This is a story told to me by my dad about his dad, Julius Bentley, who worked as a conductor for the old Mid-Northern Railroad. My Grandpa was the conductor on a train called the Highball Mail back in the 1950s. It was a train...
My brother Sean was ten years older than me. We lived with our parents in a place called Garland, Virginia which is 40 miles southwest of Washington, DC. When Sean was in his teens, he and my parents didn’t get along at all, and after...
I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from...
It was a few weeks ago that the hay bales started creeping slowly away from the house. Every morning when I woke up, each had moved a few hundred feet from where it was before. I assumed it was pranksters with nothing better to do,...
I was going to bed. I was tired, just like you’re supposed to be. I lay down, turned the light off, and closed my eyes. And then I waited. Just like I was supposed to. Falling asleep is a little like standing on the shores...
I cupped my face in my hands and exhaled slowly, sweat dripping from flushed skin. My hair hung from my scalp like golden seaweed, swaying gently in the sun. I felt sick. The sun filtered in through the blinds like baked color, a slather of...
First her husband went, then all the flowers in the garden followed. I felt bad for her, you know? You try to be friendly in this neighborhood, get to know the people who live only a few feet away from you in any direction. You try...
ENTRY 1 My name is Jason. I live in the suburbs of a small city on the east coast. I’m not sure I want to say where exactly. Something is happening and I think it’s important for me to write this down. I live alone in...
I lie on my bed, staring at my sliding glass door. It was late, probably well past midnight. I couldn’t sleep. That seemed to be a recurring issue ever since I moved into my new apartment two weeks ago. It was a small studio apartment,...
“Maybe the world would be better off without you.” These were words I never expected to hear from my therapist. Up to that point, she had always been on my side, despite the many flaws that made up my character. I had fleeting thoughts of suicide,...
“Neon signs are bug zappers for barflies, used to lure in the weak-minded and kill them on the drink.” This was the lecture my mother gave often throughout my childhood. Her distrust of bars and drinking was understandable, she’d lost a husband to them. Eventually, she’d lose...
Something is changing the people in my apartment building. I don’t know how better to describe the present phenomena rather than to explain, as simply as I can, that they come back different. When they speak, their eyes never move, never leave for a second, piercing, dwelling shadow orbs...
The pregnancy had not been unplanned. In fact, we had planned our entire lives around the pregnancy… patiently acquiring degrees and job titles until we were financially secure enough to start trying. Then, the careful charting of Anna’s cycles, and the dutiful love-making, even if we...
8Why would you tell a five-year-old kid such a fucked up tale? Ever since the memory of my fifth birthday came back to me, this is the question I’ve kept asking myself. But I don’t have the answer. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised. Given the...
There are few attractions that I would consider to be more inherently creepy than the Haunted Mansion. It’s a ride inside of the “Happiest Place on Earth” that is literally built around the theme of death and people have really grown to really love the...
I’m really at the end of my rope here. No, check that. I was at the end of my rope weeks ago. Now I’m sort of clinging to the side of the cliff by one bloody fingernail. I didn’t even know that you could get banned from calling...
August 8th, 1991 The cultists calling themselves “Baal-Daeva’s Truth” had become so efficient at home invasions that neither of Samantha’s parents were able to call the police before they died. The firefighters with Engine 21 were the first emergency responders on the scene, and I was...
For months, I caught glimpses of Claira from the safety of my cubical. So beautiful, faultless. Through innocent eavesdropping and pattern recall, I unknowingly learned almost every detail of her life; when she had lunch, who her friends were, and where she would be at...
In 1989, we detected a faint call coming from the depths of the ocean. A strange cry from a massive creature, traveling alone in the vast blue waters below. At first, it sounded like an oddity, a malfunctioning hydrophone, but then we heard it again...
I recently inherited my grandmother’s house, or, technically speaking, my father did. He signed it over to me without much of a fuss. I guessed he’d never really been interested in the farm, but recently he’s started telling me about things that happened when he...
