This is where we will have links to free short stories. And maybe some other stuff, too. If you want to keep your finger on the pulse and get early releases and free things, sign up for my monthly newsletter here.

Sign up to my Newsletter, and you’ll get two free short stories (not a bribe). They are…

The Curtain

When Gary buys a second hand curtain to cheer up his dreary bedsit, the shop owner is surprisingly forceful about exactly how and where the curtain should be hung. What’s the worst that can happen if he ignores the advice?

Spring Tide

Boys on a deserted beach create a special initiation test for a friend who wants to join their gang. Is it simple hazing or is there something more sinister at work? Only time and tide will tell.

In the meantime, here’s a little flash fiction I’ve written to keep you going…

Lift Receiver

“Everyone knows the phone box is haunted.”

I looked at the young woman sitting across from me in the interview room.

“What?” I asked. I couldn’t see the relevance. A fifteen-year-old boy called Lucas was missing. And here was this gang hoe wannabe, caked in badly applied make-up and dripping with fake bling talking nonsense.

She ruminated on her gum for a moment, then continued.

“The phone box on Silverdale’s haunted. Every time you go past it, it starts clickin’ and messages come up on that little screen, yeah? Momo’s sister said she once saw a pair of feet in it.”

Bloody teenagers! 

“Maybe it took ‘im?”

She punctuated the end of her official statement with a pop of her bubble gum.

Thanks.

Six weeks later and I was trudging up Silverdale in the golden sunshine of a hot September afternoon. Some bloke’s doorbell cam had caught Lucas passing at about six in the evening on the day he disappeared, but the interview I’d just conducted had added nothing. I followed Lucas’ footsteps towards Forest Hill. 

Click!

It was the phone box. 

Clicking as I walked past, like it wanted my attention.

I stopped and regarded it. The box was one of the modern glass ones, not the classic red type that the tourists love. It was scratched, heavily graffitied and stood next to a pointless triangle of sick-looking weeds.

Click!

It was the coin mechanism, working as if someone had just put money in. There was a message on the little screen above the coin slot. 

LIFT RECEIVER

I looked around. The phone box was right on the point where Silverdale merged with Dacres Road. That was where Silverdale lost its name and became subsumed into a greater entity. Standing there was unsettling. Some deep animal instinct was telling me that something more than just roads merged here. That this was not a place to be.

Click!

It snapped me back to reality. I looked at the phone and thought ‘Why not?’. I stepped in and lifted the receiver.

“You found me!” 

It was a boy’s voice. 

“Who is this?” I asked, but I knew the answer.

Now I’m with him. And the others. 

And now you can…

The girl, who had only picked up the receiver on a dare, dropped it and ran. 

Her mates chased after her in screaming confusion.

The receiver dangled.

Click!