...by NICK MEDINA
SHORT STORIES: Page 2
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Gone Black
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Donald Whitley said he saw one of the victims peering through a window on the fourth floor. He was so shaken by what he saw staring back at him that he could hardly talk. Eventually he expressed his horror with two words: gone black.

Published by Burial Day Books - January 13, 2012
Just as He Always Did
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He knows that everything is an illusion, that life is just a waste. He’s alone and he’s haunted by urges he can never fulfill because if he does he won't be innocent and pure anymore. But that doesn’t stop him from wanting. He wants to be the blackened wick on a candle, the sightless eyes of a cadaver, the compost heap, the road kill, the brown leaves in the fall and the muddy mess discharged by worms all at once. He’s tormented by his thoughts, coupled with compulsions for perfection - compulsions that make him want to live no more - but when he lies down to die, he always wakes up again.
Published in Wilde Oats, Issue 9 - December 10, 2011
A Second Shot
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A photo, a description and his life savings were all it took to end a problem that had haunted him for years.
A man hires a hitman to end the life of a ruthless individual who has not only caused a great deal of agony to him, but who has ruined the lives of countless young men as well. The decision to place the hit haunts the man – it even paralyzes him with fear – but he knows it has to be done because if he changes his mind the hurting will go on. And he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else ever again.

Published by Underground Voices - December 2011
Fingers
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It is possible to make a deal with the devil. But when Ryland Nettles signed a pact in blood he never knew the string of events his simple signature would set into motion. He certainly didn’t know that his greed would affect an expectant mother he never met.

The possession of Clara Wagner starts with a touch: invisible, frigid fingers laced with hers in the dead of the night. Clara tries to tell herself that it’s nothing – that her hands are just cold – but when she finds herself sleeping with her fingers balled into fists, she knows there’s something wrong that transcends the irrational fears concocted by her overactive imagination.When things go bump in the night and unusual sounds echo through your empty house, do you hide under the covers with your eyes squeezed tight, praying the icy air will warm and the ragged breathing will go away?
These 37 stories drag the nasties out of the dark and shine light on all the things you thought were only in your nightmares. Do you dare to look Under The Stairs?
Authors exposing the darkness include: Suzanne Robb, George Wilhite, Bennie L. Newsome, James Hartley, David Anthony, Rick Allden, Dustin Walker, Marlena Frank, Stephanie L. Morrell, Ethan Godfrey, Corey Maida, Zephyrus White, David C. Pinnt, John Morgan, David Ireland, Steven Gepp, C. S. Nelson, Christine Rains, Krista Krueger, John C. Foster, Cherie Reich, Cathy Strasser, Robert White, Marc Sorondo, Nick Medina, R. S. Pyne, Charles Day and Peter Giglio, M. G. Leal, Brigitte Branson, E. Lillith McDermott, Rob Rosen, Vic Kerry, Ash Hartwell, Brent Abell, Philip Roberts, Tara Sayers, and Val Muller.
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Published by Wicked East Press in Under the Stairs - November 18, 2011
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Get your copy HERE
The Long Way Home
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Walking home from a friend's house along a lane he's walked many times before, Max gets unexplainably lost. When he retrieves his cell phone from his pocket to call the friend he’s just left, he gets a confusing message from a man with a monotone voice. And he gets the same message no matter what number he dials. With no choice but to keep walking, Max soon stumbles upon the reason for his confusion. He realizes why he’s lost, why he can’t contact the ones he loves and what the confusing message means; they’re all signs indicating that he’ll never make it home again, but that a new home awaits him.

Published in A Flame in the Dark, Issue 2 - November 2011
Cupids
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It was always enthralling to watch the intelligence drain out of them; one minute they were superior beings capable of creating and keeping a democracy that operated better than our own, the next they were wide-eyed dimwits just waiting to be told what to do.
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Riley Sklar, a man who profits from selling these beings, better known as Cupids, is unaffected by how low humans have sunk (they use the Cupids for everything from nannying to cage fighting) until something horrible happens to the Cupid that cooks his meals. By then, however, it’s far too late. A new planet has emerged, one that relies upon the brutal alien industry. And there’s nothing Riley can do to stop it.
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Published by Quantum Realities, Volume 1, Issue 1 - September 1, 2012
On the Edge of Town
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When the abnormal is your day-to-day life, when it’s all that you know, two things happen: you become desensitized to those things whch should be shocking, and you grow increasingly envious of those considered normal.

Jack, who's only ever wanted to be normal, lives a life of endless oohs and aahs. Unlike other men, however, Jack isn’t self made. He's a show-made man, but as much as he tries to fake it, he’s never been much of a showman. He is Jack the Elephant Boy, a born freak, the biggest draw of Wellington’s Wondrous World of the Weird. Though the show is all he’s ever known, he wants out. But unlike Marcus Wellington, the ringleader of Wellington’s Wondrous World of the Weird, Jack finds that some things won’t die. Some shows just go on and on.

Published in Horror on the Installment Plan, Volume 1, Issue 4 - September 1, 2012
Rare
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Handcuffs hang from Conrad Fowler’s bed, but he’s the only one he uses them on.

Fowler, who paws around graveyards after dark, can’t seem to convince his boss that he can’t work nights, nor can he convince the cardboard cutout of the woman in the shop window next to his apartment to follow him inside. When he does eventually get through to one of them, Conrad finally puts the handcuffs on wrists other than his own. And while he always knew he was a creature unlike the others in the cubicles around his at work, his differences are greater than even he knows.

Published in Abomination Magazine, Issue 2 - August 2, 2012
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Purchase your copy HERE
The Ghosts in the Gondola
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Jeffrey Cooper, who travels to Switzerland to meet the woman of his dreams, finds that life doesn't always go as planned, and that sometimes being haunted is all one can hope for.

One day shy of meeting Maria, the woman he loves despite only knowing her through letters, Jeffrey is told about Harder-Potschete, a local tradition that utilizes frightful masks to keep the country free of evil spirits by scaring them up the Alps. When Jeffrey's meeting with Maria finally comes - atop Mount Pilatus - he soon realizes that she can't come down from the mountain, and that the masks don't just keep evil spirits away.

Published by The Washington Pastime in Collections Anthology Volume I - April 25, 2012
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Purchase your copy HERE
Sweet as Candy
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Johnny Barker never thought his marriage would go sour. But when it did, he could think of only one way to get rid of his wife for good...it was as easy as giving candy to a baby.
Published in Black Petals Magazine, Issue 49 - November 1, 2009