Havok Publishing

Science Fantasy

Super Gus and the Fight Before Christmas

After my brother Barney and I complete the second wrapping of tinsel, we spread out Mami’s lock-lid ornament tubs.
Barney nudges me. “So, Arnold, any thoughts on the job offer? I know, you’re an”—faux crystal bell in each hand, he air-quotes—“entrepreneur. You can still be your own boss. A boss that

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Swamp Girls

The swamp has swallowed Mom whole.
I halt, feet lodged in muck. Cleo’s boots clomp clomp clomp as she keeps trudging along, splashing gray-brown water against my pants.
“Wait,” I say.
Cleo grips her pack straps with grime-streaked hands. “You can’t stop now, Clara. Mom needs us!”
If Mom needed us, she would’ve

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Until the Next

The confectioner’s window is a mouthwatering sight.
A miniature garden complete with caramel truffle walls, a spun-sugar pagoda, marzipan birds, a rock-candy fountain, and a couple carved from chocolate that kiss one another within the shade of a sprawling bon-bon tree. The whole scene is shaded by an awning to keep the sweets

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The Celestial Portal

I stormed up the narrow stair toward the storm-battered castle, the biting sea wind spurring me on.
“Princess, please wait!” my guard, Alloy, called.
Hearing my preferred title only stoked the fire.
The next stair crumbled beneath my boot, and I pitched sideways into open air. The world spun. I caught sight

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Sweet Dreams

They come to me for the dreams—bubbles of florescent light that pop behind their eyelids and reveal an elsewhere. They don’t even care where they go. They just don’t want to be here.
I understand. With Earth a hair’s breadth away from total annihilation due to alien laser beams, I get the need…

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Wither’s Reckoning

“Who does she think she is? The daughter of a villain, trying to be a hero?”
A punch hit me square on the cheek, smacking my head against the road. Fingers tightened around my throat, and I struggled to breathe—an all-too-familiar feeling.
Decay’s superpowers activated. I gasped as my fingertips began to shrivel

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The Wrong Side of Heaven

Slade Cartwright adjusted the scope on his Sharps rifle and awaited the Devil’s stagecoach. The Texas Ranger tipped the brim of a sweat-stained hat, swigged from his canteen, and wiped perspiration from his forehead. Mesquite trees and cacti provided limited shade underneath the unforgiving sun, but he made do amidst the desert rock outcropping.

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Mistakes Happen

Sam snatched the steaming paper cup of black coffee off the counter. His palm crawled at the heat from the cup as he stepped outside. He set the coffee down carefully on the wrought-iron tabletop where legal pads and heavy historical tomes teetered in unstable stacks.
The barista was a loser.
The shop had

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Status Quo

“If it bugs you so much,” I said, “why you don’t just levitate my stuff back to its proper place?”
“Because,” Steven shouted, “I actually use my powers for good. I don’t levitate things to clean up your messes, you—”
Expletive deleted.
Yeah, I often provoke that sort of reaction from my

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The Sentry

Frank lowered the binoculars as dusk began to settle, washing the desert skyline with its somber orange hue. In the valley below, the portal swirled; a bright cerulean whirlpool sparkling against the dying embers of daylight.
He rubbed his eyes as footsteps approached from the crest of the ridge.
“Woo boy! This climb

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A Dose of Fantasy

“Eustace,” his mother called. “Come say hi to Miss Marta.”
Eustace ignored the summons and kept practicing the combo on his controller. Two basic attacks, block, stab, slash, another block. It left just enough stamina for an ult. A forum online said the maneuver was so overpowered, he could beat dungeon bosses two

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The Right Question

Ronnie wedged his armored fingertips under the heavy stone concealing the control box. He yanked and the slab cracked apart, the noise thunderous in the tomb-like corridor.
“Oops.”
Not that he felt bad about breaking anything in Emperor Thallia’s creepy castle, but the louder he was, the better chance the mechanical samurai patrolling

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