“Well I suppose, ’tis the season and all that crap, but they are the best at what they do. Keep trying.”
“Yea, yea I will,” John said, “but are you sure they can help me with this?”
“Look, they’re fantastic, and will advise you how to do it right the first time, and if you don’t think you can pull it off on your own, they’re more than happy to come and assist you.”
John reached for his phone and dialed the number again.
“It’s ringing.”
I’m sorry, due to a higher than normal volume of calls all our agents are busy. Please remain on the line and an agent will be with you shortly. The annoying robotic voice squaked at John.
“It’s a recording, I’m on hold.”
“Stay on the line, you don’t want to lose your spot in the queue.”
John laid the phone down and put it on speaker and Burl Ives sounding like he was stuck in a tin can began singing Holly Jolly Christmas.
“Can’t you help me with this Ted?”
“I can’t, you know that. They have a license for this and I don’t.”
It’s a holly jolly Chris…
“It’s ringing again.”
“Merry Christmas, Suicide Hotline.”
Steve Thompson is the author of two short and flash fiction collections. You can check out his 2 latest short stories “Kill Point Club” in the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13 from his In Your Face Publishing that he started in June 2019 and “Malignant” which he co-wrote with Kenneth W. Cain which is in the Shallow Waters 2 flash fiction anthology by Crystal Lake Publishing.
Wee Man & the Eejit as Told by Sean “Burly” O’Shea
“There he stood, all of three-foot and six inches, clad in his finest green outfit, now covered in rancid muck. The big eejit that pushed him in the ditch had a bit much of the black stuff. He was acting the maggot he was. Trying to impress his floozie, hoping to score some fun time between her legs. The wee man, well, he wasn’t taking no shite from no codger. A real chancer that fella was getting a Mountain Leprechaun all hepped up. Everyone round these parts knows you don’t feck with a Mountain Leprechaun, a valley one maybe, worse they can do is change you into a potato until sunrise. You just pray to all hell nobody cooks you for their supper.
I saw that happen to a young lad once you know, and at sunrise when he changed back, his legs, well, they was chewed off just above the knees they was. Some yoke thought it would be a great riot to take a bite out of him when he was a potato just to see what would happen. Heads or tails he said twirling the potato in his hands before he took a good old chomp out of the damn thing. It was a riot all right; the poor lad screaming with blood gushing everywhere and everyone running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads lopped off. He lived though, that’s him right over thar in front of Flanagan’s bar in the wheelchair.
Now where was I, oh yeah, some folks leaned a lesson tonight, just cause it’s Halloween don’t mean that everyone you see on the street is wearing a costume. That lad found out the hard way cause he’s not from ‘round here, and he sure as all hell didn’t know we have real Leprechauns that come into town during celebrations. I mean Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I can still smell the ass juice that shot down the eejit’s leg when the wee man transformed into a troll and bit his fecking head off.”
Steve Thompson is the author of two short and flash fiction collections. You can check out his 2 latest short stories “Kill Point Club” in the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13 from his In Your Face Publishing that he started in June 2019 and “Malignant” which he co-wrote with Kenneth W. Cain which is in the Shallow Waters 2 flash fiction anthology by Crystal Lake Publishing.
Your time is running out. When the clock strikes 13, all manners of hell will break loose.
When the Clock Strikes 13 is a collection of thirteen short horror stories by some of the best horror and dark fiction authors writing today. Inside, you will find stories to frighten, shock and gnaw at your inner fears, and take you places that belong only in the dark recesses of your mind. There are monsters on these pages; some are human, some are not.
Meghan: Hi, Steve. Welcome to the new Meghan’s House of Books. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Steve Thompson: I live in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada with my girlfriend, Lisa. I recently retired from my day job as a housekeeping supervisor at our city hospital after 30 years of service. I’m now dunking my foot into the unknown depths of the publishing world and hoping I don’t drown. I have 8 pets at home, 4 dogs and 4 cats that take up a large part of my day. 3 of those dogs are Boston Terriers and one is a Chorkie, and never in my life did I ever think I could love any animal as much as those dogs; the cats, well, they’re just evil.
Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?
Steve Thompson: 1- I never graduated from high school because I was given the choice to quit or get kicked out 3 months before graduation. 2 – Most people know I am scared of heights, What they don’t know is if I get into a situation that I am up too high, I need to get down ASAP, even if it means jumping and I don’t know what is the greater fear, the heights or wanting to jump to get out of that situation. 3 – When I was 15, I broke into a portable classroom and peed in the desk drawer of a teacher I didn’t like because he bullied a lot of his students. 4 – When I was nine or ten years old I loved to burn things with a magnifying glass; plastic car models, the long grass in the fields next to our house and insects, I burned a lot of insects, and I didn’t turn out to be a serial killer. Got 4 out of 5.
Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?
Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?
Steve Thompson: Jackie Collin’s Hollywood Wives. I read this back in the 80’s because it was the only book in the house at the time that I hadn’t already read.
Meghan: What made you decide you want to write?
Steve Thompson: Reading Stephen King books is what turned me on to reading and writing.
Meghan: When did you begin writing?
Steve Thompson: About 25 years ago, but mostly it was just farting around, writing short stories for myself and some friends. I only started to take writing seriously about 6 years ago.
Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?
Steve Thompson: In my computer room/library.
Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?
Steve Thompson: Nope.
Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?
Steve Thompson: Everything, but mostly it’s the show don’t tell I struggle with but it is getting better the more I write. Also keeping my focus on one story at a time. Right now, I have 7 short stories that are half done and I keep jumping back and forth between them, writing a line or 2 on one story than a line or 2 on another.
Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?
Steve Thompson: That would be my short story “Kill Point Club” from the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13. It was a fun story to write and I had a great time with it. I used the names of some of the other authors in the anthology as characters and then killed them off. Fun Times.
Meghan: What books have most inspired you?
Steve Thompson: The Stand by Stephen King, Animosity and Odd Man Out by James Newman. These are the only books I can remember ever pissing me off to the point I almost threw the books across the room and to make me shed a tear.
Meghan: Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?
Steve Thompson: Believable characters that grow on you and you care what happens to them, because if you don’t care the story just feels flat and lifeless. If something happens to a character, I want to be able to feel something for them and not just Johnny fell off a bridge and drowned and think who cares I wish they would all fall off a bridge and drown so this story would end.
Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character?
Steve Thompson: Again, I’ll say believable characters. Characters you can relate to and it doesn’t matter whether you love them or hate them as long as you feel something.
Meghan: How do you utilize that when creating your characters?
Steve Thompson: I try to make my characters as real as possible, I use characteristics from people I know or myself and then throw in a few quirks.
Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?
Steve Thompson: There’s a little piece of me in all my characters, so there really isn’t just one that is most like me.
Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover?
Steve Thompson: No, bad covers don’t turn me off. There’s a ton of great books out there with crap covers. It’s what’s inside that counts.
Meghan: To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?
Steve Thompson: I had pretty much full control on my book covers for better or worse, except for When the Clock Strikes 13. I wanted all the authors involved to be ok with the cover before I finalized it.
Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?
Steve Thompson: I learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?
Steve Thompson: There was a rape and torture scene in my short story “Pearl” that was hard to write and I ended up cutting most of it out because it was too graphic. I still got some flak for it from a few readers telling me they didn’t like what happened to the girl and I would just reply well, you’re not supposed to like it and if you did, I’d think there was something wrong with you.
Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?
Steve Thompson: I don’t really know, but all my stories are written in a very simple form that anyone can understand. You definitely don’t need a dictionary beside you to read one. Nothing takes me out of a story faster than not knowing the meaning of some words.
Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?
Steve Thompson: The title is very important and can sometimes be hard to choose the right one. I try to make the title reflect what is inside the book.
Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?
Steve Thompson: I have never written a novel or novella for that matter; I love short stories. Reading them and writing them.
Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.
Steve Thompson: My short story collections are a mix of sci-fi and horror with one collection having a few non-fiction stories in it from periods of my life that have stuck with me. I just hope readers will enjoy the stories. If only one person likes the story, I still call that a win.
Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?
Steve Thompson: I tend to ramble on at times and then delete most of it.
Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?
Steve Thompson: Body parts. Just kidding. Or am I. Actually, I’m thinking about turning one of my short stories (Johnny Dewitt) into a novella.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Steve Thompson: Right now, I am working on a short story collection and hopefully going forward with a signed limited-edition chapbook with one of my favorite authors.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?
Steve Thompson: I would like to thank you for doing this interview with me, my very first one, and thanks to everyone that read it until the end.
Steve Thompson is the author of two short and flash fiction collections. You can check out his 2 latest short stories “Kill Point Club” in the anthology When the Clock Strikes 13 from his In Your Face Publishing that he started in June 2019 and “Malignant” which he co-wrote with Kenneth W. Cain which is in the Shallow Waters 2 flash fiction anthology by Crystal Lake Publishing.
Your time is running out. When the clock strikes 13, all manners of hell will break loose.
When the Clock Strikes 13 is a collection of thirteen short horror stories by some of the best horror and dark fiction authors writing today. Inside, you will find stories to frighten, shock and gnaw at your inner fears, and take you places that belong only in the dark recesses of your mind. There are monsters on these pages; some are human, some are not.
Meghan's Haunted House of Books 