Spirit Notes Fading

By Kris Bowser

A punk band struggles to save their show when it's upstaged by the wail of a real banshee.

Across impassable seas and beyond lonely cities, two wayfarers journey across a vast continent.

A tired wanderer fights his impulse to run when he is hunted down with a magic photograph.

An ocean-sick miner steals a submersible to escape from the oppressive priest caste of a deep-ocean settlement.

Four short fantasy stories take eerie journeys through magic, music, and far-off places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kris Bowser
• Release date: May 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386704102

Book preview

Spirit Notes Fading

a short collection of short stories

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Kris Bowser

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Copyright © 2016, 2022 by Kris Bowser

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical methods, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations included in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, events, and organizations depicted in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Cover by Getcovers

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To Dan, who asked for stories.

Table of Contents

Banshee

Two Wayfarers

Seventh String

Abyssopelagia

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Banshee

Onstage, she jumped and thrashed, and shrieked lyrics to shred the air with obscenities. Rapid drums and throwing knife guitar chords met her in a wash of noise, while the bassist struggled to keep up, landing clusters of notes when fingers managed to find string. The guitarist shot him a glare filled with judgment at past failures, at uncleaned vomit, at his lack of seriousness, and at the fact that he’d had to be stopped from trying to inject paint fumes into his arm before the show.

Two minutes and eleven seconds later, the band completed the song in a final assault of drum and guitar and sluggish, pudding-thick bass. But when the song ended, the singer kept going, her cutting shrieks now a single, penetrating wail.

The guitarist and drummer exchanged glances, uncertain. Corporate Orgy! the guitarist yelled. The singer didn’t spare him a glance, while the bassist nodded and bobbed, grooving out to the nonexistent beat of her sustained note. With a shrug, the drummer counted down the song, and half the band began to play.

The crowd yelled, Get off the stage. She drowned them out, cradling the mike, and so the guitarist pulled its cord from the wall.

With no power flowing to the mike, the wail only grew louder, howling and escalating to other planes of existence, sharpening