Max Wickham
Bio
I write short stories from a secluded spot in the Ohio countryside. Ohio is mysterious place, and her little villages hold some truly frightening tales. Inspiration for my stories comes directly from the people and places around me.
Stories (8/0)
To the Nasty Tortoise
To the Nasty Tortoise: You called my attackers homophobic bums, resting a limp, semi-paralyzed hand on my shaking shoulder. And my blood pulsed with rage when I told you I wanted to kill them, all of them. I wanted to scrub them all away like dirty footprints.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Humans
Journey into the Dark Lands {Part One of Three}
In 1946, then twenty-six years old, I had been in the service of a wealthy oil baron who had a restless passion for exploration and acquirement of material wealth. His thousands of acres of oil land he acquired when he was only nineteen years of age, then a well-built young man of reasonably intimidating height and adventurous spirit. As money had never hindered his vast exploits, his fortune exceeding any formal number value, he ventured far and wide across the globe, accompanied by a band of equally adventurous pundits and scholars, mountaineers, engineers, and ex-commandos. The baron himself had no formal education apart from his own private reading, having owned a colossal library where he collected thousands of books.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Fiction
- Top Story - January 2022
Child of the WitchTop Story - January 2022
The shop windows of Orwell Steel flared bright red. Inside, men in charred denim jackets, some wearing thick leather vests or aprons, stared with black reflective goggles into coal fires and blazing welding torches. Classic rock tunes played loudly from an old brown speaker mounted in a high corner of the shop. Men on duty gave complete attention to their work, never looking up from the screaming torches in their thick gloved hands.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Horror
The Ringing of Hawthorne
Rain poured down hard. Lightning flashed in the distance, and the sky overhead was growing darker and darker. Martha stood above the river looking down at the floating corpse of Ned Blackhorse. His belt had snagged on the branch of a fallen tree and he bobbed face down in the steady current like a pool toy. His arms were outstretched, creating a human crucifix. Martha peered down at the body, forgetting about her binoculars. The rain poured down hard and made hundreds of ripples around the body. Two turtles that sat on the log beside the corpse plopped into the water when Martha moved closer to the edge. The muddy lip of the edge crumbled under her weight and she fell nearly ten feet into the water below. The rim of the binoculars smashed into her upper lip when she hit the water and the gash bled intensely. She felt it swell up immediately and checked to see if any of her teeth had been smashed out as well. Her lip was numb and she tasted the saltiness of her own blood. It dripped from her lip down her chin, onto her shirt, into the water. She pressed her lip and it stung horribly. The rain poured down harder.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Horror
The Deer Catcher
It has been ten years since I said goodbye to the only dog I have ever raised, and, unashamedly, I must say that I miss him more than some of the relatives I have lost. This might seem extreme, rude, maybe even horrid, but I can say with all the honesty that I posess, my dog, Muttly, was the kindest, most intelligent, wild, charming, dedicated, respectful being I have ever known.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Petlife
The Ringing of Hawthorne
Two weeks after Ned Blackhorse had left his parents’ home in Florida, taking nothing with him but sertraline in slow-release capsules, an engraved tomahawk that belonged to his great-grandfather, ten packs of cigarettes, and two packs of spearmint chewing gum, Martha Flint, then aged seventeen, found his decomposing body floating in the river that ran through the south side of her property.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Horror
Summer's Gate
Claire, Ohio 1962 There were signs in the stars that night, and Mel Floyd let them melt straight into his chest and coat his aching heart. He laid on the hood of his truck, a hand tucked flat behind his head resting against the windshield and watched the sky.
By Max Wickham2 years ago in Fiction
