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Blood Drops #1

10/22/2024

Back in April of this year, I submitted my first piece in a long while. It was a nonfiction piece that was sent to Memento Mori Ink. In complete transparency it was a requested piece, so submitting it might be a stretch, though it could have still been rejected. I also sent a story to a contest around the same time. The story didn’t win, but it was nice to send a story out with hopes it would get published. 

In May, I sent two pieces to Lisa Vasquez for Napalm Psalms. I knew only one would get picked but I wanted her to have a choice. She chose the better of the two and one of my favorite psychological pieces titled, Duality. I sent one story out in June that was ultimately rejected.

Sending out those five pieces created an itch I haven’t had in a long, long time. So, in July I set out to submit thirty-one stories, one for each day of the month. It was a lot of work, but I managed to meet my goal. That put me at a total of thirty-six stories submitted on the year. Umm … I haven’t submitted thirty-one total stories combined since 2011. 

Let me tell you, the rejections rolled in. I mean, seriously. I received thirteen rejections in the span of two weeks, almost one a day. It was disheartening, but I knew this would happen, Then I received an acceptance for the Weird Wide Web’s podcast for my story, She’s A Vampire, I’m A Hobo. When I heard the story (done by Lindsey Goddard) I got really excited. 

Since then, I have really dug my heels in, trying to find places for my work. There is one very big problem, though: I’m not really a horror writer anymore. Sure, I write some darker words on dark, real life subjects, but I don’t write what I feel is stereotypical horror anymore. I’ve experimented with different styles and genres (like mystery, romance and literary, as well as poetry).

Even though trying to find paying markets is a little frustrating, I find I’m enjoying sending stories out. I’ve also been keeping track of all of the submissions in a spreadsheet. So, here are the latest statistics on the year:

Submissions: 64

Responses: 45

Rejections: 32 (bummer)

Acceptances: 13 (Awesome sauce)

Acceptance Rate: 28.9%

The acceptance rate is really good. I was hoping for something between 20%-25%, so I’m happy with that number. Thirteen acceptances is more than I have had in any year since 2010, when thirty-three stories were accepted. 

Of those thirteen acceptances, seven have already been published. Below are links to those seven stories. Please take a few minutes to check them out. Some of them are free to read, others are parts of books or magazines, so, yeah, there’s a purchase price.

I’m A Hobo, She’s A Vampire at The Weird Wide Web Podcast. 

The Hook of Relatability at Memento Mori Ink Magazine (Nonfiction)

The Scarring at Exquisite Death

Darkness at Dark Descent, Whispers From Beyond Volume III

Treats at the Aver Residence at Wilhelm Presents Frightening Tales

Wave at Micromance (yes, this is a love story)

Duality at Napalm Psalms 

Thank you for stopping by. Also, thank you for taking the time to look over some of those stories. I’m excited to be putting out work again.

If you have a few extra seconds, please take the time to like the post, leave a comment and share it with your friends. I greatly appreciate it.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

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Deep Dive: The Scarring

I leave notes at the end of all my books (except for Beautiful Minds, because the notes are at the end of each story). They are generalized notes about each story, just a little something for you, the readers, giving you some insights on them. I’ve been wanting to go more in depth on some of those stories for several years. This is the first of those deep dives, and it’s about a story that was written in one sitting and has recently been republished at the website Exquisite Death.

This deep dive is for the story, The Scarring. It first appeared in my collection, Voices, released by Stitched Smile Publications in 2018. It’s one of the darker pieces, and maybe one of the more violent pieces I have written. It’s also one of the more misunderstood pieces and that is probably my fault. I’ll explain, but you’re going to have to stick with me for a few minutes. 

This is the note for The Scarring I left at the end of Voices:

You met the main character of this story as Nothing, the guy with all the scars and pent up hate and anger. I knew him by a different name when I started writing this piece. But a funny thing happened as I wrote this story: the main character didn’t want to use the name I had given him. He kept whispering to me, ‘My name is Nothing.’ Of course, I didn’t listen to him. Then he decided to stop the car and tell me to get out, just get out if I’m not going to listen to him.  

I was stubborn, as I’m apt to be. Just ask my wife, or really anyone who knows me. I was determined to use the name I had given him. He was determined to not cooperate until I called him Nothing. In the end, I lost the battle of wills. Here’s the funny thing: for the life of me, I can’t remember the name I had originally picked out for him. The use of his name wasn’t meant to be–he was meant to be Nothing. And so, he is.

This is a decidedly different story, one that is more telling than anything else. At least until the end. It also came about because of a scar on the palm of my left hand, put there by a nail over twenty years ago. Nothing like a hammer, a nail, and a rotten piece of wood.  

Before you go any further, if you have not already done so, let me encourage you to read the story at the Exquisite Death website HERE. Don’t, worry, you can click on the link and it will open the page in another window. Also, The Scarring is short, so it won’t take that long to read. 

Okay, did you read it? I hope so. That will make the rest of this make sense.

Seeing how I only really mentioned the name of he main character in my notes, it’s easy to see how some would think this story is solely about revenge. However, it isn’t. This story is really more symbolism than revenge. It’s about how we let the traumas of our past dictate our lives. Those traumas are like scars left behind either physically, mentally, or emotionally. Or all three. We can do one of two things with these events, learn from them or dwell on them. If we learn from them, we can move beyond them. If we dwell on them, as Nothing does in the story, then there is no moving on, we can’t be better, so to speak. 

To further illustrate my point:

I’ve been cheated on twice, both before I got married. The first time, I actually caught my girlfriend in the act. I didn’t explode or get mad like I thought I might if that ever happened. I just said, “Oh, hey, wait. Don’t stop. Y’all keep doing what you’re doing. I know my way out.” Literally, that’s what I said. I got over it pretty quickly. I mean, if she didn’t want me, then I didn’t want her. This was a case of not letting the trauma control me or dictate my actions.

The second time was a little more difficult. My then girlfriend broke up with me in April of that year. She never told me why, just “It’s over.” I had the hardest time dealing with that. Give me something. Did I do something wrong? I wracked my brain for months trying to figure it out. 

