short story

Adult Frog (horror short story)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(estimated reading time: 20 minutes)

Adult Frog

by

Blaine Arcade

A pool in the back is a suburban home’s most vestigial body part. If any sort of major stressor comes along, like the cancer double whammy that got Mom and Dad, one of the ways the house can fortify itself is by shutting down all resources going to the pool. Chlorine? Non-vital expense. Heating? Forget about it. Let the water pick its own temperature; it hardly needs a supervisor to follow the physics rulebook.

Lexi, the Ukrainian pool boy who stopped in once a month to scrub it and do the surrounding grass? Losing him hurt a little, he was hot, but it was just a sting, no actual damage to the property and thus the property owner, me, though I can’t speak to the current status of the paperwork.

Mom and Dad left it to me, the house, the pool, their car, and they even tried to have the medical debt ‘shove off’ from the rest of the estate on a sort of rhetorical raft of scavenged legalese. Anyway, their lawyer told me it didn’t work and they couldn’t leave me any of those savings, just the house, the car, and the pool. Continue reading →

I Still Love the Truck

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Chucky Brook can’t stop staring at the newly announced cybertr- I mean Gigaterra ultra-modern Atlas smart truck.  He has to have it.  It has to have him.  They must be together.  What follows is a horror comedy short story of one CEO’s dream and everyone else’s struggle to deal with it.

(estimated reading time: 15 minutes)

I Still Love the Truck

by

Blaine Arcade

“It doesn’t look like anything else. It’s not thin-skinned- all stainless steel. You’re welcome. The windows too, let’s show the glass demo. Now take that ball, don’t hold back, really wind up and nail it… Oh my f$$$ing god. That was too hard; nobody told you to throw it that hard. We threw the world at this thing and it didn’t break. For some reason it broke now. We’ll fix it in post.”

-Clive Murger, CEO of Gigaterra

-excerpt of Gigaterra ultra-modern smart truck ‘Atlas’ unveiling event

Chucky Brook’s memory echoed when he accidentally repeated a phrase he’d used hundreds of times throughout middle school: I’m not gay. This time no one was challenging his masculinity via the avenue of the gaping hole where a girlfriend could’ve stood. No, this time he was offering it up unprompted as an addendum to his comment on his first look at the Atlas truck he was currently sweating up the courage to buy.

“Oh man, look at those arms. They look super strong.” Addendum: something something not gay something.

“As if anybody could blame you,” laughed the dealer, pairing it with a smack on Brook’s back. “Those are the patented Atlas arms, an unstoppable vice that can secure any payload in the bed. Cords are a thing of the past. Even at their widest they only block a couple thirds of the side-views.” Continue reading →

Last Meal Ticket

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

In a dystopian near future, a chef who prepares only the final meals of the condemned takes it one order at a time…

(estimated reading time: 22 minutes)

Last Meal Ticket

by

Blaine Arcade

For once, the Republicans decided to pay for something. Stranger still, they were paying for public luxury, welfare class. Rather than a renovation it was more fitting to call it a metamorphosis when the workhorse building that had served a dozen governmental purposes got new paint, burgundy and charcoal, big curtains everywhere like a theater, crowned with three additional floors, and soundproofing that made the interior absorb anxiety.

Big rooms full of people still granted a sense of solitude in the weak lighting, turning others into shadows and props. Elegant, always fading and sinking like dusk in a sand tunnel, the Hall of Corrective Reduction had become an admired fixture of the city almost immediately after its transformative surgery.

Where did Republicans find the money for a public service? After the moral revolution of January 6th, 2025 and the elimination of the Demon-rats all public funds were successfully moved from the deep state and into less leaky deep pockets, safe and secure. Those pockets didn’t open very often; congress under the supreme president insisted it was earmarked for investment, and once those investments paid out the American people would see ten thousand times what they put in. Continue reading →

All it Took was a Swimming Pool Full of Cappuccino

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This story takes place in our cillimorphs universe, the team of monster buddies and the broad strokes customized by palaver89 over on our interactive fiction writing Twitch stream.  Head on over there and give it a follow if you want a team and a story of your very own!

All it Took was a Swimming Pool Full of Cappuccino

by

Blaine arcade

palaver'steam

Some writers will say that the greatest talents are the most persnickety. Talent’s exponential increase is matched by how trivial an offense can derail an entire work day. If it’s just pulp you’re pumping out, you’re fine to tap paragraph after paragraph into your smudged smartwatch screen with a barbecue sauce coated finger halfway through the longest roller coaster on the hottest day on the planet Scorcher. Continue reading →

Chased

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This story takes place in our cillimorphs universe, the team of monster buddies and the broad strokes customized by screen_ghost_ over on our interactive fiction writing Twitch stream.  Head on over there and give it a follow if you want a team and a story of your very own!

