Merry Christmas, all! Or whatever you may celebrate this time of year — it’s the presents and tree for me, though, so when I saw an upside-down tannenbaum at a local bar, I was inspired to tap into the Dickensian tradition and write an eerie poem about a backwards Christmas. What could possibly go wrong?
If you were online in certain, spooky corners of the internet (for better or worse) in the early 2010s, you probably saw at least one picture like this: an eerie photo with a short story to the side, white text on a black background. These were effectively creepypasta as memes, and when I was getting into the subgenre at the time, I stumbled across a lot of my favorites in this format: easy to share, hard to forget.
So when, as I often do, I took advantage of a creepy photo op and then let my mind wander, I figured I was long overdue to contribute to the form. Share it around, if you like–to see it randomly pop up on another site would honestly be an honor! In any event, these things never did seem to have titles, but if this one did, it’d be two words, one question, and yet infinite possibilities:
WHICH WAY
Instagram Stories are hot, right? Well, bite-size vertical video is, at least–so, I figured, why not put an experimental spin on my latest short story? To that end, I penned this strange, gross little anecdote inspired by a classic creepypasta or two, with a dash of body horror, and spread it across eight looping images created on the app. All credit is due to the talented Eduardo Valdés-Hevia (aka “Valdevia”), whose regular prompts for fellow spooky artists gave me the general premise (“RITUAL”) and deadline to get this one over the finish line. The intended format is as a series of gifs below, but for a YouTube variant (narrated by me), check out the video above! And remember: even if your body is just a vessel for your flesh, don’t try this at home…
After several mid-pandemic years of gradual development, my first computer game, “ANAGOGIA,” is now available on itch.io! To be specific, it’s a work of interactive fiction–a “choose your own adventure” hyperlink story, essentially. It’s a little bit horror, a little bit fantasy, there’s the occasional entity, and as for who or what “Anagogia” is… well, you’ll have to journey through to find out.
In addition to the text, all of the illustrations are mine, culled from a decade-plus of photographs tweaked to fit the tale’s bleak, isolated mood. I have a particular fascination with abandoned places and “liminal spaces” (which are experiencing a bit of a surge in popularity, I believe), and I really enjoyed having an opportunity to stitch all of these quiet asides over the years into a coherent (if not surreal) canvas.
This was my first time using Twine, so things don’t get too complicated–you can’t die or lose, and there’s no complex puzzles to take notes for. It’s more about… exploration, and uncertainty. I was inspired by visual and thematic elements of a real hodgepodge of games–MYST, Silent Hill, and the Dark Souls series, primarily.
You can download for free if you like, but donations are appreciated! And who knows, there just may be some DLC or a new interactive story altogether in the future…
The time has come for another anthology of short, spooky fiction from “The Terragenesis Collective”! That’d be me and some other fine folks in the online creative writing community who previously released It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…, in which my story “Repocalypse” appears (also on YouTube!). This second collection, The Many Lives of Devon Reeves, moves from a classic phrase as a binding theme to one simple similarity: Every tale has a character named “Devon Reeves.” Who–or what–is this individual? Any commonalities may be mere coincidence, or they may mean something greater… check it out here on Smashwords and decide for yourself.
My contribution this time is “A Thing Forgotten,” in which a wayward young man remembers a picture book from his childhood that no one else seems to… and perhaps they ought not to. It’s something of a spoiler, but since I’m really happy with how this turned out, check out the illustration from the talented horror painter Jenyce Garay (@JenyceGArt):
Long time no post! Admittedly, as I get busier with work and focusing on YouTube and Instagram content, this blog has grown dusty. Is there even a place for a WordPress in this age of short, swift tweets ‘n TikToks?
Seems there’s hope for the former, at least! Spurred by the “#CursedFootage” challenge started by Eduardo Valdés-Hevia, a splendid horror artist I follow, I decided to use the ten themed days to explore an idea I’ve had for a while–and mixed-(social) media “found footage” proved to be the perfect format. It’s best if you go in cold, but in short, it combines my fascinations with modern conspiracy theories, creepypasta, and uncanny/liminal architecture.
If the above picture intrigues you, read the rest below… and remember: this is all fiction, and yet are you sure that dent in the back of your closet was always there?
Notes&Sketches 