SHORT STORY: That Time of Year Again by CM Saunders

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. I took a little bit of a break to enjoy my holiday and the several days of shopping that followed (I’m a manager in retail so it’s been a fun last few days). To continue on with my Halloween invasion of Christmas, I have a short little thing from author CM Saunders to share with you.

Halloween Drabble:
THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN
(100 Words)

The doorbell rings. It’s Halloween, which probably means the Trick or Treaters are here. Living alone means I’ll be up and down a lot tonight.

I open the door, and sure enough I’m confronted with three kids. We have a witch, a comedy Frankenstein, and a vampire in a cape. I think. I offer the group a handful of candy, which is snapped up greedily. As I’m closing the door, comedy Frankenstein says, “Where did your friend get that demon mask? It’s so cool.”

I’m confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Your friend behind you wearing the mask.”    

(This story was first published in Every Day Fiction.)

Boo-graphy: Christian Saunders, a constant reader who writes fiction as C.M. Saunders, is a freelance journalist and editor from south Wales. His work has appeared in almost 100 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide including Fortean Times, the Literary Hatchet, ParABnormal, Fantastic Horror, Haunted MTL, Feverish Fiction and Crimson Streets, and he has held staff positions at several leading UK magazines ranging from Staff Writer to Associate Editor. His books have been both traditionally and independently published.

The fifth volume in my X series featuring ten (X, geddit?) slices of twisted horror and dark fiction plucked from the blood-soaked pages of ParABnormal magazine, Demonic Tome, Haunted MTL, Fantasia Diversity, and industry-defining anthologies including 100 Word Horrors, The Corona Book of Ghost Stories, DOA 3, and Trigger Warning: Body Horror.

Meet the local reporter on an assignment which takes him far beyond the realms of reality, join the fishing trip that goes sideways when a fish unlike any other is hooked, and find out the hidden cost of human trafficking in China. Along the way, meet the hiker who stumbles across something unexpected in the woods, the office worker who’s life is inexorably changed after a medical drug trial goes wrong, and many more.

Also features extensive notes, and original artwork by Stoker award-winning Greg Chapman.

Table of Contents:
Demon Tree
Revenge of the Toothfish
Surzhai
The Sharpest Tool
Something Bad
Down the Road
Coming Around
Where a Town Once Stood
The Last Night Shift
Subject #270374
Afterword