"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
I wrote the December QSF column, a rant actually, and then wrote another one so I am ahead about a month on the columns.
Wrote the usual weekly/monthly Flash Fictions.
Started writing a flash thing for the end of the year, a bit of fluff.
And actually have knuckled down and worked on a couple of the longer stories. I intend to have at least one of them ready to send off to “Strange Horizons” when they open for submissions briefly in about a month. My New Year’s Resolution is to write every day. I’m trying to get a head start.
Wishing you all the best for Christmas and the New Year.
Listened to a recording of Frederik Pohl’s “Day Million.” I’d never read it before.
Read Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpekis’ story “Oil On Water” online. It’s in the magazine LOLWE. A well-done horror story that doesn’t pull its punches.
Listened to a reading of L. Sprague deCamp’s story “The Ordeal Of Professor Klein” on You Tube. It appeared in a couple of anthologies in the 50’s but hasn’t appeared in any of deCamp’s collections. Set in the future it’s a satiric riff on academia building to a punchline, albeit a funny one.
Finally finished John Maddox Roberts’ historical mystery novel “The Temple Of the Muses,” which I actually started reading about twenty years ago. A well-done mystery which ends with Decius telling us that he “finally got to settle matters” with the culprit when he returned to Alexandria twelve years later, but this is a tale I don’t think Roberts ever wrote. Fun courtroom scene with the physician Asklepiodes (a riff on Asklepios, I wonder?) recounting some ancient forensic science. And there’s a glossary in the back! How cool is that?
And it just hit me, I finished reading “Muses” on Thanksgiving 2025 and I started these monthly reading reports on Thanksgiving three years ago!
Also read (Re-read?) Roberts’ story “The King Of Sacrifices” (in Mike Ashley’s old “Mammoth Book Of Historical Mysteries.”) Decius, in his old age, is called to solve a mystery by Emperor Octavius (Decius won’t call him Agustus!) in the Rome of about 20 BC. Wish Roberts had followed this up with another story set in the later years of Decius’ life in his well-described Rome.
And I’ve started reading Robert’s novel “Nobody Loves A Centurion” where Decius is serving with Caesar in Gaul and the killigs are not all on a battlefield. Well-described period setting and characters.
I hadn’t really heard of Keith Roberts’ stories about Anita, the teenaged witch. Read one I had anthologized: “Timothy.” Well-done and carrying Hawthorne’s “Feathertop” to its logical extreme.
And I re-read Pohl’s “Day Million.” I’m doing a column on that.
Read the usual weekly offerings by Kaje Harper who is also re-posting several of her stories on another Facebook site in conjunction with a “Twelve Tropes Of Christmas” Blog theme. She covers all the bases.
And read E. H. Timm’s fine monthly story which you can find linked in the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge part of this blog.
Again, I wish all my readers the best for the Season and the New Year. To quote maybe my favorite book: “A Merry Christmas to Everybody! A Happy New Year to All the World!”
All the kids on my street knew the old grain elevator was haunted, especially around Christmas.
The street stretched into a dirt and gravel road with a gully and overgrown weeds on either side and the grain elevator on a patch of fenced-in land at the end of the road. It was outdated and never really used except in December when the town lit up a Christmas star made up of multicolored lights at the top which helped it dominate the evening sky in the last month of the year.
My Aunt, who visited us for the holidays from Wichita, thought it was sweet.
“Reminds me of Christmas when I was a little girl,” she would say.
My friends and I thought it was just plain spooky. We called it “The Tower.”
Sometimes, my Aunt would stand on the front porch and look over at the tower and sing Christmas songs about the Star of Bethlehem, like she was serenading it. Like I said, Spooky.
Old Man Corcoran, who must have been around fifty, was the one who turned the star on every evening at dusk. He would drive down in his battered pickup, unlock the gate of the wire mesh fence and go into the grain elevator to flip the switch. One night, right before Christmas, my buddy Jerome and I decided to go inside the tower. It was a warm evening for December and our folks thought we were playing one of those new video games in Jerome’s room.
It was the early Eighties. We were eleven.
We took our bikes and made it out to the tower before Old Man Corcoran got there. We hid behind some bushes across the road from the fence and watched as he opened the gate and went in to the tower. While he was inside we ran in through the gate and hid behind a corner of the tower, waiting for our chance to sneak in. But instead we had to stay hidden when Corcoran stepped out of the tower, glanced up to see that the star was lit and closed the gate and drove off.
