Mental Shrillness

By Todd Russell

The Mental Shrillness ward will shock with six twist ending horror tales:

Memorial Day Descent - experience a showdown between an old mansion and a soldier's painful, recurring memories. A first place story content winner.

Pains in the Glass - Tim and Wanda love each other but neither sees the cracks in their flawed marriage looking glass. Today is the day one learns of betrayal so powerful that it will shatter, cut and bleed the other to pieces.

Dead Warmed Over - Can a tortured man love his wife too much? Ben's intense love for wife Jackie is realized in a haunted bathtub. Another first place contest winner.

Falling The Bobbitt Way - Tracy and John's sweet marriage vow warps into sinister sadomasochism. Find out if they can break the vow and ever be the same.

Dueling Eyes - GAZE upon an unmoving glass eye compelling its host to entertain self-mutilation tendencies. WATCH as Madison tries to save Killroy in the dark, dirty alley from the glint of a malevolent mugger's blade. STARE helpless as the cold steel and glass eye attempt to complete a shocking mission.

The Illusion - There are things Damon Brooks wishes he could change about his life. He thinks he has it bad until a dying, misshapen creature shows him that the other side wants much more to change their deaths. Prepare for a nightmarish struggle at a carnival between good and evil.

At the end of Mental Shrillness author's notes are provided for readers interested in each story's history and what motivated the author to pen these strange, dark tales.

BONUS MATERIAL
- Includes four additional stories written during the same era:

The Clock Called Fate
$$$ Knowledge and Power $$$
Father Knows Winners Best
Politically Correct - exclusive story available only in this e-book

- two chapters from debut psychological thriller horror novel Fresh Flesh coming September 29, 2011

Mental Shrillness is approximately 74 book pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Todd Russell
• Release date: Mar 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458181688

Todd Russell

Todd Russell loves reading and writing atmospheric, scary, thrilling stories. He lives in the small city of Orting, Washington overlooking beautiful, active and deadly, Mount Rainier. Mental Shrillness, a collection of horror twist ending short stories, is his first book.His debut novel, a psychological thriller / horror story entitled Fresh Flesh was published September 29, 2011. He is working on several other books.

Book preview

Mental Shrillness

by

Todd Russell

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Todd Russell at Smashwords

Mental Shrillness

Copyright 2011 by Todd Russell

Smashwords Edition License Notes

All rights reserved. Scream if you hate reading these notices.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, business establishments, cemeteries, carnivals, events or locales is coincidental.

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About Mental Shrillness

The Mental Shrillness ward will shock with six twist ending horror tales:

Memorial Day Descent - experience a showdown between an old mansion and a soldier's painful, recurring memories. A first place story content winner.

Pains in the Glass - Tim and Wanda love each other but neither sees the cracks in their flawed marriage looking glass. Today is the day one learns of betrayal so powerful that it will shatter, cut and bleed the other to pieces.

Dead Warmed Over - Can a tortured man love his wife too much? Ben's intense love for wife Jackie is realized in a haunted bathtub. Another first place contest winner.

Falling The Bobbitt Way - Tracy and John's sweet marriage vow warps into sinister sadomasochism. Find out if they can break the vow and ever be the same.

Dueling Eyes - GAZE upon an unmoving glass eye compelling its host to entertain self-mutilation tendencies. WATCH as Madison tries to save Killroy in the dark, dirty alley from the glint of a malevolent mugger's blade. STARE helpless as the cold steel and glass eye attempt to complete a shocking mission.

The Illusion - There are things Damon Brooks wishes he could change about his life. He thinks he has it bad until a dying, misshapen creature shows him that the other side wants much more to change their deaths. Prepare for a nightmarish struggle at a carnival between good and evil.

At the end of Mental Shrillness author's notes are provided for readers interested in each story's history and what motivated the author to pen these strange, dark tales.

BONUS MATERIAL

- Includes four additional stories written during the same era:

The Clock Called Fate

$$$ Knowledge and Power $$$

Father Knows Winners Best

Politically Correct - exclusive story available only in this e-book edition

Other books by Todd Russell

Fresh Flesh is coming September 29, 2011 - debut psychological thriller / horror novel

The first two chapters are included at the end of this e-book edition of Mental Shrillness.

Connect with Todd Russell Online

Official Website

http://toddrwrite.com/

Smashwords Author Page

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/toddrussell

Goodreads Author Page

http://goodreads.com/toddrussell

Facebook

http://facebook.com/booksbytoddrussell

Twitter

http://twitter.com/Todd_Russell

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DEDICATION

For Kara

A world without you

would bring much mental shrillness

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Contents

Memorial Day Descent

Pains in the Glass

Dead Warmed Over

Falling The Bobbitt Way

Dueling Eyes

The Illusion

Mental Shrillness Notes

The Clock Called Fate

$$$ Knowledge and Power $$$

Politically Correct

Father Knows Winners Best

Bonus E-book Mental Shrillness Notes

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Memorial Day Descent

Lewis hadn't seen Dansbury or Walker since that fateful day in 'Nam 1968.

