On the Fringes of Reality

Where the ordinary world reveals its true nature

Category: contemporary horror

  • Micro Monday – Introducing: The Latchkey

    The Latchkey – Part I You ever notice how your front door sometimes… moves on its own? Like you’re certain you shut it tight, but when you pass by again…

  • Sunday Short: The Policy

    Helen found the ticket wedged between two library books on a Tuesday morning, golden and pristine against the worn spine of Pride and Prejudice. She might have handed it to…

  • Flash Friday: Exposure

    Neil scrolled through his camera roll, half-listening to Hamilton drone on about quarterly targets. He needed the photo of the mockup—bloody ironic—from yesterday’s client meeting. Where was it? Holiday snaps…

  • Micro Monday: The Optimist

    Eve smiled at her wrist display. Thirty-seven days of perfect sleep scores, stress levels in the green zone, and she’d hit her target weight. The tracker buzzed: Excellent progress! Your…

  • Sunday Short: Night Shift

    The headache always started in his temples. Luis wheeled his cart past the nurses’ station, counting down the hours until the throbbing would ease. Eighteen hours since his last transformation.…

  • Flash Friday: Don’t Make Me Cross

    Eight-year-old Oliver pressed his face against the car window as his mother pulled up to the zebra crossing outside Wychwood Primary. The familiar figure stood waiting with her red lollipop…

  • Micro Monday: Lab Rats

    Lab Rats represents a delightful (for me, anyway) departure from the typical On the Fringes of Reality stuff. While my usual contemporary horror and gothic-inspired horror tales explore familiar human…

  • Sunday Short: Perfect Pitch

    Theo noticed it during the third movement, when the soprano soloist’s voice should have cracked. Not from strain—he’d mixed enough live recordings to know when a singer was pushing past…

  • Flash Friday: The Apartment

    The bedroom door was closer to the corner than it should have been. Every morning, muscle memory gave Fiona eight steps from wardrobe to door. Tonight, her foot landed on…

  • Timeline

    A series of social media posts trace a family’s digital journey from innocent beginnings to devastating end.

  • Sunday Short: Private Messaging

    Maya settled into her evening routine, laptop positioned perfectly on the coffee table, the new ClearCall app already loaded. Frank’s face appeared on screen, his hearing aids catching the light…

  • Observer

    Commander Walsh checked his tether and gazed down at Earth’s curve. The blue marble rotated peacefully beneath him, cloud formations swirling over familiar continents. Then he saw it. A brilliant…

  • Flash Friday: Shared Occupancy

    The flat was too good to be true. Two bedrooms in Bloomsbury for eight hundred a month, available immediately. Nell had called within minutes of seeing the advert, expecting it…

  • Update: Echo Room

    Just a short announcement: I’m delighted to report that Echo Room is featured on Free Flash Fiction. If you’ve not visited Free Flash Fiction, you really are missing a trick!…

  • Classic Short: Examination Day by Henry Slesar

    When Henry Slesar’s Examination Day appeared in Playboy magazine in February 1958, readers thought they’d be getting a straightforward coming-of-age story about a boy’s first intelligence test. By the final…

  • Micro Monday: Neighbourhood Watch

    Monday, 18th March Spring cleaning today. Found old diary behind wardrobe. Pages and pages of complaints about neighbours! Funny how worked up I’d get about small things. Much calmer now…

  • Sunday Short: The Conversation

    You’re nursing your second pint when I slide onto the stool beside you. The Lamb and Flag is busy tonight—Friday evening, end of another long week—and you’ve claimed this corner…

  • Watching

    Alison noticed him first from her bedroom window. Seventh floor of the tower block opposite, a pale figure pressed against the glass, staring up at her. She stepped back from…

  • Flash Friday: Involuntary Redundancy

    The conference room door clicks shut, but I can still hear them through the ventilation system. Dr Garcia’s voice carries further than she realises. “The incident yesterday crossed too many…

  • The Last Bus

    Keith stumbled across the road, vodka still burning. She’d better have his dinner waiting. Better be hot, or she’d get what she deserved. The horn blared as he lurched into…

  • Micro Monday: The Corridor

    I know this hallway better than my own heartbeat—thirty-seven steps from the elevator to my office door. I’ve counted them a thousand times. The footsteps behind me started at step…

  • Sunday Short: The Custodian

    “How long have we been talking?” “Three hours, maybe four. Does it matter?” “Everything matters now.” The silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the soft hum of cooling systems…

  • Flash Friday: Lost Property

    The 7:23 to Paddington was already moving when Ben realised the earbuds weren’t his. He’d collected them from lost property that morning—black case, wireless earbuds, exactly like the ones he’d…

  • Gate 47

    Written in response to a prompt from @danprattwrites (thanks, Dan) which was… 100 words or fewer Location: airport check-in Action: following Object: ring He’s been following me since security. Same…

  • Classic Shorts: Samphire by Patrick O’Brian

    When Patrick O’Brian published Samphire in 1950, he created one of literature’s most chilling portraits of domestic psychological abuse. This represents a different kind of horror entirely: the much more…

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On the Fringes of Reality is a collection of contemporary horror stories that explore the unsettling spaces where our ordinary world reveals its true nature. Each tale examines the familiar through a darker lens, finding terror in technology, relationships, and the everyday moments that suddenly turn strange.