The Boneyard: Short Fictions of the Morbid and Macabre

Step into The Boneyard, where every bite-sized story is a grave-of-sorts and every grave tells a tale. This chilling collection of ten horror short stories delves into the shadowy recesses of the human psyche and the eerie unknown. Each tale unearths the morbid and the macabre, from doomed gravediggers to blood cults, malevolent spirits to the unrelenting terror of the human heart. The Boneyard beckons...

Tale 1: Blind Spot
In this tale of isolation and terror, Chloe loses her sight without cause or cure. As her world darkens and hope fades, she realizes she's not alone.

Tale 2: The Gravedigger
Emma Twomey, one of the country's few female gravediggers, cherishes her solitary yet noble work in Vale-until she witnesses a disturbance that shatters the cemetery's uneasy peace.

Tale 3: 112
In the dead of night, Rachel Downey, a seasoned worker at an emergency dispatch center, receives a strange, panicked call from an elderly woman pleading for help. When the police arrive at the house, they uncover a chilling truth.

Tale 4: Winging It
A man's life begins to unravel with the arrival of a relentless, maddening itch beneath his skin. As the days pass, the itch turns into a festering wound, revealing something grotesque and unnatural sprouting from within. Terrified of the outside world and consumed by his grotesque metamorphosis, he barricades himself in his apartment. But he cannot stop the visitor who comes to his high-rise apartment window at night and tap-tap-taps for him to come and play.

Tale 5: Rest in Peace
The Browne family has built a respectable name for themselves as the proprietors of Browne's Eternal Rest Funeral Home, a place where the dead are laid to rest with dignity and care. But behind the polished facade of sympathy and solemnity, the locals whisper of something far darker lurking within its walls: the Brownes might be offering more than funerals.

Tale 6: A Dumb Waiter
When the Duggan family moves into a creaking, old house on the outskirts of Fox Hollow, they hope for a fresh start. But their dreams of peace turn to despair when their young son, Patrick, vanishes without a trace. Desperate to believe he's still alive, they begin to uncover the house's dark history, where sinister secrets are entombed within its very walls.

Tale 7: Brotherhood of Blood When Mike Turner inherits his grandfather's sprawling, decrepit estate, he expects to find a few dusty antiques and a lifetime of memories. Instead, he uncovers a chilling legacy of darkness and fear. Hidden journals and cryptic symbols point to his grandfather's desperate attempts to escape a shadowy cult known as the Brotherhood of Blood.

Tale 8: The Hospital
Dylan works the graveyard shift as a cleaner at The Hillside psychiatric hospital, a shadowy, sprawling facility where whispers echo through empty corridors. Each night brings strange and unsettling occurrences. But as he navigates the hospital's labyrinthine halls with his trusty bucket and mop, it becomes clear that the greatest mystery isn't the hospital-it's him.

Tale 9: 2 Hydrangea Street
Postman Rob has always prided himself on delivering every package. But when he's tasked with delivering a self-addressed parcel to the long-abandoned house at 2 Hydrangea Drive, unease creeps in. The dilapidated house has a sinister reputation-boarded-up windows, a yard choked with weeds, and stories of a strange occupant who lives there. This delivery will mark the end of his route in more ways than one.

Tale 10: Shackled in the Shack
This short story is to be developed into a novel titled The Shed in 2026.
Teenagers Alex and Ben stumble upon an eerie shack deep in the pine forest. What they uncover within the old building will bind them to a horrifying secret and change their lives forever.

Admittedly, Jonathan has done things arseways most of his life, from completing a BA in Literature in his thirties to fitting teeth brackets (30's, porcelain). During this general confusion, Jonathan has had various short stories published. Jonathan suffers from photophobia though has a tendency towards fireworks. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, he now lives the reclusive life in Toledo, Spain, as a bearded hermit, with his wife and three daughters. He is known to be found in the local cemetery at the weekend during daylight hours, though for goodness sake, don't sneak up on him.