Drac’s head had been bashed to such an extent that he was barely recognizable. He was Zack’s firstborn and the one he adored more than any of his other children. He’d just turned ten when his mutilated body was discovered lying on the floor of...
She stopped as her legs ached from hours of walking. She had come far. Very far. The day and night seemed to intertwine, never being distinct, if there could be said to be a circadian movement in the subtly shifting gray above at all. There...
The following is a collection of letters and documents found by my family, all addressed to my great-great-great-grandfather. None are dated, nor are any properly signed. It can be assumed that they were written by someone after his time at the University of Memphis, due...
“Babe, Travis from WeNet’s on the phone,” Abby said, opening the bathroom door and letting cool air into the hot steamy bathroom. “Shit, okay.” In the shower, I’d been scrubbing the bottoms of my feet with a facecloth lathered in off-brand body wash. “Hang on.” Without choking...
Hayley has new highlights in her hair. A subtle caramel that I don’t notice until she stands—elegant, low-key, conceivably not too expensive. Mom would have liked it. And probably told me that I should get mine done, too. “Just the large matcha latte, Marin?” she asks....
“What’s a five-letter word for ‘type of bread’?” the old man said, looking up from his crossword and nudging his wife, who was trying to read. “Uh,” she thought, “'toast'.” “Toast…toast? That’s not a type of bread, that’s...
Crickets — about what I expected from Em, but tonight, they were literal, and all around us. Finally, though, she spoke up: “How am I supposed to see him if he’s in it?” she asked, pressing that tiny, wrinkled face of hers into the binoculars and gritting her...
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....
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,...
