Category: short fiction

The Vampires of Wallachia: A Halloween story from ‘Hay Moon and Other Stories’

There are certain decisions that seem completely insignificant when you make them.

Where should we stop for dinner?

Which exit should we take?

Should we try that restaurant up ahead?

Most of the time, nothing comes of such decisions. You eat your dinner, get back on the highway, and forget about the place before you reach home.

But sometimes you stop at the wrong restaurant.

That’s the premise behind “The Vampires of Wallachia,” one of the stories in my collection Hay Moon and Other Stories.

Three corporate employees are returning from a business trip through Ohio. They’re tired, hungry, and looking for somewhere to eat before continuing toward Cincinnati.

They eventually find an isolated Chinese restaurant near the small community of Wallachia.

It seems like an unlikely place for a restaurant.

But the lights are on.

The restaurant is open.

And they’re hungry.

So they go inside.

That turns out to be a mistake.

Vampires in the Ohio countryside

One of the things I enjoy doing in horror fiction is putting the fantastic alongside the extremely ordinary.

You don’t need a crumbling castle in Transylvania to encounter something ancient and dangerous.

Sometimes all you need is a lonely highway, a rainy night, and a restaurant that probably shouldn’t be there.

“The Vampires of Wallachia” begins as a fairly mundane story about three coworkers traveling together. There are workplace tensions among them, including an unpleasant boss who is accustomed to getting his way.

Those tensions don’t disappear when the supernatural element enters the story.

They become part of it.

Because the people inside the restaurant aren’t quite what they appear to be.

And the three travelers gradually discover that they haven’t merely stopped at an unusual roadside restaurant.

They’ve walked into someone else’s hunting ground.

A story for the Halloween season

I’ve always liked horror stories in which the everyday world remains recognizable even after something impossible intrudes upon it.

You can still see the highway outside.

Your car is still sitting in the parking lot.

Home may be only an hour or two away.

But suddenly that distance seems much greater.

That was the atmosphere I wanted to create with “The Vampires of Wallachia”: the feeling that somewhere along an ordinary journey, you’ve taken one wrong turn and crossed an invisible boundary.

And getting back across that boundary may not be easy.

If you’re looking for something appropriately creepy to read as Halloween approaches, you’ll find “The Vampires of Wallachia” in Hay Moon and Other Stories.

The collection is available on Amazon Kindle, in paperback, and through Kindle Unlimited.

Just remember:

If you’re driving through rural Ohio late at night and somebody suggests stopping at a strange restaurant for dinner…

Maybe keep driving.

**View HAY MOON AND OTHER STORIES on Amazon**

Ohiosaurus Rex: a strange encounter on an Ohio country road

There are places where the boundary between past and present may be thinner than we imagine.

At least, that is the premise behind “Ohiosaurus Rex,” my latest short story for YouTube.

The story begins innocently enough. A married couple sets out on a sunny September afternoon for an Amish quilt festival in rural Ohio. Before they leave, however, a coworker gives them a peculiar warning about the area.

Later, one of the Amish men at the festival gives them another.

If they see something strange on the drive home, he tells them, they should keep driving.

Naturally, they don’t.

A pleasant September drive takes a strange turn

On the way home, the couple spots something flying above a lonely two-lane country road.

It has wings, but it isn’t a bird.

It has an elongated beak, a strange crest, and the unmistakable appearance of something that shouldn’t have existed for millions of years.

A pterodactyl—or something very much like one.

That raises an obvious question: If one prehistoric creature has somehow appeared in modern Ohio, what else might be out there?

They don’t have to wait long for the answer.

What is a time slip?

The idea behind the story is the time slip: a supposed phenomenon in which a person briefly experiences another historical period as though the boundary between two different times has somehow broken down.

In a typical time-slip story, there is no deliberate time travel. Nobody climbs into a machine and sets a date for the past. Instead, ordinary people are going about their ordinary lives when the world around them suddenly seems to belong to another era.

Sometimes the experience lasts only seconds or minutes. Then normal reality reasserts itself.

