Samantha Kolesnik's Lonesome Haunts: Tales From Between Presents

By Samantha Kolesnik

This edition of TFBPresents features a collection of haunting short fiction from Samantha Kolesnik.

"Kolesnik obviously writes without fear or constraint; there is freedom in the prose. Her stories are carnal and courageous, full of spirit and substance—deliciously satisfying."
– Sadie Hartmann, Night Worms

TFBPresents focuses on the fiction of a single author per edition, complete with author notes on each story and a wide-ranging interview, it's a must-have publication for fans of genre fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tales From Between
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215313664

Book preview

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TALES FROM BETWEEN

London

www.talesfrombetween.wordpress.com

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Copyright © 2023 by Tales From Between

All rights reserved.

Cover Image by tofutyklein. Cover Design by Matthew Stott.

More To Read

FURTHER EDITIONS OF TFBPRESENTS

Ai Jiang's Smol Tales From Between Worlds

Elin Olausson's Shadow Paths

BY SAMANTHA KOLESNIK

True Crime

Waif

Beleth Station

OTHER RELEASES

Tales From Between: A Strange Literary Journal

Tales From Between: Words & Pictures

Contents

About

Meet The Author

The Editor Speaks

Another Me, Another Time

Wild Appetites

Secret By The Shore

Lost Contact

Shrewd

More To Read

About

Tales From Between Presents is a journal dedicated to the work of a single author each edition. This publication is edited by author and publisher, Matthew Stott.

CONTACT: [e-mail]

TWITTER: @from_between

INSTAGRAM: @tales_from_between

PATREON: Join our Patreon and support this publication. It also acts as an eBook subscription to everything we publish.

Support new writing: patreon.com/TalesFromBetween

Meet The Author

Samantha Kolesnik is an award-winning author of horror and transgressive fiction. Her debut novel, True Crime, was released in 2020 to much acclaim from within and outside of the horror community, earning praise from iHorror, CrimeReads, The Library Journal, LitReactor, and more.

Kolesnik’s sophomore work, Waif, was featured in the Night Worms February subscription package, and has earned praise from iHorror, Mystery and Suspense Magazine, The Line-Up, and more. Kolesnik is a two-time Splatterpunk Award winner, as well as a Bram Stoker Award nominated editor for her horror anthology, Worst Laid Plans, now a motion picture from GenreBlast Films.

Samantha Kolesnik’s next work, Beleth Station, is a collaboration with the award-winning mass market horror paperback author, Bryan Smith, and was published in early 2023 via CLASH Books.

The Editor Speaks

The thing is, this edition wasn't even part of my plans.

So I had the first two editions of TFBPresents lined up (by Ai Jiang and Elin Olausson) and I was idly musing on Twitter about who else might be good for the Presents treatment, whereupon someone suggested Samantha Kolesnik and copied her into their response. In a matter of minutes (or so it seemed) Samantha herself responded, saying she'd like to hear more. And so, TFBPresents 3 was born. I mean, I'd have been a fool not to chase after that possibility, I'd read True Crime & Waif, her two novellas, and was a fan. Kolesnik is the real deal. She tells stories that punch you in the gut even as they send a shiver down your spine.

There are a lot of voices fighting to be heard in the horror space, Kolesnik's is one that screams loud and clear, are you ready to listen?

Speak soon, Strangers,

Matthew Stott, e.i.c, Tales From Between

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She tells me the difference between us is that I get to keep my skin. She says this before she takes scissors to the dress I carefully selected for the occasion. It’s thick and red and it doesn’t cut easily. The fabric frays and unravels; it feels like an eternity before she gets even a quarter of it sliced open.

I could just take it off.

The old woman, Fawn, looks up at me from her crouched position and just smiles. She keeps cutting; it’s a labor she relishes. Her lips get too close to my skin and I can feel her breath on me while she cuts.

This isn’t charity work like when I agreed to run errands for her two weeks ago. This is something altogether different and I’m not entirely sure why I’m complying.

It’s curiosity more than anything. I’ve never been naked in front of someone I haven’t fucked, and there’s novelty to letting this old goose immortalize me in thick oil paint on canvas. I only worry, in a way, that she’ll be drawing more from me than inspiration. There’s always a cost to immortality, isn’t there?

I look around the room to check for cameras, but the only thing I see above us are industrial beams and a metallic ceiling fan, its edges coated in dust.

Fawn sees me looking at the fan and, perhaps self-consciously, says, I can’t clean it anymore. It’s too high up for me.

Dust is mostly dead skin cells. Did you know that?

She keeps cutting.

I’m not wearing underwear, a habit I took up years and years ago, but don’t remember exactly when. I never found a use for it, except now I’m wishing I had some on as the dress fabric opens up under the will of her scissors and reveals the bare curve of my hip.

It’s just nudity.

And if we weren’t living in such a Puritan state, I wouldn’t be shrouded in so much self-conscious shame right now.

This is the refrain I tell myself to push through my nerves. And besides, Fawn pays well. Above all