Submission Type: Urban Fantasy Fiction Short Stories
Submission Deadline: April 25th, 12:00am, EST
“When you crest the distant rise and you come upon Darkness Falls, you see the town laid out before you in a flat floored valley, usually shrouded in haze. Drawing closer, a collection of unbecoming rectangular buildings can be seen, gray or brown with little character. The town, once beautiful, actually did have a waterfall, an abundant river crashing over the ridge to the north and depositing into a wide lake. But no one alive remembers back that far and the river has long since run dry. Early on there was nothing more than a couple of dozen farms and a white clapboard chapel with a peculiar rood atop its steeple. But as the place grew, an ordinance was changed allowing a steel factory to be built, in the hopes of revitalizing the struggling economy. Other businesses followed. The amount of people that filtered in for work was more than the local boarding houses could handle and apartment buildings were soon constructed. From that point on Darkness Falls deteriorated into an urban complex, complete with crime, unrest and desperation. Sections fell into dilapidated slums while others teetered on the fringe of sustenance, trying vainly to hold onto their crumbling worth. Now there are as many abandoned buildings as viable ones and there are few remnants of the little community of homes that once thrived along its winding roads. Nobody stays long in Darkness Falls; the companies, the tenants, even the vagrants. There are only a few permanent residents that linger here, people you wouldn’t want to meet on the hollow streets at night. The one constant is the darkness that at some point overcomes everyone and everything. And there are strange occurrences in that darkness. Things that most people wouldn’t want to experience even in their dreams. Some recover and move on. Some never escape. Whatever the reason that your travels bring you into Darkness Falls your best option is to keep going. Do not stop for food or gas or lodging. Unfortunately, some do and they find out that the town stays true to its name. There is always the darkness…”
“Darkness Falls” is looking for submissions of short stories (2500-7500 words in length) that exist within the vivid world described above, written and conceived by R. J. Erbacher. This unique anthology will be the first in The Red Penguin Collection to unite its stories with a prompt that brings writers together in the journey to write the town of “Darkness Falls” its own assortment of tall tales.
Click Here to submit: “Darkness Falls” Submissions Here!