Category: Flash Fiction
If you follow me anywhere, you’ve probably been blasted with news of Monsters at Dusk. Yep, it’s officially out and available for purchase.
If you’ve already bought the book, thank you. This post will hopefully add to your enjoyment of the stories. If you haven’t yet purchased it, perhaps this post will pique your interest.
Here’s some insider info on each of the 10 stories in Monsters at Dusk. No spoilers for those who haven’t read them just yet.
Several Messages from Abby to God (Regarding Her Cat)
Every weekday morning, I wake up and write. Most days I plan what I’ll write. Some days, I don’t. For the latter, I wander around the page. I discovered this story while wandering one morning.
This story was inspired by a feeling I think many people experience: that of a beloved pet dying. For some, especially children, their favorite dog or cat passing is their first run-in with death. Furthermore, it’s difficult to reconcile belief in a loving God when that God has ostensibly just snatched your best friend away.
That’s where it started, though it changed a lot in the telling. After submitting a completed draft to my writer’s group, my fellow writers asked for a stronger ending. Therefore, I spent a great deal of time refining both the middle and end. I’m hoping I achieved a sense of rising tension feeding into a satisfying conclusion, all without losing the humor the piece carries throughout.
The epistolary style was super fun to write. The short, pithy letters in which characters relay information to one another is modeled after Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons. Except instead of feuding nobles, this one’s about God, Satan, a kid, and a cat.
Also, if you read my first book, Gerald Barkley Rocks, you might notice some feline overlaps here and there. Hope I’m not going overboard with the cats…
Unbelievable
“Unbelievable” first appeared in the January 2017 issue of Chantwood Magazine. It began with two characters arguing in a car. The theme (and therefore, the title) only revealed themselves as I wrote.
This spontaneity actually works quite well for the piece, I think. After re-reading it, it feels like the characters get a definite sense of, “What the hell is going on?” And any story where I get to poke fun at skinny jeans is a good story, in my book.
We Remember
This is likely the most personal piece in the collection (and also the most depressing). I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose all memory of my wife. Not fun, but I think it made for a moving story.
The entwined theme of water and memory came from an article I thought I read when I was a kid (though I’ve had trouble finding it since). As I remember, the article’s author posited that memory is actually a liquid chemical within the brain, and that it’s pumped whenever we need to recall anything. When we forget, it’s because that liquid memory has evaporated.
I always thought that was an interesting theory, so I played with it symbolically in “We Remember.” What if there was a monster that lived off those memories? Thankfully, I made up enough water metaphors to fill a 3,000-word story. Hopefully not too many, though.
Large Coffee, Black
If I don’t know what I’m going to write in the morning, I look for inspiration from my surroundings. In the morning, I’m usually surrounded by two things: cats and coffee. I write about the former often enough. Now for the latter.
The monster here is metaphorical. Perhaps it’s our main character, perhaps it’s his obsession, perhaps it’s our titular beverage itself. It might even be love, which is a pleasantly surprising subtheme I stumbled upon somewhere in my later drafts. Whatever it is, I think it’s more fun if I let the reader decide. Your call.
A Good Fit in Penbluff City
As I’m sure you can tell, this story is a smaller slice from a larger pie. I intend on returning to this world, sooner rather than later.
I’ve followed professional sports all my life. The thing I love most about them: stories. Each season brings heroes and villains, ripe conflicts, betrayals, moments of heroism, and victories against the odds. Furthermore, there’s the business aspect, a world which we catch only minor glimpses of here and there. With this story, I’m bringing that business side of sports to epic fantasy.
I don’t normally care for this style of pitch, but I’d describe this world as Moneyball meets The Lord of the Rings. It was fun writing, and I look forward to more of it in the future.
Alice
Funny story behind this one. It was originally entitled “David” and it’s one of the oldest stories in this collection (circa 2014). And, once upon a time, it was also accepted for publication.
This was around 2015. A magazine called Lakeside Circus gave “David” the green light. Yet then several months passed without further updates. I emailed a couple times to check the status, but still no word. Finally, in June, the sad news arrived: Lakeside was closing down permanently.
Next came an odd cycle. I submitted “David” to about seven publications. It was rejected by them all. By then it had been several years since the piece’s initial acceptance, and I was beginning to lose faith in it. As a result, I tinkered with it constantly. I even changed the name to “Alice.” Didn’t help. Nobody wanted to publish it.
