Len Rely

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2023

Stories (31)

31 Stories

572 karma pts

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“Skinwalker” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #229

    Gather around me if you wish to hear my tale, for I am a shaman king from the old country. My world is not yours, my words are not the ones spoken today. I am a wanderer of the path that separates men from beasts, and on certain nights preys upon other men. I do not do this because I dislike them or because I have no control over my actions, those are the motives of a criminal. I do it because I am a relic from a time when human predation was both normal and understood.     &nb...

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“The Man in the Stocks” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #228

 Just twenty-five years after the infamous Pied Piper deceived the good people of Hameln, something equally sinister occurred in the history of our town. Now to understand what happened I want you all to picture the town square as you see it now, the center of all commerce and misunderstanding, and imagine the following stores and houses along the milkman’s route which stood from left to right as I point to them… The saying that arguing between God and science is “like a butcher arguing with a baker that his bread is not meat” originate...

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“The Earworm” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #223

“My angriness from sixth grade will scar my memory for life and I will be ashamed of my sixth grade year forever.”    -The Night Stalker THE EARWORM               Benjamin could never discover what it was exactly that made him cease to be an ordinary student.  He knew that he was one once, as he and his classmates emerged from the long dark time of uncertainty that preceded his revelations. There wasn’t a single precocious learner am...

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“Darkness Has No Name” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #221

 Far out on the sea of Yblisi there are two islands connected by a river. That’s right, a freshwater river that comes from an enormous spring on the first island flows across the ocean’s surface a short distance becoming an inflowing stream on the second island. This is because the change in elevation is greater than the curvature of the sea itself; the first settlers released the spring from the high mountains and constructed a dam that keeps the tide out but allows the freshwater to leave. Millions of fish and seabirds are attracted t...

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“The Troll People” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #219

  A forty-year-old man with a blonde mustache and a farmer’s shirt took a seat in the psychology office after shaking the psychologist’s hand across the desk. Also present was a man who claimed to be a sasquatch researcher, although he didn’t show any credentials.“May we begin?” the psychologist turned on a recording device. “You were saying that during your regression therapy you came across something very startling from your past that you had forgotten. Can you tell me what that is?”“Yes, in 1973 when I was ten years old I starte...

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“Hell Hath None” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #218

      “Do you think an evil person can be so bad they’re already damned before it’s time for them to die?” a time-honored prostitute broke the silence at the end of the bar whose overhead lights were burned out.             “I don’t s’pose I understand.” the barman stood there polishing a glass. “Do you mean you’re predestinated to go to Hell? Why would you think that?”            He wonde...

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“Gigi and the Detective” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #217

        The wealthy bachelor Simon Belvoir had arrived at the country house during the night. This far north it was only fifty-five degrees in August, and the place was so new there wasn’t a single amenity that had ever been used. New and cold. When he came out of his stateroom in the morning he was wearing a wool vest with four gold buttons over his dress shirt.              Passing by the room next to his in the uppe...

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“The Siren” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #216

                    “She’s just sixteen years old, leave her alone they said…”THE SIRENMr. Harris’ English class assembled at the bell. There was a thin paperback placed on each desk with a sailing ship on its cover. Mr. Harris sat straight-backed wearing a tartan vest out of charity to whoever had given it to him. Among teachers he was one of the most respected by students, in fact he had just diffused a fistfight in the last period by dr...

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“The Blitz” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #215

      Let me tell you what it means to be fashionable. Everybody who is anybody is doing something fun and exciting at this precise second, and whatever you are doing is not nearly as hip, provocative or sexy. They're out there living the high life, getting greased, lighting up, making with each other. People who know what to say at exactly the right moment, not any pearls of wisdom, just whatever flips the previous statement on its ear to keep the enjoyment moving. It might be a joke about t...

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“Black Christmas” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #211

The day Brianne encountered the strange, handsome man would have been as boring as Christmas in July. Griffith Bros. had forced the storefronts across the street out of business, and then bought up all their merchandise for a fraction of its value, so now there was a rush of people bigger than Black Friday buying up everything on the shelves. Come to think of it, there were more black trench coats and black scarves and black hats than anything else and it wasn’t even December, doing the Griffiths the favor of clearing the space for them as p...

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“The Outsiders” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #210

Dear Future Explorers,What you have discovered is a time capsule from the mid-21st Century, which I know will be strange to you as the concept of time has changed in my own lifetime and this custom is long out of use. But elementary students are still required to learn manual writing and they still bury things to learn the importance of digging up the past. So I, Dr. Lewis Degrassi have been asked by Mrs. Marshall’s fifth grade class to include this journal which the students themselves will never read. I predict that by your time there will...

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“The Hob” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #210

 This story was passed down by my father. At the time a great deal of Scottish folklore and heroism was not common knowledge to the outside world, for example when my great-grandmother saw uniformed men being enlisted for war in our town she thought they were “reivers”, land pirates. In 1940 when Da was a very young lad he came into the house one day to see a short little hob of a man, just three feet tall with a long white beard, sitting on the edge of the supper table conversing with his father. And to his astonishment this little man...

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“Where the Bitches Are” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #209

 “Imagine a train, Dr. Komorov, a train on which a small gray snake has become a passenger. It must have made its way in at the last stop through one of the open doors, and is now making its way along the overhead compartments while the train is moving, a train which has only one passenger.” “What kind of train is it?” “The kind where the whole inside of the car is lit by dim florescent lighting at night and the overhead luggage compartments are made of wire that runs the length of the car, and the passengers sit on benches.” “That does...

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“The Room With No Doors” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #208

  I was seduced by the woman in the dark red gown in the painting that hangs in the first room above the mahogany sideboard with the reclining marble nude upon it. It was she who had me on the floor where I lie still, immobilized, staring only at the undecorated ceiling, because the painting was the first thing that came into my view. I lay there for several days, only aware of her visage and the chandelier above the very dark table and chairs, and a very faint tapping sound like a dripping candle which I occasionally felt very lig...

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“The Usurpers” by Len Rely

Submitted to Contest #207

Abel (whose full name was Abehamr) lived in the city with his nonessential roommate Max. He was a man of few words having been raised with four sisters all of whom were tall, good-looking blondes like himself. People seemed interested in him without much effort on his part which made him an uncomplaining witness to many strange behaviors. He had already achieved the goals of being gainfully employed and having an apartment; now he felt a strong civic responsibility but at the moment the state was torn by a political rivalry in which the civi...

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