Yesteryear Fiction

Clockworke
By Tara K. Stein


“My name is Claudia.” She tried, scraping at the gritty mud with broken fingernails. “Help, please.” She swallowed. “Please.”

“You are weak.” The voice came tinny, distorted by a helmet that hissed steam, condensing. A single clockwork hand flexed with reflexive violence against the iron stock of an aether rifle. “You have no purpose.”

“No, no I do!” She reached for the clockwork mass, but her fingers fell short, unable to close the distance. “I have a purpose!”

“Hardly.” Another voice pushed into the dying haze. You had a purpose– your son, but he’s dead now, isn’t he?” A man stepped up to stand beside the clockwork executioner. “He’s dead, just like your husband is dead, just like your entire village is dead.” The man grinned. “Face it. You’re dead.”

“You murderer!” Claudia rose in the mud suddenly, threw every last ounce of strength into her movement and hurled herself at the man and his clockwork automaton.

But the automaton was faster, and as the aether plug burnt a ragged hole through her brain, Claudia smiled, found a certain solace in knowing that her husband and son couldn’t be far away.


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Tara is a business woman who lives in upper New Hampshire with her boyfriend Max, her dog Butch and her three cats, Harry, Carrie and Mary.

Little Dana
By Tara K. Stein


“There are things that lurk in these caves which are better left undisturbed.” Jonas said, shivering even as he pulled the torch a little closer to his chest. Dana looked on quietly, uncertain, blinking in the flickering torchlight.

“Things, like men with appetites like beasts?” A voice asked suddenly, deep and haunting in quality. Jonas’ breath caught in his throat as he spun to face the voice, held the torch out at arm’s length. At the edge of the light, a pale-skinned man with thick, glowing red veins tracing their way through his flesh stared back, grinning from the throne of bones he was perched on. Jonas swallowed. Dana blinked, suddenly curious.

“How lucky,” The stranger continued, unfolding from his rotting throne like a long, wooden snake. “How lucky you are to have found the worst of them first, wouldn’t you say?” He grinned again, and in the flickering light, his teeth were like vicious razors, long and straight, narrow and brutal.

“Dana.” Jonas hissed, panting in fear. “Get behind me.” Dana looked up silently, shook her head. “Go, Dana!”

“Oh, but she isn’t afraid of me, are you, little Dana?” The man asked, veins pulsing. Dana stared back blankly, watching him even as he looked up, met Jonas’ eyes again. “Its been so very long since I’ve had guests. Please, stay for dinner.” Jonas repressed a shiver at the twinkle in his eye.

“We can’t.” He bumbled, taking a step backward. “We promised my mother, you see, that- -“

“Oh, I’m sure that your mother wouldn’t mind if you stayed for dinner.” He licked his lips, took a step toward Dana, held out his hand, grinned wider as the little girl simply looked at it. “Look, little Dana isn’t afraid of me. Would you like to stay for dinner, little Dana?”

“Don’t, please.” Jonas reached out, pulled back suddenly as the stranger hissed at him. “Dana, don’t look into his eyes.”

But Dana did look into his eyes, and as the spindly man-creature reached out for her, she reached back in turn, running a single hand along his waxen, weathered cheek. The stranger hesitated, and then the entire cave was filled with blinding light, a cascade of brilliance that blasted the stranger into oblivion, left only Jonas, staring on in wide-eyed shock, and Dana, grinning, patting her belly to signify that she was full.


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Tara is a business woman who lives in upper New Hampshire with her boyfriend Max, her dog Butch and her three cats, Harry, Carrie and Mary.