The mansion belonged to an eccentric name Sayer. Lewis had received a bizarre email from someone named WARSONG24U (claiming to be Sayer's distant relative), telling him to pack, leave his normalcy in Vancouver BC and drive south to a town named Medina, north of Bellingham, Washington. Today, Memorial Day, he was to drive up a remote steep mountainside. At precisely midnight he should enter the vacant, ramshackle dwelling. WAR promised Lewis would be able to vanquish his demons, if he descended the staircase in the basement. There Lewis could find the closure he desperately sought. WAR knew too much to be lying.

He stood, flashlight in hand, mouth dry staring down the stairwell. It spiraled into the void. Where in god's name was this place? He started the descent, careful of his footing. The draft chilled his flesh through his heavy sweater and jacket. The light shone on the next set of stairs. Twenty feet. Fifty. Seventy-five.

A weird smell of wild rice tickled his nose. He saw the eyes of a Viet Cong boy name Lao, telling Walker and him to get their Shooshine. His teeth already yellowed at such a young age. Walker stepping up to the chair and then sitting. The boy saying he had to go get more shine, leaving that brown box. Walker laughing and singing some Beatles song.

Descending deeper...the air cold and biting his ears...a sound of bats flapping in the blackness...that brown box in Nam lucid in Lewis's eyes...sitting there waiting and Walker staring at him and suddenly screaming, Run, Lewis, Run!

And knowing what was in that box...that box filled with blood, sinew and brain of other foolish American soldiers. Those idiots here fighting an unknown cause for an uncaring country. Lewis grabbed the box and threw it out the window before it stole their souls. BANG!

...descending...colder...deeeeeperrrrr...there was something down here with Lewis and a smile flitted across his face. Black and frigid and somehow his . . .friend. Deeper. Two-hundred feet, and the light shone on more spiraling stairs. He was in Heaven. Finding closure. How pleasurable...deeper....deeper...more bats flapping and shrieking past his ears.

Then there was Dansbury, laughing with him inside that foxhole. Telling him jokes all the time, "You know

Reviews for Mental Shrillness

[arshad_ahsanuddin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Todd Russell's horror collection Mental Shrillness is comprised of ten stories, most of which are in the flash fiction format. My exposure to the concept of flash fiction is limited, but basic premise seems simple enough: a short story with protagonist, conflict, and resolution all stripped down to less than 1000 words. This approach requires a distillation of some of the required story elements down to their most basic components, while others remain implied by what remains. The author of this story collection has achieved results from creepy to humorous in intent. From the poignant tale of post-war guilt that is “Memorial Day Descent,” to the brisk taste of madness in “Dueling Eyes,” to the exercise in castration anxiety that is “Falling the Bobbitt Way,” author Todd Russell runs the gamut of disturbing emotions in this shorts bursts of prose. The last four stories in the collection are lighter and more humorous fare, from the arrogance of the man watching the action in “Knowledge and Power,” to the James Dean homage “Father Knows Winners Best.” Interestingly, however, it was the longer piece that really caught my attention, “The Illusion.” Part ghost story and part hostage drama, by turns obscure and hinting at a larger puzzle, it keeps you off balance with tidbits of exposition balanced by intuition, leading to a resolution that is both incomprehensible and completely understood. That may not seem like it makes any sense, but read the story and you’ll see what I mean. For a quick read, there is certainly a lot in this book to ponder, and the brevity of the author’s writing raises my interest in the full length forthcoming work Fresh Flesh, due out in September 2011, to see what the author can do in a less restrictive format.

[quirkygurl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This collection of short stories, MENTAL SHRILLNESS is a very good example of abbreviated fiction at it’s finest. It’s very hard to tell a compelling, complete story, and sometimes the overall story may suffer. That is not true with this horror collection from Todd Russell. His prose is as cutting and sharp as a scalpel, and he minces no time in drawing readers into his warped world.Most certainly not for the faint of heart, MENTAL SHRILLNESS explores, in bite-sized portions, universal themes of betrayal, lust, mental illness, undying love and desire, with disturbing finesse.The included Author’s notes are damn-near as interesting as the stories themselves, and it’s not everyday that you get to hear the method behind the madness. So, if you feel brave enough, drop a trail of breadcrumbs behind you, grab a flashlight, and enter into MENTAL SHRILLNESS. I was disturbed by these stories, especially Pains in the Glass, Falling In Bobbitt and Death Warmed Over, though not as much as I probably should have been. Instead of personally being grossed out, I was sucked into as a silent observer, very much involved in the stories. I could see them, smell them, hear them- essentially this book played out like short episodes in my mind. I felt more than I read, if that makes any sense.

[abcarroll_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting collection of short stories. Some left me confused and somewhat disturbed but I was definitely entertained. A very quick and entertaining read, may not be for everyone.