Readers' Choice 2023 - Paranormal - Stories

Terry Young has just been appointed as chief projectionist in a run-down old cinema. But from day one he has problems. Resentment from the man who thinks he should have got the job. An undeniable attraction toward his general manager, Dan. And the re-awakening of psychic abilities indicating something is hidden under the building.

This story is set in 2005, modern enough for there to be mobile phones and Internet access, but still within the timeframe when cinemas like the Regal, with a crew of projectionists running film still existed.

Vicar’s son, Henry Robert Atwood, has been landed in a public school in Shropshire and hates every moment of it, especially compulsory sports. But he attracts the attention of two boys, who between them will change his life for ever. One, Ed Cornish, is every gay boy’s dream. The other - another vicar’s son, Jehoiadah, handsome, seductive and, unfortunately, dead - is every boy’s nightmare.

There is personal, and then, there’s stuff that’s not personal. Boundaries are good to have, and Mason Knight believes he knows the difference well, as he has known for a long time. That, until one weird day, he finds himself moved by music, jumped by a man who could make the heavens sigh with his looks, and … what else? Ah, a ghost suddenly wants to keep him company. Mason doesn’t believe in ghosts, except this guy, well, he seems pretty much real.

He's a vampire, in one sense. He's a killer sometimes. He loves a woman but only has sex with men well boys; his boys. Then he went hunting for a toy, a new addition to his stable (an old word from 'old country' HA Old??? it was also called a Harem, or worse). He was looking for a pet but found love at the time but... Then there was the drama with Bridge and he realised he was in love and that's when it all went to Hel. It started with a failed whore and ended with a war

My grandmother made me talk to Diarmad Guerin every year after Christmas Mass since I was three. The letter he gave me a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday changed my whole world.

Anthology Pot Luck Theme: Turn Back Time

British born Chinese gay man Stanley Cheung wakes with somebody else's hangover.

Not only that, but he is laid out on someone’s couch in a grungy student digs where a strange woman is telling him he smells like a brewery. The thing is Stanley rarely drinks.

When the woman finally leaves, he finds out that not only has he woken as six-foot-three, ripped, blond-haired, straight Caucasian Don Bradley, but today is not Friday.

It’s Thursday.

Again.

He is reliving the same day but this time as somebody else.

This started as a story for the Grid Game and has gotten bigger.

Simon is a newly turned vampire, he's made his home in a lovely cave on a mountain.

Unfortunately, someone else has decided they like the cave too.

My prompt was - A newly-made vampire (verb) deep forest on a mountain no one dares enter (conjunction/pairing word) the cat won't move.

Darren is in a crisis on Christmas Eve. His pain is unbearable and he only wants one thing... peace... peace from the memories of another Christmas Eve that has haunted him for two years. It there someone or something that can help him find it?

When Jason was six, he was involved in an accident that stole his parents and his voice. Left alone in a world that attacked him at every turn, he learned to hold onto his light and find comfort in himself. Then he was adopted by a family of wolves, and everything changed.

Born a wolf, Devyn doesn't understand many of the rules of his two legged family. He tries his hardest, but life on all four is much more fun. Not many get him, even in his own family, but his new brother seems different somehow.

Davis has been alone for a long time. Between his club and his job essentially as a mercenary for Velaku, the local Carthera leader who let him live in his territory, he has little time to worry about finding a mate. If that is even possible for one of his kind. That doesn't mean he doesn't want one though.