My name is John Dawson, and I was a beat cop for twenty-two years for a small town in rural West Virginia. People talk and stories get passed around, especially in small towns with few ears but big mouths. Sometimes, the people knew a crime...
Teddy Wilson rapped one knuckle against the smoked-stained glass door adorned with the worn, white letters that announced, “Martin Croker: Editor” before popping his head into the room. “You wanted to see me boss?” The man who served as his immediate supervisor for the last decade...
“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...
We live in a world where anything is possible and Dr. Dyson Lynch truly believed that. In fact, it was his credo and the science needed to make anything possible was his first and only true love. From the moment he saw his first diagram...
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...
“Did you get my story written?” Christie asked as she came through the front door just after two. Normally she wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours but apparently the schools had let out early that day for something to do with testing. She...
The second Darryl’s keys were rattling in the lock Katie was off the couch and racing to the front door. “Did you do it? Did you do it?” She was practically bouncing up and down with giddy anticipation and unwilling to give him a second to...
It was cold. Morgan woke up shivering, his breath coiling in the air before him. Why was it so damn cold? Key West was known for a lot of things but its frigid mornings weren’t one of them. Quickly pulling himself from the sheets and throwing on...
Grant could not have asked for a prettier day to drive on. He had only been driving for Uber for a couple of months now in his free time, but he enjoyed it so much it was, little by little, starting to surpass his time...
Grynnwald grabbed his son by his beaten breastplate and shook the hysterical young man, slamming him against a massive oak tree, nearly unleashing the chest-piece in the process. “Haurik!” he screamed desperately trying to break through the panic. “Compose yourself!” It took a moment for Haurik...
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a story that became well known in all the kingdoms of men. It started as a whisper in the back of ale-houses and progressed to the point of street-corner news barkers. No one...
“It’s creepy,” Dan balked. “It’s cute,” Julia countered. “Besides, it’s fun. I mean, geez Scrooge, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Dan picked up the doll and turned it over in his hands. It was the prototypical Christmas elf as imagined by Hollywood in a red onesie, Santa...
I’ve been a national park ranger for close to two decades. Protocols have changed a lot in that time. I write this just to try to keep people safe for the next time you venture to the big outdoors. Let me tell you about the last...
Jacob stumbled through the double-doors of the Atlantis Casino and into the crisp, night air; lurching to the closest decorative shrubbery where he proceeded to unload the meager contents of his stomach. He had never known this type of pain. When he was sixteen he...
I missed the scorching wind of Andalusia. How it pours sunlight onto your face, toying with eyelashes, flattening dry sand against cheeks and milling around hair. I missed the smell of the valley and that ripening softness of Muscat fluff glistening in the afternoon breeze. From...
I rested my arms behind my head, skim-reading the credits of a movie I’d just watched. After seeing them through about halfway, I lifted myself from the sofa and walked to the kitchen, stretching my arms out above me. I opened the fridge door and...
The story you are about to read is one that has been, for the last 70 years, left to wither in the hearts of those few who recall it. Of the twelve of us present that day, only I remain, and my own end is...
July 5, 2010 I don’t really know what to say. Last week, I was in a bad car crash. The doctors said that I suffered some brain injuries in the crash and that it’s a miracle that I’m not dead. They also said that I needed...
It’s just a legend. But… I suppose… that’s what most of those unbelievable things turn out to be… legends. I heard this legend from my grandmother. I asked her about it when I saw her drawing the Easter Island heads on a piece of construction paper. Actually,...
In the dark of the night, little children often feel as if they see demons in their closet, and as if someone is watching them. The inky blackness of the night changes their familiar bedrooms once the watchful sun sets below the horizon. For most...
