Oh, looks like someone’s waking up a bit. That’s real good. I was getting a little worried that I might have given you a bit too much… oh, hey. No, no, no, don’t try to be sitting up. You’re far too… well, you just don’t...
The day was bright; the Las Vegas sun is blistering, making me feel blinded just being outside. The ring of the gas-station bell goes off as my eyes search feverishly for the coolers, the craving for something cold to drink overriding everything else going on around...
Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch “Hello?” Scratch scratch scratch scratch “Hello? Somebody? Anybody?!” Scratch scratch scratch scratch “Can anybody hear me?! Please! Please, get me out of here!” Casey stirred. He couldn’t see anything, but he could hear her loud and clear. “Dove? Is that you?” Of course it was. Her voice was...
The “rustic cabin” was little more than a shack, sitting in the midst of the Louisiana bayou. All that led to it was a dirt road, and the dirt road wound off the main road for at least five miles before arriving here. Even calling...
It took me nearly three months to build this mansion of a treehouse for my daughter. It had slides and swings, windows and doors, ladders and steps. It had it all. Shit, I even insulated it and had power outlets, heating and cooling. This monstrous...
I am a chronic sleep talker. Always have been. Everyone who’s ever slept in the same house as me will tell you that. My parents, siblings, friends and especially my exes. They’re the ones who got an ear-full. It was something we’d laugh about in...
You’re probably like me, skeptical of all things unexplained. Never in my life have I believed anything that doesn’t have a logical explanation, even if it means I have to string together the most tenuous logic just to make something reasonable. This is me. Why...
Most children say they want to run away from home but few ever do it. My brother Joey was definitely in the latter category, using the excuse of freedom and independence to constantly break our parents’ rules. He was a dreamer, an adventurer, someone that refused...
I had no idea there were so many debilitating phobias. There are those that are terrified of right angles, Mexican food, the letter R, the metric system, and even a miserable few that fear Wednesdays, becoming incapacitated every hump-day. There is even a phobia of...
Have you ever looked up at the moon at night and dreamed of a better life? Maybe wished for love or simply looked for inspiration? It’s amazing, isn’t it, such a magnificent celestial body just hanging in the sky, one we’ve lived with since the...
Some said it was the moon’s glow that would hit the aged broken glass of the church’s upper lofts on certain nights. Others claimed it was merely their imagination...
It’s not on record as the drowning experiment. The official name is AQ521-G4, but I’ve chosen to call it what it truly was. It was marketed as an opportunity for people with previous experience in aquatic settings to earn high positions for coastal work, aquamarine...
The Original Sin We were just open-minded kids. We wanted to see as much of the world as possible. God forgive us; we didn’t mean to deceive anyone. We didn’t mean to give that creature a whiff of our scent, but we did. I’m sure now...
Walter was cool. Walter was tough. Walter was 13 years old. As the only teen on his block all the other kids that lived on Revenant Falls Lane were in awe of Walter. They were especially ravenous for the kinds of stories he could tell them that his...
“Come on, Jim, you know it’s going to suck.” I didn’t nod, though I wanted to. Mark was right, as usual. Most of camp had sucked, to be honest. Tom, on the other hand, tried once more to be the voice of reason, even as he tugged...
Need a crime scene clean-up? How about a crime scene clean-up up in a hoarder’s house? Well, free-market problems get free-market solutions. It only makes sense I ended up with Cesar. I guess you could call me the President and Cesar the VP but those are...
All our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. (‘Macbeth’: Act 5, scene 5) With turned, frozen earth stinking sharp on his big coat and gritting black under his fingernails, he checked the side lane was empty before clinking the allotment gate shut behind him....
There was nothing strange about Amber. She wasn’t too tall or too short. She was of average height and weight. She wasn’t ugly but she wasn’t pretty either and her grades, although passing, were never top marks. She lived in an average house, with an...
My name is Mortimer Lipschitz. I know the name itself suggests otherwise, but I shit you not. That's really my name. I used to wish it wasn't. On all that's holy, I wished it wasn't. But I suppose that the name was never really the...
Roxy’s Lounge. It was the sort of dimly-lit, mid-century styled bar that was too classy for me by half. In the real world, it’s the kind of place I’d have gone to get shit-faced on overpriced cocktails at a Game Developer’s Conference after-party. But that was...
