Collected: Volume 2

By M. K. Dreysen

Eleven short stories, dear reader. Of backlot nightmares and hopscotch daydreams. Of that moment when the one person you tried desperately to forget comes asking for... a little favor.
Here: walk corridors between worlds with M. K. Dreysen. Step carefully from a marriage ceremony with the most uninvited guest into that time where gods fight over the old and the new. Pass warily near the guardian when he approaches the end of the watch and toward the learned scholar and her most terrible discovery yet.
Bow a head in respect when you see the warrior with a shovel; consider the weight a child bares when teachers conspire. Fly along as the enemy you never admit to lays traps for your future self. Lay a shoulder to the walls you never dared tear down.
All those here have their dreams, dear reader. Will you turn your eyes to regard them?
M. K. Dreysen's Collected: Volume 2 brings together eleven short stories of horror, adventure, mystery and magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. K. Dreysen
• Release date: Apr 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781370173815

Book preview

Truth Through the Viewfinder - A Story for Downtime

So it was true, then. The stories, the gossip.

She found their star sitting underneath the tongue of the fifth wheel, styrofoam coffee getting cold on the ground next to him, cigarette after cigarette jittering between his fingers.

She knew the signs. When the coffee and the nicotine are the only thing left. The story was he'd bottomed out, finally, checked himself in and done the thing right.

And now it was time to see if there was a career left. Here where the salaries might pay for a beer and a joint, at most.

Or coffee and a carton of cigarettes, now that he'd kicked the high-priced junk. Long way from the magazine shoots and the pop-tarts throwing themselves at his feet. She kind of admired that. Maybe he was ready to work for a living. Like the rest of them.

He didn't know she was there. She didn't want him to. Not when she could watch, smell the tobacco, his sweat, the morning shower hours away. Downtime between sets on the latest Z-grade, straight to streaming effort.

He'd be hers soon enough. To touch up. What would his face look like, quiet, unmoving? Would he be better displayed before or after her ministrations?

Certainly camera ready. That's why she got paid the big bucks. Snort.

The call came, he stubbed out the butt and straightened his jacket. That was hers, too. The little touches, that was her place in the team. Broken seams, tears and cuts, dust and dirt and blood drops here and there. She gave it her all. Would he remember her name after the set closed at the end of the day?

Not that it mattered. She watched him leave, head back to the lights for the last big scene, and then It's a wrap, folks and time to pack everything up. He never did see her there.

She called it practice. For the big sets and the big productions.

This team, they were family, and she didn't shit where she ate. Carny-like, sure there were disappearances now and then, people wandered in and out of the life, but she wasn't about to feed on family.

No need.

Her phone beeped at her. The calendar, letting her know that tomorrow she needed to be in Toronto. Big money, Spielberg production. Hundreds of people, every day, wandering in and out of a set that would look like an invasion force. Names, stars.

Nobodies. The kind that came into the life, and left with no-one the wiser. Whatever happened to so-and-so? Who knows?

She'd never tell. She'd never need to.

A Space To Be

Dawn was coming, and she knew it. But she walked the corridors with no concern. The mundane light of the universe could rotate into being without her permission. Today.

She had bigger fish to fry.

Maddie stalked her shadows. They were hers, of course they were. Who else was there to contest her mastery of them? Here, down beneath, below the red dirt, where the light and the radioactivity couldn't find her. That's what Dad said, that's why the hallways and byways existed, for protection.

If she continued down this hallway, past the left and the right and through the final arch, she'd be at school. Fifteen minutes until the first bell; she had plenty of time.

They even still used bells. Big iron ones, mechanical, with a clapper and everything. Sure, they could have manufactured something, solid state with speakers, but why go through the fuss when iron and a little electricity and a clock on the other end of the wire did everything that mattered?

Maddie wasn't ready to go to school yet. The shadows waited. And the things in them. Dragons, fairies, pirates and funny little gnomes ready to bargain for eternal servitude, if only she'd spin them some gold from this pile of straw.

Her mother said Maddie spent too much time reading old stories and watching old movies. Her father said to leave their daughter alone, she'd find her way eventually so what's the rush?

The principal and the teachers hadn't much had anything interesting to say about Maddie, not yet.

The shadows spoke to her more loudly this morning than they had in ages. What were they saying? Besides Forget about school and come play, that was a given. There was something, different. Below the normal muttering and gossip. Maddie turned right where she should have turned left, put her back to the wall of the corridor; time check said ten minutes to the first bell, so she slid a little farther along. Just to listen, that was all.

When are you going to get my delivery? a voice asked. A high-pitched voice, above her mother's range.

You worry about the timing? a second voice asked.

Maddie stopped then. They, there were two at least and that meant there could be more. Best to stay here, in the shadows. If she went any further, there might be consequences.

Of course I worry about the timing, the first person responded. It ain't much, but it's still a profit. I've got bills to pay.

That's the kind of thing Maddie's mother would have said. Bills coming due, there were always Bills due. Whenever the computer dinged, dinner time and then the time until bed, when they were supposed to be helping with Maddie's homework, they'd have to turn off the sounds on the computer systems. Otherwise, they'd constantly be checking whether it was another bill coming in.

I'm taking care of it, the second person said. There's few times where everything goes perfect, this kind of thing.

Yeah, I know. Doesn't make it any easier, the waiting.

Maddie heard steps, going away from her. The two people around the corridor were taking their conversation and their worries about bills somewhere else. Did she have time to follow?

Five minutes 'til the first bell. No, Maddie didn't have time.

She wasn't quite as bad as her mother worried, about these sorts of things. Not like her father had been. She made it back around the corner and through the arch to the main hallway on time. A little breathless maybe, but on time.

There was the class time, and then the homework, and then the robotics team her mother had signed her up for. Music lessons were on Tuesday and Thursday, not Monday, so she didn't have that to look forward to. Today was just work, get through it as fast as she could and then maybe she'd have time to herself. Once the Why don't you take your time and get better grades? discussion had wound down for the evening.

The rest of the week was the same way. The walk to school, playing the shadows against themselves. Racing through the school work and the clarinet lessons. Ignoring the teacher's calendar when she could get away with it.

Until she couldn't.

Most of Maddie's day was sit through the lecture, spend the last twenty minutes or so doing homework and submitting it, then walking