I’m still not sure why we didn’t just jump out and tell him we were there. Maybe we thought we’d get in trouble. As it was, we were locked inside the gate. We glanced up at the star which looked like a big flat line of red, green and blue and walked around the tower.
And then in the growing dark a tall rectangle of shadow, twice as tall as a man, emerged and started moving towards us. It wasn’t a shadow being cast by anything or somebody in some kind of black drapery. It was just a shadow. Dark. Inexorable. Looking like the open mouth of some thing.
Jerome and I ran, somehow finding an old metal drum that may have had oil or gas in it at one time, standing empty by the fence. We climbed on top of it and puled ourselves up the rest of the way on the wire mesh fence. We climbed faster than we ever had in Gym Class. There was no barbed wire on top of the fence but we wouldn’t have cared if there was. We made it down the other side and ran for our bikes, images of the shadowy thing gliding up to the fence and passing through coming after us.
We were halfway home before I glanced back and saw we weren’t being followed.
My Mom asked me how my pants got ripped and I told her Jerome and I had been playing outside. Which we sort of had been. She wasn’t that upset. She always made me change out of the clothes I wore to school when I got home and for once I was glad if it kept her from being upset. I don’t remember what Jerome’s Mom did or if our folks ever found out where we’d been but I do know that the town put barbed wire at the top of the fence early that next year.
And some nights when I am dozing off I see that tall dark tower, star shining in the twilight. Except the tower turns to watch me with its starry eye and then the tall shadow moves between me and the star, coming closer, closer…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you enjoyed this spooky Christmas story. Taking a break for the Holidays but I may have something special for New Year’s Week.
I’ll be back with another prompt pic in early January.
Okay,” Zane said tossing his jacket on the couch just inside the front door. “You think the house is haunted? You always say your house is haunted. What’s the reason for calling me over?”
Del sighed. “I think I know what’s going on.”
“What?” Zane asked. “Ghosts?”
“Specific ghosts,” Del said. “Or ghost.” He sighed again, then took a deep breath.
“I think my ghost is a cat.”
Zane was surprised he didn’t laugh. But he and Del had been through a lot since dating ten years ago and then deciding to be “just friends.”
“A cat?” Zane asked.
“Look at the evidence,” Del said. “Little things move around when I’m not here. Little things get knocked off the shelf or counter. Little things disappear…”
“Little things?” Zane said, trying not to sound skeptical.
“Yeah,” Del said. “Little things. The kind of things a cat could bat around or carry in its mouth.”
“Could something have gotten into the house? A stray cat or maybe a raccoon?” Zane asked.
Del shook his head. “House is sealed tight. Even the attic. I checked. And raccoons would have torn up the place.”
Del walked over to the table and picked up several small items.
“Look at these,” Del said. “I pulled them out from under the couch this afternoon.”
The items included a wooden spool, a small Christmas ornament, a sock and a small ball made of some fuzzy material. Del held up the ball.
“This is a cat toy. I don’t have a cat. And you and the guys helped me move that couch in here six months ago. There was nothing under it. And I cleaned this house. Nothing on the floors. Nothing in the closets.” Del smiled. “Not even me.”
Del rolled the sock up and tossed it into the empty laundry basket on the other side of the room.
Zane smiled. Del was working his behind off to pay for this nine hundred-foot vintage sixties suburban house with an actual attic and basement. Nothing fancy but it was home.
“You know, I read something about poltergeists once,” Zane said. “They may be a manifestation of someone’s emotional state. Mind working overtime. Pent-up-adolescent angst. Mind-over-matter.”
“I’m hardly an adolescent,” Del said.
“Yeah, but you may have some adolescent emotions,” Zane said. walking towards the desk where Del had his computer. “And maybe you…hey…”
Zane was staring down at the laundry basket. He gestured at Del and signaled for him to be quiet. Del walked over.
They stared.
Curled in the laundry basket was a cat. A tortoiseshell cat, not big, not flashy, just a cat.
A cat they hadn’t seen come into the room or crawl into the basket.
A cat that vanished as they watched.
“A manifestation…” Del said.
“Yeah,” Zane said. “A furry manifestation.”
“You know,” Del said. “This house gets awfully quiet sometimes. I could use someone here to make it warm, like a cat. Or maybe…”
He suddenly kissed Zane.
