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...
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....
Doctor Luna Valdez swallowed nervously as the elevator descended into the heavily fortified sublevels of the Dreadfort Facility. She was heading all the way down towards the bunker, and they didn’t keep anything good down there. It was made entirely of thick, reinforced concrete and...
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...
“Crow!” Eli called out to his companion in a hushed tone. He could see nothing beyond the faint ring of light their campfire was casting among the dense forest of pines. Eli’s friend, Dead Crow, a Cheyenne Indian did not answer. He wasn’t terribly worried...
I’ve always found dead bodies fun to play with. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated. The way the skin changes color, and the body deflates like it’s been emptied out. How the eyes always creep open the teeniest bit when you really...
My pursuit for the occult and arcane lead me to London in the year 1646, wherein a new bridge was planned to cross the river at Tower Hill and near the growing fame of Shakespeare’s theatre. I, on the other hand, to save myself from...
To understand the value of an hour, one must first cherish its passing, and what more profound a way than the slow, inevitable tick of minutes to measure the descent of your demise. To understand why I cherish this hour above all else, I must...
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...
“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...
I’m here to make a confession. I don’t know if it’ll help, if anything’ll help at this point, but I’m out of ideas and out of time. So here goes. A year ago, I was at a party, a decent-sized shindig, bunch of working folks letting...
I am going to tell you a story. This isn’t a pleasant tale yet it does contain elements of happiness and love. However, it is mostly and most unfortunately permeated with an abundance of terror and hopelessness. I do hope that you are not faint-hearted...
When children wish to go into the corn-fields to pluck ears or gather the blue corn-flowers, they are warned not to do so, for “the big Dog sits in the corn.”— The Golden Bough by James Frazer The detective stood leaning against the wall in the...
I still get flashes before I open my eyes in the morning. The air was cold; it carried with it a moisture that seemed to settle right into your lungs with each breath. At times, a strong gust of wind could feel like ice crystals settling...
It was all I could do not to vomit when my mother-in-law proudly set the roast down in front of us, its meat glistening brown on the kitchen table. “Doug, are you alright?” my wife Maxine whispered, making sure her parents couldn’t hear. She hadn’t...
Karen woke in a sweat, the peripheral of her dream slowly dissipating. Again, that smell. She took a long deep breath and groggily massaged her nose though it did not help; it never did. In fact, the nauseous stench of putrid flesh seemed to linger...
I wasn’t sure what I was more surprised to discover: the ragged hole in my backyard, or the man stuck in it. The hole was a crack about eight feet long and maybe two feet thick at its widest point. It looked as if the...
Kara and Lacey were young and in love. They were also relatively broke, which tended to go along with being young. But their one-year anniversary was coming up, and both of them wanted to do something special to recognize a year of being together. “Let’s start...
It wasn’t like I was snooping. I was just out for an evening walk, and my neighbor Raul had his curtains wide open. There was light, there was movement, and I looked. Anyone would have. I wasn’t sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. Raul was...
My name is Duke. This is the story of what happened between me and Colin. We were business partners for a while; I won’t say exactly what kind of business, but yeah, it wasn’t legal, but we never killed anyone. For a while we made...