Turns out, I was wrong. I did nothing wrong. I found out in July that she had been having an affair and had … wait for it … gotten pregnant. That one … that one made me angry. You see, not only was she cheating, her roommate knew about it and covered for her. At that point, I was like, “F—k it. I can’t trust women.” For about three years after that, I wouldn’t give women the time of day. For those three years, I let the two women who cheated on me and the one who hid the truth from me, dictate my actions. I dwelled on it. I let the scars left behind by those women determine what I did when it came to other women. That was the wrong way to handle it. I bottled it up, didn’t talk about it, and it absolutely ate me up. That is, until my wife became the stars in my eyes, mind, and heart. 

Let’s look at The Scarring, now, and yes there are spoilers here, so it’s your last chance to scroll up, hit that link and read the story before continuing on. 

Nothing is asked if he loves. No. He hates. He does so because of how he was raised, how he was hurt, how he was scarred. The circumstances of his childhood were horrific, and that’s putting it lightly. So, Nothing hates until Lena becomes the stars of his eyes, mind, and eventually, heart. Unfortunately, for Nothing to get beyond hate, he had to address the root of that hate, and that was his father. He does so violently and with Lena’s somewhat unwilling involvement. At the end he asked do you love one final time. He says Yes. Everything that had ever hurt him was no longer a part of his life and he no longer hid his scars. 

Before anyone yells at me saying I’m encouraging violence to solve problems. No. No, I’m not. Again, the story is very much symbolic of moving forward after trauma or letting trauma dictate what you do with your life. In Nothing’s case, the root of his trauma and his hate was his father and his scars—mental, physical, and emotional—had never been dealt with, which is why he was the way he was. It was never about revenge. It was always about letting go. The first instance of letting go is letting Lena see the scars. That was the beginning of dealing with it. Unfortunately, once he began Nothing could only let go in one way, a violent rage. The reason it ended the way it ended was Nothing suppressed every pain he ever had until he had to address it. By then, he saw only one way to do that. In reality, that was the wrong way. 

The moral of the story is simple: don’t let trauma in your life get to the point of where the only thing you can do about it is do something drastic, either to yourself or someone else. Address trauma head on. Seek help. See a therapist. But don’t suppress it to the point of boiling over and exploding. That never ends well.

Thank you for coming along for this deep dive. I hope you enjoyed it. If you don’t mind, please drop a like and leave a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

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A Conversation With Lindsey Goddard

In the many years I have been in this business, I have met a lot of writers. Many of them have passed out of my life through time. It’s the nature of things. Some of them have become like family. Again, the nature of things. Some of them have left horrible impressions and I have helped them exit my life. Yes, it’s them, not me. Then there’s people like Lindsey Goddard. Lindsey and I go way back to the early days of me seeking publication. We connected through social media, became Internet friends. We’ve both worked with publishers and have had our hands in quite a number of projects.

Lindsey has published a few of my stories in various places, like in the anthology, Quixotic: Not Every Day Love Stories. The story was Sunday, a non-traditional vampire love story. Then there was the piece, Release, a story no one would touch because of subject matter. She took it for the publication The Monsters Next Door, which is an appropriate title, given the subject matter of the story. Here, recently, she took my short story, I’m a Hobo, She’s A Vampire for her podcast on The Weird Wide Web. 

With all that said, let’s have a sit down with Lindsey Goddard.

Who: Lindsey Goddard

What: Writing, The Weird Wide Web, Podcast, Life

Why: I want to. Why else?

A.J.: Good morning, Lindsey. I hope you are doing well.

LG: Good morning, A.J. I am! I have fresh coffee. 😊

A.J.: Let’s jump right in here. Will you tell the world who Lindsey Goddard is?

LG: An author with roots in horror fiction who likes to sneak into other genres and darken them up as well! Haha. I make gothic arts and crafts, and the home décor in my house reflects as much. I enjoy blogging and connecting with other creatives. I’m currently working on my first True Crime book about murder in my home state of Missouri.

A.J.: You’ve been writing a long time, probably longer than I have. What got you started in writing?

LG: I won a Mother’s Day poetry contest in first grade. They framed my poem and gave me a dozen roses for my mom. It was the proudest moment of my young life. The next time I felt that rush was when I sold a short story to an indie ‘zine at the age of fifteen. It’s a feeling of gratification unlike any other. I’ve put writing aside many times in my life as my circumstances change … But I always find my way back.

A.J.: I think, as writers, and really any artists, we leave, but we’re always drawn back. The obsession is real. You like the darker things in literature. What is it about horror that appeals to you?

LG: Horror is real. It’s all around us, threatening to affect our comfortable daily lives. Watching the news has always given me a helpless, sinking feeling. But when I write horror, I take back my control. I can decide the outcome. Much safer to be the author than the character, I think.

A.J.: I agree with you there. I don’t want to be the victim of someone else’s horror story. Let’s change gears and talk about The Weird Wide Web. What led to you creating this?

LG: I purchased the domain at WeirdWideWeb.org in early 2020, but it took a while for the project to find its true purpose. Seems like everything stopped in 2020, doesn’t it? And the world is just now waking up again. 

The pot of Crazy Stew that is Weird Wide Web simmered on the back burner for a WHILE, and it got better in the process. My original plan was to blog and podcast, but now there are writing contests and much more fun to come.

A.J.: You do interviews and narrate stories on the podcast. First, how do you go about choosing the people you want to interview? Second, you do all the narration on the stories, including sound effects. How much goes into putting together the stories before they air?

LG: Although authors and artists are portrayed as impatient madmen in cinema, the truth is, they have an endearing resilience—this compulsion to connect with other people and get their work into the world. So, I never have to seek out my interviewees. They always find me!

I am discovering as the podcast grows that it’s pretty darn labor intensive, but with only two episodes a month, I’ll survive! I think!

A.J.: Do you have as much fun with the podcast as it sounds like you do?

