Jack tried the blade against his thumb and gasped when a thin line of bright blood appeared, seemingly before the edge touched his skin. He quickly put the thumb in his mouth. The iron taste of blood was strong for such a small wound, as if the blade had tainted it somehow.
The room was quiet, the only light a sliver of moon slicing through the curtains, pooling like milk across the floorboards. No voices, no street noise. No reason for someone to be at the door.
A group of twenty recently dead humans staggered down the stairs and shambled past. Their faces twisted into masks of horror and pain. Their feet blistered on the oven-hot floor. Their hair and clothes burst into flame. Their screams barely added to the cacophony of a billion tortured souls.
Hello, I’m Martin Whitney, a writer of grim tales and strange fiction. Here you’ll find stories of war and treachery, monsters in the woods, doomed heroes, bored gods, and dead things that won’t stay buried.