That’s what makes the concept so useful for uncanny fiction. A time slip doesn’t require an elaborate science-fiction apparatus. It can happen on a city street, inside an old building—or on an otherwise unremarkable country road.

The frightening question isn’t necessarily “How do we travel through time?”

It’s:

What if different periods of time occasionally overlap?

And what if the boundary between them is permeable in both directions?

The strange possibilities of the Ohio River Valley

The Ohio River Valley has always struck me as particularly suited to stories like this. It is a landscape filled with old roads, wooded hills, small towns, farms, river bottoms, and layers upon layers of human history.

Most of the time, of course, a drive through rural Ohio is simply a drive through rural Ohio.

But fiction gives us permission to ask what if?

What if you turned onto the wrong country road at exactly the right—or wrong—moment?

What if something appeared in the meadow that wasn’t supposed to be there?

And what if, instead of you slipping into the past, something from the past slipped into your world?

That’s the situation at the heart of “Ohiosaurus Rex.”

And if an Amish farmer ever warns you to keep driving when you see something strange…

You might want to listen to him.

-ET

1932: supernatural zombie horror in rural Ohio

My maternal grandfather, born in 1921, grew up in rural Adams County, Ohio. He told me so much about that time and place, that I sometimes feel as if I lived it all myself.

“Hay Moon” is a short story set in rural Ohio in the summer of 1932. My grandfather never told me a story like this, filled with supernatural forces and the undead. But his real-life accounts of his childhood years helped me add a realistic flavor to the tale, if I say so myself.

You can listen to the story here, or on my YouTube channel (where you’ll find lots of additional audio content).

You can purchase this story as part of my Hay Moon and Other Stories collection. If you like my approach to historical horror, consider The Rockland Horror historical horror series, which is also available in a five-volume boxset on Kindle.

-ET

A story that scared me in 1977

I can recall the first time that I was actually scared by something that I read.

It was the summer of 1977. Somehow a book of short horror stories had come into my possession: Stories of Ghosts, Witches, and Demons. This slender 80-page volume, edited by Freya Littledale, was published by Scholastic in 1971.

Although I read the book cover-to-cover, I have forgotten all of the stories—except one: an especially creepy tale called, “The Demon of Detroit”.

This is the story of a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, who move into a house in the Motor City. They soon discover that they aren’t alone. Something horrible inhabits their back bedroom.

After a series of disturbing events, the couple decides to move out of the house. The last lines of the story are particularly haunting: They indicate that the Adamses “admit defeat”. Whatever lurks in the back bedroom will now have the rest of the home to itself, too.

The full text of the story (along with a clip of the artwork appearing in the original Scholastic publication) is available online. I do recognize the artwork. I can’t say for certain if the transcription of the 1971 text is one hundred percent faithful. (I was nine years old in 1977, after all.)

“The Demon of Detroit” seems to be based on an urban legend from the 1960s, which has enjoyed a modest contemporary revival. Urban legends, I’ve found, often make good source material for horror films and short stories, because urban legends are instantly relatable and easy to grasp. They aren’t overly complex. That’s important in horror film and fiction.

“The Demon of Detroit” also demonstrates the effectiveness of the short form in horror. This short story is perhaps a thousand words long. Obviously, they won’t all be that short. But as a rule of thumb with horror: the longer the story, the harder it is to maintain the suspension of disbelief. (Notice that Poe, Lovecraft, and even Stephen King are at their best when writing in the short form.)

“The Demon of Detroit” is a story that begins with a subtle atmosphere of darkness, and builds, over about a thousand words, to something truly malevolent.

“The Demon of Detroit” scared the bejesus out of me in 1977. I reread it today (the online version). It still brings a chill to my spine, forty-eight years later.

New on Amazon: ‘I Know George Washington’

Available FREE for subscribers of Amazon Kindle Unlimited:

($3.99 for non Kindle Unlimited subscribers)

I Know George Washington and other stories: five dark tales

View it on Amazon!

Five dark tales of crime, supernatural horror, and suspense…

In Tennessee, a father and his adolescent daughter must battle two evil men who harbor sinister intentions toward one of them.

