01 Mar The Watchmaster
Charles Walker Woods was a gentleman of means. In a city rapidly being subsumed by the dim fog of industry, he felt it was not just his right to stand out as a breath of fresh air—it was his duty. Were it not for people...
01 Dec Jelly
Bertram couldn’t be sure how long Emeline had been dead. She'd been in the bathroom, taking one of her late afternoon soaks. He hadn't heard a peep out of her since she'd turned off the faucets over an hour ago. He didn’t think much about...
28 Nov Reindeer Games
Something is wrong with Sleigh Town—Roni knew that much about it. During the pre-covid era of twenty-eighteen, I was hired as a night security guard for a park in our town, right on the cusp of December. Since its grand-opening in the seventies, the acres were established...
15 Aug Kill the Curdler
The poster was simple. Someone had done their best with it, but their best wasn’t very good. MONSTIR HUNTIRS WANTED, read the boldly misspelled words at the top. Below that was a drawing straight out of a child’s imagination. It showed a hunched creature with big,...
12 Aug The Werewolf Truce
American Journal of Russian History Volume XXI Issue 3 Dead Letters: Imperial Russian Army Correspondence from the Eastern Front in World War I Written and Translated by Oksana Volkov, PhD As soon as Imperial Russia entered World War I, the “Provisional regulations on military censorship” law was imposed on...
06 Aug The Neighbourhood Watchman
Nearly three years ago, when the pandemic began, I moved my family to a small hamlet in the Scottish Highlands. I won’t give you its name. I wouldn’t want you to find this place. That being said, I can no longer keep this secret to myself. Before...
05 Aug The Voices I Follow
Craving attention, sharply and peremptorily acting out. I have been disengaged from reality. I am in my own utopia, absorbed in thought, insanely agitated even with the least little distraction. A fan blowing the edges of my paper in a waving fashion makes me want...
04 Aug Text Messages
No other couple on the planet had a larger dragon to slay than Henry and Anne. Maybe it was no dragon at all. Nothing was as sinister as what the couple had allowed to crawl in between them and separate them. First, this succubus came...
02 Aug The Glass Darkly
As I wipe the mirror clean of the settled dust, the chaff, the ash, I, in fact, am erasing the last fingerprints known to exist of the one who only ever existed in my mind. It was real for me, though I am told, unconvincingly,...
01 Aug Shadow of Doubt
1 Corinthians 13:12 – Young’s Literal Translation 1898 “..for we see now through a mirror obscurely, and then face to face; now I know in part, and then I shall fully know, as also I was known..” We see through a glass darkly. Irresolvable shadows from immemorial...
31 Jul Buzz, Buzz, Buzz
A man named Harmonious True stood at his upstairs apartment window, staring out at the city confronting him. He wiped the grime from around the frame of the window, flipped the handkerchief over to the clean white side and wiped the glass in a circular...
23 Jul Cursed
Chapter 1 “Hey, Donovan!” Colin yelled as he walked into his corner office with his hand held out for a shake. “My man! I cannot believe you brokered that deal! I didn’t think there was any way Richard would sell.” Donovan smiled as he reached out to...
15 Jul The Wooden Box
“Peter? Oh, Peter? It’s time to wake up, sleepyhead.” The quiet voice drifted through the blackness of the small enclosure, like a fall leaf looking for a place to land. Peter lay sprawled across a concrete floor. His eyelids fluttered as the sing-songy voice pulled him...
14 Jul You Said Forever
Annabelle awoke to complete and impenetrable darkness, as she did every evening, although that was perfectly normal for a Vampire Lady of the Forsaken Coast. The Hematocrats, as they were affectionately known, did not hide from the sun in coffins, but in ornate inner sanctums...
13 Jul The Jack-O-Lantern Men of Willow Wood Hill
I live in a picturesque little housing development overlooking the Avalon River, just a short drive away from Sombermorey. It's surrounded by enough woods to muffle out the sound of traffic on the adjacent highway, and the road leading into the neighborhood is so discreet...
12 Jul What Does That Have To Do With The Price Of Corn
It was that time of year when ‘fresh corn’ signs along the rural roadside are a common sight. Not being a big connoisseur of either fresh produce or farmer’s markets, I had never pulled over for one myself. But it was one particularly attention-grabbing sign...
10 Jul Jimmy’s Toys
When I was growing up, we had an amazing toy store in our town. It was designed to resemble a medieval castle with multiple floors and took up an enormous portion of a nearby strip mall. You wouldn’t find national toy brands like Mattel or...
09 Jul Olivia
Chapter 1 A loud screeching noise interrupts my shower. Reaching for my towel, I hear it again, only louder. I get out of the shower and towel off quickly. Listening carefully, I don’t hear the screech I heard earlier, and think to myself it must be nothing....
06 Jul Seethe
Blue. Life is blue. Existence, awakening sentience, all of it is blue. Not black, nor shining brightness or anything, but blue. True blue. Once in a blue moon. That’s a saying, right? The blue of ignorance, wafting like…oh, what are they? Those lovely warbling mountains...
04 Jul Life in Lenora
Growing up in Lenora, nobody died. Not in that quiet, dust-flavored hamlet. Even with a humble town like ours, the small sadnesses you’d see every so often were gone, however young, old, or misfortune. The hospital beds lay empty, aside from the drunks resting off...