I’m having so much fun, I’m going to change my middle name to Fun. Lindsey Fun Goddard. That’s me. That’s how freaking fun this podcast is! Find out more at: WeirdWideWeb.org/Podcast

A.J.: For The Weird Wide Web, what types of stories do you look for both for your contests and for the podcast?

LG: It’s funny because, to read the four winning contest entries we ended up with last contest, a person might assume I was looking for horror. I wasn’t. Neither was Mitzy Carter, my fellow submissions reader. We ended up with a Top 15 stories toward the end of judging the 157 entries. A couple were sci-fi, a few were dark fantasy, some satire, or speculative fiction that cannot be boxed into a genre. But in the end, we chose the stories that packed the most punch. Stories that were not only well-written, but made us go, “Wow, that was clever.”

And … As far as the podcast, I tell you … it just fell into harmony with the universe. The right stories have landed in my lap at the right times.  *hippie voice* The podcast is meant to be, man.

A.J.: Being longtime Internet Friends, I’ve watched you chase publishing as much as I have, taper off, then chase it again. Recently, I’ve noticed you enjoy submitting stories to various podcast. Why is this?

LG: Wow. What a great question, because I’ve never thought about the true reason for this until now: Podcasts and audiobooks saved my life. There was a point in my life where I was under so much STRESS that I couldn’t focus on books. I would read the same sentence TEN TIMES before absorbing it. My brain just wasn’t having it. But I did not want to live without fiction. In fact, I cannot live without fiction. So, I turned to podcasts and audiobooks. During this time, I began to really LOVE podcasts! Some made me feel like I was tuning in to an old dramatic radio broadcast in the 1940s and just getting lost in the story.

A.J.: Has this become somewhat of an addiction? 

LG: You tell me! I had a story on Creepy Podcast recently, and in the coming months I’ll have stories on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, Nocturnal Transmissions, The Morbid Forest, and Wilhelm’s Frightening Tales, with submissions pending at even more podcasts! Haha.

A.J.: Oh, wow. That’s a lot of places. Congratulations on those. Now, the next question is always one of those tougher questions to answer, but if you could give yourself any advice (and it doesn’t matter what it is about it), what would that be?

LG: I would tell my younger self that I was worth more than the buzz inside the bottle when the world broke me, and I turned to alcohol. It only made it harder to piece myself back together.

A.J.: That’s some seriously good advice there. So many people could use that these days. One last thing, Lindsey. Where can the weird wide world find you?

LG: Well, if you’re into visiting websites that never get updated, I have great news! Here’s mine! http://www.LindseyBethGoddard.com

Also, I just released an expanded version of my 2016 novella, Ashes of Another Life, with never-before-published content, such as bonus material in the middle, an epilogue, and a prologue. The old version had 18 ratings on Amazon, and sadly, the new book hasn’t received any so far. If anyone would be so kind as to hop over there, read, and review, it would mean the world to me. Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCXHPZBY

A.J.:Thank you for your time, Lindsey. I wish you well with The Weird Wide Web and your publishing endeavors. Have a great day and chase those dreams. 

LG: Thank you, A.J. I feel lucky to have stayed acquainted with you this long. You have remained on my social media despite me losing my mind a few times. Haha. Much appreciated! I look forward to our NEXT project together!

A.J.: Before I go, I want to say thank you for stopping by. Hit that like button at the end here and leave a comment if you don’t mind. Also, check out Lindsey through social media and her website and give the Weird Wide Web a look. Every set of eyes on a writer’s pages, every like, every comment, are motivators for artists of any type. 

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

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Book Spotlight: Along the Splintered Path

Along the Splintered Path was released in 2012 by Dark Continents Publishing. It was my first experience, as a writer, having a publisher take a chance with my stories to the extent of releasing a short collection of them. For me, it was a massive learning experience. Sure, I had worked with editors and publishers before but on a single story basis, not a book focused solely on me. It was, to be honest, a little intimidating. I don’t know why—David Youngquist and his team were outstanding to work with. With Tracy McBride doing the editing, and being patient with me, especially given I had pneumonia during the editing phase.  

I will be completely honest here, the hardest part of the entire process was coming up with the title for the collection. I had no clue what to call it. Several weeks passed before my friend, Paula, came up with the title in a chat room.  

Why not call it Along the Splintered Path? 

It made complete sense to me. Each of the main characters had a prickly past of sorts. From Phillip, who lost his job, home and family and was living on the streets when his story started, to James, who was trying to save his marriage only to learn there was no saving it and ending up in a broken situation—in more ways than one—to Kyle and Kenneth, whose splintered childhoods were dominated by an angry father with a quick temper and a woodshed. 

Below is the synopsis for Along the Splintered Path: 

Life is a winding road. It turns and twists and forks and sometimes it comes to a dead end. It can narrow. It can widen. Sometimes, the road is short, while other times it goes on for miles. Sometimes the road is full of potholes. Other times it is smooth, and the ride is joyful. The road might be paved, or maybe it is a dirt road or a barely visible footpath.   

Each road—each path—we take leads us further on our journey. One road can lead to fortune and fame and another one can lead to ruins. Which road you take doesn’t guarantee you reach the destination the way you intended.  

What happens when you take a wrong turn? What happens when you follow the wrong path?  

Along the Splintered Path takes you on a journey of right and wrong, of paths chosen and lives altered. Come along as A.J. Brown tells us three stories of souls splintered by the events of life. How do they overcome those events, or do they overcome them at all? The answers could be the difference between sanity and madness. 

From Starburst Magazine: 

A.J. Brown’s debut novella presents three short stories of moralistic caution, human failings, and dark, unrelenting horror. He has a fresh, unique voice that brings the characters to life with a skill and experience that makes this a real page turner all the way to its deliciously macabre ending. 

So, this guy knows how to write. 

In Phillip’s Story, a tramp discovers a bag of money that changes his life, but in a series of flashbacks we learn that the money has a violent history littered with carnage and death. But in a wonderful twist we see seeds of hope spring from its bloodied past. Phillip’s Story is worth the cover price alone, which by the way is a modest £1.98. 