“Haven’t done that in a few years…” Zane said.
“We could talk?” Del said.
“Yeah.” Zane said.
For just a moment there was the sound of a soft, silent purr.
I thought clowns were creepy long before I saw that Stephen King movie. Last thing I wanted to do was sit through some clown movie. But I was on the Library Board and so was Dwight and the whole idea was to get kids involved in reading, so the downtown Library had a circus theme that weekend.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and looked down. Yeah, a clown, a ringmaster, even a juggler. Plenty of kids books and plenty of screaming kids. Well, it won’t be so bad in the third floor auditorium with the doors shut, I thought.
But the Board members were all coming dressed as clowns.
My costume was improvised; a silly little hat, a ragged jacket and a red nose left over from that other charity thing from a few years back.
I was right, you couldn’t hear the screaming kids from this part of the top floor. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked down the hall to the auditorium, opened the door and went in.
It wasn’t dark yet and one of the librarians was making a speech, some kind of intro. I saw where Dwight was, in not full costume; long coat, floppy hat and red nose. Kind of like Doctor Who on Red Nose Day. I edged past a couple of people and sat down next to Dwight.
“Glad you could make it,” he whispered. “Know what day this is?”
“Huh?” I whispered back.
“Anniversary of our first date eight years ago?” Dwight said with another grin.
It was…It had been his late Grandmother’s birthday so he always remembered the date.
“You remember we wanted to see a movie but couldn’t find one open?” Dwight whispered. “Well here’s our movie.”
The movie was actually a collection of shorts with Charlie Chaplain and then the Three Stooges. No clowns in makeup, but maybe they counted.
Dwight and I sat there, held hands and laughed.
—end—
NOTE: The draws for the December 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Romance, set in a Library involving a Clown Costume.
Here’s the draws for the December 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Followed by my usual long-winded explanation:
A Romance
Involving A Clown Costume
Set in A Library
Now, on to the details.
Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.
Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!) on the blog.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Jack of Hearts (a Romance), the Eight of Diamonds (a Library) and the Five of Clubs (a Clown Costume.)
So we will write a Romance involving a Clown Costume set in a Library.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday December 15th, 2025.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
The Widow was sitting across from my desk in my cramped office that smelled of cigarettes and busted hopes. With the Widow Elf there, it now smelled a little of peppermint.
She dabbed at her eyes with a green lace handkerchief and I busied myself with the handle of one of the desk drawers. She was tall, thin and wore the red pantsuit with the Santa motif of white ruffs and fur collar that most of the Elves wore.
She had breezed into my office like a sleigh trimmed with mourning crepe and a story about her husband being found dead in the house he had been assigned to.
I hadn’t been surprised. Shelf elves are essentially snitches and snitches are dead meat in this world.
I looked around the dingy little Christmas tree rising a full five inches by my blotter and ashtray and began asking the questions.
“When did you find out your husband was dead?” I asked.
“Two days ago,” she said. “I was making fudge and the radio was playing Percy Faith’s Christmas album when there was a knock at the door. It was a Messenger Elf.”
She stopped to dab her eyes again. Messenger Elves generally picked up kids letters, but this one was delivering bad news.
The Widow Elf went on.
“The Messenger told me…told me they’d found him draped over a lampshade where he’d probably been sitting all day and night. Whoever did it probably caught him before he moved to his next position.” She shuddered and not from the cold. “Up until then all had been merry and bright.”
Sitting unmoving on a lampshade all day left his back unprotected. The ideal position was on a shelf with your Elf-back to the wall. Never forget you are in a strange house.
“Was there an investigation?” I asked.
“As much as there can be in a house with a family of four near Christmastime,” said the Widow Elf. “They sent the usual pixies and sprites to view the scene of the…crime.” She shook her head. “I’ve never trusted sprites.”
I listened, staying outwardly calm but with my mind busy analyzing everything. Pixies and sprites had the advantage of moving fast and usually going unnoticed by people. Especially during daylight.
The Widow Elf cleared her throat. “The report said that my husband was probably done in with a sharpened peppermint stick. Brutes.” She blew her nose which looked red. But then Elves noses always look red.
“They claimed the body…discreetly.” Widow Elf said. “He wanted to be laid to rest on the grounds of the Toyshop here at the North Pole.”
