There weren’t ever any stories about the forest. It wasn’t haunted. It wasn’t sacred ground. It wasn’t anything except a bunch of pine trees, and whatever grows under pine trees. Mostly smaller pine trees, as I recall. Pine trees tend to kill off anything else...
Act I: The Conflict Theater 201 — School of the Art Institute of Chicago —Professor Robert Wellers “Class—listen up, please. Who would be the first to show me you’ve actually done your reading assignment and tell me what the ‘4th wall’ means in stage terminology?” I tapped my...
My wife Abby and I have a nightly routine at our house that begins around 8:30 or so, starting with putting our son Hunter to bed. We take turns lying him down and reading him a story. He’s just turned seven, but it’s still difficult for...
Part I Michael adjusted the rearview mirror for the third time in two minutes, watching his 8-year-old son, Aidan, fiddling with a worn strap on his tattered blue tote bag. The bag, stitched by his ex-wife Hannah years ago, was barely holding together. The seams were...
My aunt was a con artist, and she learned from the best – her father. Grandpa never made it big, but he lived for the game. Staying under the radar was probably what made sure he never did get caught. Not once. He was so...
Trapped aboard a starship under siege by relentless alien invaders, Pvt. Edmund and Commander Rathburne must rely on their wits, willpower, and each other to survive. With time running out and danger closing in, the two soldiers face an impossible challenge: breach an impenetrable door...
I imagine that the folks in the city didn’t see anything at all. Out here we’ve got fewer lights. The sky’s a lot clearer at night. Gives a man something to think about, looking up at all that space. I know it’s no deep philosophy,...
My family has a bit of a rocky history. My grandmother had some troubling religious beliefs, which drove a wedge between her and my mother. We couldn’t celebrate any major holidays together, so the only time I saw my grandmother was on my birthday. However,...
It was August 9, 2010. I was thirty-eight years old. My oldest daughter, Avis, was twelve, and the younger pair, my twins Joanne and John, were nine. I’d been married for fifteen years. I worked at an insurance firm. And every Sunday, while my wife...
Amanda was standing in the darkness, beating her fists against the refrigerator door. The commotion had wrenched me out of a deep and dreamless sleep. When I’d crept down the hall to investigate, I’d had panicked thoughts of intruders, stealing into the house to gut my...
I hate interviews. I hate the DMV. I hate that they summoned me. And yet here I am, wasting an entire day sitting alone in an empty lobby, waiting. The Demonic Management of Villainy. I glare up at the counter. I shouldn’t be here. I...
Seeking refuge from a world that no longer feels like his own, Samuel Reid takes on the lonely post of lighthouse keeper at St. Eris, perched above a desolate sea. But the lighthouse’s glow is more than a beacon for ships—it’s a barrier against the...
Moving to the idyllic suburbs of Chester County seemed like a dream come true, until strange lights began appearing above the pine trees. At first dismissed as rumors of advanced drones, one man's unsettling encounter reveals something far more enigmatic and terrifying. As strange occurrences...
Seeking a fresh start in his small Midwestern hometown, Caleb hopes to leave his troubles behind and find peace. But when a chance detour leads him down Briar’s Bend, a road steeped in local legend, he becomes entangled in a chilling mystery. Drivers whisper of...
When Rick is awakened by his son’s midnight cries, he dismisses them as the product of an overactive imagination. But in the dim light of Desmond’s bedroom, he finds something far stranger—a massive, unnatural wasp nest that seems to have appeared overnight. As Rick and...
In a village suffocated by fear and bound by an unholy pact, four men dare to defy the darkness that controls their every moment. With resources dwindling and hope slipping away, they hatch a dangerous plan to break free from the iron grip of their...
Part I Henry Ashford sat alone in his small, dimly lit apartment, staring blankly at the television, though he hadn’t registered anything on the screen in hours. The dull, relentless whine in his ears drowned out any hope of following the plot of whatever movie he’d...
Mike Gilbert paused before driving under the deer skull. Carved vines twisted along the arch at the entrance to Undergrove Salvage, with the bone-white skull centered at the top. He flicked a cigarette butt onto the road, then stepped on the gas. His Ford F-150...
Part I Alright, let me start with this: I’m not here to rant about technology or preach about privacy or whatever. I’m not even here to convince you not to download DreamShare—I know most of you probably already have it. But if you haven’t…well, you might want...
Some things you see, you can’t unsee, no matter how hard you try. I’ve spent months replaying that afternoon in my head, asking myself if it was even real. But every time I close my eyes, I remember Donovan—what happened to him. How fast it...
