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...
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...
Outside the wind shrieked against the window pane, the news had said that there was a blizzard headed her way. Stacey had been rushing around the house since 5 pm trying to get her bags packed. She was hoping to hit the road by seven...
“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...
PART 1 I'm not a guy who gets scared easily, but I'm also not the kind who keeps his head in the sand, if you know what I mean. When something doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right, period. I acknowledge that most of the bad...
Nobody believes in vampires. They’re just myths. Old folktales that have been bastardized by cinema, pulp horror and cheap romance. Done to death until they’re nothing but a cliché. Only children are afraid of them, which is a far cry from the fear they once...
The snow had stopped about an hour ago, but god damn, it was still a treacherous road. Mark turned up the radio, half to keep himself awake, and half to try to hear the music through the interfering static. The mountains weren’t good for the...
I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful than a cemetery in the Fall, though I love cemeteries no matter the season. There’s normally an abundance of majestically tall trees, more than you typically find in a public park, but not so many that they obstruct your...
“Welcome back to the bottom of the ninth inning ladies and gentlemen and it appears that we have yet to receive an update on the injury to the twenty four-year veteran, Bryce Harper, who was hit by that devastating fastball to start the inning and...
Jack Mckay huddled in the cold midnight street with a pale green sleeping bag encasing his lower half. Spindled trails of light reflected off the gleaming roads from damp lampposts. But the cold wasn’t what gave Jack his nightly jitters—not by a long shot. The...