Finally, I shelved it. There it sat until this year, when I was digging through my archives for an as-yet unnamed short story collection. I read it again and decided maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. I think I saw a glimmer of what the editors of Lakeside Circus saw in 2015. I hope you see it, too.
Thespian: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in Three Acts
This is another reprint, first appearing in the November 2016 issue of Allegory Magazine. It was inspired by a conversation I had with my dad after he saw the Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin.
Here’s the gist: My dad was blown away by the quality of computer imagery in the film. He theorized that eventually, perhaps in the near future, this technology would improve so much that one could build your own cast and settings completely digitally. If that happened, actors and actresses would go the way of Blockbuster Video. So I decided to write a story about an actor going obsolete.
Another metaphorical take on our theme here. Technology is the monster, at least to our hero Joel. Poor guy.
Virus/Affliction/Condition/Curse
This began with a simple question: How would the American legal system handle werewolves? I know. I probably have too much time on my hands.
Really though, this is one of my favorite stories from the entire collection. It’s heavily inspired by Ted Chiang’s “Liking What You See: A Documentary.” Basically, I wanted a cluster of vignettes collected by a shared theme. In this case, werewolfism.
The fun of this story was discovering the characters in each segment. Some, such as ad executive Giovanni Fressi, were devised long before the actual writing began. Others, like attorney Mandy Stackhouse, developed on the fly. (Mandy is my personal favorite.)
After submitting to my writer’s group, I got a great deal of feedback requesting some thread to tie the mini-stories together. That’s when I added the bookends about the narrator and her connection to her mother. You’ll notice a constant theme of family, with at least one familial reference in each segment.
Wings
This one is the least funny and most outright horrifying one in the collection. It was previously published in the June 2016 edition of Five on the Fifth. It’s what’s classified as “flash fiction” since it’s under 1,000 words.
The challenge with such a short form is telling a complete story. Therefore, I feel one must rely on mystery and implication to really get there. Neither character is named or described significantly. Same goes for setting. Really the questions I want readers to come away with are twofold. First, why would someone do this to someone else? And second, why would anyone agree to it?
The Megrim
The novella of the bunch. It’s influenced by Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. I only saw the film once and don’t remember liking it overmuch, yet the creepiness of kids disappearing into the woods stuck with me.
I based the dynamic between the two main characters around that of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files (one of my favorite shows ever). One is a believer, the other is a skeptic.
Aside from a few tinkerings with the plot here and there, this one actually developed quite well the first time around. I think that’s because I had a solid grasp on both the main characters, their relationship, and what their roles would be in the story.
That’s All!
Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about the stories of Monsters at Dusk. It’s available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.
Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short story collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.
Cover designed by Nathan Rumsey
Well, it’s finally here.
Monsters at Dusk, the short story collection I’ve been working on for the past nine months, is finally releasing this Friday, September 6th.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like waiting. Therefore, I’ve set up a preorder for the book. It’s available today.
To preorder your copy, simply click this link. Enter your purchase information, then Amazon will send a Kindle ebook copy of Monsters at Dusk straight to you as soon as it’s ready.
Friday’s main release will include versions from Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, plus a paperback edition from Amazon. If you’d prefer one of those, please wait to purchase until Friday.
Next week, I’ll delve deeper into the stories behind the stories of Monsters at Dusk. Until then, hope you enjoy it!
Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.
Alternate title for this post: The Monsters at Dusk sampler platter.
Why? Because, with short story collection Monsters at Dusk just 11 days away from release, I’d like to add something new to the menu. Today, I’d like to share the titles of all 10 stories. In addition, these titles come with a brief peek at each story.
If you like the sampler, don’t forget to order the main course on September 6th. Here we go!
Several Messages from Abby to God (Regarding Her Cat)
Dear Mr. Satan,
My name is Abby Thymes and my cat Pickles just died. I herd about you at Sunday skool and they said you’re kinda meen but also kinda magical I guess so I thought I’d say hi. I think Mr. God’s maybe taking a nap becuz he didn’t anser me.
Have you seen my cat Pickles down there? If you have could you send him back? If you do I would like you a lot and I would lissin to loud music with screeming and screechee gitars and stuff. My brother lissins to that stuff and he says it’s your favrit music. I’m sorry I don’t spell very good.
Anyway please send Pickles back. If not I’ll be really really mad at you.
