I’m happy to announce that my horror short story “A Tempting Offer” has been published in Schlock! Webzine (Volume 19, Issue 6).

Read the story here for free on the Schlock! website.

You can buy the magazine here on Amazon. It is available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

“A Tempting Offer” is a Supernatural Horror story, with elements of Psychological Horror:

When Alice visits a run-down dental office for an emergency procedure, she expects nothing more than a painful root canal and a lighter wallet. But what she finds behind the clinic’s flickering lights and outdated furnishings is far more disturbing—and tempting—than she could have imagined.

“A Tempting Offer” blends creeping dread with folkloric mysticism, offering a chilling exploration of desperation, aging, and the seductive power of second chances.

I initially wrote the story in response to a first line prompt from The First Line magazine: When she was eight, Alice Henderson briefly held the world record for filling her mouth with marbles. I went back and forth on a story idea, dropped the first line, and eventually fell on the idea that became “A Tempting Offer”.

I won’t give too much of the story away, but I will just say that I was partly inspired by my visit to a very eccentric Eastern European dentist many years ago. She didn’t use an assistant and held my head in a vice grip while working on me. She definitely gave off Soviet-era shot putter vibes.

The other source of inspiration was these antique dentist chairs that I found on the internet:

That’s all for now. Chat soon!

MK