Sliced and Diced 3: Sliced and Diced Collections, #3

By Joan De La Haye

Step into a chilling realm where darkness whispers, and nightmares bleed into reality.

Dive into this third collection of 13 twisted tales, each a portal to hidden horrors. Each story rips the veil between worlds, revealing terrors hidden just beneath the surface.

Beware the cursed charm. A coin promises fortune, but its price chills to the bone. Walk the veiled path. A child's innocent trust leads to a chilling encounter, and the true danger might not be what you seek but what seeks you. Witness a fracturing bond as a lost couple confronts not just their failing marriage but a chilling darkness that haunts their steps. Crave forbidden knowledge? Tread carefully near the mysterious gateway, for the secrets it unlocks come at a blood-curdling cost.

Joan De La Haye's masterful storytelling weaves a chilling tapestry of suspense, horror, and unease. Each gripping tale will consume your nights, blurring the lines between dreams and nightmares.

Remember, darkness thrives in the shadows. Keep the lights on, for once you enter these depths, the monsters within these pages may become your chilling companions long after the final word. Enter at your own peril, for the monsters here may haunt you even after you escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joan De La Haye
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223187707

Joan De La Haye

Joan De La Haye writes horror, dark fantasy and some very twisted thrillers. She invariably wakes up in the middle of the night because she's figured out yet another freaky way to mess with her already screwed-up characters. You can stalk Joan on her website: www.joandelahaye.com

Book preview

Sliced and Diced 3

Another collection of 13 dark and twisted short stories

By

Joan De La Haye

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Joan De La Haye

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise).

www. joandelahaye.com

Cover art by Joan De La Haye

1st Edition January 2023

For Mark

Yours was a life well lived.

You will be missed every day.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Also by Joan De La Haye

A Kiss for Luck

Food

Into The Woods

Last Bus to Nowhere

Medusa Rising

Spectres in the Mist

Tea with a Slice of Murder

The Broken Doll

The Gateway

The Hitchhiker

The Rich Man’s Hand

The Whistling Dead

Wings of a Dove

Be a Freaky Darling

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Sliced and Diced

Sliced and Diced 2

Fury

Requiem in E Sharp

Shadows

The Veil

The Race

Burning

Oasis

Bound by Betrayal

Also by Joan De La Haye

Stand-Alone Books

Requiem in E Sharp

Fury

Oasis

Burning

The Diabolical Series

Shadows

The Veil

The Oubliette

The Race Series

The Race

Training Days

Besieged

Retribution

Consequence

The Patron

The Eternally Cursed Chronicles

Bound by Betrayal

Short Story Collections

Sliced and Diced

Sliced and Diced 2

A Kiss for Luck

M

y Dad picked up this weird-looking coin on his travels before I was born. He’d always said it was his lucky coin. He’d sometimes take it out of the small box he kept it in and whispered while he held it. He didn’t know I was watching him while he made his wish. There were times I could have sworn it glowed in his hands. He always said thank you to it and gave it a quick kiss before he put it away. It wouldn’t happen immediately, but most of the time, a few weeks later, something would happen. Whatever trouble Dad was in, whether it was money problems or something at work or if any of us were having issues, everything would miraculously be resolved.

Mom would always warn him about using it. She believed in solving problems the old-fashioned way, with patience and hard work. Wishing for things to change either didn’t work or it came with a price. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Dad believed that if it worked and there were no upfront charges that he knew of, there wasn’t a problem.

Why do you kiss it, Dad? I asked him one day.

Just for luck, kid, he said as he ruffled my hair and left for the office.

None of us really believed it. I don’t think Dad did, either. It was just something he did just in case – for luck, as he always said. Mom said he’d been lucky before the coin and would be just as lucky without it. None of us questioned where he got it, and he was always vague on its origin story.

When I was a kid, I went through a Lord of the Rings phase and sometimes fantasised that he’d found it in a cave and stolen it from a Golem-like creature. When I confessed this to him one day, he laughed, smiled and nodded. The subject was changed very quickly, and when I tried to bring it up again, he changed the subject again. My Dad was the king of deflection.

It was his funeral yesterday. It was a strange, surreal, rainy day. He’d outlived Mom by twenty years. He’d lived to be over a hundred, and I’d started to wonder if he’d live forever. The strange thing was that they’d found him sitting in his old reading chair, holding his coin. He’d even died with a smile on his face. It was almost as though he’d wished to die.

My wife and kids cried softly at his graveside. He’d lived long enough to attend their university graduations. He’d danced at their weddings. And held Jennifer’s screaming baby boy at his christening two months ago. Not many people get to hold their great-grandchildren, but Dad did. He’d never said he was tired or felt sick. He just went to sleep and didn’t wake up. We should all be that lucky.

