04 Nov Every Year on My Birthday, I Have to Die
I died for the first time on the 18th of August, 2006. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant death, nor was it one that I expected. It was simply the random act of violence that destroyed my life...
01 Nov I Found a Lump on My Arm, Now We’re All Going to Die
Mortality is a weird thing. It hits you like a bag of bricks once you make it to your late twenties or early thirties. It’s about the time when your family starts getting diagnosed with all kinds of disease, heart attacks, strokes, cancer… For me, facing...
31 Oct My Job Is to Watch People Die
Once your time on this Earth ends, Death will greet you like an old friend. Whether you embrace it with fear, hatred, or acceptance, is a question that cannot be answered before you stand at its door. I can’t tell you what comes next, nor can...
30 Oct You’ve Seen the Butcher
Hello. If you’re listening to this then I’ve been found, and there will be questions. Oh yes, questions aplenty. I’m sure the first of which will be ‘Why?’ And that is a great one to start with but it’s also the one which doesn’t have an answer....
28 Oct Death Before Disco
“Hey, Red. Bum a smoke?” She was standing by the vending machines, so still I almost walked right past her without noticing. Blame it on highway hypnosis; I’d been driving for hours with nothing to focus on except miles of cornfields and the pavement ahead of...
26 Oct Sweets
When I was a kid, my mom thought the world was a very dangerous place. It wasn’t just her, either – all parents seemed afflicted with this strange mania that made them believe around every dark corner, in any shadow lurked something unspeakable ready to...
25 Oct The Incident
Dear Sir, I won’t pretend to feel anything other than a deep dread at the receipt of your letter. How you came by my name and of my involvement in the mentioned incident causes me a great deal of consternation, considering the effort I have made over the years to hide my presence at the event. I have heard...
21 Oct Your Memories Don’t Die With You
I was in a room. It looked like the ground floor of an office building. There was a desk with a receptionist, tapping away at a keyboard, and stairs leading up to the next floor. But the design...
18 Oct The Haunted Piano
I am a musician. Not a terribly great one, but still, I consider myself a musician. I can play with the best of them, and I know my way around an instrument or two. More importantly, I am a collector. A collector of various items...
17 Oct The Traveler
“Your hair smells nice.” That was the first thing he said to me. “Said” is too weak a word, even. Whispered. Oozed. He oozed those words into my ear, an invasion as unwelcome as if he had stuck his actual tongue inside. My back was to him,...
15 Oct If the Stars Look Strange, Be Wary
I was on my way to Canada to see family when the pursuit began. Thirteen-hour drives are no joke. I’ve done eight hour drives more than a few times, so I thought I’d be fine, but the mind starts to fray at six—and I hit that...
14 Oct Found Journal: Pyramids of Giza
--Case #40157J –Paranormal Research Division-- Confiscated from Cairo police department on 3/8/2020 Journal entries from Canadian-American researcher Steven K. Simms Journal discovered in descending passageway near entrance to Pyramid of Khufu, Egypt Case status: OPEN -Dr. Simms research log entry 3/7/2020 3:28 PM I’ve arrived at Cairo International Airport and will...
10 Oct The Heirloom
Everyone that served in the sandbox has a story about the war following them home. Some it’s about the things they saw, some about the things that happened to them, or the people — the brothers and sisters they served with. Some, if they’re honest...
05 Oct When Little Sally Falls Asleep
There’s an orphanage situated in northern Pennsylvania, in a small town so isolated from the rest of the world that it might as well not exist. Why in God’s name anyone decided to put “Dawson’s Home for Special Children” here, I’ll never know. But, without...
04 Oct October 14th
Monday, September 9 I can’t go back to the shop anymore. I had thought it was safe, but I was wrong. It caught me by surprise. It was… it was too much. I probably shouldn’t have blown up the way that I did. That was stupid. ...
03 Oct No Death in the Dollhouse
Deep in the woods, there’s a beautiful mansion. In this mansion, would seem to be a happy home. In the back garden and in the front yard: children play, laugh, and have fun. There is no mother and father, so to speak, just as almost...
02 Oct Unfamiliar Roads
You know how you’ll sometimes be driving, and it suddenly clicks that you spaced out for most of the trip and don’t recall a chunk of time on the road? That was what happened this morning as I pulled off the freeway and realized that...
30 Sep Party Poopers
The first time I saw it, I was exiting the final train that evening. The station was practically abandoned at that point and uncomfortably quiet. I try to avoid getting home so late, but I wanted to take Monday off so that I could go...
25 Sep Mr. Smith
“I’m sorry, Mister Aching, but could I ask you to remember for me what was giving you trouble?” Remember? Oh, yes. I remembered. It had been last night—not a good night by any measure. Kyle had come home from work, and I’d forgotten our anniversary. He...
23 Sep Plastic Jesus
Stretching through one of the United States’ largest deserts is highway 50. Aptly nicknamed “the loneliest road in America”, it is indeed as secluded and desolate as one might imagine. On this particular night, the western horizon was lit up again and again in spectacular...