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    Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction
    Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction
    Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction
    Ebook66 pages53 minutes

    Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction

    By Icy Sedgwick

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Your guidebook to the shadows and monsters of modern fairy tales.

    In the title story, 'Checkmate', a devilish game of chess goes apocalyptically wrong. Elsewhere, 'Bleed Them Dry' puts a new spin on the contemporary corporate vampire, an aristocratic corpse tells his side of the story in 'The Dead Do Listen', and a little girl is fascinated with an antique that hides a dark world in 'The Mirror Phase'. 

    Described as “a wonderful collection of tales of subtle urban fantasy with a delicious gothic flavour", Checkmate wants to thrill you, comfort you, and creep you out, all in one go.

    If you enjoy the dark fairytales of Neil Gaiman, then you'll love the weird tales of Checkmate!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcy Sedgwick
    Release dateFeb 22, 2016
    ISBN9781524250768
    Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction
    Author

    Icy Sedgwick

    ICY SEDGWICK is part film academic, part writer and part trainee supervillain. Icy dreams of Dickensian London and the Old West. She writes primarily gothic fiction, although she does love a good Western. Find her ebooks, free weekly fiction and other shenanigans at Icy’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

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      Book preview

      Checkmate - Icy Sedgwick

      Foreword

      These fifteen stories were originally published in online magazines and have been collected here for your convenience and enjoyment.

      If you enjoy reading this collection, then please consider leaving me a review to help other readers find Checkmate!

      The Midas Box

      Christa fought her way along the high street and grimaced. There was nothing quite like a blast of the hot winds of hell in your face. She tried, and failed, to ignore the gusts of roasting air that hurled handfuls of grit against her cheeks.

      London groaned under the weight of a scorching summer. Temperatures broke records on a daily basis. Everyone enjoyed the heat before the drought, but then London became even more stuffy than usual. Buildings trapped the hot air between them, creating pockets of exceptional heat to catch unsuspecting passers-by.

      Thousands fled for the cooler climes of the coast, and Christa wished she could afford to leave. She hated the two jobs that she worked to pay the rent. She hated them even more now she was working extra shifts to cover those who left for the summer.

      Christa was an artist. Or she would have been, if she’d had any time for creativity. She spent her days working in an exclusive clothes boutique in Kensington, and her evenings behind the bar of her local pub. She despised the haughty women that oozed money and the drunken oafs with wandering hands with equal measure. She prayed to a God she doubted existed for some kind of escape.

      She wanted nothing more than to sit at home and paint, or sculpt. Even a job writing about art would have been preferable, if there had been any to take. Jonathan supported her career in the early days, attending her modest shows and selling her work to his rich friends. After a few months, he developed glandular fever, and quit his job in the City. Christa hoped he would return to work when he recovered, but he decided to stay at home to look after their flat in Putney. He said it would give her more time to paint. When the savings ran out, Christa took the two jobs, and Jonathan stopped doing the housework. Christa did everything.

      Excuse me, miss, do you have the time?

      Christa started from her reverie, and narrowly avoided a tiny old woman and her dog. The old woman could have passed for a child, were it not for the deep wrinkles around her laughing green eyes. Wisps of grey hair stuck out from underneath her red felt hat. In one gnarled hand she carried a walking stick; in the other, a makeshift lead made out of a red curtain cord. A patient-looking Old English sheepdog sat at the end of the cord.

      I’m sorry to bother you dear, but do you have the time?

      Not nearly enough time, sorry, said Christa, looking around her. She stood in a street she didn’t recognise, lined with abandoned shops. Even the apartments above them seemed empty. Their naked windows gazed down on the street below with a sense of bored apathy.

      Never mind, dearie. You’ll have plenty of time soon enough. The old woman nodded once and smiled. She shuffled off down the street with the sheepdog.

      Christa looked around again, hoping for an indication of where she was. She only had half an hour for lunch, and she didn’t want her wages to be docked if she was late back to the shop. She didn’t have time to get lost.

      Christa looked up and down the street with bemused eyes. She’d never heard of a building standing empty for long in London, much less a whole street. This one looked like it was abandoned seventy years ago. Even the heat bypassed the area. There were no bus stops, litter bins, or even yellow lines on the road. A chill slipped down her spine.

      Possessed by the sort of ‘olde worlde’ charm that sells postcards by the truckload, the street was entirely unfamiliar to her. She looked around to see if any of the shops were open so she could stop and ask for directions back to the high street.

      A flicker of movement to her left caught her attention, and a curious old shop still seemed to be open. Its old-fashioned bow window jutted into the street, each of its panes caked in a layer of grime. She half expected to

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