In Zacatecas, Mexico, a recent college graduate takes a job as a private English language tutor for a wealthy family. But the entire household is hiding a horrible secret.

In Virginia, a young stockbroker’s colleagues insist that George Washington, the First President of the United States, is alive and well in the twenty-first century.

In rural Ohio, curiosity compels two travelers to stop at an abandoned schoolhouse with an evil history, and a reputation for ghostly activity.

In western Pennsylvania, a junior high student learns that his beloved teacher is not what he purports to be. 

A collection of five unique stories, each of which contains an unexpected twist.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the stories in this collection:

“The Van”: While traveling through Tennessee, a single father and his 13-year old daughter encounter two men who take an unwholesome interest in one of them. 

“Thanatos Postponed”: A recent college graduate takes a job as a private tutor at the estate of a wealthy businessman in Zacatecas, Mexico. But there is something horribly wrong in the palatial residence high in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. 

“I Know George Washington”: A young man’s new work colleagues insist that George Washington is alive and well in the twenty-first century.

“One-room Schoolhouse”: A young couple stop at an abandoned schoolhouse in rural Ohio. The schoolhouse is reputed to be haunted. 

“Mr. Robbie’s Secret”: a beloved English teacher is not what he appears to be. 

I hope you enjoy these stories.

Horror fiction with a revolutionary twist

Horror/psychological suspense fiction from Edward Trimnell Books

Tucker Bates has a new job at George Washington Investments. The pay and benefits are good.

The only problem? His coworkers are convinced that the real George Washington is alive and well in the 21st century.

And that he owns the company!

I Know George Washington

Preview it here. 

Or, get it at Amazon. (Available in a variety of formats.)

Horror in outer space

If you’re in the mood for sci-fi horror, check out my short story “The Dreams of Lord Satu” which you can read for FREE here at Edward Trimnell Books.

This story was included in my first short story collection, Hay Moon & Other Stories. 

Recommended for readers who would like something set in outer space that also has a dark edge.

Terrifying horror stories that you can read online for free

If you’re looking for frightening tales, you might turn to a book. (I’m definitely an advocate of those!) 

There are, however, plenty of short horror tales that you can read for free online.

First of all, the tales of Edgar Allan Poe are in the public domain. 

The copyright surrounding H.P. Lovecraft’s work is varied (and a little confusing). Much of it, however, can be found in the public domain. 

Plenty of FREE horror stories here!

I’m also publishing horror stories that you can read here—completely FREE. 

The list will continue to grow, but here are some to get you started:

Giants in the Trees: Unspeakable horrors are lurking in the trees of a suburban back yard. 

The Vampires of Wallachia: Three travelers discover that a Chinese restaurant in Ohio is home to the undead. 

The Wasp: Leo had always been afraid of wasps….for good reason, as it turned out.

For more horror fiction, check out this page, where I regularly post story updates!

‘I Know George Washington’: one more free day!

If you’d like to read my new five-story collection, I Know George Washington, you have one more day to grab it for FREE. After that, the price will return to the normal $2.99 (unless you’re in Kindle Unlimited, that is).

The FREE promo is scheduled through Oct 26, but I don’t know exactly when Amazon will pull the switch. So if you want it, I advise grabbing it today.

Five dark tales of crime, supernatural horror, and suspense…

In Tennessee, a father and his adolescent daughter must battle two evil men who harbor sinister intentions toward one of them.

In Zacatecas, Mexico, a recent college graduate takes a job as a private English language tutor for a wealthy family. But the entire household is hiding a horrible secret.

In Virginia, a young stockbroker’s colleagues insist that George Washington, the First President of the United States, is alive and well in the twenty-first century.

In rural Ohio, curiosity compels two travelers to stop at an abandoned schoolhouse with an evil history, and a reputation for ghostly activity.

In western Pennsylvania, a junior high student learns that his beloved teacher is not what he purports to be.

A collection of five unique stories, each of which contains an unexpected twist.

Get it FREE on Amazon through October 26!