Havok Publishing

Category - Mystery Monday

Goodbye Sun

A yellow spaceship… Who woulda thought?
Green, yes. Gray even. And silver—definitely. But never yellow… And yet, there it is. The same bright, sexy yellow of the Porsche that emblazons his bedroom wall.
Dean cocks his head as he takes in the size of the thing, the bike he is straddling momentarily forgotten.

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

All Those Shining Lights

In the waning hours of Black Friday, a Yuletide spectacle appeared next door, in glittering LED glory. As Millie shuffled across the driveway to her warmed-up Buick, she used her hand to cover her eyes, wincing at the neighbors’ radiant display. She eased herself into the driver’s seat

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Where’s Santa?

Christmas morning! And there, under the tree… Nothing.

Six-year-old Joey’s hopes deflated. “I wonder why Santa didn’t bring any presents.” He rubbed his eyes and peeked through a crack in the front door. The eastern sky was streaked with orange. Along the fencerow, pink and yellow tulips danced

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Illusionary Friends

“Shape-shifter!”
The words echo in my ears, but this time, they’re not aimed at me.
I’m not a shifter, merely an illusionist. It’s people’s eyes who change, not me. We can take on a few characteristics of the animal, like super-speed, flight, or deep-sea swimming. And even if it weakens my other senses,

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

Blind as a Bat

Most students went home for the holidays, but not us boys at the Reformatory School for Troubled Young Monsters. We had to stay and face the longest, hardest exam of the whole year. That’s what we got for being little criminals.

The morning of the exam, I went to the library, 

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

Whispers of Magic

My blood freezes. I know that tingling scent. The scent of magic. Magic long dead in these parts. But there… that flicker of tantalizing other. That otherness resonates within me.
I scan the crowded pub for possible sources. Sweat, the stink of unwashed bodies, mutton left too long over the flames

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The Nose

Hot. Smoky. Sweet with an acidic tang. So fresh-from-the-oven it made your mouth water.

Ginger.

I groaned. So much for Aruba. There’s no way the boss would let me go out of town with a gingerbread man on the loose in Cityville. And after I’d just packed my new swim trunks, too.

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

A Sense of Guilt

Marshal Roland Chadwick pressed his nose to the desert floor and sniffed. A whiff of sulfur entered his nostrils, receded, and returned stronger. He snorted and coughed. The smell of hades wasn’t easily dismissed. But it came with the territory. Without it, he’d be out of a job.
He mounted his horse and rode,

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Scent Across the Miles

Sherry held the letterman jacket’s collar to her cheek and inhaled deeply. Polo cologne, her first Christmas gift to him. The herbal overtones had always reminded her of spiced cider. Like him, it brought warmth on a cold winter’s night. A hint of aloe from his shaving cream to ease the roughness of life…

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The Mysterious Scent of Cookies

As I stepped into my apartment, the aroma of chocolate greeted me. I hung up my coat and shook the weariness from my shoulders, while my mouth watered from the fresh, chocolatey goodness wafting from my kitchen.

Like cookies. Gooey triple chocolate cookies I’d eaten at Grandma’s house when I was a little girl.

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

Midnight

Of all the underground clubs in this sodden sponge of a city, it had to be that one.
I tugged my fedora lower over my brows, but it did little to block out the damp chill of the October night. My neck prickled as I surveyed the disturbing sight splayed out on the alley’s cracked asphalt.

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S2 Mystery Monday featured image (season 2)

The Lab Glasses

Carrie removed the clutter from her husband’s dresser, dropping each piece onto the bed. A package of new shoelaces. An old watch, the hands on its face forever proclaiming three-thirteen. A comb. His lab glasses. Safety pins. A tie clip.
At this rate, it would take the baby’s entire nap time to get

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