Round these Bones is a grim survival story of a man who after a bitter split with his partner takes a plunge off a cliff in his car. He lives, although injured, and realises that he won’t be able to make it back to the road without help. Which is a problem, because it’s the grip of winter and it’s cold – oh, so cold. Then he notices the hut: his once slim chance to make it through the night. But the hut isn’t what it seems, and the horror is only just beginning… 

The Woodshed. There’s something to be said about saving the best for last. This is the craft at its absolute best. An evil has infested the heart of a family, and can Karl break the cycle of violence. 

There are more reviews, and you can read them at Amazon or just go to Type AJ Negative and read them.  

To David Youngquist and his staff at Dark Continents Publishing, thank you for that opportunity. It gave me the belief in myself I needed to eventually put out books of my own. 

To you, the readers, if you have never read this collection (or any of my works outside of this site, hop over to Amazon and pick up a copy. If you have read it, and haven’t already done so, can you leave a review on Amazon or even here on the Along the Splintered Path Page? 

Thank you for popping by and reading my words. I hope they don’t bore you and are, at least, entertaining. 

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one anothere. 

A.J. 

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Duality and Napalm Psalms

Last week I posted about the magazine Memento Mori Ink coming in August. You can read about that here: It’s Coming. My article The Hook of Relatability will be in it. 

But that’s not all …

My story, Duality, will appear in the collection, Napalm Psalms (by Lisa Vasquez). I am honored to be one of the guest writers for Lisa. This collection comes out sometime in the fall. 

Duality is based off the song Murder in This Town by my friend, Donald Merckle. He sent me a copy of the song last year while I was in the hospital with the belief I could probably write a story based off of it. After listening to it several times, I knew he was right. Duality is about a guy who deals with hallucinations … and something far more sinister. It’s a killer story, pun intended. 

One other thing, I have started submitting stories again, something I stopped doing for a long while. We’ll see how that goes and I will update y’all with the progress.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

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Human Touch (Cover Reveal)

A couple years ago I was in a rut with writing. A couple? Seriously, A.J.? It’s been five years. Back in 2019, I was in a rut with writing. My editor, Larissa Bennett, challenged me, literally, to write a story I didn’t want to write. I told her about an idea I had but was hesitant to write because it was a ~GASP~ love story. 

“You should write it,” she said. 

I said, “I don’t want to,” like a petulant child about to pitch a fit.

After a bit of back and forth, I finally said, “Okay,” but it was more like one of those moments where your parents told you to apologize for saying something rude to your sibling. You apologize begrudgingly but really don’t mean it.

At some point I sat down and wrote the first couple lines to the story: 

The coffee shop was quiet. The few people talking did so in whispers as if they were in a library and the librarian was an ancient old biddy with blue hair, triangle lensed glasses and a mallet behind her back. Talk too loudly and get a smack to the head you might not wake up from. Charlie liked it that way. 

It wasn’t like the Starbucks a few blocks over that garnered most of the public who were willing to spend their money on their favorite caffeinated drinks. There weren’t a bunch of college students with their laptops and schoolbooks, and there were no groups of more than four people who liked to talk and laugh loud enough to disturb those reading books (or possibly doing schoolwork on one of those laptops). No, this was a little mom and pop place not owned by a mom or a pop, but a woman in her mid-thirties who married, divorced, and had no children that he was aware of. She spent her mornings and most afternoons behind the counter of the Coffee Dee-Light serving the regulars, like Charlie, with a smile and a bottom-line price that should have competed with Starbucks, but somehow didn’t. 

I liked the first few paragraphs and decided to write more. Though I would walk away from the story and come back to it later, the story of Charlie Massingale and Dani Overton never left my mind. I finished the story close to the end of 2020 after a few starts and stops. 

I had no intentions of releasing this book. It was going to be my dirty little secret. I, author of dark, emotional stories, wrote a love story. No, no one could find out about this. But I really like the characters, even Dee, who owns the little coffee shop they meet in.

So, here we are, you and I and this book, this story, Human Touch. It’s a love story. It’s Clean Romance. It’s completely different from anything I’ve written, simply because I intended for the two main characters to fall in love. 

Why post about this now? Well, because I’m releasing it soon and I need to talk about it. I want you to read it. If you don’t know about it, well, you can’t read it.

With that said, below are both the cover, which has a Take On Me by A-Ha vibe and the synopsis.

Charlie Massingale has mastered the art of fading into the background. Haunted by the tragic loss of his wife, he seeks solace in a quiet South Carolina town, hoping to escape his past and bury his pain. For years, he succeeds in his quest for anonymity.

Everything changes when a young woman recognizes him at a coffee shop and strikes up a conversation. Plagued by his own guilt and desires to stay missing from the world he once thrived in, he denies their connection, leaving Dani yearning for more.

Determined to unravel the enigma that is Charlie Massingale, Dani reaches out to her beloved author, hoping to connect with a man no one has heard from in nine years. To her surprise, Charlie responds, sparking a fragile bond that neither can ignore. As their correspondence deepens, Charlie finds himself captivated by Dani, awakening emotions long dormant within him.

Caught between the past and the present, Charlie faces a crossroads. Will he allow himself to embrace the possibility of love once again? Can he overcome the weight of his past and accept the warmth of the Human Touch? With their lives intertwined, Charlie and Dani must navigate the complexities of age, and the lingering shadows of the past that threaten to tear them apart.

So, what do you think? Interested? Let me know in the comments below.

Until we meet again, be kind to one another.

A.J.

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The Concepts: Chuckie

On June 29, 1993, I wrote my first short story. If you were a member of my Patreon page, One Step Forward, then you know that story is called, Chuckie, and was based on a nightmare I had multiple times. You also know how the story came about. But here, at Type AJ Negative and this thing I call The Concepts, you probably don’t know anything about that. Today, I give you the story—the full story that has never appeared anywhere outside of Patreon.

