horror, Rod Fleming's World

13/12/2023

A Little Shop of Horrors: Scottish Macabre

Originally posted 2021-01-08 11:12:04.

A Little Shop of Horrors: Scottish Macabre is a chilling collection of Gothic horror stories by Rod Fleming. This book will definitely keep you awake at night!

Most of the stories are set in genuine Scottish locations, mostly in and around Edinburgh, so they are replete with local colour and history. The tales bring to life the Gothic charm and mystery of the ‘Florence of the North’ and will be loved by both aficionados of the horror genre and of Scotland and its unique ambience.

Print book ISBN: 978-0-9565007-8-6

Ebooks available through Amazon

The Horror of the Blocked-Up Window

Originally posted 2013-03-07 02:02:33.

I don’t know why it is that I have accumulated such a collection of ─ well, I suppose you might say ghost stories, though I tend to think of them in less definite terms myself. The fact is that I have never seen a ghost with my two eyes, and in fact I long ago gave up any hope of doing so. I must not be one of those gifted with the sight, as it were. However that may be, though, I seem to be a magnet for stories of the weird and the macabre, as if they seek me out─ and in the strangest of places.

The most recent addition to my collection was found in just such a casual way as all the others. I had been on holiday in France, when I was suddenly called back because of an illness─a very severe one─in the family. It happened that the nearest airport from which I could get a flight home was Lyon, so I made my reservation and got myself there as soon as I possibly could. Continue reading “The Horror of the Blocked-Up Window”

05/12/2023

Irrational Unknown: Fear of Madness

Originally posted 2016-10-25 13:17:01.

When I was a child, madness was the most terrifying affliction I could imagine. The idea that I might not be able to control my own life was bad enough. But to think that I might be controlling it, yet in ways that my conscious mind would never allow, was enough to give me nightmares. The irrational unknown inside me was terrifying.

The notion that I might be someone other than the sane person I thought I saw, when I looked into the mirror, was simply horrific. The idea of losing rationality and, with it, my central core of me, that hub around which my life revolves, has always been more frightening than anything else I can think of.

This sense of horror is not unique to me.