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    Ode to Classics: Nocturnal Screams, #2
    Ode to Classics: Nocturnal Screams, #2
    Ode to Classics: Nocturnal Screams, #2
    Ebook67 pages56 minutes

    Ode to Classics: Nocturnal Screams, #2

    By Mark Leslie

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    About this ebook

    WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO SCREAM?

    These screams you hear echoing through the thick darkness of night are an ode to the classic masters of short fiction and horrific tales.

    MEMENTO MORI: A CURIOUS NIGHTMARE: Inspired by the short story "A Curious Dream" by Mark Twain, this tale draws from the same sentiment Twain was projecting regarding the ill regard the living have with "taking of the deceased." Only, in this tale, the repercussions of such neglect are far more serious.

    THE RITUAL OF THE DRAWING: Inspired by the small-town rituals that made Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" such a memorably chilling tale, this tale explores how a town might attempt to survive in peace and prosperity with a monster in their midst.

    PROSPERO'S GHOST: When, decades after his death, university employees begin to digitally replicate the precious copy of Shakespeare's 1861 folio edition, renowned scholar Dr. Marshall Emerson returns from beyond the grave to put a stop to the blasphemy.

    Volume 2 of Nocturnal Screams contains three short tales of terror designed to both send a chill down your spine as well as allow you to reflect upon the original texts and storytellers who helped inspire them. The stories and the accompanying "behind the screams" notes from the author comprise approximately 14,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStark Publishing
    Release dateMay 14, 2018
    ISBN9781386096344
    Ode to Classics: Nocturnal Screams, #2
    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. His books include the "Canadian Werewolf" series, numerous horror story collections, and explorations of haunted locales. When he is not writing, or reading, Mark can be found haunting bookstores, libraries or local craft beer establishments.  

    Read more from Mark Leslie

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      Book preview

      Ode to Classics - Mark Leslie

      For the masters whose author shoulders all us writers today now stand on.

      Introduction

      WHEN I PUBLISHED MY first book, One Hand Screaming, which is a collection of macabre stories and poems, I confessed to screaming a lot. Silent screams, I called them. I said that story ideas bounced around inside my head like an impending storm, brewing into a force that will escape in a wild dance of chaos if I didn’t stop to write them down.

      Admittedly, that was a bit dramatic.

      But, try as I might, I haven’t been able to come up with a better way to describe my conviction to have to write.

      And not only to write, but to explore concepts from the darker side of the universe. To pursue the shadows, to call out the fears.

      To write, or not to write. There never has been a question.

      Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous ideas that brew within my head or to take pen and paper against the sea of madness, and by capturing them, control them.

      To write, to scream no more.

      Okay, I got a bit carried away with the Hamlet spin-off. And that’s something I drew on quite heavily in my full length novel I, Death. (My main character was an angst-filled teenager with Hamlet-like suicidal thoughts as he was trying to come to terms with the death curse he was born with as everyone he gets close to ends up dying)

      But reflecting on how that Shakespearean tragedy inspired a good part of a novel I wrote might be perfectly appropriate here, because the stories you are about to read can all be traced back to inspiration that I found from the classics or the master writers who came before me.

      Memento Mori: A Curious Nightmare was inspired directly (and draws quite heavily upon) the Mark Twain short story A Curious Dream. I enjoyed the dark humor and underlying moral message that Mark Twain was exploring in the story, but I couldn’t help speculating if he pulled too many punches in his delivery. I thus explored a parallel story structure, drawing heavily from the voice, setting and situation, but I added an additional layer of horror far beyond Twain’s own curious dream.

      One of my favorite short stories of all time is Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. It is a brilliant execution of conformity gone mad, the concept of focusing on a scapegoat and the fickle manner by which we can so easily be turned upon one another. Inspired to explore a similar world, I wondered how a similar small town might co-exist peacefully with a monster in their midst.

      And, wanting to explore how an antiquarian bookish fetish might survive well-past the grave, co-author Kimberly Foottit and I had fun creating professor Marshall Emerson (AKA Professor Prospero), a Shakespearean scholar back from the dead to seek vengeance upon those who dared use digital technology to replicate his precious 1861 folio edition of the Bard’s works in our tale Prospero’s Ghost.

      But enough introductory talk. You and I have some place to be together: exploring modern horror stories inspired from the masters and the classics.

      Memento Mori: A Curious Nightmare

      a moral tale dedicated to Mark Twain

      THE NIGHT BEFORE LAST I had a curious nightmare. Apparently, I sat on my doorstep in quiet thought with the hour nearing twelve o’clock. It was a warm evening for the last day of October, and I was relishing in the calm splendour of what might have been the last nice evening to be sitting outside so long with only a thin jacket around my shoulders.

      The children, who, earlier that evening, had roamed the streets dressed in the usual garb of witches, ghosts and goblins were by then safely tucked in bed. Gone were their childish cries of excitement. There was not a sound in the air except for a slight wind through the trees and perhaps the distant passing of cars on the highway.

      All was just right when, from up the street I could hear a boney clack-clacking. I turned to see what might be making such a strange noise on so quiet a night.

      Around the corner appeared a figure, dressed in a moldy, torn shroud, dragging behind him a long box of rotting wood which could only be a coffin. As the figure neared I could detect the distinct skeletal features of his face from beneath the hooded robe.

      Approaching my side, he paused, dropped the burden he had been dragging behind him, and sat on the edge of it. It creaked in protest as he put his weight on it. His jaw, held to his skull with the thinnest layer of

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