Author: Nathan Shumate

They were on the road from Burgos to Alba de Tormes when she fell ill. The men who escort her were careful not to mutter where she could hear; they knew she would chide them for it. She had suffered worse than the rain which poured down on them unceasing, worse than an archbishop who…
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I don’t have dreams. I survive them. It’s been nearly forty years since I made a deal with a crossroads demon and became her hellhound. You have to understand that I was in way over my head at the time, barely treading water. Dying. I still remember that day like a reflection in a still…
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So many people think that dreams die when you wake up. The reality is this: the dreams begin with waking eyes. It’s just that those dreams aren’t necessarily the good ones. This was what Booker Nyx knew well, and what he had thought many times in the years since he had married. His wedding stood…
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Available NOW for your reading pleasure — Shared Nightmares! Twelve authors— including New York Times bestseller Larry Correia, #1 Amazon bestseller Michaelbrent Collings, Prometheus Award winner Sarah Hoyt, Campbell Award nominee Max Gladstone, and Hugo nominee Howard Tayler—take you to the dark side of the dream world, where phantasms and fears become frighteningly real. Contents: “Father’s…
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Kyoto, Heian Era Japan, 968 A.D. The body of my infant daughter, Ayumi, is buried in the Emperor’s tea garden beneath a hinoki cypress tree. The men who murdered her did not want to carry a crying baby all the way to the river after she awakened in the darkness of the hot summer night.…
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I wish I had insomnia. It’d make everything so much easier. Sure, there are drawbacks, but there are drawbacks to everything. I open my eyes and blink. There’s a stack of cheap plastic bins stacked up in front of me and in my hand is a mop, the head wrapped in cellophane. For some reason…
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Will I be able to fall asleep now? What will I dream? I look like hell. That’s me in the mirror over the pink chest of drawers with seafoam green accents, face pale but eyes dark, sweater filthy and torn. It’s Joan’s sweater. It’s tight on me. My hands shake as I pick up the…
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The man sitting across from me on the straight-backed chair facing my desk looked rumpled and sleepless. His short brown hair stood on end. The dark circles under his eyes had their own dark circles. His shirt was buttoned wrong. He eyed me through half-closed lids. “You’re not what I expected,” he said. “No,” I…
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“I won’t let you kill my daughter.” The Program woman gave me a patronizing smile. She was used to dealing with parents like me by now. “Now, Mr. Brody, I can understand your concerns, but it isn’t like that at all. She will be perfectly safe. In fact, she’ll be well cared for in one…
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