like glass. As Caleb staggered back, the floor beneath him gave way. In the freefall, the vision shattered into a thousand fragments—each revealing something different, something at once more grotesque and more divine. Figures in white robes surrounded him, faces obscured by shadows. He heard their chanting, ancient and sorrowful. Rising from the depths of his being, the words pierced his mind, resonating with the call of something eternal.

Arabic, Caleb realized in a hazy panic. They’re calling me.

The Ark began to glow brighter, its golden surface cracking, as if awakening from a centuries-long slumber.

“You are not meant to—” The voice echoed one last time, but Caleb was no longer listening. 

As the glow reached its peak, a wall of energy surged upward, engulfing him. Time warped, distorting reality as he reached out for the Ark, feeling something—something ancient—pulling at his soul. There was a roar—a scream—felt more than heard. 

“Remember what you awaken,” the voice hissed, before it was drowned out in the chaos.

Caleb’s last thought, his final breath, was swallowed by a force older than time. The light from the Ark expanded until there was only darkness.

Outside, the world remained unaware, oblivious to the force that had stirred beneath the earth. But Caleb knew, deep within, something had been unleashed—a power that would not be easily contained.

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I’m excited to announce that Cumberland Chronicles is now live on Books2Read! If supernatural, horror, and weird tales are your thing, this one's for you. If not, sharing it with others who might enjoy it would be a huge help. Thanks for all the support!

Strikes and Remains

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a psychic’s search for a missing girl, which unveils a buried secret and a lingering presence.

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The following is based on a WMGE report, with names changed to protect the innocent...

October 2024.

The wind howled through the hollow bones of Maple Lanes, an abandoned bowling alley slouched under decades of rot. Lorraine Bellamy stepped over a sagging patch of warped linoleum, her flashlight flickering as if protesting her presence.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she muttered, pulling her coat tighter against the cold clinging to the building’s skin. Her boots crunched over broken glass and shattered pins—too sharp, too awake in the sleeping dark.

A voice rasped behind her ear.

"He’s waiting."

She froze. Not a whisper. Not imagined. A voice—low, graveled, close enough to feel the breath that never came.

She turned toward the back exit, its door half-hinged, revealing a path swallowed by weeds and broken stone. Her pulse quickened.

"You better be right about this," she said aloud, to no one—or everyone. “I’ve followed your voices through attics, woods, basements… This is the last time.”

A bowling pin clattered in the distance.

Outside, moonlight bled through skeletal birches. Lorraine pushed into the overgrowth, the flashlight beam jittering with each breath. A crow perched on a rusted gutter, watching.

She halted.

Behind the building, the earth dipped unnaturally, as though it had sighed open. A pale fragment of jawbone caught the light through moss and dirt.

“No…” Lorraine dropped to her knees, scraping at the soil with bare hands. “This can’t be Emily.”

A skeletal hand emerged—brittle, limp, as if it had reached up and given up halfway.

Another voice—quieter. Male. Frantic.

"Help me—please—she’s not—"

The rest garbled into static. Lorraine sat back, chest rising fast. “Who are you?”

Silence.

"Not the girl you seek."

Her flashlight trembled. Beneath the bones, the ground scorched. Faint letters seared into the concrete.

“What the hell…” she whispered, tracing them. “Who did this to you?”

Leaves stirred behind her.

“I should call this in,” she said, rising. “Get you home. You deserve that much.”

Pins inside the alley toppled—one after the other, like invisible players rolling perfect strikes.

A new voice emerged.

Young. Clear.

"I’m still here."

Lorraine spun toward the alley. Her breath fogged, though the night remained warm.

“…Emily?”

Darkness pressed in.

Something moved down the lane—a shape, a girl, maybe. Watching.

Waiting.

Her fingers gripped the pendant at her neck—the charm Emily’s mother had given her. It pulsed.

“I’m listening,” she whispered, stepping toward the yawning doorway.

Pins no longer fell.

Trees rustled behind her, low and constant.

She didn’t need more proof. The dead had spoken. And someone else, someone lost, had begun to answer.

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I’m excited to announce that Cumberland Chronicles is now live on Books2Read! If supernatural, horror, and weird tales are your thing, this one's for you. If not, sharing it with others who might enjoy it would be a huge help. Thanks for all the support!

 

The Dollmaker’s Curse

The following is based on a paranormal weekend in Key West…

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Claire Monroe drew in a steadying inhale, her fingers trembling inches above the doll’s unfinished porcelain face. Candlelight danced nervously across the stone walls of Fort East Martello, illuminating forgotten relics—each object holding its silence.

