Robert Pettus
Bio
Robert writes mostly horror shorts. His first novel, titled Abry, was recently published:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abry-robert-pettus/1143236422;jsessionid=8F9E5C32CDD6AFB54D5BC65CD01A4EA2.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781950464333
Stories (64/0)
Throwed up the Mountain
Throwed up the Mountain Edward Marsh stood atop the massive, rounded stone which leaned outward from the mud of the riverbank to the pool below. Peering over the edge, he saw below, into the perpetual current of the Red River; though shallow in most places, about ten feet deep here. He wondered how it was possible that such a perfect, gigantic rock just happened to be leaning into one of the best pools in the river.
By Robert Pettus6 months ago in Fiction
The Shore of Ararat
The Shore of Ararat Dagon opened his tired eyes and saw nothing. Only blackness. Lightning from the continuous storm flashed, alighting briefly the oval shaped interior of the ship’s steerage. Dagon saw the six other members of his species chosen to board the ship, including Enlil and Nabu, with whom he had the closest bond.
By Robert Pettus6 months ago in Fiction
Phish Lot
Phish Lot Tie Dye Tim scattered assorted seeds across the lot. Upon striking the dusty asphalt—which hadn’t been paved in probably a decade and was cracked and filled with the temporary fixups of white, chalky gravel—the seeds were flung wildly in every direction. A sunflower seed spinning upward like a rocket-frisbee was caught amid the diving swoop of a black-capped chickadee. The bird flew off in bobbing fashion before finding a safe hiding place inside an outdoor reclining chair. Twitching its head chaotically like an addict, it shoved the seed inside the cushion of the chair.
By Robert Pettus6 months ago in Fiction
A Deceased Leech
Rudy Rudy pulled off I-75 at the Williamstown exit. He wasn’t very far outside of Cincinnati; not at all distant from the third-floor sanctuary of his bedroom at his friend’s house in Latonia, but he needed some gas. Rudy didn’t trust his dessert-tan, 1993 Toyota Camry to make the drive around the southerly side of the circumference of 275 – the bypass encircling the greater Cincinnati area.
By Robert Pettus12 months ago in Horror
The Trillionaires
Part One – Randall Randall scanned the list, flipping his pointer finger upward in annoyance, glancing at the fictionalized smiling personification of each candidate. They would appear quickly in front of him, begin giving their political sales-pitch, and then – after Randall had lost interest and moved on – disappear. He had no idea of which political software was best – he never knew how to vote – he just chose the avatar he thought looked most like someone he could enjoy having a beer with. Everyone always took politics so seriously, but none of the options ever seemed very good to him. One program promised further space industrialization – speeding up the global-warming process on Mars so the red planet would soon become more easily habitable. Another promised to clean up the Earth, to implement green programs that would allow the planet to heal itself naturally. That possibility was more than a stretch, Randall knew that. It was an impossibility. Randall didn’t know how to vote. He didn’t know anything about politics, or software, or the issues affecting Earth and the rest of the solar system. The only reason he even registered was because his friends – who he only rarely saw, anyway; who seemed to consider themselves activists, of sorts – were offended by his unregistered status. Voting was pointless; Randall knew that. That’s why the trillionaires didn’t care whether anyone was registered. The software programs were designed by the trillionaires, who enslaved the world. It didn’t matter what future realities any specific program promised – what it would do, would be whatever its rich masters told its designers to modify it to do. Everyone thought political software promoted fairness – a most treasured American value – which to think about was a hilarity.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Fiction
Peter and His City
I watched the dancing purple clouds from my thirteenth-floor balcony, the floor of which was soft and porous as if to at any moment collapse, sending me crashing to the twelfth and then eleventh floors all the way skull-cracking to the hard concrete of the narrow street below.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Fiction
Jackpot
Jack walked up to the cash register, sliding a sixer of PBR across the counter while simultaneously removing his wallet from the back pocket of his Wrangler jeans. He would pay for the beers with his credit card, but he needed cash for the lottery tickets—the Kentucky lottery hadn’t yet learned how to accept card payment, apparently.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Horror
Moon and Tide
A salty evening breeze blew gently, though forcefully, out from metronomic push of the tide, across the beach, up through the weedy, lizard-infested dunes, right into Quinten’s smiling face. It was cool; it smelled heavy – it felt nice. Quinten, clichés be damned, loved taking long walks on the beach. He did it lonesomely, however. He loved walking along the shore at night, feeling the lapping froth of the tide swarm around his ankles. He enjoyed using his flashlight – which he always brought along – to spot crabs scurrying frantically from the sand back into the water. He liked looking for starfish and sand dollars. He never kept them, though; he felt bad about killing things pointlessly. He always looked out for jellyfish – he’d had a bad experience once, when he had stepped on a sprawling, beached man o’ war. His foot was never the same – not completely – after that incident.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Horror
Clicking Crustaceans, Clattering Dice
Sage, riding atop the back of her trusted giant wolf-spider, Creep, nocked an arrow and loosed. She fired again and again into the blackness. She couldn’t see her target – not even her goblin eyes could pierce through this unnatural darkness – but she knew it was back there, somewhere; she heard it bellowing – its ancient, clicking guttural voice reverberating off the claustrophobic, circular walls of the black cavern like grating sonar.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Horror
Temporal Agora
Stepping out of the black, swirling portal, I removed immediately my coat and tie, unzipped my trousers and kicked aside my shoes, tossing them in a pile in the darkest corner of my chosen secret stone alley, one somehow secluded from all view downward the wooded hill on the far side of the temple of Hephaestus. I then further shielded the pile with nearby bits of chalky stone scattered along the floor of the alley. I couldn’t lose the clothes—I knew that—I would need them when I traveled back to New Orleans. If I were to fall out onto Decatur Street naked and battered from the bruises of time travel, the snooty folk sipping chicory at Café Du Monde wouldn’t have it. I’d be dragged across Jackson Square and thrown into the encircled crowd outside of St. Louis Cathedral to be made both an example of and a midmorning entertainment.
By Robert Pettusabout a year ago in Fiction