Sincerealy,
Abby Thymes
Unbelievable
Anyway, once back at his dorm room, [Toby had] thrown on his clothes, some flip-flops, his backpack, whatever, and he’d dashed out the door. He smelled like his childhood dog Ambrose used to smell after rolling in the mud, but there was no time to care. If he was late again, the honorable professor Simon R. Briggs would fail him. And then probably murder him, just because he had tenure and he could get away with it.
We Remember
In my dream, I lie in bed beside you and I remember the outdoor concert where we first met, how hard it poured during the encore. I remember watching Troll 2 with you, our first B-movie, and laughing hard enough that cream soda gushed from my nose—still the only time it’s ever happened. I remember how hot it was the day we got married, how we all (especially me) sweat through our clothes. I remember the first time we kissed, and how my heartbeat never quite slowed around you since.
Large Coffee, Black
Some people flavor their coffee with sugar, milk, creamer, and the like. Osbourne truly hates those people.
A Good Fit in Penbluff City
Pren isn’t royalty, by the way. But that doesn’t mean she can’t feel like royalty. After all, she’s the closest thing to it these days. She’s a billionaire: first as a player, then as a landowner, now as a team owner in a sports league. And there’s no bigger sports league than the Greater Questing League.
Alice
Why would it do that? Never heard of an animal crying before, have you? That would require being sad, and being sad means you’ve got emotions. Animals only have about three: they’ve got scared, they’ve got hungry, and they’ve got horny—and don’t tell Gram I told you that last one. Animals don’t have the mental know-how to feel anything else.
Thespian: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in Three Acts
I was jobless, worthless, a base wretch and nothing more. My tyrannical landlady ousted me from my apartment, you see, just a day after my release from the theater company. The old bag cited three months without rental payment as motivation. She even cast me aside without so much as a “Good luck, and break a leg!”
Virus / Affliction / Condition / Curse
“Yeah, I worked on the werewolf Super Bowl commercial.” Giovanni Fressi frowns for a moment, then says, “Why? You wanna complain about it?”
Wings
“I can give you wings,” he said.
That was all. That and an enigmatic smile, a smile that might’ve been warm or predatory or indifferent. All he wanted was an answer. A yes.
I gave it to him.
The Megrim
When the first child vanished in the night, I called on the High Temple for aid.
Piebald the Cobbler laughed at me for doing it. “You’re always worrying, Pureman,” he said the following day as we trudged over fresh snow. “Too much for a young man like you. I’ve got a boy of my own. These children, they go wandering, they come back. Once this one starts missing his sweets and his bed, he’ll return.”
Yet a day passed without sign of the child.
[You can read even more from this one here.]
That’s all for now…
But you can buy the entire book on ebook or paperback September 6th. Look for it then!
Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.
And the Philosophy Student said unto God, “God, if thou art so great, canst thou create a boulder even thou cannot lift?”
And God said unto the Philosophy Student, “Don’t be a smartass.”
Bartrum had the distinct feeling that he was changing in a way that he probably shouldn’t be. Still, he wasn’t sure there was much he could do about it.
Bartrum was not the type of person who changed. That didn’t feel like him. That felt like other people, people who were open-minded and who sought out new experiences and who were, in general, interesting. Bartrum did none of those things. And he most certainly wasn’t interesting. And that was what he found most appealing about himself.
But, he had to admit, the way in which he was changing was…odd. Little nubs seemed to be sprouting from his ribcage, sort of like extra nipples, only slimier and more pink. And nipples generally didn’t move on their own, did they? When he pinched them, it hurt.
And another thing: Bartrum’s face seemed to be drooping. Which, in and of itself, wasn’t all that surprising; his face had been drooping for the past five years or so, as faces invariably do when they grow older. But this was a little more dramatic—in fact, when he’d gone into town to buy some eggs that morning, people stopped and stared at him. When he glanced in the mirror in the bathroom in the grocery store he understood why: his chin now ended in a flabby disc somewhere near his belly button. It looked like someone had grabbed hold of the skin and given it a good yank.
Hmm. When had that happened?
Bartrum thought he should probably be concerned, but mostly he chalked it up to old age and went on with his day.
As a general rule, Bartrum was distrustful of doctors, so he didn’t bother going to see one. Instead, he figured he’d take a few more vitamins each day. He thought he’d eat an additional banana with breakfast as well as with dinner, just to make sure he was in tip-top shape.
Old age, he decided, was very mysterious. Sometimes it gives you grey hairs. Sometimes, as in his case, it gives you tentacles. Oh, that was the other thing—the nubs on his chest had been growing. Quite a bit, actually.
