Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Facing Death
    Facing Death
    Facing Death
    Ebook24 pages22 minutes

    Facing Death

    By David Blake

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The real-life horrors of World War One are recalled in this short ghost story by David Blake. A soldier is wounded on the battlefields and barely makes it back to his trench alive, but when he does a chilling surprise awaits him...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Blake
    Release dateJun 23, 2013
    ISBN9781301339167
    Facing Death
    Author

    David Blake

    David Blake was born in the northwest of England in 1970 and grew up on a diet of Marvel comics, 2000 AD and television sci-fi. He has been writing for as long as he can remember and remains an avid reader. His other interests include travelling, vintage British television programmes, vintage cinema, football, eating toast and even having the occasional drink. If David Blake has reviewed your work on Smashwords, please do not take any criticism to heart. He tries to be unbiased and constructive, and will only award 5 stars to the absolute best works, which will be rare.

    Read more from David Blake

    Related to Facing Death

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Turbulent Waters

      Mar 1, 2024

      Turbulent Waters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Was The First Who Fell’

      May 16, 2023

      ‘I Was The First Who Fell’
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Edge of Everything

      May 2, 2019

      The Edge of Everything
      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Last Survivor

      Aug 26, 2020

      MY FRIEND ROSA AND I talked about the weekend as I settled into work in the Port Authority offices on the sixty-fourth floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. Rosa was the same age as me, 31, and we loved catching each other up on our lives. My

      6 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      One Word: Striking

      Jun 26, 2019

      One Word: Striking
      4 min read

    • Article

      Iran

      May 5, 2022

      When I saw the bush, I could hardly contain my delight. It rose from the grainy sweep of sand before me like a towering will-o’-thewisp, part-fern, part-wishful phantasm. Shade pooled from its roots in delicious, wasteful abandon. Could it be real? F

      3 min read

    • Article

      Equinox

      May 18, 2022

      In this strange world, where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun, supernatural forces are at work – and they’re causing trouble… St Leonars prison was an appropriately imposing building. It rose out of the surrounding shacks and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Angel Of Death

      Mar 27, 2018

      I could see the wave coming long before it arrived. It looked like a length of rope uncoiling as the swell hit the edge of the reef and spun towards me, a beady eye staring me down in slow motion as it got closer. It was my first time surfing Speedie

      2 min read

    • Article

      I, Spy

      Aug 7, 2018

      Many things happened to me for the first time on a night in April 1944. I rode in a Black Maria; I jumped from a bomber with a tangled parachute; and I began my mission in wartime France as a British secret agent. We drove in the Black Maria from Int

      17 min read

    • Article

      Freefalling

      Aug 17, 2022

      Freefalling
      8 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Mar 24, 2022

      It Happened to Me…
      7 min read

    • Article

      Heroes

      Nov 10, 2023

      When we hear the first shots, we are standing in the living room of Fallingwater, the Frank-Lloyd-Wright-designed home in Pennsylvania, listening to our guide’s description of the furniture. My husband and I wonder aloud about who would set off firew

      11 min read

    • Article

      Tribute to Two Old-Timers

      Jul 16, 2021

      I SHIFTED uneasily in my camp chair and stole a sideways glance at the old man sitting beside me. This man is my uncle, Rob Acutt, and I owe him plenty. Memories came flooding back to me of how he mentored me in my youth, instilling in me a love of t

      6 min read

    • Article

      Jesus Has Horses

      Sep 23, 2023

      Jesus Has Horses
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Night Wand

      Oct 15, 2021

      The Night Wand
      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      In a hotel in a small town in Norfolk I am listening to someonethrowing glass bottles into a metal bin: toss-shatter, toss-shatter.There are no other sounds; it’s a quiet afternoonbut the one tossing them has a sense of rhythm and I havea sense that

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Sonnets

      Jun 1, 2020

      When I peel potatoes, I put my head down,as if I am still following orders and being loyalto my commander. I feel a connection acrosstime to others putting their heads downin fatigued thought, as if this most naturalact signified living the way I wan

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Heebie-gb’s

      Jun 23, 2022

      The Heebie-gb’s
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Facing Death

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Facing Death - David Blake

      Facing Death

      David Blake

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 David Blake

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Please note that this is a work of fiction and the resemblance of any characters to persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.

      This story contains strong language and violence and is not intended for readers under 18 years of age.

      ***

      Barely ten feet ahead of me, little Robin Swaney stopped in his tracks, jerked, then crumpled to the ground with blood gushing from his mouth.

      I didn't care. I had no time to. My mind was in panic, thrashing like a fish out of water, knowing that I could not possibly survive for long in this hellish environment and yet that I was quite powerless to return to safety.

      The roar of the unrelenting shell-fire was deafening, so loud it literally shook the earth as though God himself was venting his fury on we mortals who were seemingly so intent on destroying everything He had strived to create for us. But no matter how loud it was, the noise of the artillery never quite managed to drown out the hideous dying screams of men who were unfortunate enough to be found obstructing its course.

      Swaney had died silently, killed before he knew much about it. My boots ploughed on past his buckled, fallen body, every step an effort as the thick,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1