“That can’t be what I think it is,” I said out loud to myself. My friends and I had decided to get together at my place for some good old-fashioned fun. Our version of such includes competing in college drinking games. I’ll tell you right now...
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” --Friedrich Nietzsche There’s something looking at me in the corner of my room. I throw one bleary half-opened eye toward my ancient alarm clock in...
I’m glad you are here. Beside this fire. Isn’t this nice? How often do we, as humans, have a chance to take a moment? Just a moment to pause and look around. Especially beside the fire. As a child, I loved sitting by a campfire. ...
Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Corpus Christi, TX December 30, 2020 The mysterious artifact that doesn't exist, but everyone is still looking for, by Ben Read. Those in the know refer to it as "the item." Supposedly this secret item is worth untold riches, can cure cancer, or make the...
5/24 12:18 a.m. – Christ what a haul! I honestly don’t know how truck drivers do this day in and day out. Sitting for eons on end, bored out of your skull. Navigating legions of douchebags in minivans and SUVs who think they own the...
The sky was dark, threatening rain as Ryan got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Uncle Selwyn’s house...
My mother and I live in a relatively small Midwest town of approximately 10,000 people. In a town this small, it’s common to run into many of the same people during your daily routine, as people tend to take the same roads and have the...
The sleeping mind fascinates me, namely the nighttime hallucinations we call ‘dreams’. Because of this, I keep a journal to record every thought that passes through my brain at night. I set at least one alarm each day so that I’m able to wake up...
When a heart fell out of the medicine cabinet, Carrie Pickett screamed. Not two seconds ago, she’d wandered in, relieved herself, and opened the swing-door for her sleeping pills. Out it rolled, rebounding off the sink and against the floor with a sickening plop! The sudden movement startled...
Saturday This sounds absolutely idiotic. I know you’ve all heard this kind of thing before – someone thinks her house is haunted, everyone else assures her that she’s just paranoid, and all kinds of terror and gore follows. It’s the stuff of every campy, B-list horror...
The road is a light brown path of dirt that stretches up and down the shallow hills, running straight from end to end before becoming serpentine at its eastern end where it meets the main highway. Blades of grass struggle to break through but soon...
I opened the back door to my house, without bothering to put shoes on, and walked towards the line of trees that stood at the entrance to the forest. It was summer and the warm breeze carried with it the smell of nature, thick and...
The house I grew up in was right next to a set of busy railroad tracks. From my bedroom window, I could watch the trains roll by. There were three types of trains that used those tracks and still do to this day. There were the long,...
There was nothing strange about Amber. She wasn’t too tall or too short. She was of average height and weight. She wasn’t ugly but she wasn’t pretty either and her grades, although passing, were never top marks. She lived in an average house, with an...
My name is Mortimer Lipschitz. I know the name itself suggests otherwise, but I shit you not. That's really my name. I used to wish it wasn't. On all that's holy, I wished it wasn't. But I suppose that the name was never really the...
My grandfather on my dad’s side passed away from cancer back in 2018 at the age of 75. Unlike my mom’s parents and my dad’s mom, my two brothers, my sister and I knew very little about “Grandpa Henry”. All that we knew about him...
Growing up, or at least since the mid-two thousands, my house always had an Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season. If you don’t know, Elves on the Shelf are these little elf dolls that are supposed to be scouts for Santa Claus. I...
My life hasn’t been what most would consider to be… great. As you will read, I have always had terrible luck. I was an infant when a drunk driver decided one night that he wanted to drive on the wrong side of the road at...
Teddy Wilson rapped one knuckle against the smoked-stained glass door adorned with the worn, white letters that announced, “Martin Croker: Editor” before popping his head into the room. “You wanted to see me boss?” The man who served as his immediate supervisor for the last decade...
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a story that became well known in all the kingdoms of men. It started as a whisper in the back of ale-houses and progressed to the point of street-corner news barkers. No one...
