Gothicnoir Stories

This is the way I see it. Life is seen in more than seven billion ways. We all feel the sun whisper to our skin, but what about the way the earth dances on corpses? History is re-written and refined by death. I explore the endless possibilities on how death may visit different people. From the monarch to the painter, these are their endings.

The Covenant of the Hollow Womb (A three-part Ozark folk-horror novella) In the iron-dark hollers of Caldwell Ridge, the mountain keeps its own scripture. 1888. Mercy Caldwell makes a bargain with something older than sin: one child every generation, measured exact, paid in blood and breath. The cradle never burns. The handprint never fades. The psalm is always sung backward. A century later, the tithe comes due again. Three women, three lifetimes, one cradle. Mercy, who spoke the covenant. Temperance, who tried to break it. Clara, who was born to finish it. They all thought they could outrun the mountain. They all learned the mountain doesn't chase. It waits. It rocks. It hungers. Some debts are measured in inches. Some debts are measured in souls. The Hollow Womb is full... ...but never satisfied.