For the fourth day of the TWELFTH NIGHT anthology, some chick named Raine Weaver has penned a free short story.

It’s called “Stroking Midnight”, and it’s the story of a young woman who, on the brink of a new year, decides to confront her personal demons.
Literally.

I’ve posted a very brief excerpt after the cut, and the complete short can be found in pdf form for reading or downloading HERE.

“Calvary?” Her aunt turned sharply away. With one hand at her throat, she used the other to hold Callie’s arm in a death-grip. “Oh my God, Callie, are you seeing this?”

Calvary sighed and swiveled to look, expecting another elaborate Sunday-go-to-meeting hat. It was a standard competition between the ladies of the church, seeing who could come up with the most outrageous bonnet. In the year since she’d arrived she’d seen everything from emu feathers to tie-dyed sheep shearings.

This, however, was not about a hat.

What was making its way down this particular aisle at this particular time had no damn business in a church. No business at all.

He walked through the center of the New Jericho Church with his head held high and a confident swagger, as if he owned the place. Six-foot three inches of broad shoulders and muscled tee bore a gray frock coat down the aisle, drawing the attention of every woman in the sanctuary.

Callie gawked in astonishment, watching every determined step he took toward the pulpit. The guy was a magnificent piece of work. He had the kind of short, trim beard that she loved on a rugged jaw, a perfect complement to the shaggy black hair that waved over his upturned collar. An inexplicable magnetism radiated from him that forced her to smother a schoolgirl sigh, even as his narrow eyes remained focused straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the gathering.

Rita’s cane clattered to the floor, the only sound in the eerily silent church as she twisted to watch. “He walks as if he belongs,” she murmured. “Here, among the living.”