Release date: November 16, 2016
Subgenre: Cozy fantasy, Ghost stories
About The Cursed Arm of Driftwood Beach:
A disembodied arm terrifies a seaside
town…
Strange things keep
happening in the permanently fog-shrouded seaside town of Hallowind Cove,
earning it the nickname "Harbour of the Weird".
When
a beachcomber finds a giant wooden arm on the beach, the people of Hallowind
Cove are excited about a new addition to the town museum’s collection.
But
the wooden arm has a mind of its own – and the tendency to go walkabout by
night…
This is a short story of 2400 words or
approximately 10 pages in the Hallowind Cove series, but may be read as
a standalone.
Excerpt:
Near the fog shrouded seaside town of Hallowind Cove, commonly known as the harbour of the weird, lay a stretch of shore named Driftwood Beach. It was called that because due to a quirk of the currents, half the flotsam and jetsam in the ocean tended to wash ashore at Driftwood Beach.
The people of Hallowind Cove had been taking advantage of the curious properties of Driftwood Beach for centuries, collecting the flotsam and jetsam that washed onto their shores. Of course, most of it was junk — driftwood, kelp, sea beans and drift seeds, fishing nets and bits of rope, torn sails and broken bottles, seashells and sea glass polished by the waves and the sand and — in modern times — a lot of plastic junk. But occasionally, something useful would wash onto the Driftwood Beach, such as the cargo of a ship lost at sea or even a whole wreck, only to be promptly salvaged by the good people of Hallowind Cove.
In day of old, a few of the not so good people of Hallowind Cove decided to increase the supply of useful flotsam and jetsam washing ashore and created some wrecks of their own via false lights on the cliff tops. In time, the people of Hallowind Cove stopped engaging in wrecking, since the practice gave the town a bad name. And should they ever be tempted to start again, there was a vengeful and undead sea captain prowling the docks by night to discourage anyone who might try.
But even if the people of Hallowind Cove had given up wrecking, they never gave up combing Driftwood Beach for anything useful to salvage. And so you could spot beachcombers at Driftwood Beach almost every morning, as soon as the sun had pierced the blanket of fog that enveloped the town and its surroundings far enough that you could actually make out the treasures the waves had deposited ashore overnight.
The most successful beachcomber by far in Hallowind Cove was Don Holbrook. Every morning, steady as clockwork, Don was out at Driftwood Beach, hoping to find a treasure among the trash that had piled during the night.
Over the years, Don had found many a treasure. He’d found dozens of lifesavers and life vests, wine crates — both empty and full, chocolate cookies — sadly stale, cracked china plates, a flock of plastic rubber duckies — remnants of the great rubber ducky spill of ‘92 — dozens of sneakers, only the left ones unfortunately, hockey gloves and basketballs, car parts and diapers, cigarettes and packages of cocaine — dutifully turned over to the local police, of course — an airplane propeller, gutta-percha plates from Indonesia, the Meerschaum pipes of Dutch sailors and Spanish gold doubloons, both now on display at the Hallowind Cove Museum, and a birdcage with a dead parrot still inside. Once, Don had even found a cracked container that contained three brand new, chromium-gleaming motorcycles. Now that had been a really good day.
But of all the things Don had found in his many years of beachcombing, none was stranger than the giant wooden arm.
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About Cora Buhlert:
Cora Buhlert was
born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time
spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA
degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently
working towards her PhD.
Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published
stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. She is
the author of the Silencer series of pulp style thrillers, the Shattered
Empire space opera series, the In Love and War science fiction romance series, the Helen Shepherd Mysteries and plenty of
standalone stories in multiple genres. When Cora is not writing, she
works as a translator and teacher. 
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