On the Fringes of Reality

Where the ordinary world reveals its true nature

Category: Stories

  • Flash Friday: Going Down

    The Elevator Anthology – Part I The lift doors slid shut with their familiar whisper, leaving Louise alone with her thoughts and the weight of the revolver in her handbag.…

  • Micro Monday: Ghost Stories

    The Latchkey – Part II “Right, that’s it!” Zoe slammed the remote down as eight-year-old Harry threw another cushion at his sister. “Bedtime. Now.” “But we’re not tired!” Mia protested,…

  • Sunday Short: The Apprentice

    The interview room is cold, though I am used to it. Chill air, hard chairs, the scrape of a pencil—such things become part of one’s day. The Doctor sits opposite,…

  • Flash Friday: The Seamstress

    There has ever seemed to me a solemn virtue in black cloth. Crepe, most especially, possesses a character distinct from any other fabric; it does not merely cover, it absorbs,…

  • 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…

  • 5 Poe Stories That Defined Gothic Horror

    Edgar Allan Poe did more than tell frightening tales. He created a way of entering horror from the inside, turning the mind itself into a haunted house. These five stories…

  • 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…

  • The Gothic Hour: The Invitation

    “Pray, forgive the lateness of the hour.” The voice carried the refinement of centuries past. “I find myself quite lost in this tempest.” She clutched her shawl. His pallor, shadows…

  • 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…

  • The Gothic Hour: The Binding

    The compression began without warning. Vast consciousness, which had drifted through aeons as freely as starlight through the void, found itself pressed into boundaries so crude, so impossibly small, that…

  • 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…

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About

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.