Warrior Biting my cheek, I glance up at the clock on the wall. The minute hand crawls out from behind one of the bars protecting its face. Quarter till three. The lead ball that’s been sitting in my chest since Mariana dropped me off falls to...
On March the third, 1984, Detective Hjalmarsson of the Houghton Police Department acquired a stack of papers, freshly typed, from a deserted hotel room on the second floor of the Best Western, overlooking the canal. A thirty-two-year-old man, James H. Kowalczyk, had rented the room...
1 She stared at the detail of the concrete work. Reaching out, her fingers lightly touched the surface and found it to be very smooth. Every imperfection of the model’s body was detailed as if the sculptor knew her intimately. From the dimple in her chin...
1 My mom told me about Dad’s quirky habit of sleeping under the bed when he was young. My dad was a tough cookie, so hearing such a thing about him made it hard to believe. I guess his father had been in the Navy. Mom...
Divine Word of the Holy Trinity Commune – Utah March 17th, 2023 St. Patrick’s Day “And so the Lord said to them…” Pastor John stopped mid-sentence, his eyes on the door to the church, or more so the man that opened it and stood in the doorway looking down...
Charles Walker Woods was a gentleman of means. In a city rapidly being subsumed by the dim fog of industry, he felt it was not just his right to stand out as a breath of fresh air—it was his duty. Were it not for people...
Drew parked in the grass to make sure he was leaving plenty of room for the rest of his family. There were far too many of them as far as he was concerned and they would all be here. They never missed a Christmas or...
It is the smell that Dachery notices first. A sour odor, not quite spoiled but somewhat acidic, wafts through the air. It joins the thick artificial popcorn butter and the sucrose of cotton candy to make a nauseating maelstrom of humidity that permeates through the...
Bertram couldn’t be sure how long Emeline had been dead. She'd been in the bathroom, taking one of her late afternoon soaks. He hadn't heard a peep out of her since she'd turned off the faucets over an hour ago. He didn’t think much about...
“Look darling, isn’t the snow beautiful tonight?” She said nothing, simply remaining stiff in the aged wooden chair. He smiled and continued to sip from his mug of hot chocolate. He found her cold, silent demeanor adorable, one of a number of things he had come...
Let me tell you a true story that I made up. You heard it right. I might not have witnessed it unfurl, I might not have heard it secondhand, thirdhand, or twenty-seventhhand. No one can even prove it happened just the way it did. But I...
Something is wrong with Sleigh Town—Roni knew that much about it. During the pre-covid era of twenty-eighteen, I was hired as a night security guard for a park in our town, right on the cusp of December. Since its grand-opening in the seventies, the acres were established...
This whole thing started with a Rubik’s Cube. Once I learned the algorithm and figured it out, I was able to solve it in record time. I competed in a tournament or two, but eventually, I started to get bored. It became too easy for...
Eight months ago, my life changed forever. I couldn’t tell you what the weather was like that day, what I had for breakfast, or even the first song I heard on the radio before I left the house. In fact, I can’t honestly remember any...
Staring out the apartment window I saw them. This sent a tingle down my spine as I watched them go about their malicious activities. I turned to my companion and glared. “So, you think you have all the answers?” “Never said I did.” “On the contrary, you’ve...
The rank aroma of something rotted, like maggot-infested roadkill underneath the blistering summer sun, slams into his nostrils. No, it smells like the spoiled packages of hamburger he discovered in the refrigerator after his mother’s death. Stifling the gag reflex, he waves his arms to...
For the first time in his short life, Tommy had seen – no – Tommy had been given a magical gift -a miracle. The items themselves weren’t that special – two quarters and a piece of bubble gum - it was the fact of them,...
The poster was simple. Someone had done their best with it, but their best wasn’t very good. MONSTIR HUNTIRS WANTED, read the boldly misspelled words at the top. Below that was a drawing straight out of a child’s imagination. It showed a hunched creature with big,...
Shorty Small, a man neither short nor small, slept fitfully. With the covers thrown off, perspiration continued to soak his pillow and sheets. The woman who slept next to him grew concerned and gently shook his shoulder. “Shorty, wake up.” Disoriented, he mumbled something unintelligible and his...
Fog shrouded the old suspension footbridge crossing the ravine. Visibility stretched only twenty feet in any direction magnifying the isolation Dakota Storm already felt. The muffled sound of water rushing over rocks and boulders seventy-five feet below could be heard. Otherwise, the world remained silent. He...
