01 Mar The Watchmaster
Charles Walker Woods was a gentleman of means. In a city rapidly being subsumed by the dim fog of industry, he felt it was not just his right to stand out as a breath of fresh air—it was his duty. Were it not for people...
15 Aug Kill the Curdler
The poster was simple. Someone had done their best with it, but their best wasn’t very good. MONSTIR HUNTIRS WANTED, read the boldly misspelled words at the top. Below that was a drawing straight out of a child’s imagination. It showed a hunched creature with big,...
11 Jun Idle Thoughts
As a kid, I read a ton of sci-fi. Pulp stuff, real trash, most of it, but it inspired me. It told me that there were things out there to be discovered, that there were new worlds to open up. No matter how far we’d...
10 Jun Happy Birthday
Today’s my birthday. That’s not generally something I bring up. I don’t celebrate it. Almost no one knows when it is, and I like it that way. I don’t like being put on the spot. I don’t like the falseness of people wishing me a happy...
09 Jun To Have and To Hold
I was supposed to be at my friend’s wedding this weekend. And the thing is, maybe I was there? Only I’m pretty sure it was canceled. I went to the bride’s funeral. But—let me back up. I knew both Aldin and Petra from college. They met...
08 Jun Under Construction
I thought it was just like any other construction zone. It looked the same: same cones, same signs, same trucks. And honestly, if people would learn how to drive, I probably never would have noticed any differently. But people get stupid in the face of...
07 Jun The Depths of Trust
It had been a whirlwind romance. Hakamiah Morrison had been head over heels for Delilah from the moment he first laid eyes on her. He was not greatly skilled in the art of seduction, or indeed even conversation, so it took a few tries to...
06 Jun The Murk
Obadiah had forty different words for fog. From his fishing shack on the waterfront, he watched various fogs come and go, ebbing and flowing around the town. He needed every one of the words to describe the varied types that ran their blurry touch over...
05 Jun David Knows a Shortcut
There were three things everyone could tell you about David. The first, the one everyone noticed immediately, was that he was handsome. Like, Hollywood handsome. He had a roguish charm, too, a disarming smile that lit up his face and made everything all right. Men,...
04 Jun What is Going on at Liberty Chapel
I'm from a smallish town. In a town like that, you know everyone's business, for better or for worse. You all go to the same school, shop at the same stores, show up on Sundays at the same churches. More or less, anyway. My town had...
23 Nov Hanukkah Harry
It’s nearly Hanukkah again, the Jewish winter holiday also called the Festival of Lights. To most people, that refers to the oil that miraculously lasted much longer than it should have, keeping the eternal flame burning until more oil could be made. For me, though,...
26 Jun The Stitcher
“Are we there yet?” Nicole asked sleepily, her eyes still closed. The car bumped along the unlit two-lane country road, its motion answering her question before Corso could reply. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he teased gently. “Thought I might have to carry...
14 Jun Dambraka
If I could’ve said one thing to covid-19, had one opportunity to deliver a message that the virus could understand, it would’ve been: please don’t destroy my life. No posturing, no tough-guy stuff from me. Just a plea. Not that I think it would have...
07 Jun Musecage
Daniel’s life was going nowhere. Not dramatically nowhere; he wasn’t failing, crashing or burning. Even a negative direction would have at least been going somewhere. He was just plodding along on a perfectly flat trajectory. No gains. No losses. No change. His siblings, meanwhile, were soaring....
01 Jun The Not Yet Dead
I can’t touch people who are almost dead. It’s not a phobia, a religious thing or even a preference. I just literally can’t do it. My hands pass through them like they’re already gone. It’s horribly unnerving. You ever walk up a flight of stairs, but...
23 May The House with the Portrait
I recently bought a house in the country. I wouldn’t quite call it a country estate, but if someone else did, I wouldn’t disagree with them, either. The house covers a few thousand square feet, and it’s on 25 acres of land. Honestly, it’s a...
22 May The Day Will Come
Until recently, I was the head of the psychology department at a small, unassuming university. To protect the privacy of those still working there, I will not tell you which university it is, though I suspect you can find it in the papers. It depends...
22 May Nothing to Fear
“Tell me about the first time you remember being scared.” Duane hesitated. “It’s stupid, you know?” “Nothing’s stupid, Duane,” Dr. Earles gently admonished. Earles was a balding man in his early sixties, with thin glasses and a neatly-trimmed, mostly white beard. He very much looked the part...
21 May Shortcut
“And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” – Book of Revelation 6:8 “Alert: traffic ahead. Estimated travel time has increased by 15 minutes.” Simon sighed and drummed his fingers on his steering wheel....
21 May This is Taylor
911 gets three kinds of calls. There’s the “someone needs help” call, obviously. That’s the sort that most of our training deals with, and it’s the kind that everyone pictures first when they think of 911. You could, if you wanted, subdivide these calls into...