Sickness overcame Emily without warning. While we strode, arms linked, through downtown after a late movie, taking turns trashing it—Emily became silent, and stopped walking. I thought maybe she’d stepped in gum, or forgot something at the theatre, but on her face grew an expression signaling...
My wife Vicky means more to me than my own life. I’ve consulted doctors after hours, anonymous clinical helplines, even a suicide hotline for Christ’s sake. The only course of action that I have left is to release her into professional medical care. As weak...
When I first saw him standing out there on the sidewalk, I thought nothing of it. I certainly didn’t think he’d still be out there come September. I lingered at the window for just a moment, decided that the night-bound silhouette across the street was...
I don’t have a gambling problem. That’s the first thing I want known. It’s also what they all say, right? No, I’m not addicted to gambling, but I have a co-dependency issue with someone who is. I’m not the coolest guy on the block, and I’m...
Is Doctor Disrespect one of your heroes? I know he was one of mine. Yes, was. I guess I still respect the guy. But he went down one motherfucker of a rabbit hole and dragged me down with him. I’m seventeen and I wash windows. That’s why...
It was a cloudless, sapphire-blue sky that day. We had the camping trip planned for a month, and it took even longer than that for us to coordinate our vacations, so that we could all be there together. It was a reunion I had dreamed...
Nestled just off the Appalachian Trail, near the border of Virginia and West Virginia, where forests grew thick and pressed in on all sides, sat a small region known as Dry Branch. Barely more than a collection of campgrounds, Dry Branch rarely received visitors, save...
I met the love of my life on my lunch break. I was cramming a BLT into my mouth while leaning forward on the painted wooden bench in the park near my office. The weather was perfect. Lush green leaves were swaying in the whispering breeze,...
Tommy Ihlman was only seven years old when his parents bought the house on Tamara Lane. Though it was no mansion by any stretch of the imagination, the five-bedroom raised-ranch style home seemed like a palace compared to the one-bedroom studio apartment he and his...
“I know where them bodies are,” the boy said. Sheriff Burke eyed the skinny fifteen-year-old sitting in one of the two wooden chairs on the other side of his desk. He knew the kid. Knew him well enough to notice he was wearing his Sunday best,...
I have been doing this for many years. Sure I have changed schools a couple of times, had to even move states to help with my wife’s elderly parents. But I have always viewed the kids on my bus as an extension of my family. At the...
“The throat is deep, and the mouth...
My mother and I live in a relatively small Midwest town of approximately 10,000 people. In a town this small, it’s common to run into many of the same people during your daily routine, as people tend to take the same roads and have the...
I didn’t plan on staying at a motel that night. My apartment is normally a perfectly nice, pleasant, and comfortable place to stay. Unfortunately, the notice on the door of the building said we had to make other arrangements for the next two days. Why,...
When I was growing up my family had issues with trespassers. Not something you expect to deal with when your home sits along the shores of a secluded lake hidden deep within the woods. Even more surprising when your neighbors are all members of your...
“How much longer till we reach the campsite?” Archer pursed his lips as he thought. “I dunno, maybe another hour, maybe two...
It had started with a word. Ensorcell. Pollyanna had first overheard it when she was a child, playing with her Barbies in the spacious parlor as her mother prattled away on the phone to one pageant organizer or another. “She’ll absolutely ensorcell everybody, she’s a natural!”...
My sister Heather meant the world to me. She always seemed to have everything growing up. She was the homecoming queen in our small town. She graduated valedictorian of her class. She was voted Most Likely to Succeed her senior year. She was captain of...
In my hometown, there is a unique shop of oddities called “HexWorks” that I frequent. It’s an old-world boutique that specializes in niche products that I’d describe as being vintage-style with a modern spin. Their items include cloaks, pocket watches, lapels, bizarre art prints, lavish...
Screw Marvin Jenkins. The luckiest bastard in the world. Let me start at the beginning. I was born and raised in Flagstaff, second-generation blue blood. I think I first held a gun at the age of five. I known my way around these parts probably even before...
