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.

    Carrion At The Door
    Carrion At The Door
    Carrion At The Door
    Ebook52 pages49 minutes

    Carrion At The Door

    By Costa Koutsoutis

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "Carrion At The Door" is a collection of subtle horror and modern-noir crime short stories by Costa Koutsoutis. Unspeakable inhuman terrors under the bed. The actions of desperate people in desperate situations. The terror in the night from the shadows...or the unseen threat of your next-door neighbor.

    This collection features the original short stories "Apartment Living," "Diner Food," "Bedtime," "This Could Be Love," and "The Heft Of It," as well as a brand-new short featuring Ben Miles, PI/bondsman in "Bailout."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCosta Koutsoutis
    Release dateOct 24, 2013
    ISBN9781311091291
    Carrion At The Door
    Author

    Costa Koutsoutis

    Constantine "Costa" Koutsoutis is a writer and cartoonist who lives and works in New York City. He spends his time cooking, drinking coffee, playing with the cat, and watching movies with his girlfriend. A writer since he was little, he's been doing fiction, nonfiction, comics (as writer and artist), essays, zines, blogs, "real" journalism, and even web content stuff since he was in college for others to read. Costa always enjoys hearing from readers, so reach out, say hi.

    Read more from Costa Koutsoutis

    Related to Carrion At The Door

    Related ebooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Excerpt

      Dec 12, 2019

      He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing. Not much space for it in the new home, just a few rooms lined up in a row, underneath a series of slow-moving ceiling fans, an array of antique clocks ticking on one wal

      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘Want’: Featured Fiction from Lynn Steger Strong

      Jul 8, 2020

      The novel won praise from Kirkus, which called it "wise, unflinching, and compelling," and Vulture, which hailed it as "a defining novel of our age of left-behind families." The post ‘Want’: Featured Fiction from Lynn Steger Strong appeared first on

      7 min read

    • Article

      ANGER Mismanagement

      Feb 9, 2020

      Mr Stable has asked me to pick up his drycleaning, as he’s going to ‘babysit’ at his ex-wife’s apartment, while she attends a tango class. “Maybe she’ll find a new love?” I’m a sucker for happy endings, so I can’t help hoping that his ex-wife will fi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Joke

      Sep 1, 2020

      Although best known for his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury was also a prolific writer of short stories, having published his first while still a teenager. This previously unpublished story likely dates to 1950, the year The Martian Chronicle

      5 min read

    • Article

      Take a Writer Like Him: My Complicated Love Affair with Kingsley Amis

      Aug 24, 2018

      1. As much as I may rack my brain, there are 15 minutes or so in the dark that I can’t account for and that I’ll never get back—15 minutes during which, I have to think, that creep’s hands were touching my body. It’s a weird thing to think about all

      12 min read

    • Article

      Going For A Beer

      Mar 24, 2022

      Going For A Beer
      4 min read

    • Article

      Year Of The Rat

      Nov 24, 2020

      Year Of The Rat
      11 min read

    • Article

      Swans Don’t Always Sing

      Aug 5, 2021

      Swans Don’t Always Sing
      2 min read

    • Article

      Blackjack

      Jan 15, 2024

      Blackjack
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel

      Mar 25, 2019

      If she was home at night in her husband’s bed, did he care what she did with her days? The post ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      The William Trevor Reader: “Kinkies”

      Mar 15, 2022

      There’s a lesson to be taken from “Kinkies”—as writers, we hew to professionalized tastefulness at our creative peril. The post The William Trevor Reader: “Kinkies” appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Freedom

      Aug 6, 2020

      Freedom
      7 min read

    • Article

      Begin Again

      Jun 14, 2022

      My grandfather came to live with me. There was nowhere else for him to go. What had happened to all his children? Death, decay, exile—I hardly know. My own parents died of pain. But I must not be too gloomy, at the beginning, or you will leave me, an

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Juggler’s Wife

      Jun 9, 2020

      The situation in itself is not unique. There was a man who hated his job and wanted a new one. There was a man who was sick of his boring job and wanted an exciting job instead. This man was depressed, but he saw a way out. He thought this way out wa

      24 min read

    • Article

      Emil, Approximated

      Nov 3, 2022

      Emil, Approximated
      15 min read

    • Article

      Echos

      Jan 10, 2019

      Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending in a twist rather than a split. Her last name was the French word for “swimsuit” but he never mentioned that. This seemed s

