Subject Two One Eight “Write. Anything you can remember. Anything that comes to mind.” I remember looking up from the thick orange gloves covering my hands. Staring into the dark eye holes of his mask. But in truth, when he slid the pen across the table, I...
For the sake of what’s left of my life, let’s call me John. I worked on the production staff of one of the largest film awards programs in the United States. I won’t name it and don’t need to. If you watched television last night, you...
I’ve been planning this project for three years. A syndicate of investors have already provided the $200,000 in capital I needed. Why? Because I promised them a 250% return on their money. Suckers. You see, I know where I can get my hands on one hundred...
The method goes as follows: Prepare the corpse by repairing whatever fatal injury led to the subject’s demise. Keep the body stored in a dry environment with a temperature ranging from 36.12–37.8 °C. Restrain the subject as necessary for the act of resuscitation. Isolate the...
My name is Garbage. Forever will my name be carved into my head. I haunt a world of filth, piss and blood beneath a rotting sky. Every morning I rise from the putrid depths of the bay, my spectral carcass filled with foul seawater, and,...
I leaned back, appreciating the handiwork of the birdhouse I had quite literally placed the last nail into. My eyes, squinting into the late October glow of an orange-yellow sunset, followed the horizon to the apple tree planted directly out front of my farmhouse. I...
April 4th, 1991 was when I learned that listening too well can hurt you. Sometimes they forgot I was there. I learned not to remind them. Our house looked normal from the street. Small yard. Cracked driveway. A tree that dropped its leaves early every year....
Approximately 334 days ago according to the Martian Calendar, NASA began to use the *Perseverance* Rover for research of the Red Planet. Thanks to the Rover, we have learned more about our distant neighbor this year than ever before. But not all of it is for...
Part I For twelve years, I have made my living translating darkness into geometry. That sounds grander than it is. Most days, it means staring at sonar returns until my eyes burn, then staring some more, coaxing meaning from noise while the rest of the world forgets...
Genesis For awhile now, this picture has been floating around on the internet. You’ve probably seen it by now. The photo is a simple black and white, grainy still of a young girl in the woods. The girl has a dark shadow over her face and...
Atheists get something of a bad rap. When a religious person hears the word, it often fills them with a sense of dread or anger. Personally, I believe this is because the possibility that the god they have dedicated their lives to being fake fills...
When Irving Gibson first met me, he was on top of the world. His story was an interesting one, too. One of many I’ve found memorable, sure, but everyone is unique. Backgrounds, behaviors, choices and excuses—maybe I get overly invested in people, but I can’t...
Looking from within the woods, I could see my ex-wife’s Camaro parked outside of what used to be our house. I could also see the truck belonging to my former neighbor, Trey. The signatures on our dissolution paperwork were not even dry yet, but at this...
Just a little over a week ago, I was awoken at seven in the morning by a startling phone call from my mother. She informed me that her sister had just passed away in the hospital. For three years my aunt was battling leukemia to...
I’m a veteran detective working in a mid-size city, retirement age but not ready to rest yet. Among all of the standard assignments I’ve covered, I’ve seen my share of strange cases, only a few of which have made me struggle when it came to...
In the summer of 2025, a large house just outside of a small town in northern New Hampshire went on the market. I’d been watching and waiting for years, because it was where I grew up. I was even born there, after my mother suddenly...
“It’s just a mirror”, that phrase echoed in Elisa Smith’s mind every time her gaze fell on the blackened glass hanging in the long hallway of her grandparents’ house. The mirror was nearly her height, its opaque surface barely reflecting the outlines of the room,...
“Six. Seventeen. Nineteen. Forty-five. Twelve. And…Twenty-three,” he finished, the last of the lotto numbers rolling off his tongue, which was suspiciously dry considering the speckles of spit that now clung to the sneeze guard separating him and the attendant. He cleared his throat before wetting his...
In Milan, under the relentless sun of a summer that seemed intent on sealing the city in an endless embrace of heat, a website appeared almost by chance in the dark labyrinth of the deep web, a digital recess that very few dared to enter....
The following anonymous tip was deposited into the mailbox of the Lincoln Police Station in Lincoln, Nebraska. * * * * * * The ice cream place on the corner of N 48th Street and Vine is a front for human trafficking. It used to be called Soft Serves (and...
