Showing results by author "Stephen Donald Huff" in All Categories

He is ruthlessly ambitious. He believes in selling people what they want. He's not a thief, but he'll take anything he can get. He's not a killer, but he's responsible for countless deaths. The first day he shows up at your door, it's a party. The last day he shows up at your door, it's a funeral.

A young, newlywed couple. A new custom home. A good life. Yet nothing can ever be perfect. Though their evenings at home are filled with playful lovemaking in the first months spent in their lavish new dwelling, a chill begins to settle over them with the passage of time. They cannot possibly anticipate the truly horrid source of their discomfort.

During the course of their apocalyptic odyssey, one such band of desperate survivors must overcome petty, pre-Terminus differences to form life-and-death bonds strong enough to withstand the actual end of their world.

After the apocalyptic Terminus Signal induces worldwide slaughter, a death-weary band of survivors has followed the exotically handsome Deacon into a desert wasteland equally plagued by semi-organized clans of Terminal-case burnouts and bizarre alien chimeras. From Badwater Basin, sunken into the lowest badlands of North America to the high, frozen icecaps of Antarctica, this hardy troupe of survivors has come to raise hell and kick alien ass.

After the apocalyptic Terminus Signal induces worldwide slaughter, a death-weary band of survivors attempts to rebuild their ravaged civilization amid an alien wilderness that overflows with bizarre savagery. Although copious quantities of drugs and alcohol disappear inside the Village each night, these tormented holdouts struggle with unquiet consciences that are hopelessly infected by endless black thoughts. For, having survived the ultimate act of genocidal self-destruction, each one of them bear their memories and scars – and the guilt of countless wicked, homicidal crimes.

He can't avoid the stench. It's everywhere… in his food… in his clothing… his home… his office. Everything swims in the odor of feces and he can't possibly know if it's all in his mind or if the entire world has gone bad.

During his service as an intern at the SETI Project, Simian Wynwood fatefully records “first contact” with an alien intelligence. Captured in high-fidelity analog format, this broadcast message contains vast stores of advanced, world-changing technology. Within months, this so-called SETI-Tech becomes widely available to the general populous, and disturbing events rapidly begin to unfold around the planet as an apparently benevolent alien influence slowly embraces and then seizes control of nearly every aspect of human civilization.

Humankind totters on the brink of extinction. Soon, a superior alien race will dominate Earth. Our greatest hope lies within the ranks of an elite cadre of anonymous combatants called Ghost Warriors. He is of that number. When he rises, alien blood will flow!

Alter the future today by reading this story. Edited untold eons into our future to manipulate their past, our present, the message of this story is tailored word-by-word to exact a desired effect from each reader. The editor of this tale is the last standing Veer, the lone survivor of a time war devastating humankind's future, and she needs your help today!

Wealthy and bored, this unique human being has discovered an unusual way to pass the time of day. This is the ordeal he calls his “Dumping Game”. As its name implies, it begins with garbage and ends with garbage, but its ultimate goal is the destruction of human lives and the dismantlement of otherwise happy families.

It is lush, vibrant, and ever-changing. Though raucous and overgrown with a breathtaking variety of savory, beautiful delights, it is a deliberate expression of harsh discipline. Its keeper is a lonely old woman with a green thumb who seems harmless enough to the uninitiated. Homeless and wandering through a neglectful city, he ultimately finds his place in this world, tending her garden of evil.

A fleeting shadow skirting the storm-swept shoulder of an isolated country highway, she hitchhikes along the loneliest stretch of pavement in the most deserted hollows of the countryside. When the downpour presses, he insists on giving her a ride despite her demurs. It will be the most fateful companionship he will ever know.

A trusted agent in the employ of an untrustworthy corporation. He knows too much and he realizes this knowledge will soon necessitate his own liquidation. Tired of the rat race, he has a plan for a fantastic exit. Sometimes, the rat gets the cheese and the trap springs empty.

A cosmic highway defined by scattered flexure points strung along the swirls of our galaxy's many spiral arms, the Serpentine is a fantastic new frontier that offers unimaginable riches to those who dare to brave its ever expanding hinterlands. Billions of hopeful human beings voyage there to profit or perish among the star systems of an otherwise empty cosmos. Despite its promise, amid the dawn of this golden age, one man tasked with a violent errand will discover an abiding evil that marks a terminal end of the Serpentine.

In this version of the future, science has learned how to identify a propensity for violence within the human mind before it manifests as action, and the violent ones have become targets for extermination. This is a humane, disciplined and well-intended social program, and civilization expects its unfortunate recipients to make dutiful sacrifices. Unfortunately, this sort of person is not likely to go without a fight.

A city viewed from a jet liner is eerily indistinguishable from a vast, sprawling anthill. Both are industrious mounds riddled with innumerable burrows and endless trails, which endlessly crawl with toiling creatures, all bound from one mysterious errand to another. Amid the daily crush, a hapless drone occasionally awakens to question the drudgery of its existence. Within the hive, none can help him differentiate himself, man from ant.

He recently returned from an uneventful patrol through the near space of his solar system. Though he recalls nothing odd about the voyage, something has gone terribly wrong. Standing before a mirror in his home, he realizes he has somehow found himself on the wrong side of backwards.

He is a devil, not THE devil. Regardless, his productivity is a measure of human misery. His undertakings are of human vice. His indulgence is bound in human suffering. Follow him on a day-tour of the township and hear his plans for its inhabitants. These are the things and the human beings you need to keep the place running smoothly toward the final destruction of humanity.

Forty years a soldier. Forty years a spy. Forty years an international trafficker of weapons and drugs. All, the accomplishments of one nameless man, a “spook”. With all the powerful innovations of modern technology, no nation on Earth has succeeded in closing its borders to the illegal trade of drugs and weapons. This man can tell you why.

They are the perfect couple, if perfection is a measure of lies and deception. They travel from town to town, conning their way across country while working confidence games, large and small. When their past turns up to haunt them, they both quickly realize they are but hours away from certain death. Life then becomes a contest of ruthless cunning, but this is a game they play well.