Part I Mason Firth watched the rural highway unravel in a slow curve through brittle grass and leafless oaks, the pavement cracking into patches where frost heave had bullied its way to the surface. His truck groaned with each dip, suspension aging as poorly as his...
Part I The gravel cracked beneath the tires of the rented Jeep as it slowed to a halt, dust rising in thick orange plumes that lingered in the still air before dissipating into the mid-afternoon glare. The sun was high over the rim of the ravine,...
Part I Dr. Neal Farrow stepped down from the rust-scorched cab of the Hilux, his boots sinking slightly into the orange dust as the wind carried dry grains in lazy spirals across the barren flat. The engine idled for a moment longer before the driver cut...
Part I The iron gate at the edge of Charlotte Street let out a brittle screech as Camille Wren pressed it inward with her forearm, careful not to let her suitcase topple sideways against the uneven brick. The fence, once black, now bore the fading bronze...
Part I There was something in the tape that defied explanation. Claire Morse had watched it more than a dozen times since the envelope first arrived, but each viewing stirred the same unease—an itch at the base of her neck, a vague stirring behind her eyes....
Part I The storm rolled in heavy over the Gulf, carried on winds that scraped shingles off rooftops and bent palm trees at the waist. Rain lashed the streets of Old Town, and the few people who hadn't already taken shelter had long since vanished into...
Part I The road narrowed as Kevin drove north, the trees arching overhead like clasped fingers, thick enough in places to blot out the afternoon light. With each mile, the canopy grew denser, the asphalt rougher, the shoulder swallowed by the unchecked growth of grass and...
Part I The package arrived without a return address. Wrapped in weathered brown paper and sealed with twine that left rust-colored streaks across her hands, it had waited patiently in her mailbox, as though it had been there longer than it had any right to be. Eleanor...
Part I I hadn’t expected the house to be as quiet as it was. You’d think an old farmhouse, even one wired for utilities and insulated in the seventies, would creak or groan or do something to remind you you weren’t the only one inside it—but...
Part I It was the siren that woke him, though the sound at first didn’t register as real. It wormed its way into his half-dreaming consciousness, a drawn-out wail that ebbed and surged, pitching awkwardly between mournful and mechanical. Dennis blinked against the dark, lifting his...
Part I Michael and I had been best friends since the first week of high school. I met him in the lunch line, both of us shuffling forward with our plastic trays, silently weighing whether the nachos looked edible. He cracked a joke about the cheese...
I can’t believe I’m finally creating a record of this after so many years. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but my therapist tells me it needs to be done. She says it’s time to let go of the past and that talking about...
Part I Tom Bellamy hadn’t heard of the place before he bought the wood. Erin called him on a Tuesday morning with one of her usual leads, telling him she’d found something special—”prime old-growth oak, maybe a century old,” salvaged from a demolition site out past...
Part I The lower levels of Ashford High had been sealed off years ago, after a pipe burst during a particularly harsh winter and flooded the basement with rancid water. Mold took root, the ceilings sagged, and several classrooms on the lowest floor were condemned. Since...
Part I I’ve spent most of the last year convincing myself that what happened wasn’t my fault. But when I close my eyes, when I let myself really think—really remember—I always end up in the same place: the sound of metal screaming against asphalt, the smell...
Part I Martin Greaves arrived at the Cortland Municipal Archive just after eight on a Tuesday morning, two days after the city finally cut power to the upper floors. The building, a vast brutalist monolith set between two defunct overpasses, had been shuttered since 2007, but...
It wasn’t my fault that Albie went into the lost mine. I keep telling myself that. I guess if I really believed it, I wouldn’t have gone in after him. It was my fault that he had the lantern, after all. This all started on a...
Sarah stands in front of the house, staring up at the dirty windows and the sad roof. She remembers it looking very different, full of vibrant hues. She’s not sure whether it’s her memories coloring the paint a brighter shade of blue than it is...
I approached the Bucket of Blood pub from the other side of the street, waiting to cross after the Number 7 bus tore down the road. The neighborhood was quiet on this slow weekday afternoon, and this suited me just fine. I glanced up at the...
Part I Elliot Foster had never considered himself important enough to be noticed, let alone targeted. His work was dull, procedural—precisely the kind of job that ensured he remained anonymous in a world increasingly governed by algorithms and automated oversight. Each morning, he logged into his...
