When insurance assessor Logan Pritchard takes a detour into a small Wisconsin park, he expects nothing more than a quiet evening walk before heading back to his motel. But when a ranger warns him to stay off Wolf Path after dark, curiosity wins over caution—and Logan soon discovers that the trail doesn’t lead anywhere familiar. As darkness deepens, time stops behaving, the woods rearrange themselves, and the echoes in the trees start calling his name. The further he walks, the less certain he becomes that he’s still in the same world. A grounded and haunting story of disorientation, dread, and the collapse of reality, “Never Walk the Wolf Path at Night” is a descent into the kind of darkness that watches, waits, and never forgets your footsteps ...

The following is a collection of letters and documents found by my family, all addressed to my great-great-great-grandfather. None are dated, nor are any properly signed. It can be assumed that they were written by someone after his time at the University of Memphis, due to the context of the ...

“Babe, Travis from WeNet’s on the phone,” Abby said, opening the bathroom door and letting cool air into the hot steamy bathroom. “Shit, okay.” In the shower, I’d been scrubbing the bottoms of my feet with a facecloth lathered in off-brand body wash. “Hang on.” Without choking the soap out, ...

Hayley has new highlights in her hair. A subtle caramel that I don’t notice until she stands—elegant, low-key, conceivably not too expensive. Mom would have liked it. And probably told me that I should get mine done, too. “Just the large matcha latte, Marin?” she asks. “You sure?” I nod, ...

“What’s a five-letter word for ‘type of bread’?” the old man said, looking up from his crossword and nudging his wife, who was trying to read. “Uh,” she thought, “'toast'.” “Toast…toast? That’s not a type of bread, that’s... that’s… What do you call it? I mean, like, rye.” I turned ...

Crickets — about what I expected from Em, but tonight, they were literal, and all around us. Finally, though, she spoke up: “How am I supposed to see him if he’s in it?” she asked, pressing that tiny, wrinkled face of hers into the binoculars and gritting her teeth. She had braces ...

Subject Two One Eight “Write. Anything you can remember. Anything that comes to mind.” I remember looking up from the thick orange gloves covering my hands. Staring into the dark eye holes of his mask. But in truth, when he slid the pen across the table, I didn’t even know ...

For the sake of what’s left of my life, let’s call me John. I worked on the production staff of one of the largest film awards programs in the United States. I won’t name it and don’t need to. If you watched television last night, you already know which one I’m ...

I’ve been planning this project for three years. A syndicate of investors have already provided the $200,000 in capital I needed. Why? Because I promised them a 250% return on their money. Suckers. You see, I know where I can get my hands on one hundred and twenty million dollars ...

The method goes as follows: Prepare the corpse by repairing whatever fatal injury led to the subject’s demise. Keep the body stored in a dry environment with a temperature ranging from 36.12–37.8 °C. Restrain the subject as necessary for the act of resuscitation. Isolate the subject’s DNA pattern and acquire ...

My name is Garbage. Forever will my name be carved into my head. I haunt a world of filth, piss and blood beneath a rotting sky. Every morning I rise from the putrid depths of the bay, my spectral carcass filled with foul seawater, and, lurching into the shadows, slowly ...

I leaned back, appreciating the handiwork of the birdhouse I had quite literally placed the last nail into. My eyes, squinting into the late October glow of an orange-yellow sunset, followed the horizon to the apple tree planted directly out front of my farmhouse. I spit one leftover nail onto ...

April 4th, 1991 was when I learned that listening too well can hurt you. Sometimes they forgot I was there. I learned not to remind them. Our house looked normal from the street. Small yard. Cracked driveway. A tree that dropped its leaves early every year. The paint on the ...

Approximately 334 days ago according to the Martian Calendar, NASA began to use the *Perseverance* Rover for research of the Red Planet. Thanks to the Rover, we have learned more about our distant neighbor this year than ever before.  But not all of it is for the betterment of mankind.  ...

Part I For twelve years, I have made my living translating darkness into geometry. That sounds grander than it is. Most days, it means staring at sonar returns until my eyes burn, then staring some more, coaxing meaning from noise while the rest of the world forgets that 70% of ...

Genesis For awhile now, this picture has been floating around on the internet. You’ve probably seen it by now. The photo is a simple black and white, grainy still of a young girl in the woods. The girl has a dark shadow over her face and is posing in a ...

Atheists get something of a bad rap. When a religious person hears the word, it often fills them with a sense of dread or anger. Personally, I believe this is because the possibility that the god they have dedicated their lives to being fake fills them with an empty sadness ...

When Irving Gibson first met me, he was on top of the world. His story was an interesting one, too. One of many I’ve found memorable, sure, but everyone is unique. Backgrounds, behaviors, choices and excuses—maybe I get overly invested in people, but I can’t help it. I shamelessly enjoy ...

Looking from within the woods, I could see my ex-wife’s Camaro parked outside of what used to be our house. I could also see the truck belonging to my former neighbor, Trey. The signatures on our dissolution paperwork were not even dry yet, but at this point, better him than ...