I was twenty-two in June of 1993. On the day—early morning, really—I wrote Chuckie, it was eight days from my birthday. Before I get into that particular day (which is really short, to be honest), I want to tell you about what led to it.

A few weeks earlier, maybe longer, I can’t really remember, I began having nightmares. Time has a way of running together. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years … decades … they all run together at some point. Things you remember completely when they first happened become dull around the edges over time. Details get lost or exaggerated upon, and as a writer, my job is to exaggerate the truths while telling all sorts of lies. But those nightmares. I remember them quite well.

I was in a house, but I wasn’t me. I was a kid named Chuckie Benson. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was bigger than my lanky 150 pounds at the time—oh and I had dark black hair. These days, it’s more on the gray side than black. The doorbell rings, which was definitely not a reality in the house I grew up in. No, there was no doorbell, only knuckles on wood. In the dream Chuckie—me—opens the door and there stands Alex, who looked like a burned up weenie with a sinister grin that was mostly teeth, and well, not really a grin. Alex didn’t have a last name in the dream or even in the original version of the story I wrote. When I rewrote the story, I gave him the last name of Morrison, since I was a Doors fan. 

I always ran through the house trying to get away from Alex only to run back into him. He would grab me by the throat in his still smoldering hands and choke me. At that point, I woke, not screaming or shooting up in my bed the way you see in movies. My eyes just snapped open, and I was awake, my heart crashing hard in my chest and staring at the darkness of my room. 

I had this dream quite a few times, almost nightly for a while there. This was bad for a couple of reasons, the biggest of these being sleep. I already struggle with sleep—had since I was about fourteen—and with this recurring nightmare, sleep became nonexistent. 

Then one day someone asked me, “Hey, are you okay? You look tired?”

“I haven’t been sleeping,” was my answer.

From there a conversation was had based on my lack of sleep. I mentioned the nightmares and how terrifying they were for me.

“Why don’t you write your nightmare down the next time you have it?”

“Why?”

“That might make it go away.”

That’s hoodoo magic nonsense I believed. I think the individual who told me that caught my thoughts on my face before I could even say anything.

For the next few paragraphs, I will relay to you what was relayed to me, in as much detail as I can remember. These are the words I was told:

There was once a writer—a very good writer—who suffered from having nightmares, specifically, one nightmare over and over and over. He got to where he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t function, and couldn’t write. He went to his doctor and told him what was going on.

The doctor said, “The next time you have the dream, get up and write it down. Writing it down will make the nightmare go away.

The writer, desperate for some relief and sleep thought it couldn’t hurt.

That night he had the nightmare. When he woke, he got up and spent the next three hours writing the nightmare down. When he went back to bed, he didn’t have the nightmare, but the next night, lo and behold, the nightmare was back.

The writer went back to his doctor and took what he wrote with him. He explained to the doctor that he had done what he was told to do.

“Let me see what you wrote,” the doctor said.

The author handed him the papers. The doctor spent the next little while reading it, then shook his head. “I see what the problem is,” he said.

“What?” the writer asked.

“What you wrote is the nightmare.”

“That’s what you said to write.”

“Yes, but you’re a writer. All you did was write the basic details of the nightmare. You didn’t write the story the nightmare is trying to tell you. Next time you have the nightmare, write the story it is telling you.”

A couple nights later, he had the nightmare again. He got out of bed and spent the next three days writing the story of the nightmare. He never had the nightmare again.

That was the story told to me. Of course, with a story like that, I, like anyone who heard it would do, asked, “Who was the writer?”

“Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Really?”

“And the story was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Now, as with any story told like this, I was skeptical. Still, I was desperate for sleep. The next time I had the nightmare, which was the very next night, I got out of bed, pulled out a note pad—what people refer to as scratch pads now—and a pen. I spent the next couple of hours writing the bare bones story of Chuckie Benson and Alex Morrison. 

After I was done, I laid back down. I didn’t fall back asleep that night. However, I never had the nightmare again.

Here’s my caveat for this Concept: I’ve never been able to substantiate the story told to me about the writer or the story. I mean, the story does exist, and the author was a real person. But I’ve found no record or truth of how the story came to be. It very well may be true. Or it very well may be something made up in the mind of someone playing shrink and offering a solution. 

Either way, it did work for me, and that’s what matters here. Oh, and the fact that writing that story springboarded me into writing, something I loathed up until then. Other than jokes and parody songs, I hated the very idea of constructing a story. In school, I did the bare minimum to get by with a D-. 

The story—true or false as it may be—of the supposed nightmare Robert Louis Stevenson had that led to The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, remedied my own nightmares and spurred a love for writing that has never passed, and here it is three decades later.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Posted on by ajbrown · 1 Comment

Ally’s Story

Ally sat on the floor in the bathroom between the bathtub and the toilet. She had moved the trash can before sitting down, knocking it over in her hurry. Tissues lay scattered on the floor around it, along with a used tube of toothpaste and a couple of toilet paper rolls. Her mascara made black streaks down her cheeks from the tears that fell from her eyes. Her knees were pulled to her chest. She gripped the gun her father gave her before he died in both hands. It was heavy in her tired hands. 

If she would have stayed calm when Barry showed up, she would have grabbed her cell phone. She didn’t and it sat on the kitchen table where she had been sitting when the first knock came. The knock didn’t scare her, even though it was heavy handed and sounded like thunder. It was the voice that came with it, the voice that told her Barry was there and things were about to get ugly fast. 

“Open up, Ally,” he said. Though he tried to sound cordial, maybe even nice, she knew better. “We need to talk about this.”

The second mistake she made was not grabbing her phone. In hindsight, it was probably her first mistake. She could have—should have—called the police as soon as he showed up. Instead, she stood from where she sat at her kitchen table and went into the living room. She didn’t quite get to the couch, which was new, as was the television and the nice chair that sat a few feet from the couch. A coffee table sat between the couch and the television (with a fashion magazine and local music paper sitting on it along with a blue and white coaster that stated the name of a local band one of her friends were in, Government Poptarts). The light in the living room was off, but a lamp that sat on a small end table near the door was on and lit up the front door and the window beside it well enough she could see Barry’s shadow beyond the curtain.