But while Abi and the kids cried and tried to shush baby Josh, I noticed a man standing a little away from the rest of us. He was clearly there to pay his respects. I thought I knew all Dad’s friends, but I’d never seen this guy before. He also looked foreign. He was taller than any guy I knew. I always thought I was tall, but this guy was a good head and shoulders taller than me. He was also on the skinny side, almost anorexic. His eyes creeped me out. When I looked at him, I felt this cold, tingling sensation running up my spine.

I’ve never been a fan of horror movies. My kids love them, but I’ve never understood the appeal. Standing next to my father’s grave with my family, I felt like I was in an old-school horror movie like the Omen. But instead of the creepy kid being the Devil's son, this impossibly tall and skinny man was staring at us. His face was completely expressionless as he watched us. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to ask him to let us mourn the loss of my father in peace, but instead, I kept silent and tried not to let my family know how unsettled I felt. The last thing they needed was to have me lose my shit, as Jennifer would say.

Abi and I started our family later in life. There was a time when I thought we would never have them. We were well into our forties when we got the news that Abi was carrying Jennifer, and two years later, Kevin was born. Dad was ecstatic when I gave him the news about both pregnancies. Both times he pulled the coin out of the box and kissed it. It had been strange but also incredibly sweet. I’d actually forgotten about it until today. Until the man from the funeral showed up in my study holding Dad’s coin.  

I don’t understand what he’s doing standing in my study or how he got in. It’s raining cats and dogs, so none of the windows are open, and he’s bone dry. All the doors were locked, and I didn’t hear Abi or the kids let anyone in.

How did you get in? I ask. I know I should be angry or afraid, but I’m neither. I think I’m still numb from the funeral. I’m mildly creeped out, but mostly, I’m just confused.

His smile displays a mouthful of extremely white, sharp teeth. The fact that his teeth could rip my throat out should send me screaming from the room, but I feel rooted to the spot. My brain feels foggy, and the room turns slowly around me, making my stomach feel queasy. Despite his disturbing teeth, his smile is friendly, and I don’t feel threatened. I know I should be calling for help, but I can’t find my voice. 

My favourite reading chair moves across the room of its own volition and stops behind me, and I find myself sitting down. His smile broadens, exposing more teeth. The coin appears in my hand.

Kiss it, he says. His voice is more high-pitched than I’d expected it to be. It’s almost girlish and completely in opposition to his appearance.

Why? I ask. My voice is barely above a whisper. I swallow the catch in my throat. It feels like a boulder going down.

Your father made a pact 100 years ago, and now you must do the same.

And if I don’t?

Everything your father wished for will be undone.

And why does that affect me?

You will cease to exist.  

I feel the blood draining from my face. Pins and needles pepper my entire body as I contemplate what this strange man implies.

Your children will cease to exist. The world will go on as though you were never born. Your wife will have married another and had other children. Your grandchild will disappear. Everything you have ever done will be rewritten.

My stomach plummets and rolls. I want to throw up. I also want to believe this man is either a grief-induced hallucination or a charlatan. I find myself laughing. What else can I do? But as I laugh, I look down at my hand, the one not holding the coin. My fingertips are no longer quite solid. They’re slowly disappearing.

The longer you delay, the faster you disappear from this world. Kiss the coin, and everything remains the same. Make a wish at least once every five years, and your life and the life of your children will be blessed.

I don’t understand, I mumble. Why would one of my father’s wishes affect whether my children or I were born?

Your parents could not have children. Your father wished for you. Ergo without that wish, you would not be here and neither would your children.

What do I need to wish for? I ask. I’m struggling to understand the enormity of what this thing, this stranger, is telling me.

Anything, he says as though it’s the most normal thing in the world. But you can’t go back in time and try to change your life’s course or your father’s.

Has someone else tried that before? I ask.

He simply smiles while I watch my whole hand become diaphanous.

You must kiss the coin now before it is too late.

I raise my still-solid hand, holding the coin to my face. I don’t know why I’m hesitating. It should be a no-brainer. If I kiss the coin, I live my happy, charmed life. If I don’t, I and everyone I love will disappear as though we had never existed. Everyone who has ever known us will forget about us.

I’d never smelt the coin before. Dad had never allowed me to touch it. But now that the coin was so close to my face, it had a distinctive smell, almost like rose petals ready to be composted. It reminded me of Mom’s Potpourri and somehow of death and decomposing bodies. I wanted to wretch.

Kiss it and give me your soul now.

Wait. What? I thought I miss heard him. "Did you say I have to give you my