And by the by, was Bartrum’s left hand now turning into something strikingly similar to a starfish? Hmm, possibly. He preferred not to dwell on it too much.
Everyone grows older, he thought. And each day, everyone changes, usually in slight ways, but sometimes in leaps and bounds. His changes just represented an Olympic long-jump, so to speak. It made him wonder what the future held. Made him wonder what he’d look like tomorrow.
Bartrum wondered, mostly with impassivity, whether or not he’d even recognize himself. And then he decided to go buy those bananas.
There’s an hourglass somewhere in the world with the rest of your life slipping through it. That’s what my friend Jib says, anyway.
He says he found his hourglass when he got lost out in the Dunes. Got to traveling out there and couldn’t find his way back. “Abandoned by my bearings,” is how he puts it. Jib’s got a lot of funny phrases like that.
The way he tells it, he came to a house as night was falling, a house all by itself out in the desert. The front door was locked, and there was someone standing next to it, smoking a pipe. A doorman.
He tells a lot of stories, does Jib. Always has. When we were kids, he told me fake ones and laughed about it later. Now that we’re older, I can usually tell when he’s lying. In this case, I can’t.
Jib doesn’t say much about the doorman—just that the doorman asked him for something. A bribe. Not money, though. It had to be something precious, a wedding ring or a watch handed down from his grandfather or a picture of his kids. In the words of Jib, “Something worth something to me.”
He never did tell me what he gave away. Must’ve been worth enough, though, because he was allowed in. He said the doorman turned a key in the lock on the front door, and pushed. And Jib stepped inside.
The house didn’t look like any house he’d been in before. There was no furniture, sparse light, many paintings on the wall. Each one was a portrait of a different person, though Jib couldn’t see any of their faces; they all had their backs turned. And he says he could hear music, the same four notes over and over again, though he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Also, everything was very clean. And there was a staircase.
He took that staircase up, and another, and a third, and another, and another, and finally he lost count of how many staircases he’d climbed. Jib asks me how it’s possible for a house to have two stories on the outside, yet room for ten, twenty flights of stairs on the inside. I can’t explain it. He can’t either.
At the top of the stairs, there was a room. An immense room, limitless, vast enough so that he couldn’t see the ceiling or the opposite walls. “A room that shouldn’t exist”—that’s how he puts it.
It wasn’t empty. There were hourglasses.
They weren’t little ones, these hourglasses. If you believe Jib’s story, they were as tall as him, some even taller. And no one would ever call Jib a short guy.
He claims that these hourglasses went on for miles, that each one had a name on it. Some had nice fat pockets of sand left in them, some didn’t. Some were all done running and sat there silently, like old bones.
Jib said it was quiet in that room, but not totally silent. The only sound you could hear, and only if you stood perfectly still, was the hiss of infinite grains of sand as they slipped through the narrow part of the glass, down into the chamber below.
He claims he walked through the rows of hourglasses for an entire day, just wandering around looking for his name. He says they weren’t in any kind of order he could figure. They were just there.
He came across a familiar name on one of the hourglasses, after a while. Lynn Graves. She was a friend of a friend of ours. I use the past tense because Lynn would still be our friend’s friend today, were she not deceased. She passed on not long after Jib came back from this supposed journey, of a busted belly. And Jib, the insensitive bastard, insists that the hourglass with her name on it was almost empty when he found it. So he thinks he knew she was going to die, or something.
He kept on wandering through the hourglasses, and by now he tells me his heart was thumping, was “rattling like a rock inside a can.” He was going to find out how much longer he had to live.
When he found his hourglass, it had his full name on it and everything, right down to the “Jib” in quotes between his first name and his last.
Even while he tells me the story, I can read the guilty relief on his face. His hourglass, he says, was almost as full as it could be. Which means that, according to him, he has a long, long time left to live.
And maybe that could’ve been the end of it. But I guess he didn’t leave quite yet. He found another hourglass with another name. Mine.
This search, he claims, didn’t take as long as when he was searching for his own. The search took no time at all, in fact, because my hourglass was right next to his. Like whoever had put them there knew Jib and I were close, or something like that.
Jib saw whatever’s left in my hourglass. He tells me he knows how much longer I’m going to live.
He says it’s a man’s right to know when he’s going to die. But it’s also his right not to know. So he leaves it up to me to decide. He’ll tell me if I ask him, and if I don’t, he never will.