Chased

screenghost'steam

There was night, and then there was the night shift inside a BTBL warehouse. Every florescent light was dimmer than its buzz was loud. Music wasn’t permitted, because you needed to listen for any creaks of structural instability in either the walls or the inventory, which were the same thing when you worked for the Brass Tacks Building Company, which Rupe did, and had been doing for all of three hours now with the other two members of the night crew. Continue reading →

The Pick-Knows

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(estimated reading time: 13 minutes)

The Pick-Knows

by

Blaine Arcade

I had a bad morning guys, even though I everytasked as goodly as the other mornings in my collection. First thing out of the matchbox and quilt I cut the iron filings with coffee grounds to really wake up the magnets, angled the solar coins to bounce crystal clear sparkles to the costume glass and gold-painted links, beat the stickers to free the hairs, checked the electric frog battery for tangy white creep, and oiled the swatter so it misses the flies so I don’t miss the joke of the huge-mans missing the flies.

But the morning was still bad. Had to be somebody else’s fault. They made 6 AM sharp, 7:11 sticky, 8 a bad breakfast, 9 lives long, and 10:04 no good buddy. All my stuff looked goldy-oldy at a glance. Then I amble up the right-by and it catches my surprise (that I didn’t even leave out to stale) by doing some pose of the possible that benefits me leastways. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Stories Redux #1: The Ninth Tentacle

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These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

The Ninth Tentacle

prompt provided by DarkLordofSheep

Jeremy’s can hit the water with a splash smaller than he would’ve liked. Its bubbling green contents leaked out into the lake while he leaned over the edge of the kayak to watch the guppies that had scattered on impact.

“You shouldn’t litter,” Stephanie chided him, pulling her pale blonde hair back into a ponytail in case he tried to get the bigger splash he’d sought.

“Who says I’m littering? The can’s in there… but maybe I’ll fish it out. It’s only littering if I leave it there.” The guppies failed to investigate the bobbing can, perhaps scared away by Jeremy’s snaggle-toothed grin.

“How are you going to get all the lightning chug back then?” Ryan asked, referring to the bubbling caffeine concoction leaking out. “I don’t think the fish want it.” He grabbed the paddle and turned the orange kayak just enough to grab the can himself. “This is my aunt’s cabin and I don’t think she wants any hyperactive fish jumping out of the water.” Usually the quietest of the three, Ryan felt emboldened by their position in the middle of the lake. They couldn’t ignore him out there, especially since the trip was his idea in the first place. Jeremy’s only idea was to invite himself. Continue reading →

Rather Spartan

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

In this thriller/horror short story the Snake War Museum is just one of many, an opportunity for Claire to confront history.  It’s just her, the collection, and the audio guide… at least until she hears her own name in the headphones…

(reading time: 34 minutes)

Rather Spartan

by

Blaine Arcade

If a museum does its job well, its physical location in the world is inconsequential. The best place for the George Washington museum might be his birthplace, Westmoreland County, Virginia, but the best museum would be the one that had his actual shoes, his actual buttons, his actual tools, his actual quills and inks, wherever they were, even if the collection was accidentally shipped to, say, Ulverstone, Tasmania. Continue reading →

Blaine’s Short Story Blurbs

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 5 Comments

Well, they aren’t quite blurbs, given that these stories are, you know, short, but now that we’ve got descriptions for our book series, books, novella/novelette series, novellas, and novelettes available, it’s time to move onto these.

If you don’t know me, I’m Blaine Arcade, a speculative fiction writing hobbyist, and I write lots of out-there science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, and some horror.  All of my stories are available here and free to read, so please check them out if you’re interested.  Happy reading!

Jesus has the Wheels

Jesus has come to town in his big black SUV.  He says it’s time for the rapture.  The only problem is that this is white Jesus, and he isn’t so friendly.

Continue reading →

I Thought it was the Cat

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 5 minutes)

I Thought it was the Cat

by

Blaine Arcade

Demoted for a raise. Strange I know, but it’s the only way to put it. They wanted me out of the building after the ‘softball incident’. I won’t go into detail about it other than to say they’re all sore losers.

It was mutual. I get an extra five K a year and I use it to pay the price of being near all our distribution centers on the East coast. Being equidistant from three truck stops in the middle of nowhere puts you, you guessed it, in the forgotten rusty storage shed of nowhere’s overgrown backyard.

No partner. Had one, but they also didn’t care for my gloating after the softball incident. So when I got there, town called Cracklebranch, my roommates were a pair of suitcases. Got a tiny house on the cheap. Couldn’t hear anything at night. No crickets. No birds in the morning either. Continue reading →