Her real mistake—first, second or third didn’t matter—was replying to Barry’s “Open up, Ally. We need to talk about this,” comment.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Barry. Go away.” She tried to sound tough, but deep down inside she was scared. In truth, she was terrified of him and had a hard time thinking right then. It’s not that Barry had been a bad husband—until a year ago they were great together, spent two years dating, nine years married and had a little girl, Amber. 

That was then.

So much can change in a year, and everything had, starting with Amber’s death and the initial legal issues Barry faced because of it. If he had just held her hand when crossing the street instead of texting a friend of his, then Amber wouldn’t have run out into the road and been hit by a car. At first it was a tragedy, one Barry argued was the driver’s fault. He even told Ally that. 

“The man was speeding, Amber,” he said from his side of the plexiglass booth, a blue phone receiver to his ear. And she believed him. Why wouldn’t she? “I barely kept from getting hit. I tried to grab Amber, but …”

Ally shook her head as she stared at the door. She had opened her mouth. She had spoken to him and now he knew she was home. At some point, she crossed the room and now only stood ten or so feet from the door.

“Ally, open the door.”

“No. Go away or I’ll call the police.” Her heart beat hard and her mouth felt dry. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” His tone changed. The cordial sound was gone. His voice was no longer begging, but calm and angry at the same time.

“Barry, please leave.”

“I’m not leaving until we talk.”

She yelled next. “We’re done, Barry. Go away. I’m calling the cops.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll go away.”

She thought it was over. She thought he would leave. She waited a minute, then another. When there were no more knocks on the door, no more Barry talking on the other side, she went to the window, moved the curtain just enough to see if he were gone. 

A rock struck the window. It, along with broken glass, struck her in the face. She stumbled backward, fell over the armrest of the couch, and landed between it and the coffee table. The pain above her right eye was sudden and intense and accompanied by blood spilling from several spots on her face. 

“Open the door, Ally,” Barry yelled, this time it wasn’t muffled through the door. It was clear and through the broken window.

Ally got to her knees and looked back. Barry had an arm in the window and was trying to unlock the deadbolt, something she had a friend install when she filed for divorce and a restraining order. His hand found it but couldn’t quite unlock it.

Get up! her mind screamed. She stood. Her world spun for several seconds before she staggered away from the door, the couch and the chair. She didn’t think about her phone on the kitchen table or calling the police. All she thought about was running and hiding.

By the time she reached the hall, she heard the door open. She was almost to the bedroom when Barry kicked the door in and the chain at the top snapped. The door slammed against the wall and Barry yelled her name. She looked back in time to see him enter the house. 

Though her world spun, and she bumped into the wall, she managed to get the bedroom door closed and locked. 

That’s not going to hold, she thought. Then, her brain thought of her father, of the gun he gave her, and the fact she had put it in the dresser on the other side of the bed shortly after Barry was escorted out of the house by the police after refusing to leave. 

She rounded the bed and opened the drawer. By the time she had the gun in hand, Barry was at the bedroom door. He didn’t knock gently, but pounded on the door, demanding she open up and “talk about this like grown adults.” 

Ally didn’t respond. Instead, she ran to the bathroom, thinking she could crawl through the window. She slammed the door shut and locked it. Her stomach sank right along with her hopes—the window was above the toilet and entirely too small for someone other than a little child to fit through. She thought of Amber—she could have fit through it if needed. She had only been five at the time of her death and Barry’s negligence and …

Amber’s death was the beginning of the end, but wasn’t the sole reason for Ally filing for divorce. The police told a different story than Barry did, but that could have been his word versus the driver of the vehicle. The three witnesses who vouched for the driver didn’t help his cause, but even then, they were married, and Amber’s death was an accident, and she was going to stand by her man like a loyal wife and …

It was the text that ended their marriage. Barry wasn’t arrested right away. That happened the day after Amber’s death. Neither of them thought to get his phone from off the bedside table. The driver and the three witnesses told the truth, but there was so much more to it than just a friend texting a friend. It wasn’t until she checked his phone a few days after the accident—just a day after her daughter was buried—that she found out who the friend was. 

It was four in the morning when his text notification went off. Ally was tired but sleep was the furthest thing from happening. She picked up his phone, typed in his password and checked the message. Ally didn’t know who Kristin was, but a scroll through the text messages told her Barry had been talking with her for a while and having an affair for almost as long. The text with this Kristin the day before wasn’t just a distraction that led to his daughter’s death, but was him setting up their next hook up.    

Everything’s a lie, she thought.

Ally sat on the floor in the bathroom, the bathtub to her right, the toilet to her left. He could smell the soap she had used to take a shower not two hours earlier. She could smell the Clorox cleaner that hung on the inside lip of the toilet. She could smell sweat on her body. They were all scents that didn’t seem to go together. 

Her heart crashed hard in her chest; tears fell from her eyes, smearing mascara. Her stomach was in knots and her arms and hands shook. She didn’t think too much about what led to her current situation, to Barry’s breaking into the house they once shared during happier times, at least for her. All she thought about was Barry being outside the bathroom door, beating on it with his fist, yelling at her to come out as if he were the big bad wolf about to blow down her house of straw. And when he did, she had no doubts he would hurt her or worse. Though he never had before, Barry had become increasingly aggressive and angry and had left a message once on her cell stating, “if I can’t have you, no one can.” Until then, she never thought him capable of hurting her. Then again, she never thought he would have an affair either and he had. If she had to bet money on it, she thought he might have had more than one, that this Kristin chick was just his latest fling. The message led to the restraining order, one that didn’t seem to matter to him.

“Ally, I’m only going to ask you one more time to open the door.”

She swallowed hard. Her hands were sweaty. Her elbows were on her knees and her arms extended toward the door. She tried to keep her hands from shaking, but they still did. Her right pointer finger was on the trigger and the safety was off. She didn’t have to check to know it was loaded—she made sure of that right after the threatening message. 