“The Toyshop?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Nobody can bury anything in the ground around the Toyshop.”
I’d found that out three years ago when the Jolly Old Guy had hired me to find a missing ornament. Solid gold. It wasn’t buried, that was for sure.
“Ma’am, your husband would know that nothing can be buried around the Toyshop. The ground just won’t, uh, dig.”
I had a thought.
“Ma’am…this is a little indelicate to ask, but I ask indelicate questions and charge for it. It’s how I make my living.” I said. “Did you actually see your husband’s body?”
“Well, no,” she said. “I barely saw him anyway. He was off on assignments during the Holidays and then he would…” Her voice trailed off.
At that moment, the Christmas music playing on the desk radio I had turned down low started spouting the breathless voice of a newscaster. I turned up the volume and we listened like a puppy who just heard the can opener.
“We repeat…Santa’s sleigh has been stolen. The sleigh and a reindeer. Seen taking off from the Toyshop Area with a Shelf-Elf at the reigns and a sprite in the passenger seat along with what has been described as a bag of enough goodies to feed someone for a month…Authorities believe the reindeer pulling the sleigh may be an accomplice…We return you now to Percy Faith and…”
I turned down the radio. The Widow Elf, who was no more a widow than she was the Golden Gate Bridge, and I stared at each other.
“Sprites.” She said coldly. “I never trusted them.”
I was going to mention that the sprites were probably in on it with her husband but I didn’t. The onetime Widow got up, thanked me and said the check would be in the mail.
Then she left the office, like the Old Year on December Thirty-First.
I sighed. With the sprites removing him from that house, he would be able to get to the sleigh and then he could go anywhere.
I thought about it, and then I shut the office and went over to Sugarplumb’s for some ‘nog and a sandwich.
I don’t know what happened to the wayward shelf-Elf and his new sprite. Nobody asked me to take that case.
As for the erstwhile widow she didn’t stay draped in black for long. Around Washington’s Birthday I got an e-mail from a Tropical island with a picture of Mrs. Elf smiling on the beach sipping a Margarita next to a chubby pink guy with wings, a quiver of pink arrows, a big smile and a Margarita.
Figured he’d be playing the field after Valentine’s Day.
The message read: “Having a ball! Burned the black crepe.”
I’ve found that while there are eight-million stories in this town, not all of them go down in history.
My friend J. Scott Coatsworth is releasing his latest book, “Down The River” on November 30, 2025 But I’ll let him tell it…
Nine years have passed since a group of strangers first met at a magical little restaurant in East Sacramento called Ragazzi. They have all been touched by its subtle magic, and have become a family.
With the tragic death of one of them, the ripples spread through the entire group, exposing secrets and revealing truths that many of them would rather not face.
Dave and Marcos are battling their own demons. Matteo seeks an embezzler at Ragazzi, while Diego struggles to hold on to his son, Gio. Carmelina fears Daniele won’t take no for an answer. And both Ben and Sam are dealing with tragic losses that have turned their lives upside down. Into the mix come a few new characters—Ainsley, a Sac State student studying to be a doctor; a mysterious strange who is stalking someone in the group; and a few new love interests who may have agendas of their own.
It’s 2024, and the cast of River City is back. What secrets will be revealed before the last page turns?
Warnings: Death of several characters.
Series Blurb:
The River City series is a heady blend of secrets, friendships, a little bit of magic, and a bunch of Italian cooking that will warm your heart.
Non-Exclusive Excerpt:
Chapter One Ragazzi
Ainsley Kim stared out of the window at the cars as they passed on Folsom Boulevard in a steady row of sparkling red and white, their lights scattering and twinkling like fairy dust across the rain-splattered glass. It was mesmerizing—so much life out there… and in here, as she was rudely reminded by the diner clearing his throat behind her.
“So sorry!” She spun around, reaching for the Toast point-of-sale device that hung from a custom-made pocket in her clean white apron that said Ragazzi in neat black letters. She turned her attention back to her customers. “Are you ready to order?”
The one who’d cleared his throat was a sharply dressed man in his mid-fifties—lawyer if she’d had to guess—his neatly trimmed black hair turning silver on the sides. He glared at the menu as if it were opposing counsel, squinting through his wire-framed glasses and scowling. “Damned print is so small on these things.”
