Here’s a little taste of what I’m currently working on. It’s a short, on the Serling end of the “horror” spectrum and – you guessed it – set in Las Vegas. I don’t know what it is with me and that place, but every other damn story seems to just pop out of the excess and madness of that chaotic neon oasis. Can’t divulge the title or any real details, being that it ‘co-stars’ a couple of friends of mine and I’d like to keep it on the QT.

“The bathroom was small for a bar, one toilet stall and two scungy, misused urinals. The mirrors were cracked and soiled by a hundred nights of desperate men and bad drinking, but there was a soap dispenser and hot water and that was enough. Tommy pumped the soap and felt hot panic fill his chest and empty up into his throat as a measly couple of bubbles dropped onto his fingertips and nothing more. He paused for a moment, scanning the sink and under, and even turning to the stalls (knowing even as his manic eyes searched there, that there’d never been any kind of cleanser near that toilet). He scrambled, frantic, through the door and fell tumbling into the women’s bathroom across the hall. The ladies was even worse, with floors streaked with black, and strange smears of brown and red covering the walls. TP, matchbook covers, tampon packages (and lord knows what else) were scattered everywhere, as if some stray bear or wild dog had rambled in here and rifled the garbage for a snack. Tommy’s stomach heaved and he retched, grabbing the edge of the scum-tiled sink just as the sour contents of his gut splashed out and added yet one more layer to the malodorous ambience of the place. His stomach heaved a couple more times, then he forced it to settle and thrust his hands to the soap dispenser on the wall. Tommy would have sworn the Angels sang down from the heavens as the soft pink foam filled his cupped hand to overflowing. He sidestepped to the slightly cleaner sink – the one that was not currently trying to digest his leftovers – and cranked the hot water on full. He slapped the soap filled hand to his marked-up bicep and scrubbed hard, against the screaming protest of his brain.”

Stay tuned kids! The trip is just beginning…