Karen woke in a sweat, the peripheral of her dream slowly dissipating. Again, that smell. She took a long deep breath and groggily massaged her nose though it did not help; it never did. In fact, the nauseous stench of putrid flesh seemed to linger...
It was a late July night, and I once again found myself basking in the glow of my TV screen, a controller in one hand and a beer in the other. Empty pizza boxes, chip bags, and various other discarded remnants surrounded me as I...
I wasn’t sure what I was more surprised to discover: the ragged hole in my backyard, or the man stuck in it. The hole was a crack about eight feet long and maybe two feet thick at its widest point. It looked as if the...
I moved to a new town about a year ago. I was offered a job and was at a point in my life where I felt restless and eager all at once. A new job in a new town was exactly what I had been...
It was an incredibly hot day when I heard the knock on my door. One of those days where you close the blinds and crank the AC, trying to find relief in darkness. It had been like that all week, each day growing more and...
Two days ago, I drove up to northern Vermont to do a little hiking. I needed to get away from it all: my job, social responsibilities, the world. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone all weekend, so I picked a ten-mile trail...
I flipped through the channels, eyes glazed over, not really seeing what was on the screen. I was tired, a long workday behind me and an even longer one in front of me. I considered going to bed, but didn’t want to bring on a...
I awake in the darkness, and where I might have otherwise thought myself blind, there is a thin shaft of light piercing the solid curtain of black around me. The light is reflected through a rounded patch of glass above my head, matched with the...
Kara and Lacey were young and in love. They were also relatively broke, which tended to go along with being young. But their one-year anniversary was coming up, and both of them wanted to do something special to recognize a year of being together. “Let’s start...
It wasn’t like I was snooping. I was just out for an evening walk, and my neighbor Raul had his curtains wide open. There was light, there was movement, and I looked. Anyone would have. I wasn’t sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. Raul was...
My name is Duke. This is the story of what happened between me and Colin. We were business partners for a while; I won’t say exactly what kind of business, but yeah, it wasn’t legal, but we never killed anyone. For a while we made...
My Dearest, I hope this letter finds you doing well. I've found myself stuck in a morose languish. I hope writing to you will release its hold upon me incrementally as I've become unable to muster the energy to step outside this accursed hotel room. I...
If your child is afraid of monsters, keep it that way. I know that sounds cold, maybe even cruel, but the alternative can be far worse. Your son or daughter will go through a phase where every closet has a creature in it, and evil specters...
Dusty Creek was a dried-up old town. It had been small since its inception, and smaller still since the draft had begun. You could run in to everyone you knew within the space of one hot afternoon, and by God, you knew everyone. You knew...
You could be forgiven for thinking the greeting card industry is dying. You’d be wrong. The invention of email promised to kill the postal industry in total, but it was an empty threat. The personal touch of pen and ink is one that just can’t be replaced....
“What shall I love if not the enigma?” ―Giorgio de Chirico Part One The yellowed scrap might once have been printer paper, the cheap kind you pay five dollars for in some overly bright big-box palace of soulless depravity. I halted, stooped, and plucked it from the ground. Where...
The box was delicate and ornately decorated. As Todd Fowler held the small object, no bigger than a matchbox, he knew it would be very easy to destroy. One wrong move of his palm, a finger gripping its surface too tightly, and the tiny box would...
I stood on the rain-slicked doorstep of a refurbished two-story house just outside of the city. I looked at the take-out order in my hand, then the app on my phone to make sure I was delivering it to the right location. Through casual conversation, other...
It is with profound sadness and continued fear that I tell my story. I fear that I won’t have long and if you should chance upon my recording and I hope that you do – I’ll have explained enough that it may act as a...
The date had been awful. Their friends looked like they had fun, though. A quadruple date on a day as special as Valentine’s wasn’t anybody’s idea of romance at first, but David, being the talented salesperson he was, made quite convincing points on why it would...
