Twenty-one years later, Paul Templeton still did not know whether in his old dream he rapes and murders his sister.
The rapist killer escapes. Nightmares torture Paul. If he didn't kill Tina, how can he witness it, dreaming he sees it happen in a mirror? Now a beautiful young woman moves into the neighbor, reminding Paul of Tina? Is the killer after her too?
Though Paul never touched Tina in an unbrotherly way, he loves her with an unbrotherly love. During her life, and for the twenty-one years since her grisly death.
Now a Thai businessman and his beautiful daughter Khamnah move into Paul's neighborhood.
Khamnah reminds Paul so much of Tina it hurts him. She too shines with the light of The World Behind. The transcendant spiritual universe where Tina lives on.
The gleaming light of Khamnah's personality and heart help Paul to ignore the skeptical gibes of the psychiatrist Jack Harrison.
But he can't forget the threat of the slasher rapist the police are looking for. Ten women in the past five months. M.O. similar to Tina's killer twenty-one years ago.
Paul fears for Khamnah's life. He dreads the possibility of history repeating itself.
That night he dreams again, but he does not see Tina's face in the mirror. Instead, Khamnah sits brushing her hair -- until the killer enters.
This short story is NOT for you if you:
1. Freak out at references to "deviant" sexuality.
2. Can not handle a description of nongratuitous rape and murder.
3. Are looking for explicit erotica to feed your own deviant fantasies.
4. Don't wish to consider the borderlines between fantasy and reality, emotional obsession and psychic powers.
5. Prefer stories about 'normal' people. (Though, at a time when 50 Shades of Grey is outselling Harry Potter in England, I for one wonder who really is normal.)
Light of Tina is a short story I think of as horror, but others might use such terms as dark fantasy, paranormal, or urban fantasy.
Genre: FICTION / HorrorIt also comes with a behind the scenes short article.
"I don't normally talk to people like this, but I like you, Paul. This is just a friendly warning. Our new Thai friend would not take kindly to a middle-aged white man messing around with his daughter."
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He slaps her, stabs her in the belly with his knife, then smashes her head with her ceramic frog. Paul gave her that heavy, bright green monstrosity because she always loved frogs. When she was six, he caught real ones for her.
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"Listen --"
"George is far too respectable to tolerate you looking at his daughter as though she were a Pat Pong whore."
Hatred like smoke off a toxic waste dump leaked from behind the mask of the psychiatrist's face. Flies of jealousy buzzed behind his eyes.
"I'll reveal your secret, Paul. I'll tell the whole world what a dirty old man you really are, losing control over a college girl less than half your age. I'll tell everyone what a creep you are on the inside. You'll be socially ostracized."
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The attacker kicks Tina's broken face, wrenches his knife from her belly, then rushes out.
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Anger steamed in Jack Harrison's guts. Resentment and frustration lurked in his brain just as certainly as a skull lay behind the flesh of his face. But Paul could not read his mind. Paul could only guess at the depth of the pit of the man's heart.
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by Paula Banda Rendón
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Author review: Thanks a lot. Are you still working on the German version? |
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German
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Already translated.
Translated by Paula Banda Rendón
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Giorgio Richetta
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Author review: My story was translated quickly. |
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Catia Fernandes
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Yaiza Barrio Parra
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Author review: She asked questions when she didn't understand something, which I appreciate. |
