Halloween Treats

By Mark Leslie

Are you looking for a few chilling and atmospheric tales to get into the Halloween spirit?

 

Join author Mark Leslie as he takes you on a moonlit walk in the brisk fall air and bends your ear with eerie tales involving the dead returning, a vengeful ghost, a wilderness bogeyman, and the bizarre side-effects of an over-active and fearful imagination.

 

• Memento Mori: A Curious Nightmare
• Prospero's Ghost
• The Shadow Men
• From Out of the Night

If Halloween is your favorite month of the year, then this collection is definitely for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stark Publishing
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215733776

Mark Leslie

Mark Leslie is a writer of "Twilight Zone" or "Black Mirror" style speculative fiction. He lives in Southwestern Ontario and is sometimes seen traveling to book events with his life-sized skeleton companion, Barnaby Bones. When he is not writing, or reading, Mark can be found haunting bookstores, libraries or local craft beer establishments.

Book preview

Happy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite month of the year.

Yeah, I know. It’s supposed be a single day: October 31st.

But it’s such a wonderful holiday that I celebrate it all month long.

Oh, who am I kidding, I celebrate it all year long. I just celebrate it externally starting October 1st so I can try to look somewhat normal.

I’ve also long been a fan of short stories.

My first published writing (1992) was a young adult contemporary humor short story called The Progressive Sidetrack which was originally written for a Grade 13 English class writing assignment. My teacher commented that she hadn’t seen the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off but that my story made her think of that film. Being compared to something created by John Hughes with that first published piece of writing is a pretty solid win for this huge fan of that writer/director.

My first published horror story Phantom Mitch (1993) received honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror for that year. Another pretty decent nod that I was on the right track when it came to penning creepy tales.

Since then, I’ve delighted in writing plenty of other short stories; typically, darker tales that take on a bit of a Twilight Zone style and theme.

This uniquely compiled collection of Halloween tales is comprised of several of nearly one hundred short stories that I have written and published over the years.

The tales in this collection are not too scary. The first Memento Mori is set on Halloween and is a bit of an ode to classic horror and dark humor. The second Prospero’s Ghost is a ghost story. The third The Shadow Men is a rather short creepy campfire tale best read aloud in front of a fire in those summer months. And the fourth, From Out of the Night is slightly darkly humorous and perhaps the most graphic/bloody of the lot. Nothing too frightening or adult in nature here.

At the very end is a bit of a behind the stories write-up that I like to share, offering up inspiration for the stories and other notes that some readers have indicated they quite enjoy. Consider those that extra and unexpected treat in the bottom of your bag.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy these tales, find some little morsel contained within this collection that satisfies your treat tooth and that your Halloween is delightful.

Memento Mori: A Curious Nightmare

a moral tale dedicated to Mark Twain

The night before last I had a curious nightmare. Apparently, I sat on my doorstep in quiet thought with the hour nearing twelve o’clock. It was a warm evening for the last day of October, and I was relishing in the calm splendor of what might have been the last nice evening to be sitting outside so long with only a thin jacket around my shoulders.

The children, who, earlier that evening, had roamed the streets dressed in the usual garb of witches, ghosts and goblins were by then safely tucked in bed. Gone were their childish cries of excitement. There was not a sound in the air except for a slight wind through the trees and perhaps the distant passing of cars on the highway.

All was just right when, from up the street I could hear a boney clack-clacking. I turned to see what might be making such a strange noise on so quiet a night.

Around the corner appeared a figure, dressed in a moldy, torn shroud, dragging behind him a long box of rotting wood which could only be a coffin. As the figure neared I could detect the distinct skeletal features of his face from beneath the hooded robe.

Approaching my side, he paused, dropped the burden he had been dragging behind him, and sat on the edge of it. It creaked in protest as he put his weight on it. His jaw, held to his skull with the thinnest layer of sinew, began to clack as he addressed me.

It is too bad, he said. Too bad, indeed.

What is too bad? I asked. In that manner we all accept strangeness in dreams without a second thought. It never occurred to me that seeing a dead man drag his coffin down the street was an abnormal thing.

He brought a skeletal hand up to scratch his boney chin. Most things. It is getting to be that I almost wish I had never died.

Why do you say this? What is wrong?

What is wrong? Everything is wrong. Look at this burial shroud; it is now nothing but a rag. And this coffin, once comfortable, is now a rotting box that I can barely hold together. All my possessions are falling apart before your very eyes and you ask what is wrong?

"Pardon me for saying, but I wouldn’t think that, in your state, you would mind