Havok Publishing

Tag - monsters / cryptids

Die On Your Feet

If you were to ask me to list the Top Ways I Might Die Someday, “decapitation in a Safeway parking lot” wouldn’t have been at the top of the list.
What a difference a couple of days makes.
I looked around at the gaggle of survivors huddled in the safety of a shallow drainage

Read it now

A Feast of Rats

The rats are disappearing.
Hart Street had the biggest infestation in London. We knew that before we moved in—it’s why the house came at such a low price. But we needed somewhere to lay low, so I assured the Professor we could deal with it. I’ve dealt with worse.
Still, my skin still crawled

Read it now

Tiger, Tiger

I don’t sleep anymore.
My apartment is cramped, little more than a closet. Space enough for a few childhood mementos and some clothes, nothing more. No bed.
I was ten years old when I woke one morning to a blazing house and my parents burning alive and myself unscathed in the middle of it all.

Read it now

Along Came a Crowd

Ajani perched on the cart’s edge, his feet dangling, as Baba’s animals ate in their cages. The evening shadows stretched as the sun descended and the troupe packed up their tents.
They should be preparing their acts and hoping for a crowd, not leaving after only a few days. And at night?

Read it now

Master the Beast

The warmth of the stew steamed up my glasses and the taste of it cut through the bitter cold of the highlands. But the conversation behind me drove all thought of food away.
“It was headed straight for the coastline. I had to let it go—the curse has passed from me,”

Read it now

The Lily’s Blade

Lily keeps her knife angled down as she runs, just like Papa had shown her.
“Your weapon is your ally, but misuse will make it your enemy.”
He’d said it so many times the words were ingrained in Lily’s memory. Yet now, as she runs through the shadowed forest, fleeing the attack on

Read it now

Down Twisted Cypress Way

For Zadie, the first ninety-nine steps under the oppressive canopy of nighttime Pennsylvania woods were hard enough. The air was still and stagnant, and only thin shafts of moonlight pierced the darkness. But at the hundredth step, Zadie hesitated and took a deep breath. She had reached the point where she would have

Read it now
S7 MM daily banner

The Dreamers

The place stank of dreams. Shattered dreams, stale dreams, rancid dreams. And nightmares. I tasted them all the moment I arrived. It was a stagnant sort of taste, like cold porridge served with moldy bread, as though nothing fresh had been dreamed there in ages. Not that I’ve eaten porridge. But I have

Read it now
S7 TH daily banner

The Egg

The way I see it, you find a giant egg in the forest, you have two options. You break it open or you don’t.
The lodge we’d passed through was easy to see from the edge of the crater. Stand atop a fallen tree and there it was—civilization. Like children in sight

Read it now
S7 MM daily banner

Man & Beast

“I’m warning ye Elial, if it happens again, I’ll destroy yer vermin pets meself!”
“My wyrms didn’t touch your sheep, Malchi.” Elial fought down his irritation. This was the second dead ewe found mangled in Malchi’s fields, with neighbors suffering similar losses. No one knew the culprit, but many placed the crime squarely

Read it now
S7 TH daily banner

The Darkest Hunger

The news ran rampant through the College of Advanced Mage Arts: there was a demon in the gymnasium. Students evacuated the area, congesting the halls with a tumult of people, strobing lights, and blaring alarms. Sebastian could hardly think in the cacophony, which was probably how he managed to wade so calmly against the

Read it now
S7 WW daily banner

Wizards and the Wrath of Bessie

Lightning slashes the sky. “Walfort, take us back to land!” I yell into the storm. “We’ll look for Bessie another day.”
“Don’t be a wimp, Gwynfar. We told Zofan we would eliminate this sea serpent,” Walfort shouts. “I’m here because I’m a wand master and you’re a mediocre wizard. I’m not even sure you’re

Read it now