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    Night Cries: Nocturnal Screams, #1
    Night Cries: Nocturnal Screams, #1
    Night Cries: Nocturnal Screams, #1
    Ebook70 pages58 minutes

    Night Cries: Nocturnal Screams, #1

    By Mark Leslie

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    About this ebook

    THE MOST TERRIFYING THINGS HAPPEN IN THE DARK

    Screams echo through the thick darkness of night in this collection of three short horror tales from the dark mind of Mark Leslie.

    Taste of Darkness: Sensory deprivation takes on a new meaning when you let the darkness completely consume your senses of sight, sound, touch and smell, leaving you with the bitter taste of the encroaching darkness. And you'll be surprised what you find lurking there just beneath the surface and the cold, clear light of day.

    The Pizza Man: A group of students keep getting pizza deliveries that they never ordered. Is it a strange prank, or is there something more to the mysterious stranger who keeps showing up at their door?

    Little Things: Strange little creatures appear in the middle of the night, but Daniel is the only one who can see them. His wife, Joy, becomes distraught at the bizarre way her husband is acting, but, more horrifying is what the tiny little things are doing to her.

    If you're looking for three quick jaunts into worlds where darkness mingles with the echoes of cries in the night, you'll want to crack open the pages and start listening for the nocturnal screams. The stories and accompanying "behind the screams" notes from the author come to approximately 16,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStark Publishing
    Release dateMay 14, 2018
    ISBN9781386865360
    Night Cries: Nocturnal Screams, #1
    Author

    Mark Leslie

    Mark Leslie is a writer of "Twilight Zone" or "Black Mirror" style speculative fiction. He lives in Southwestern Ontario and is sometimes seen traveling to book events with his life-sized skeleton companion, Barnaby Bones. When he is not writing, or reading, Mark can be found haunting bookstores, libraries or local craft beer establishments.

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      Book preview

      Night Cries - Mark Leslie

      For the monster under my bed. Thanks for all the years of inspiration.

      Introduction

      IN MY 2004 BOOK ONE Hand Screaming, a collection of macabre stories and poems, I confessed to the fact that I screamed a lot. Silent screams, I called them. Story ideas bouncing around inside my head like an impending storm. I also admitted to being a condemned man; condemned to write. And, in particular, to write tales from just outside the normal realm. Tales that explore the shadows, that relish in the unknown, the eerie.

      Not much has changed from then to now.

      Sure, I have a decent number of books under my belt, but the silent screams never went away. They merely manifested them in different ways, from explorations of non-fiction true ghost story books to full length horror and thriller novels.

      But my passion for short fiction has never wavered.

      That’s the special joy out of being a writer, a storyteller. Stories, characters, situations, ideas come to you. They never stop coming to you. They never stop intriguing. Some of them take form in short quick tales; others demand longer full-length forms.

      I love them all.

      But I’m still quite fond of shorter works. There’s nothing like being able to enjoy a short story in a single sitting as a reader. And there’s also a special pleasure that comes from being able to express the inspiration for a tale in a shorter, self-contained work.

      That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to return to some of those shorter works and share them in a series of connected collections that follow me as I whistle past the proverbial graveyard.

      Collected here are three short stories specifically following a particular theme. They involve the night, or darkness, as well as the things that can hide in those shadows.

      One of the stories has never been published before. Another was published in a small press magazine, and yet another was released in a limited-edition chapbook for a Con where I was one of the Guests of Honor. But I think they play off of one another nicely into this volume’s particular theme of Night Cries.

      But enough introductory chatter. You’re here to enjoy some short fiction. Come, take my hand, let’s explore sensory deprivation at its deepest and darkest, the horrors of being able to see things that others never notice and the unexpected eerie delivery of a treat that normally makes a student’s mouth water.

      Taste of Darkness

      DALE JOHNSON WAS IMMEDIATELY enveloped by the darkness. Merely one step into the room, he turned to look at the doorway he had just entered but could not see it. The annoying Muzak which had been playing in the hallway began to fade as well, as if someone was turning down the volume.

      Mr. Jacks had been right. It was as if he was no longer inside the newly renovated health club, but instead in some other dimension completely removed from the natural world.

      His senses surrendered to the darkness, leaving him first with no sight, then no sound. As he continued to stand there his sense of touch began to dull, as if under a slow-working anesthetic, and he could no longer smell the fresh paint from the hallway.

      The only sense which apparently remained was taste.

      Mr. Jacks had promised it would be an incredible sensation when the only thing you could experience was the bitter-sweet taste of darkness.

      This was perfect. It was an excellent place to meditate on life’s problems and decisions. More clearly than he was usually able to, Dale began to think about the promotion he had applied for. The circumstances of his workplace floating calmly through his mind, he felt right about the promotion. He was the most experienced, hardest working employee in the department, able to motivate and train fellow co-workers. There was no way the position of department manager could not be his. And in the back of his mind, the thought that the promotion of the single black man in the department could be construed by his colleagues as affirmative action also faded. Any negative spark he might have had about the situation seemed to be smothered in the calming blanket of darkness.

      Dale shuddered and stepped toward where the doorway should be. He passed through it and stood in the hallway again, the darkness sliding off him like so much shed skin, revealing the light, the pervading smell of fresh paint and the saccharine sweet sound of Muzak.

      Mr. Jacks stepped out from the office across the hall, his bushy eyebrows raised high on his forehead. His lips, pursed, were obscured by his thick moustache. Give him a larger nose and a pair of thick glasses, Dale quickly realized, and you’d think he was wearing one of those novelty shop disguises.

      But despite his small stature – almost a full foot shorter than

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