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    The End Is Nigh: Tales from the End of Days
    The End Is Nigh: Tales from the End of Days
    The End Is Nigh: Tales from the End of Days
    Ebook58 pages48 minutes

    The End Is Nigh: Tales from the End of Days

    By James Pratt

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    About this ebook

    This collection consists of five short stories dealing with the end of the world, whether by biblical armageddon, a zombie plague, or something alien and unknowable. The means are irrevlevant. All that matters is the End of Days has come. Stories include "One of Granny's Tales", "I Eat the Living", "You'll Know When You Meet Them", "Halo of Flies", and "The Statement of Tom Carter".

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Pratt
    Release dateJul 22, 2011
    ISBN9781466174313
    The End Is Nigh: Tales from the End of Days
    Author

    James Pratt

    James Pratt likes to create realistically flawed but basically decent characters and have them cross paths with serial killer angels, redneck vampires, slithering horrors from other dimensions, and the end of the world. He also likes to write stories that demonstrate how the ever-present darkness threatening to wash over the world like a wave of endless night can be held back with a little courage and a big shotgun (assuming one hasn't already used both barrels, of course). Some take place in the distant past, others in the far future, and still others somewhere between eight minutes ago and twelve minutes from now. Whether sci-fi, adventure, or straight-out horror, the running theme is that the universe is very, very big and we are very, very small.

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      Book preview

      The End Is Nigh - James Pratt

      THE END IS NIGH

      Tales from the End of Days by James D. Pratt

      All stories © James D. Pratt

      Smashwords Edition

      Cover image © HeroMachine.com

      /**********************************************/

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If this is not a free book and you would like to share it with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If this is a free book and you would like to share it with another person, please direct the recipient to the book’s page on Smashwords.com so they can download their own copy. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      /**********************************************/

      Table of Contents

      One of Granny's Tales

      I Eat the Living

      You'll Know When You Meet Them

      Halo of Flies

      The Statement of Tom Carter

      ONE OF GRANNY’S TALES

      In the Old Woman’s mind, there were only two mountains. The first held the shack where she had spent her sad, brief childhood trying to help her family eke a hardscrabble existence from the dry, rocky soil. She’d moved all the way across the valley after becoming a bride at the age of fifteen, and it was there on the second mountain she would spend the rest of her life. Though the distant peaks on the horizon were practically identical to those which constituted the totality of her world, they were places she had and would never set foot which made them mysterious and exotic. As a girl she’d imagined them to be gatekeepers to distant lands filled with handsome princes and fantastic creatures. Even in her adult mind they remained inscrutable sentinels marking the farthest edges of the known universe.

      It was a hard life living among the mountains. They made you a part of them, in life as well as death. The Old Woman’s angular face was as jagged as an outcropping of weather-forged rock, her bony brow a shelf upon which sat several lifetimes’ worth of woe. The edges of her cheekbones seemed as sharp as razors her complexion as red and raw as a freshly plucked chicken.

      Time and misfortune, the Old Woman’s only real companions, had gobbled up her children one by one. Each had come out of the womb red and shrieking as if already aware of their fate. One had died at childbirth and two more soon after. Four made it past their fifth birthday and three past their twelfth (her secret favorite not among them) but only one survived to the ripe old age of fifteen. That had been her next to youngest. The Old Woman hadn’t seen him in years. Like his father, he’d simply gone out into the woods one day and never came back. Not bound for war like his pa, just out hunting for meat .

      The mountain giveth and the mountain taketh away.

      Over a year had passed since the Old Woman had heard the sound of another human voice, and four months since she’d heard the sound of her own. Whether by choice or circumstance the Old Woman wasn’t exactly a social creature, but even she wasn’t immune to the occasional want for companionship. She was still human after all.

      The Old Woman used to get the occasional caller; Jessup, her husband’s no account brother would drop by every now and again, usually under the pretense of seeing if she needed any chores done. He rarely did anything more strenuous than bring in wood for the stove but always found the time to stay for supper. Last she’d heard, somebody had found Jessup’s frozen corpse in a ditch one winter morning and that was that. Then there was

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