“Are you ready for this?” David Sloan murmured, eyes narrowed with grave intensity. His practiced but hesitant hands rested upon the doll’s blank torso, as though it might recoil beneath his touch.

Claire exchanged a brief glance with Dustin Pari, who lingered slightly apart, jaw clenched tightly, his gaze fixed unblinkingly upon the doll. “We’ve conducted experiments before,” he said slowly, voice low and cautious, “but never here—not in Robert’s home. This place feels…hungry.”

Ignoring the chill snaking down her spine, Claire straightened her posture. “We came for answers, didn't we? If the Philip Experiment worked once, it can work again. Belief makes it real.”

Dustin's expression softened cautiously. "Then let's begin."

Their voices melded seamlessly into rhythmic chants, each syllable softly reverberating within the fortress walls. As shadows deepened, the air thickened, pressing closer with an almost tangible presence. With sudden intensity, temperatures around them plummeted, their exhales visibly clouding the oppressive chill.

“It’s working…” David whispered urgently, voice tight with awe and dread. “The eyes—they’re moving.”

Claire stared as the doll’s glass irises shimmered faintly, reflecting something deeper than candlelight. Her pulse thundered louder, chants faltering while an electric current of fear and exhilaration surged through her fingertips.

A violent crash shattered their concentration. Claire jerked backward, heart jolting painfully in her chest as dust cascaded from the ceiling. Objects rattled furiously upon shelves, and candles flickered desperately, threatening extinction.

“Did you feel it?” Dustin demanded harshly, voice brittle, flashlight trembling in his grip while piercing the suffocating gloom.

“Something touched me,” Claire whispered urgently, tugging her jacket tighter around herself. Her voice strained under surging panic, pulse drumming in her ears. “Cold—small fingers.”

David Sloan narrowed his eyes at the doll, its stitched lips twitching beneath wavering shadows. Tentatively, his fingers stretched toward the porcelain form. “We need to move it. Whatever awakened is centered here—”

“Don’t!” Claire snapped sharply, but Sloan’s fingertips brushed the doll’s surface too soon.

Instantly, temperatures plunged, frost crystallizing midair as an inhuman scream erupted from deep within the fort’s darkness—raw, agonizing, and piercing. Staggering backward, the three investigators shielded themselves from invisible fury.

“It’s awake!” David shouted desperately, clutching a frostbitten hand close to his chest. “We awakened something—something worse than Robert.”

Immobilized by dread, Claire watched helplessly while the doll toppled from the table, landing upright with unnatural precision. Its empty eyes awakened into pools of absolute darkness, fixing upon her relentlessly.

“It’s inside,” Claire whispered hollowly, limbs numb, voice barely audible above her racing heartbeat. “We didn’t create a haunting—”

Dustin completed her sentence shakily, eyes widening in horror. “We gave it a body.”

Shadows deepened around them, creeping hungrily forward. Impossibly, porcelain fingers twitched and moved, creaking softly as the doll took one trembling step toward them.

Claire swallowed sharply, terror tightening her throat. “Run.”

#

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The Bronze Omen

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal.  Today, we will dive into one Detective Vance who hunts a thief, only to unleash a long-dormant evil bound within a cursed statue.

The following is based on police report in New Orleans...

The hum of the security monitor filled the dimly lit NOPD precinct office, casting long shadows across the cluttered desk with its bluish glow.  Leaning forward, Detective Isaac Vance clenched his square jaw, deep lines marking his face as his tired blue eyes tracked the grainy footage.  In the stagnant air, the scent of stale coffee and damp paper lingered.

“Run it back,” Vance murmured, rubbing his temple, eyes narrowing as he focused on the screen.

Rodriguez, the younger officer at the controls, rewound the tape, fingers tapping anxiously against the desk.  “Again?”

“Again.”

The screen flickered—an empty porch, then movement.  A hooded figure slinked into view, the gas lamp’s glow warping their silhouette.  Quick, deliberate hands plucked small parcels with practiced ease.

Rodriguez exhaled sharply.  “Package snatchers?  Hell, I thought we had worse.”

“Wait,” Vance muttered, his gaze locked onto the figure’s final target—a battered wooden crate shoved against the porch railing.  The thief hesitated, a brief reverence in their pause, before prying it open.  Dim light caught something metallic within.  The thief pulled it free—a shattered bronze effigy, its single remaining horn gleaming like a crescent moon.

Vance’s heart skipped a beat.  “Pause it.”

Rodriguez halted the tape.  “What is that?”