“Please, go away,” she said, her voice shaky. 

“Not until we talk this over.”

She shook her head. There was nothing to talk about. She thought about her phone, how she should have grabbed it when he knocked on the door. She thought about her opening her big mouth and telling him to go home, there was nothing to talk about. She should have just called the police the moment he called out to her. There was a restraining order for crying out loud. She thought about the message he left her, how menacing and threatening it sounded.

“Please …” 

Barry hit the door hard. It shook in its frame. She thought he kicked it.

“Open the door!”

She didn’t get a chance to respond. He kicked the door again. She screamed. A third kick and the door jamb started to give way. On the fourth kick, the door slammed open and struck the wall by the sink. She barely saw the redness of his face, the anger in his eyes, the scowl on his face. 

Ally pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun going off was deafening in the small bathroom. She pulled it again and again and again until there were no more bullets and the gun only clicked when she squeezed the trigger. 

It was over in less than three seconds.

Barry didn’t fall forward into the bathroom. He fell backward. At that moment, her brain didn’t register the blood that soaked the front of his shirt before he hit the floor or the fact that three bullets struck him in the chest, one in the arm and one in the hip. The other one hit the wall to his left. 

Ally sat there between the bathtub and the toilet, her elbows on her knees, arms extended, the gun in both hands. She stared at Barry’s body, not really seeing it, her mind in a thick fog that prevented her from thinking. Eventually, she would have to stand and leave the bathroom. She would have to step over his body and try not to step in his blood. She would have to call the police if someone else hadn’t by the time she mustered the strength to move. She didn’t do any of those things right then. Instead, she dropped the gun on the floor between her legs and put her face in her hands.

AJB

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14 of 52

Shelter From the Rain

Let me preface this story. I wrote the original version of this story in 1995. It was one of the first pieces I wrote—not the first, but one of them. In 2021, I reread this story and thought it could use a massive facelift, something that could make the story have a more satisfying feel to it. It only took me a couple of hours to rewrite it and I’m happy with the way it turned out. 

The original title was also called Shelter in the Rain, but really Shelter From the Rain makes more sense.

I hope you enjoy.

A.J.

***

Rain falls hard on the world. Lightning streaks across the sky. Thunder rumbles, loud and angry. Wind whips through trees, snapping branches, pulling leaves free. The moon hides behind storm clouds, content to sleep the night away. Trees line both sides of the road and sway side to side 

She walks slowly, her head down, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of a coat pulled tight around her. Her umbrella is somewhere behind her, torn from her hands by a strong gust of wind. Her pants cling to her legs. Her shoes squish and squeak with each step she takes. At first she tried to avoid the puddles along the side of the road, but now … now it doesn’t matter and she no longer cares about getting wet; she’s drenched from head to toe.

Damn car, she thinks. Good time to let me down.

She tried her cell phone, but out here, in the middle of Heaven knows where, but she doesn’t, there is no cell reception. She doesn’t think the overhead clouds and nasty weather help matters. 

It doesn’t matter, she thinks. It’s not like I have anyone to call. 

Tears tug at the corners of her eyes. No one to call became a thing earlier that night when she and her longtime boyfriend parted ways, not because she wanted to but because a man with a mistress is not something she wants to be a part of. Especially when she found out she was the mistress. 

How did I not know? It’s a question she has asked herself over and over since leaving him just hours earlier. She pulls her arms in closer to her body, shivers from the chill of the cold rain and walks on.

***

He sits. 

Watches. 

Perched on a tall oak’s highest limb, he follows her. Eyes like small green peas against a backdrop of darkness. He takes in her every move, from the time she pulled onto the shoulder of the two-lane road a mile or so back to her kicking a tire out of frustration, to her walking, first with an umbrella, then with her head down, hands in her coat pockets. 

Misery loves company.

He steps off the branch, unfolds his arms and swoops down toward the ground. Then he rises toward the sky. Leathery wings carry him through the night air, rain and northern winds. He flies ahead of her, searching, searching … until …

There!

Off to the side of the road stands an old wooden shack, desolate and empty. Its windows are missing, its door lays on the warped flooring of what used to be its front porch. One of the wooden planks that make up the five steps to the porch is missing. A tin roof covers it and there is a steady chorus of pings as thousands, if not millions, of raindrops strike it.

He smiles. It’s what she needs, what she is looking for. A shelter from the rain.

It will do.

***

She almost misses it. Her head is still down and her jaw trembles as goosebumps swim across her skin. She stops. 

What was that? her mind asks.

Just the wind, she responds.

But is it? 

Of course, it is.

It sounded like …

Just your mind playing tricks on you.

Maybe.

She doesn’t go far before she stops again. A break in the trees to her right reveals a dilapidated house, its windows missing, the door laying on the porch. A steady drumroll of raindrops beats down on the roof. The darkness oozing from it doesn’t feel inviting. She shivers, maybe from being cold, but more likely from the oppressive presence coming from the house. 

I wonder if someone’s home.

She shakes her head at the thought. No one is home. No one has probably lived there for many years. 

She looks at the sky. Rain pelts her face. The sound, she hears it again. 

Wings, she thinks.

Your imagination, her mind counters.

Her chest tightens. The night couldn’t get much worse. Breaking up with her boyfriend was bad, the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere in a storm was bad. Hating herself for not realizing her relationship had been built on lies was far worse than her walking in a downpour. But maybe being afraid of noises is not such a bad thing. Maybe it’s a better feeling than the one she has been dealing with. 

She looks back at the house. 

At least you could get some shelter from the rain, she thinks.

***

He watches her from the depths of darkness inside the house. He doesn’t have to play this game, but there is something about willing victims he prefers over those who are not so willing. He licks his lips and steps into the doorway, giving her a glimpse at nothing more than a shadow—one that shouldn’t be there given the circumstances.

When she sees him, he whispers. Come to me. 

***

She sees the shadow appear in the door. A frown forms on her lips and in her eyes. The grip on her chest increases and her breath catches for a moment before releasing.

