Promise Valley was nestled in the valley below, tucked in quietly at the edge of the Rocky Mountains. As I eased my horse down the rough trail leading to the settlement, the place looked as serene as could be. It made the missive from my...
The lantern on my desk flickered and then went out, drenching the cabin in a tar-like darkness. I cursed quietly to myself. It seemed only the day before that I had filled the lamp, and I’d been ashore since. Carefully I placed my quill into...
They were gone. The call left me stunned, sick to my stomach. How did people go missing in today’s world? How did two perfectly capable adults vanish off the face of the earth in a place where everyone knew everything about the folks who lived...
“I don’t want the cops up here snooping in my stuff.” Brian’s voice told me he was angry almost as much as he was worried. Things were out of his control, and he never liked that. “Your wife and daughter are missing. Now isn’t the best...
“The first reported incident was an alleged homicide in which a man killed five people in the master bedroom, dissected them in a meticulous fashion and vanished with the lungs, vocal chords, and epiglottis of all five of the five victims. The killer, a man...
“I don’t know, man, the cabin is really far out there and you’d be alone until Sunday.” “Alright, If it’ll help you get over this thing with Sam you can stay at the cabin for the weekend. Just, you know, you remember what it’s like. Things...
“I need to see the Wizard King,” I told the wraith who guarded the King’s tower. The entity observed me, standing motionless near the door it guarded. The human elements were wrapped in gray cloth that seemed to sway as though floating in water, tugged at...
“This doesn’t look safe.” I looked into the cave that cut into the side of the massive round hill. Above it, a tree had grown roots downward trying to fill up the void, but it had instead simply created a fanciful framing, like something out...
Plummeting through the sky in freefall as fire licks up around you, trying its damnedest to erase you from existence, never gets easier. I was old enough to have forgotten more drops than I remembered, but that feeling of your stomach trying to crawl up...
Brent was killed by a slice of toast fired at high velocity from an evil, sentient toaster. It blasted a hole right through his chest and took a huge piece out of the wall behind him. We didn’t know what was happening at that point,...
“Atlas, scan Paradise Station and give me a radio lock. Prepare for broadcast.” The ship’s computer acknowledged my command with a couple blinks of light and then chirped when the com opened up. “Paradise, this is the captain of the heavy cruiser, Atlas. We currently have...
I was twenty the first time I entered the Valley of Shadows. It is a place that ruins what it touches. Madness, desolation, violence, mayhem, they’re not words of description, but words of definition. These are not the things which describe the valley. They are...
Kraken class meteor miners were top of the line one hundred and twenty years ago when they were first launched into space. The tech was good enough that all of them were still in service. They’d had upgrades over the years and all of the...
The world came back into focus. She stood motionless at the edge of the bed, watching me from beneath the decaying black shroud that covered her head. Two white, reflective orbs passed over me. I could feel the pressure of her dread gaze as it seemed...
