Garbage lined the quiet street with dirty papers, bottles, and cans. One trash bin tipped on its side with a wretched smell of old beer and cigarettes from behind a bar that overlooked a small alley. A slight breeze blew down the run-down alleyway of...
A gunshot went off seemingly from nowhere, but it was from one of the officers at the young girl’s site, me. Mr. Whimpley’s head lay at his daughter’s feet, brains lying across her feet and up her muddy legs. Her body was thin, and she looked...
Three years ago, I was in a class of highly respected magicians. Every sleight of the hand, trick of the lightning I have seen and replicated. I once even won a large sum of money on one of those television programs as a runner up. I...
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the hurt I caused. I’m sorry I lied to you Barbara about who I was. I’m sorry, Jack and Mary. Your dear old dad let you down. I know you thought your daddy was perfect and could do no...
My father only hit me one time. Open palm across my jaw when I was 7. Once in my life. Been 40 years, but I can still feel it. The sound of the slap, the sting and the shock. I’m sitting now right where it happened. At the...
His voice was like silk. It could move you through the confines of your world without even trying. Every breath, every sigh was like a longing that came from a faraway place. His hypnotic, serene, and at times erotic overtones crooned across the audience moaning and...
The lore behind Porkrind Gulch is as old and dusty as the desert it sits in. A relic from the Old West, Porkrind Gulch’s economy revolved around, as the name implies, porcine products. Anything swine had to offer, from the meat to the hooves to even...
So, like I was saying, genetics aren’t very kind. They either go all into your brain or all into your body. The latest Facebook quiz told me that I’m the reincarnation of Stephen Hawking. I could have told you that. Why else would I have gotten...
That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. —Friedrich Nietzsche These weren’t like the old days, Jerfastilhak mused. No. In this black age nothing like that peace could be found. They had pain-birds now, killing-birds. Great screaming, swooping demons that raked the...
Just over a 100km north of Inverness, Scotland in the small village of Braemar, on the Berriedale River, lived a Gaelic-speaking people of approximately 800. Raising cattle, farming and being good neighbors was the village’s primary mission statement. Winters remained dark and bitter but pints...
“Damn it, Jess, you told me this place was abandoned! I’m out,” I cursed as I turned my back to the stately, well-kept house that was very obviously not abandoned, making me lose whatever nerve I thought I had. Jess and I were what you...
Cherise’s high heeled boots clicked more heavily than usual against the marble tile of the Avalon View Luxury Apartments’ lobby, as she was weighted down by several bags of groceries. She wasn’t accustomed to doing her own food shopping, but the service she normally used...
Every neighborhood has one. That creepy, old house that nobody wants to go near. They’re usually surrounded by overgrown trees and bushes. Parts of the siding have fallen to the ground due to neglect from whoever lives there. Dusty, old windows around the house only...
Every day on the bus ride to school through the country, I would see it: the Mommet. That’s what we all called it, but no one seemed to know who had called it that first. The Mommet was an old scarecrow, sitting atop the shallow...
I live in a small coal town on the Ohio river. Our community is pretty well crime free. Since we’re on the river, most disappearances are chalked up to people drowning and getting washed downstream. I want to keep track of my research, and this...
Nash paused for a moment to look up from the unlit, pothole-ridden street to the crumbling shell of an office building towering over him, just to make sure he’d really seen it. And there it was again; a flicker of white and grey light from a...
So, this one… this is the beginning of the most terrifying paranormal thing that ever happened to me. Technically, this should be titled “The Doll” since it spans several years, and several locations, and the central theme is a ventriloquist dummy I got as a...
I have an obsession with a woman. She’s a wild child. As unpredictable and dangerous as a boar. As potent as a viper. She’s the kind of woman kids and drunks made legends about. The kind that’ll promise curses to those who trespass against her....
My daughter Dharma is six. She’s rowdy and fearless. Dauntless, even. Since she’s been old enough to walk, she’s been drawn to the water. There’s one particular spot in the lake that she’s always been drawn to. We live in the woods on the edge...
The smoke in the air stung their eyes, but all eight men were fixated on the hulking figure at the head of the table. He seemed unaffected by the cigars’ haze, peering angrily through it at his subjects. All nine men held each other with...