Vance’s fingers hovered over the screen, tracing the jagged edges of the statue.  The name surfaced from memory, dragging up a nightmare.  Baphomet.

Rodriguez shifted uncomfortably.  “That some kinda—”

“It’s old,” Vance interrupted, voice tight.  “And it’s not supposed to be here.”

The precinct’s walls seemed to close in, the air growing thick with something unspoken.  Vance straightened, jaw tightening.  He recalled the stories—the occultist who vanished decades ago, the rumors of a curse, the warnings whispered by those who remembered.

Rodriguez frowned at the screen, glancing back at Vance.  “You think it’s worth chasing?”

Outside, rain began falling, soft against the windowpane.  The streetlights flickered.

Vance grabbed his coat, slipping his gun into the holster.  “No,” he muttered.  “I think it’s already chasing us.”

#

From the warehouse rafters, water dripped steadily, its slow patter echoing through the cavernous dark.  With his gun drawn and footsteps light, Detective Isaac Vance moved cautiously, his breath steady despite the weight pressing against his chest.  The air carried the stench of rust, river rot, and something older—something wrong.

A voice, hushed and feverish, slithered through the silence.

“…Venire… aperire… sanguis…”

Vance edged closer, his boots scraping against damp concrete.  The lone bulb overhead flickered, casting a dim glow around a hunched figure kneeling before a crude altar of wooden crates.

The thief.

Whole once more, the bronze statue rested before them—horned, twisted, and impossibly lifelike in its grotesque form.  With trembling fingers hovering over its surface, the thief mouthed a frantic prayer, words spilling in an unintelligible rush.

“Turn around,” Vance ordered, voice flat, controlled.

The murmuring continued.

Vance tightened his grip.  “I said—”

The thief’s head snapped up.

Eyes glazed, unfocused, they rolled skyward.  A ragged sound scraped their throat, words falling into a choke.  The warehouse light flickered again, its glow waning like a fading pulse.

Then the statue moved.

A tremor—subtle, but unmistakable.

Vance’s stomach twisted.

“Get away from it.”

The thief exhaled a broken laugh, their shoulders convulsing.  “It’s too late.”

The bronze surface split with a sickening crack.  A fissure raced down its torso, tendrils of darkness spilling forth, curling and twisting like smoke, like breath—something waking, something far worse.

Vance raised his gun.  “Move!”

The thief didn’t flinch.  The air thickened, pressing against Vance’s ribs, sinking into his skin as though cold fingers were grasping him.

The statue’s mouth yawned open.

And something inside—ancient, hungry—began to pull itself free.

#

Exciting news!  My book, Cumberland Chronicles at Books2Read, is now available!  If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out.  Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers.  Thank you for the support!

The Last Seal of St. Peter

The following is based on the announcement of the Pope's critical condition...

Cardinal Vincenzo’s fingers trembled as he flipped through the yellowed pages of *Les Propheties*, sharp eyes scanning the cryptic symbols of Nostradamus. Candlelight flickered, casting long, distorted shadows on the stone walls of the Vatican’s ancient library. Cold floors pressed against his feet, each movement echoing in the silence where the scent of old books and incense clung to the air. A glance over his shoulder revealed the heavy wooden door, its hinges creaking under the weight of his unease. Skepticism had guided him for years, yet an unsettling truth clawed at him—the prophecy was no longer a relic of the past; it was alive.  

"Cardinal," a voice rasped from the doorway.  

Father Matteo, draped in dark robes, lingered on the threshold. Gaunt features betrayed exhaustion, his hollowed eyes fixed on Vincenzo. "Is it true? About the Pope?"  

Vincenzo hesitated, fingers clenching into a fist. *Peter the Roman will rise.* The words bled through his mind, each syllable an iron weight. "He’s slipping," he murmured, voice hoarse. "Doctors claim improvement, but something doesn’t sit right."  

Matteo stepped closer, the dim candlelight illuminating the deep furrows of his brow. "Rumors slither through the halls. The Vatican shudders under their weight. They say—"  

"They say too much," Vincenzo snapped, though doubt gnawed at him. Heavy velvet drapes parted under his grip, revealing Rome’s skyline swallowed in mist. Streets lay eerily silent, no distant chatter, no echo of footsteps. Even St. Peter’s Square gaped empty, air thick with expectancy.  

Matteo’s whisper broke through the stillness. "The Black Cassocks have been watching the Pope."  

Vincenzo stiffened. "Watching?"  

Matteo hesitated, glancing toward the door. "They believe prophecy is upon us. When the Pope’s heart ceases, *Peter the Roman* ascends. With him, an ancient reckoning."  

