An English author of new horror and science fiction
Short Fiction
Below is a selection of short horror fiction stories written by Paul Stuart Kemp
The Future, Dear Boy
It would be an overstatement to suggest that Joseph Wester knew what he was doing from the outset, just as it would be an understatement to suggest that what he achieved was little more than guesswork. His discovery, then, belonged somewhere in between the two in a no-man’s land of hopeful pottering, or indeed of trial and error.
The Pink Roses
The pink roses had bloomed early. They weren’t completely to Gloria Deuce’s liking – she preferred more striking colours in her garden like scarlet poppies, purple lavender or yellow marigolds – but Ralph, her husband’s new gardening robot (or Grobot, as the brochure had described him) was doing some amazing things and she hadn’t liked to comment negatively.
The Crown Prince
It was only a few hundred yards from their new house to the Crown, a quiet fifteenth-century pub opposite the small village green. Ellie York had helped her dad with the unpacking once the removals lorry had left around two. It was now seven and she was exhausted.
Three Times Gravity
Nobody had ever told him how difficult it would be to unblock a toilet at three times gravity. If the job description had said Space Janitor instead of Mechanical Engineer, Biggs probably wouldn’t have signed on in the first place. Now here he was, shoulders aching and arms deep in a sludgy waste pipe, trying to reach the trap and remove what was being pulled down more than was being flushed out.
David Bremner rubbed the space where his wedding ring used to be and stared at the white plastic medicine bottle on his coffee table. He was sitting upright on his sofa, the black-leather three-seater he’d always found comfortable, the same black-leather three-seater he’d received in the divorce agreement, the one Greta hadn’t wanted anyway. He was nervous.
Broken Oak
It was one hell of a thing that I found next to that broken oak tree, I can tell you that, although it was Steel who actually found it. She’d run on ahead into the wood that day, chasing a squirrel or a rabbit most likely, so I guess half the money probably belongs to her, but what’s a dog gonna do with it?