“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...
Part I I have never been a superstitious man, and can honestly say that I do not believe in vampires, ghouls, demons, or anything else that those youngsters with their vivid imaginations and smartphones like to dream up. But there is one thing that happened a very...
I spent my childhood in a small town. Long, winding single-lane roads with speed limits that topped out at seventy miles per hour were common. Modest-sized houses on large lots dotted the landscape, innumerable trees providing privacy and anonymity. One of those houses was mine. ...
“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” John 3:13 CHAPTER 1 Devon, England. October 1991 The Duke’s Head pub had been derelict for two years now; boarded up, condemned; but no one missed it. It had never been a...
His name was Connor. Dustin Connor, but he never went by that name. Some called him Con or Connor. I called him Mr. Connor. Mr. Connor was the bravest and most imposing man that I and many have ever known. He stood well over six feet...
Dak and Chadwick each lit up a smoke and cracked their windows, the excitement of a good day fishing warming their spirits despite the cold wind that suddenly filled the cab of Chadwick’s truck. The sporadic raindrops that began to fall as they left the...
My grandfather would tell me stories when I was young about the time before when the world was large and the mists had yet to come. He would tell me about animals that were larger than humans and buildings that stretched into the sky. There...
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...
The “rustic cabin” was little more than a shack, sitting in the midst of the Louisiana bayou. All that led to it was a dirt road, and the dirt road wound off the main road for at least five miles before arriving here. Even calling...
My name is Clem. I grew up in a little town in south Louisiana called Chickapin, about an hour west of New Orleans and right on the edge of the deep bayou. There were channels everywhere, and you could make it from my backyard all...
“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...
“The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.” – Tucker Max Chapter 1: The Penthouse Thomas stared out over New York from the 34th floor of Manhattan Dynamics Corporate Center, amused at how he could look...
Most children say they want to run away from home but few ever do it. My brother Joey was definitely in the latter category, using the excuse of freedom and independence to constantly break our parents’ rules. He was a dreamer, an adventurer, someone that refused...
Henry never believed the stories. A marketing trick, that’s all they were, meant to lure tourists who wanted to be fooled. That’s what he told the curator, in so many words, during his job interview. The curator gave Henry a tour of the museum just after...
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...
Some said it was the moon’s glow that would hit the aged broken glass of the church’s upper lofts on certain nights. Others claimed it was merely their imagination...
It’s not on record as the drowning experiment. The official name is AQ521-G4, but I’ve chosen to call it what it truly was. It was marketed as an opportunity for people with previous experience in aquatic settings to earn high positions for coastal work, aquamarine...
