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Robert Pettus
Bio
Robert writes mostly horror shorts. His first novel, titled Abry, was recently published:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abry-robert-pettus/1143236422;jsessionid=8F9E5C32CDD6AFB54D5BC65CD01A4EA2.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781950464333
Stories (64/0)
Decay
My head throbbed. My ear was full; oily liquid drained from it continuously. I opened the glovebox and popped some acetaminophen; that stuff seemed to work better than ibuprofen or naproxen. I shoved my pinker finger into my ear, pressing hard against the wall of the canal; I could hear and feel that rumbling noise from within my eardrum, as if a bubbling volcano. I had gotten regular ear-infections since I was a kid, but this was different. The symptoms were too diverse in nature. My ear ached, my head hurt, stinging pain filled my furthest back, top molar. Some TMJ sort of situation was developing in my jaw, which caught and clicked with each closure of my mouth. Eating was a hilarity, considering the frequent rapidity with which percussive music sprang from within my chin.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Horror
Walls. Singing Bushes.
If walls could talk maybe they could have alerted someone as Alex lay sprawled out convulsing on the carpet spewing saliva across his face as his eyes rolled back into the black depths of his poisoned skull. If walls could talk perhaps he would’ve been saved from flopping around percussively—his arms striking the carpet like sticks to a pair of tom-toms—and gasping for breath like a shored crappie.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Fiction
The Good Folks
Light pierced the thick, large windows. The place smelled like popcorn, pancakes, syrup, and sweet tea. That’s what it always smelled like, at least until that inevitable, rotting stench swept briefly through the place. They didn’t seem to like that—they worked to prevent it—but it happened occasionally. It was unavoidable. A stench like flies, piss, dirty dishes, sticky floors, and muggy dishonesty. It didn’t smell like that now, though—it smelled like sweet tea and salty, buttery popcorn.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Horror
Lean, Hungry, Prowling
Sunday, November Sixth “Hear that Bengal growlin’, mean and angry!” came the slurred, unified chorus from the collected horde. Assorted German meats sizzled on grills innumerable; mac and cheese sat slowly simmering in crock pots. Sticky wet, plastic collapsible tables lined the cracked cobblestone parking lot just east of Gest Street, in the shadow of the titanic, lengthy Longworth Hall—that leaning, rectangular, chalky brick building, long-since mostly abandoned other than the sketchy nightclub filling the echoey bones of its bottom floor.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Horror
Two Shots
It was dark in Bellevue; it was five in the morning. Fog wafted upward from the slowly trudging, thick Ohio River and engulfed empty Fairfield Avenue in a concealing, damp mist. Streetlamps shined pathetically through the fog, only barely visible. They looked like massive fireflies floating lazily.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Horror
Money Games
Jim Nash sat in the backroom at the Keno machine looking on as the wrong numbers lit up, confirming his continued failure. He grabbed the bottle of Budweiser sitting next to the machine, its beading moisture dampening his hand, and took a heavy swig, swilling it around in his mouth, savoring the carbonated bubbles as they popped on his tongue. He put the bottle down and grabbed a half-smoked cigarette from the adjacent ashtray, inhaling and exhaling like a monk meditatively calming his ever-accumulating nerves. Jim was as bald as a monk, that was for sure—all his hair was on his face.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Fiction
Pine Mountain, and The Bear
After Jamal panted. Saliva, if his body had been capable of producing it, would have painted the still lush summer forest floor as he spat dryly to the dirt. The three of them now felt safe from the previous danger. They had stumbled down the side of a sloping, heavily wooded mountain – somewhere on the Pine Mountain trail, in the Cumberland Range, in Eastern Kentucky:
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Fiction
In a Rut
I took a left onto McAlpin Avenue and my maroon Toyota Scion squealed with its turning wheels. It always did that; it had for years—couldn’t keep its belts properly tightened, so it always sounded like a fucking screaming banshee while driving at moderate speeds through residential areas. I would never be able to sneak up on anyone in that car.
By Robert Pettus2 years ago in Fiction