A distant bell tolled, its resonance weaving through the marble corridors. Cold pressed against Vincenzo’s spine. Air thickened, an unseen weight settling over them. Then, a deep, guttural tremor rattled through the floor.  

"You hear it?" Vincenzo’s voice barely rose above a whisper.  

Matteo nodded, fingers pressing into his robe. The sound stretched through the Vatican’s bones—a low, reverberating groan, as if something beneath had woken.  

A cry shattered the silence. Footsteps pounded against stone. Shadows flickered beyond the door, black robes sweeping through the corridor. The Black Cassocks moved with purpose, their presence no longer hidden.  

One figure stepped forward. Gaunt, pale, with hollow eyes carved from darkness. Lips curled into a knowing smile.  

"It has begun."  

Vincenzo’s pulse thundered.  

The prophecy no longer slept. An ancient force had stirred, and Rome would never be the same.

Exciting news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles at Books2Read, is now available! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!

Newton's Final Cipher

The following is based on research on the Book of Daniel...

Flickering candlelight cast shifting shadows across the dust-laden desk as Dr. Elias Roth bent over the brittle parchment, breath shallow and uneven.  Ancient ink, faded yet deliberate, wove cryptic symbols and numbers into a web of prophecy unraveling beneath trembling fingertips.  Driven by logic rather than superstition, he had spent his life unraveling the mathematical and philosophical enigmas woven by history’s greatest minds.  This—this—felt different.  Cold sweat clung to his brow as he scrawled notes into the margins of his leather-bound journal, once-meticulous handwriting reduced to frantic strokes.   

Through the Hebrew University archive, a gust rattled the towering bookshelves, carrying the scent of aged parchment laced with something unsettling.  His storm-tossed eyes darted toward the arched window, where Jerusalem’s skyline, bathed in silver moonlight, stretched beyond the fractured glass.  High above, the heavens churned in unnatural patterns, stars twisting in defiance of celestial order.  His gut clenched.  Newton’s calculations pointed to 2060, but not as a mere marker of time.  Numbers did not predict; they contained.   

Into his ears slithered a hushed voice, neither male nor female, neither near nor far.

"You see it, don’t you?"

The candle’s flame hissed, extinguished as if snuffed by unseen lips.  Elias jerked back, the heavy oak chair scraping against the stone floor.  His chest tightened.  He wasn’t alone.   

“Who’s there?” His voice, hoarse, barely carried beyond the empty aisles.   

Caught in an unfelt breeze, a page from Newton’s manuscript lifted and fluttered weightlessly.  Before his eyes, ink dormant for centuries deepened, its symbols twisting into new, unnatural configurations.  The equation—Newton’s final cipher—reshaped into something raw and living.   

"It was never a prophecy," the voice murmured, smooth as glass but layered with something ancient, something vast.  "It was a warning."

Silence, deafening, pressed against the room.  Muscles locked in place, Elias fought to steady himself, every fiber screaming at him to run.  Knowledge had always been his obsession—his curse.  He had to understand.    

Hands trembling, he reached for the manuscript.  Fingertips barely brushed the ink-stained parchment before the entire archive lurched.  Books tumbled from their shelves.  Loose papers scattered in frantic spirals.  With an earsplitting crack, the arched window fractured, a hairline split racing across the glass as if reality itself were unraveling.   

Terror clawed up his spine.  Miscalculation.  He had not uncovered Newton’s work—he had activated it.   

Beyond the shattered skyline, the heavens shifted once more.  No longer distant, no longer indifferent, the cosmos stared back.

Exciting news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles at Books2Read, is now available! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!

The Undying Curse of Račeša

The wind howled through the darkened trees surrounding the fortress of Račeša, a crumbling edifice of stone, forgotten by time yet bound to the land by ancient secrets. Beneath the blood-red moon, the graveyard beside the fortress felt alive with unseen eyes, thick with the scent of damp earth and decay. In its center lay a grave unearthed too soon, the contents grotesquely disturbed. A middle-aged man, his body marked by years of violent conflict, sprawled in the shallow grave. His head had been torn from his body, pulled away with deliberate care, and the torso was positioned face down—an unnatural arrangement, as though someone wished to ensure he would never rise again.