Come to me.

She cocks her head slightly to the side. Her eyes narrow. The shadow in the doorway motions to her, a simple come here gesture. She shakes her head.

No, she thinks.

The voice comes again. Come to me.

She takes a step back. The rain and the wind are nonexistent, the water sloshing over her shoes seems to disappear. 

It’s all in your head, she thinks. 

Come to me.

There’s nothing there.

Then why am I so scared?

Because you’re alone. Out here. In a storm.

As if on cue, lightning flashes across the sky. The loudest thunder she’s ever heard follows, shaking the ground. The rain becomes heavier, not quite obscuring the house and the figure in the doorway but making it difficult to see much else. Her wet hair whips around her face. The wind pushes her sideways a few steps. 

Come to me.

***

He’s not going to lose her. He knows this. He also knows she might not come willingly. 

Come to me.

No.

Come to me.

She backs away. 

No, he thinks. You’re not getting away that easily.

He turns his eyes to the sky. Lightning streaks from black clouds. Thunderclaps, shake the world with its rumble. The rain picks up, as does the wind.

She staggers sideways.

Come to me.

***

Her first steps are tentative, like an unsure baby. The wind and rain batter her, knocking her off balance. She catches herself before she can fall and slowly trudges toward the house.

Let me be your shelter from the rain.

Shelter? she thinks. That’s really all she wants right now. A place out of the wind and rain that can protect her until the storm breaks and daylight comes. 

When she reaches the steps to the house, she looks up. There is no shadow in the doorway, no voice beckoning her to him.

Just your imagination, her brain reminds her.

I guess so.

She doesn’t realize she is going up the spongy steps or walking across the porch. She eases around the fallen door and stands in the entrance. 

And he is there, his eyes like bright green lights, his lips inviting, the rest of him … nonexistent. 

He extends a hand that wasn’t there seconds before. Come, let me be your shelter.

She takes the hand, willingly. It is cold. The fingers are long and thin. He pulls her to him and embraces her in a hug like none she has ever felt. It’s comforting. She melts into him. For the first time since early that evening, she doesn’t feel alone or scared and nothing else matters except for that embrace. 

***

She is warm. He feels her heat radiating off her as he holds her close to him. He turns his head, lowers it to her neck and kisses gently. He breathes in the sweetness of the blood pumping just below the skin. His mouth opens and the tips of his fangs brush against her neck. He bites. 

A rush of blood fills his mouth.

***

She feels his lips on her skin but doesn’t pull away. She knows something is wrong—has to be—but she also knows she is not scared and there is comfort in that moment. There is a prick of pain in her neck, then it is gone, much like her loneliness and fear. She becomes lightheaded and tired. She wants to stay there in his arms and rest, maybe even sleep against his chest. Is that too much to ask after the day she had?

She sighs, a sound of complete contentment, then closes her eyes. Her world fades and she feels like she could sleep forever. He pulls her closer to him and her legs weaken. Her arms slide from around him, going limp as all of her energy drains from her. 

***

He drinks of her blood, of her very life until her body sags in his arms. Then he drinks a little more. He wants to take the essence of her, take all of her, but stops before he can. Instead, he lowers her to the dusty floor, among the broken glass of the windows and leaves that blew in over time. He doesn’t look back as he steps through the door and into the dying storm. 

Goodbye, he whispers and disappears into the night on leathery wings.

***

And she lays there, her heart barely beating, her breaths shallow and too far apart. As the storm ebbs outside, so too, does her life. Then, there is nothing.

Posted on by ajbrown · 1 Comment

A Stitch of Madness

In May of 2016, my short collection, A Stitch of Madness, was released by Stitched Smile Publications (such an appropriately named press for the collection, I add). It was based around the three definitions of madness:

Madness: extremely foolish behavior.

Imprisoned for the murder of his best friend, Johnny Cleary sets out to tell what happened on the day Bobby “Buster” Lennon died, but are the words he writes true or does the deception run deeper.

Madness: the state of being mentally ill, especially severely.

There is something wrong with Irene. Momma’s dead and a ragdoll speaks to her in a voice that is hauntingly familiar. And what about the stitches, the very things that just might hold Irene together?

Madness: a state of frenzied or chaotic activity.

After an odd stranger pays Robert Wallenger a visit, his world begins to unravel and the past comes rushing back, along with a sickly sweet scent.

There is madness in everyone. For most, the madness never surfaces. For others, all it takes is one thing, big or small, for them to spiral out of control.

The following is the opening to the first story, Catherine’s Well:

There are things in life you wish to forget, or at the very least, push to the back of your mind so the memories only surface every once in a while.  Everyone has those moments.  Everyone.  You know them the minute they happen.  Getting caught cheating by your wife with the mistress; that car accident you were in because you were paying more attention to your cell phone, make up, radio or whatever; that night you got drunk and woke up naked on your pastor’s front lawn.  Yeah, we all have those moments.  Most of them we deal with and move on.  It’s only when someone says, ‘hey, you’re that guy they caught doing that thing in the theater,’ are you forced to relive things. 

It is what it is.

There are those things we can’t forget, no matter how bad we want to.  You know those things, too.  September 11 comes to mind.  A lot of people died.  It’s hard to forget something like that.  Seeing someone you know and love die right in front of you.  Yeah, that’s not something you want to remember.  Most folks would rather forget that person existed than to remember how they died.  It’s true.  Deep in the recesses of every human heart and mind is the fact that seeing someone die is what you remember the most about that person and that’s not something most want to recall.

You never want to see a best friend die. 

Never.

And you never want to be accused of murdering that best friend.

***

It’s been nearly seven years since A Stitch of Madness was released. If you enjoy what you read here on Type AJ Negative and have never purchased a book from me, will you consider doing so? ? You can start with A Stitch of Madness, if you like. If you want a digital copy, then you can follow the link below. However, if you would like a print copy, send me a message in the comments or send me an email at theunderwriter36@gmail.com. I would truly appreciate it.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Here’s the Amazon link: