When I was growing up my family had issues with trespassers. Not something you expect to deal with when your home sits along the shores of a secluded lake hidden deep within the woods. Even more surprising when your neighbors are all members of your...
When Carson first noticed the sounds in his cellar, he ascribed them to the rats. Later he began to hear the tales which were whispered by the superstitious Polish mill workers in Derby Street regarding the first occupant of the ancient house, Abigail Prinn. There...
“How much longer till we reach the campsite?” Archer pursed his lips as he thought. “I dunno, maybe another hour, maybe two...
James was an eight-year-old boy with the heart of a dog and the energy of a hummingbird. His mother died when he was only five, so he lived with his grandmother, Babcia. They were very poor: their house was a tiny, dilapidated thing, with a...
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of my father’s death, taken away by a single, senseless act. It just so happens that today is also my birthday. He’d been working late. As he often did, regardless of birthdays or holidays. I understood it was a painful memory...
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...
“Do not go outside! Ignore all cries for help, no matter how human they sound!” shouted Alex’s dad. He pulled the cellar door over and paused to look back. “And lock this door behind me.” The door slammed shut. Alex locked it, walked down the stairs...
You’re probably like me, skeptical of all things unexplained. Never in my life have I believed anything that doesn’t have a logical explanation, even if it means I have to string together the most tenuous logic just to make something reasonable. This is me. Why...
I found out about him through a friend. I guess that’s how most people find out about him. I guess it’s sort of awful, if you think about it. It would make more sense if your worst enemy told you about him. His name is Robbie....
From the moment she learned to walk, little Myrtle dreamed of becoming a tap dancer. She would totter through the house, her chubby bare feet slapping arrhythmically on the hardwood, her squeaky voice calling out “Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!” like tap shoes on a stage. When her second-grade teacher...
Warren hated that old house. It was coming up on two years since he'd bought it. Everything in it creaked and leaked, from the basement to the roof, and everything between. It had bare, wooden floors that warped and leaned at crooked angles. Bathrooms wallpapered in...
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 Original Sin We were just open-minded kids. We wanted to see as much of the world as possible. God forgive us; we didn’t mean to deceive anyone. We didn’t mean to give that creature a whiff of our scent, but we did. I’m sure now...
I used to think of Hell as a faraway place. For those of you out there who still hold that belief, this piece of my life is for you. Don’t ask me why I’m doing this; I’m honestly not sure. My therapist says writing about our...
Walter was cool. Walter was tough. Walter was 13 years old. As the only teen on his block all the other kids that lived on Revenant Falls Lane were in awe of Walter. They were especially ravenous for the kinds of stories he could tell them that his...
My name is Henry Himura. I work for a large law firm situated near downtown Los Angeles. We’ve handled some of the biggest, most controversial cases in the last two decades and have built quite a name for ourselves. I am using a pseudonym, because,...
“Come on, Jim, you know it’s going to suck.” I didn’t nod, though I wanted to. Mark was right, as usual. Most of camp had sucked, to be honest. Tom, on the other hand, tried once more to be the voice of reason, even as he tugged...
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,...
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...
