The One That Got Away & More: Three Horror Stories

By Will Kenyon

The settings at first seem innocuous enough: a quiet corner bar, an elementary school, a party at a mansion, a stream overshadowed by majestic magnolia trees. But lurking in the shadows are monsters....

With these three new stories, Atlanta-based writer Will Kenyon demonstrates for us that monsters come in all shapes and colors. They can be the manifestation of loves lost, coming back to haunt us. They can be amorphous entities that drive us down paths we know we should avoid. They can be well-meaning children, blinded by prejudices and directed by forces they cannot see or comprehend. However they appear, they are terrible, terrible to behold.

Here are three tales of terror, each with its own monster. They are, though, more than mere horror stories, for Will Kenyon imbues each story and its respective monster, with meaning and power that stays with us, even after the horror has passed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Kenyon
• Release date: Oct 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465924018

Will Kenyon

Will (AKA William, AKA Bill) Kenyon is freelance writer currently based in Atlanta. He has published a growing number of poems and short stories, and regularly works for clientele such as Martha Stewart Omnimedia, ING, Cisco, and Smithsonian Magazine. He’s not dead yet, despite the threat of car bombs, second-hand smoke, nuclear proliferation, and asteroid impacts - but we’ll have to see what 2012 brings, right?

Book preview

The One That Got Away

The Thrall of Fate

Killing the Messenger

Three Horror Stories by Will Kenyon

Published by Will Kenyon/Hallowed Waste Press at Smashwords

Copyright © William Kenyon 2011

Illustrations Copyright © Jason Snape 2011

Discover other titles by Will Kenyon at Smashwords.com

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this one's for Jay

Table of Contents

The One That Got Away

The Thrall of Fate

Killing The Messenger

Sitting in a high-backed bar stool at the East Point Corner Tavern, Evan Craddock was at the moment so annoyed by the song playing on the jukebox that he imagined his clenched teeth were splitting apart and crumbling into muddy granules on the back of his tongue. Certainly, he was grinding them – loud enough so that his friend Stan Horowitz could hear him, even above the music – which was another song by the Reverend Horton Heat, one which Allie had liked and Evan had tolerated for almost seven years, before the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan.

Jesus, Ev. Is that your goddamned jaw? Stan asked, his beer on pause, held aloft just below his stubbled chin.

Evan almost smiled when he heard Stan’s voice and the profound Southern drawl in it, which Stan insisted he didn’t have. He almost smiled. But instead, he drowned the would-be grin in his Maker’s Mark and shot a glance sidelong at his friend. Then he nodded. Then he shrugged.

S’habit, he muttered.

One that the dentist had told him he’d better stop. In fact, Dr. Hillman had prescribed a mouthpiece for him to wear at night so that he wouldn’t grind his teeth while he slept. And Evan did indeed wear it whenever he went to bed sober enough to remember it. He figured that the other nights – most nights – he was drunk enough that his jaw was slack, so he couldn’t grind his teeth.

You’re fucking loud as shit, Stan said and dipped his lips into his beer.

Evan was about to say that he couldn’t possibly be as loud and obnoxious as the song, but then it ended. Relieved, he only nodded and shrugged again.

A moment of silence followed and let him wave to Jayson, the bartender, for another drink. Then a Crowded House song cranked up and Stan was grabbing his forearm and saying, "Holy shit. Lookit her."

Instinctively, he did. And his jaw, so tense and rigid before, nearly fell to the floor.

For days now, the assortment of females who’d come into the Corner Tavern hadn’t impressed Evan. Lately, they’d mostly been woman who, due to various natures and circumstances, were either beyond his reach or simply undesirable to him: mostly married women, retirees, and lesbians. He could count on his two hands the number of straight, single, attractive women his age or thereabouts who’d come in, and by the time most of them showed up, he was usually too drunk to do much more than slobber at them.

The woman Stan was gaping at was certainly straight, probably single, and definitely attractive. She had been attractive then, a long time ago, and she still was. She moved from the Tavern’s entrance across the hardwood floor – through the shadows to the other end of the bar. She held her head high and scanned the room with her dark eyes, and Evan knew without a doubt who she was.

Candi Bennett, he said.

"You know her?" Stan shot back. The grip he had on Evan’s arm got tighter than Evan’s jaw ever had – so hard it hurt – and Evan jerked away, spilling his drink.

"Goddamnit, Stan."

Fuck that, Stan said, letting go and using his newly freed hand to wave over Evan’s spilled bourbon, as if he had magic genie powers and could make spilled liquor go away. "If you know that chick, Ev, you have got to introduce her to me."

And now Evan chuckled. I don’t know, man. I mean, I do know her, but I don’t recall being on the best of terms with her.

Shit. How could you not be on good terms with something hot as that?

Evan finally turned to regard his friend fully, the look on his face meant to remind Stan why Evan had the time and inclination to spend several nights a week drinking himself silly.

Stan got it.

Oh, yeah. Allie’s kinda hot, too, he said.

"Was, old boy, Evan replied. Allie was hot. Then he was filled with a measure of indignation. And imbedded somewhere in his desperation and drunkenness: confidence. While, at the moment, Candi is hot in the present tense."

Before his indignation and confidence could wither – which they would – Evan scooted his bar stool back and motioned for Stan to follow him to the other end of the bar.

Hot damn, Stan said, plucked up his beer, and strutted alongside Evan’s undignified lurch just like the redneck he was and the playboy he was not.

Evan hadn’t given himself time to think of anything to say. While he approached Candi, his face went slack as the realization of this struck him. When he finally stood beside her, he was sure his face was a big drooping mask of uncertainty and stupidity. And he still didn’t have anything to say.

Hey, Ev, Candi Bennett said to him without looking up. Have a seat. And she moved the bar stool beside her with her