Stop Signs in the Dark: An Anthology of Short Horror Fiction

By Paz Brahm

Stop Signs in the Dark is an anthology of 13 horror flash fiction / short fiction stories that are about how the mundane can easily be transformed into something terrifying. Similar to stop signs in the dark, these stories capture moments of ordinary people having their normal lives turn towards the bizarre and disturbing. This anthology is a companion book to "Soothsayer: A Haunted Poetry Collection".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paz Brahm
• Release date: Apr 5, 2021

Paz Brahm

I have loved writing since I was a kid and storytelling has always been a passion of mine. I love writing poetry and really enjoy tackling many themes; from the world around us to the outer reaches of space. I enjoy writing scifi, fantasy, and recently, horror stories.

Book preview

Stop Signs in the Dark

An Anthology of Short Horror Fiction

Paz Brahm

INTRODUCTION

The theme of this flash fiction anthology is that sometimes a mundane life can become outright terrifying. Think of stop signs in the dark, something we see all the time without a second thought, but can give off a sense of unease. Being somewhat of a skittish person myself, I wondered if I could somehow elaborate how it feels to have a mind that constantly makes everything mundane, terrifying. Maybe this book will give you a good laugh or maybe a sense of camaraderie. Maybe you’ll get scared. I hope so, because I had fun setting up this haunted amusement park of horrors.

Passing Through Cusher

Winter had dragged this season, the long, gray days lazily scrawled into each other. The first, warm gentle huff of Spring was enough to breathe life into Cusher, a town so small that in recent years, it had no documented census. People drove through, but rarely stuck around, even when the town made a poor attempt at becoming the sweetest strawberry patch in the Midwest.

Evan was walking home, his bicycle had a flat the moment he rode it down his best friend’s gravel driveway. He wasn’t far, on bike it took him twenty five minutes and the sun would still be shining for a couple hours at least. So Evan declined his best friend’s offer of staying until his parents came home. It would be too late in the evening and Evan already promised his own parents that he would be back before dinner.

The sun gave off a warmer yellow light than the pale, cold light of winter. Evan shivered as the early Spring breeze cut through his hoodie with frosty fingertips, reminding him that it wasn’t mid-May yet. He glanced at the familiar rusted out signs of a lawn service and a very used car lot. Both businesses looked like they were run from the owner’s homes with most of the lawn equipment and used cars resting on grass rather than black asphalt.

Cars whizzed past, ignoring the SLOW DOWN signs and the large signs that clearly displayed 35 MPH. Evan wasn’t fazed, it was normal for people to keep the steady 65 MPH of the back roads; nobody wanted to slow down for a small ghost town. People went through Cusher, none dallied or stayed. Evan himself often rode his bike at breakneck speed through Cusher, but now he was walking with a one-wheel bike. He glanced across the road, where an old bar and grill place had resided since before his dad was born. This sign wasn’t as crusty as the previous ones, but it was somehow more unsettling.

It was a massive wooden sign that once had a bright vibrant red paint bordering a large, bold font that read:

ROOSTER’S _______S ROOST

The remaining S was gouged to hell, as if someone was desperately trying to remove the whole word and lost energy near the end. What made Evan unsettled was that he was old enough to remember what that word, or rather what that phrase was between Rooster’s and Roost.

AND SONS

Deep cracks of peeled paint revealed deeper crevices and holes since the wood was much older than the sad attempt at a new paint job. Evan scanned the bar’s parking lot and saw only three vehicles. The neon signs hung outside were flickering and dim. Even if it was night time, they wouldn’t have illuminated much. The hairs on Evan’s arms raised when his eyes caught the sign that said HELP, only to sigh when his brain read the Wanted that dimly flickered beneath.

It wasn’t a