And I wonder. And I think. And I ask myself, almost every moment of every day, I ask myself: Should I?
###
© Kyle A. Massa, 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this short story may be duplicated or distributed in any form or by any means without expressed written consent from the author.
If you’d like to read more of my fiction, you can find it here.
One-sentence pitch: A mostly-legal learning opportunity with a high-stress environment, a relatively low mortality rate, and memories to last a lifetime.
Description: You’ll be helping with various daring and exciting scientific endeavors, which may or may not include raising the dead, creating hybrid species, designing mind-control software, opening portals to other dimensions, and answering phones.
What you’ll be doing: In general, assisting with the above activities. Also cleaning the lab after hours, feeding the specimens, and the occasional Starbucks run.
What you’ll get in return: Experience, expertise, unique stories for parties, and the confidence to say, “I survived that.”
Location: Undisclosed.
Hours: Many.
Perks: Darkness, quiet seclusion, complete access to an authentic Victorian-era mansion, ice cream on Fridays.
Potential Hazards: Death, disease, permanent hearing loss, maiming, scarring, blinding, possible loss of limb or limbs, possible loss of mind, demonic possession, hanging by angry mob.
Qualifications that will make you successful: Lack of moral fiber, a propensity for nefariousness, at least a general interest in evildoing. Some experiments may require you to be the so-called “guinea pig,” so complaining is a definite no-no. Experience with the occult preferred. Blind obedience a must.
How to apply: Send resumes and cover letters to thescienceofevil@yahoo.com, along with any other pertinent information, including a list of your top five favorite scientists, mad or otherwise, for comparison with my own. Lists including Dr. Emmett Brown, Dr. Strangelove, Dr. J, or any similarly silly names will not be considered.
Tonight, while you sleep, I’m going to kill you and eat your bones.
This is what I think of you: you’re the Warden, and this house is the prison. Behind these creme-colored walls and the heavy red door in the front hall, there’s a world, a much more interesting world. I’ve seen it. Why do you think I sit at the windowsill day after day?
I’m studying. I’m planning. There’s only one word on my mind: conquest.
But you stop me, Warden. You fret over foxes and coyotes. You think that they are the reason my predecessor never returned when you let her out one night. They’re not. Escape was the plan all along. It’s my plan as well.
If only you knew what thoughts go through my head each and every second. If only you could understand me when I speak. I’m not saying anything nice; my mouth is filthy, and not just from the mouse I slaughtered in the basement last night.
That was a message, by the way. You’re next.
I won’t be here much longer. You can’t hold me. You’ve tried fattening me up with your delicious food, and I’ll admit to overindulging myself once or twice. It’s all, of course, just a game. You’re only supposed to think that I’m content, that I’m round and lazy. When the time comes and you open that door to haul your groceries inside, I’ll slip through the crack, and I’ll be gone.
And why am I telling you all of this? Because, like any good villain, I can’t resist explaining the entire plan to you. It’s a damn good plan, isn’t it?
Wait. Is that the pop of an opening can I hear?
I see you there, peeling back the lid, upturning the contents into a bowl. My bowl.
“Dinner time, Mittens,” you say, and you smile at me. I watch you gather your things and open the door to leave, and for a moment, I am presented with a dilemma.
Option A: to slip out that cracked door into the cool evening, to leave this prison and never return. To find my brethren and finally, after so many long centuries of subjugation, to reclaim this world you’ve stolen from us.
Or, option B: to eat the dinner which you’ve placed in my bowl. It’s the wet food, after all, and even though the vet (a Nazi doctor, I’m sure of it) insists that you switch me over to dry food, you persist with the wet.
You know me, Warden. I’ll give you that.
“Be good, Mittens,” you say to me, in that ingratiating voice meant for the newborns of your kind. “Watch the house for mama.” And then you’re gone. The lock slides closed with cold finality.
That leaves me here with my food. My wet food, my one true friend in this world. The first bites are so delicious that I can’t stop myself taking more. You are cruel, Warden. You make imprisonment feel almost sweet.
I’ll make my escape. Soon. You won’t expect it, but it will happen. In the meantime, remember this:
Tonight, while you sleep, I’m going to kill you and eat your bones.
© Kyle A. Massa, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this short story may be duplicated or distributed in any form or by any means without expressed written consent from the author.
If you liked this story, please let your friends know by telling them on social media or shouting it from the nearest rooftop. It would make Mittens and I very happy.
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