      17 min read

    • Article

      The Way Things TURN OUT

      Jun 3, 2020

      The Way Things TURN OUT
      7 min read

    • Article

      While We Live

      Jun 18, 2021

      While We Live
      24 min read

    • Article

      Monster

      Dec 1, 2022

      Monster
      7 min read

    • Article

      Restless Souls

      Mar 6, 2018

      Restless Souls
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Book

      Oct 30, 2019

      The Book
      20 min read

    • Article

      A Substitution

      Jun 21, 2022

      A Substitution
      20 min read

    • Article

      Absolute Best

      Apr 30, 2021

      Absolute Best
      20 min read

    • Article

      Remains

      Sep 1, 2017

      THIS IS what you think your mother’s remains will look like. The ash will be black, like all that soot in the fireplace. It will be heavy, like wet sand. There will not be too much of it. It will fit in a small urn with intricate designs on the borde

      6 min read

    • Article

      Wants

      Mar 24, 2022

      Wants
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Carrion At The Door

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Carrion At The Door - Costa Koutsoutis

      CARRION AT THE DOOR

      ~

      A Short Story Collection

      By Costa Koutsoutis

      © copyright constantine koutsoutis 2013

      Cover design c/o the author

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Apartment Living

      Diner Food

      Bedtime

      This Could Be Love

      Blow

      The Heft Of It

      Bailout

      Oh look, a short story e-book collection, how original, you say, looking at this e-book, a collection of short stories I’ve done through the years and originally published online.

      Shut the fuck up, no one asked you. Go back to rebuilding your David Foster Wallace collection and leave the horror and crime to the rest of us. I love shorts because of their potential in these genres, in the crossover of the two genres, and in the unique takes that we can use to approach them. Yes, I grew up on horror movies and crime novels, but at the heart of it, I mostly write about crime and horror because I love the freedom that the two worlds offer, both on their own and combined.

      Anyway, this is just a collected version of the best of what I’ve done in terms of the underrated medium of short stories. Hope you enjoy it.

      -Costa Koutsoutis, 10/23/2013

      Apartment Living

      -

      Nothing in the apartment ever worked, ever. The heat was dead making it bone-chillingly cold in the wintertime, the cable flickered at random intervals, and the door was a battle to unlock, swelling up with humidity when it got too hot or too rainy.

      The walls were sound though, the rent was cheap, and no one ever questioned him coming and going at odd hours every so often, a couple of times a year. He never stayed long and was quiet too, only occupying the apartment a night or two at the most.

      They were still here, anyway.

      He didn’t see them all the time, just once in a while when he was really tired, or when the light was just right as the angles all worked. Then, then he’d see them.

      He saw them.

      The door had been really bad this time, and he’d turned around too fast in anger in the doorway, angry from a recent full day of work that had turned out to be far more frustrating than he’d intended to let it get. He was too old, he told himself, to be trying this hard, even at the reduced schedule he’d set himself. His daughter, laughing when he’d visit her and her husband and the baby, told him that he should just retire for good and stay still, maybe get a condo instead of staying in hotels every time he came to this city for work and going back to his little old apartment, where he and his wife had lived for almost thirty years.

      But no, he wanted to work, enjoyed it even though it was decades of lies, easy ones, but lies all the same piled on top of each other. And for the most part he enjoyed the more sedate pace he’d set for himself, except for tonight. Tonight, when he realized he was completely ill-prepared for the project, he’d sighed and angrily, moved to improvise quickly and manage to salvage the whole thing though he realized that it’d probably ruined his chances of getting another project going for quite a while. Still, he’d come back to the apartment just like he’d planned and now, would leave in the morning.  It was the last thing he wanted to do honestly, he’d rather have just turned around and gotten right onto the plane, but rules were rules.

      She’d been there, waiting.

      I don’t wanna hear it, he growled. Just not tonight, I’ll be gone in the morning, okay? I’ll be gone, please, just not tonight. She turned around and disappeared, and he groaned. Not tonight.

      He dropped his bag, dropped it harder than he’d intended, really. It clattered and thudded hard, but he barely cared, letting himself fall into the beat-up old gray couch, the only piece of furniture that he’d brought

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1