🏆 Top-Ranked Stories (Sorted by Average Rating)
The Jackdaw
My hands were wet and clammy as I looked through the binoculars (field glasses, my mother used to call them), making the subtly curved view ...
Trail Magic
I’ve received copies of the recent writings and recordings of Matthew Calder. I say “copies” because the originals are still in police custody in connection ...
It Had Three Mouths
The night was quiet until we got the call that three men were beating a homeless person to death. Dispatch called two patrol units along ...
Never-Ever-Ever
I used to go hiking to clear my mind. It was nothing extraordinary. No backpack, no walking stick, no geo-locator app on my phone - ...
Waken Farm
I met the old man at a Bojangles restaurant. I was about sixteen at the time and had just dropped out of high school with ...
Those Wise Eyes
“Look out for their eyes, Mom. That’s the first thing you’ll see.” Standing in the middle of a forest in the dead of a winter’s ...
Ideal Beauty
Dusk had only just settled over the vacant crop fields of Goochland County, a vast, rural, farming area just west of Richmond, VA. The sky ...
Never Cage a Magpie
Part 1 A single white rose quietly fell from her slim young fingers. I looked down and saw it had landed on the dark walnut ...
The Stranger in the Ditch
“In the end, people will not be judged by the darkness they lived in, but the light they rejected.” — Anthony Liccione CHAPTER 1 Dartmoor, ...
It Came From the Forest
“The world is full of monsters with friendly faces” — Heather Brewer It’s been almost thirty-five years since Danny’s gruesome murder, and the killer has ...
Nocturnal Pursuits of the Elderly
Saturday night. It seemed to take forever to come around. I can hardly bear it, my head buzzing like a kid on Christmas Eve, goosebumps ...
Dark Skies Trampoline Park
I first heard the name “Gravity Sphere” uttered at an awards ceremony for my seven-year-old son Joey. The assistant principal, a hefty forty-something woman named ...