Nataša Šarkić, an archaeologist driven by her desire to uncover forgotten histories, knelt beside the grave, her fingers brushing the cold, brittle bones. In the oppressive darkness, the soft glow of her lantern flickered weakly. Despite the heavy cloak wrapped tightly around her, a shiver ran through her, chilled by the unsettling discovery. Before her stood a figure marked by a life of violence—scars crisscrossing his face, each one a silent testament to battles fought, men killed, and victories earned at an immense personal cost. His broad shoulders, once strong from years in armor, now slumped beneath the weight of his history. Nataša’s heart skipped as she examined the dismembered body, noting the unnatural arrangement, the care taken in the desecration. No earthly force could have caused this; it had been done by human hands, posthumously, with malicious intent.

“This isn’t a regular burial,” she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to Roberto, who stood a few feet behind her. His pale face glowed faintly beneath the lantern’s light, eyes wide with unease.

“Could it be...?” His voice trembled, trailing off as the chilling implication began to take shape in the heavy air.

“A vampire,” Nataša finished, her gaze fixed on the body before her.

Though the thought seemed ridiculous, the evidence continued to mount. Shortly after death, the corpse had been exhumed, its soft tissue still intact—enough for whoever had disturbed the grave to carefully remove the skull. Arranged face down, the body’s position served as a deliberate attempt to prevent it from rising again. Vampires, according to the legends, were not mere spirits—they were cursed creatures of death, driven by vengeance, feeding on the living. Nataša had heard the stories of how villagers in the region buried the dead in ways to keep them bound to the earth: a stake through the heart, burning the body, or decapitation. All measures taken to prevent an undead creature from returning to torment the living.

Nataša leaned closer, inspecting the disfigured remains. The man had died violently—two deep cuts to his head, the edges clean and precise, the wounds still fresh as if the sword had struck moments before his final breath. He had been a soldier, a knight perhaps, his life defined by battle. Yet, his death had been anything but noble. Jagged scars marked his body, each one a reminder of the violence he had lived through. The damage from his most recent wounds—broken ribs still in the process of healing—told a story of someone who had fought many battles. But the fatal blow, delivered swiftly by a sword, was what had ended him. No sign of recovery. No lingering illness. His life had been violently snuffed out in an instant.

Her fingers traced the outline of his skull, feeling the jagged edge of the wound. “This man wasn’t killed by a sword alone,” Nataša murmured, her voice quiet, weighed down by a sinking realization. "Something else ended him. Something far darker."

The wind shifted, a chill running through the graveyard as the fog crept in from the hills. Nataša’s lantern flickered, its light struggling to pierce the growing mist. A figure—a faint shadow—moved through the fog, its outline indistinct, shifting in and out of view. Nataša’s eyes narrowed, her pulse quickening. The figure’s form seemed to float, its movements unnatural. She didn’t need to see its face to know it was no ordinary being.

“Do you see that?” Nataša’s voice cracked, the question coming out as more of a command. Roberto stiffened, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of the sword at his side. He hesitated for only a moment, scanning the shifting mist.

“Is that...?” he stammered, but his voice faltered, a cold fear creeping into his words.

In the distance, the figure was clear enough to see: a spectral presence with glowing eyes, haunting and hollow. With every shift of the fog, its form flickered, as though not entirely anchored to the physical world, as if the very laws of nature bent around it. Moving with the unsettling grace of something unbound by time or mortality, it fixed its hollow gaze on Nataša. A deep shiver coursed through her as she stood frozen, her heart pounding in her chest. 

“By God,” Roberto muttered. “It’s him. The man from the grave. He’s still here.”

Nataša couldn’t answer at first. Her voice was swallowed by the oppressive air, thick with dread. The truth became undeniable: the grave she had uncovered was not just a relic—it had been a warning. This man, this soldier, had been cursed, buried not just to rest, but to remain trapped in the earth. Someone had sought to bring him back. Someone had ensured he would never be forgotten.

As the figure moved closer, its hollow eyes remained fixed on Nataša, the weight of the curse pressing down on her. Around her, the air grew thick, dense with an ancient malevolence that seemed to stretch out from the swirling fog. This was no longer a simple archaeological discovery—it had become a fight for survival. Nataša’s instincts kicked in. She grabbed Roberto’s arm, pulling him toward the path leading out of the graveyard.

“Run!” she ordered, her voice sharp, her feet already moving. But Roberto hesitated, his eyes locked on the figure in the mist.

“We can’t outrun this,” he whispered, fear evident in his eyes. “It’s coming for us.”

Nataša’s heart pounded in her chest, but she didn’t look back. She couldn’t. The grave had been disturbed, and the undead knight of Račeša was awake, its curse unwilling to let anyone go. The night had become a battleground between the living and the dead, and as the figure drew nearer, Nataša understood—there would be no escape from the vengeance of the past. The curse was upon them all.

Exciting news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles, is now available at Books2Read! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!