His dining partner, another man in a black suit and tie, but without a hair on his head, chuckled. “You’re just getting old, Andy. Order the tagliatelle. It’s what you always get.” Bald Head offered her a warm smile. “So sorry for my partner’s behavior. Rough day in court today.”
Ainsley hid a grin. She was good at reading people. “Not a problem. So… the tagliatelle?”
Andy nodded. “Sure. With arrabbiata sauce. And ask the chef to make it a little extra spicy.”
She tapped it into the POS, feeling more like a glorified data entry clerk than a waitress. “You got it. And you, sir?”
“Don’t let him fool you. Kel knows what he wants. He just likes to play with his prey.” Andy grimaced, then managed a weak smile. “Sorry for the foul mood. I hate losing.”
Rich, white, and a lawyer to boot? You have no idea what losing is. “Not a problem.” She flashed him her best you’re the customer so I’ll pretend I like you smile.
“I’ll have the gnocchi in a ragu sauce, and an appetizer of your delightful burrata.” Kel flipped the menu over. “Add a glass of Chateau Ciel. I, unlike my friend here, had a lovely day. Signed a new artist for the gallery, a talented Korean painter named Jun Seo Jang.” His eyes fixed on her. “Do you know him?”
Ainsley blinked, caught between the casual racism of assuming that all Koreans knew each other—maybe he didn’t mean it that way?—and the fact that she did actually know them. Or of them, anyhow. Jang was one of her idols.
Customer service won out. “Yes. They are very good. I studied them in art class.”
Kel grinned. “Then you must come see his… their pieces. Sorry, old dog, new tricks. I’ll be getting the first of them next week.” He pulled out his wallet and extracted a card. “Kelton O’Malley, Red Roof Gallery.”
She took it, staring at it. It seemed to sparkle under the restaurant’s mood lighting. She blinked and the sparkle went away. She stuffed it in her pocket.
Nobody used business cards anymore. So old school. “Thank you. I’ll try to come by. It’s a bit busy, with school and work and all…” And taking care of her mother.
“Ah, what’s your major?”
“Molecular biology.” It came out automatically. Her father had wanted her to “make something of herself,” not just be another poor immigrant like himself, working at minimum wage jobs. She’d been at it so long, doing what her parents wanted her to do, that it almost seemed like she wanted it, too.
“Impressive.” He winked. “Still, it’s good to hear that you have an appreciation for the arts as well.”
She blushed. That comment hit a little too close to home. “I’ll find some time to stop by.”
“Wonderful. Jun Seo will be there next Thursday night, if you want to meet… them.”
Ainsley touched the edge of the table to steady herself. “They’ll be here… in town?” She was already calculating how she could rearrange things to be at the gallery.
“They personally supervise the set-up at all their new galleries.” He grinned. “See, that whole pronoun thing’s not so hard.”
She suppressed a snort. Boomers were always making such a big deal about it. “Let me get those orders in for you.” She gave them a small bow—ingrained behavior from two decades growing up in the Kim household—and slipped away.
“Need anything here?” she asked her next table, a young gay couple from the looks of it, who were busy staring rapturously into each other’s eyes like a couple lovestruck teenagers.
“Just some water,” the blond said, never breaking his gaze, his hand wrapped tightly around the other man’s. A single plate of pasta sat between them.
“You got it.”
A two-for-one, or twofer, they called it—when two clients shared a dish, usually to save costs.
Matteo had needed to raise prices again last month to account for inflation. Luckily Ragazzi was doing well enough that they’d expanded into a new addition, taking over the old bar next door for Diego’s cooking classes.
She twirled through the restaurant like a ballerina, checking on tables, her footsteps lighter than they’d been in months. Jun Seo Jang was coming to town. She had so many questions for them.
How did you find your inspiration? When did you know you wanted to be an artist? How did you let your parents down gently?
Ainsley Kim had a secret.
She wanted to be an artist more than anything else in the whole wide world. She wanted to create things, pieces of art that would make people frown and smile and nod knowingly as they stood in front of them, stroking their chins. Like her father did as a hobby.
She wanted to meet Jang, but she also wanted to become them.
The thought of life as a medical researcher left her cold, but her parents had invested so much in that dream, both money and hope. How could she bear to disappoint them?
Maybe it was better if she didn’t go to the gallery on Thursday. Better for everyone involved.
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and was the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for almost three years.
authorjeffbaker 