Chapter 1 I grew up being a bit of an explorer at heart. It hadn’t exactly come naturally, but instead through my family’s forced moves from army base to army base. I turned ten this year and I was on at least my eighth adventure to...

Just looking at the faded poster-board sign made me feel sick. From the looks of their website (which looked like it had been created on a Macintosh), Mausen Hausen was a cheap, German-themed Disney World rip-off amusement park that popped up seasonally repurposing what was an...

Past As you probably know, Christmas is indeed a time for reflection. A time to revisit memory and times gone by with those you've loved and those you've lost. I should know. I am, as it happens, the ghost of Christmas past. Ugh, the ghost of...

There was no longer any joy to be found in All Hallows Eve; not for Ash, not this year. What was, once upon a time, his very favourite holiday and time of the year, was now a time of despair and desolation, all pleasure and...

I think most people are surprised when they learn one of my hobbies is taxidermy. I know what you probably expect when you hear that – some shady-looking Ed Gein kind of guy.Β  I’m going to clear this up off the bat.Β  Not everyone that practices...

Katie Watson gazed around at the vast, opulent room. For the first time in her professional career, she felt small and vulnerable. The world had changed in the last several years, but the building they were in had remained unaltered since its construction over a...

CHAPTER 1 Almost Free Tucker Correctional Unit – Pine Bluff, Arkansas August 15, 1995 3:55 a.m. CDT Dan Kincaid stifled a deep sigh, concerned any noise would roust his slumbering cellmates. His entire body ached from the vicious brawl hours before. He lacked the strength to withstand another, so keeping...

The following is transcribed from a collection of reel-to-reel tapes recently located in the basement of the long-abandoned St. Elizabeth of Hungary Hospital (location redacted).Β  The reels appear to capture a conversation between one of the hospital residents and an unknown individual (originally believed to...

My name is John Gray. I was once chief evidence analyst with the Oregon State Police. A half-hour past sunset on September 7th of 2013, a volunteer at the visitor’s center inside the Qualls Nature Education Park on the edge of the Columbia River Gorge...

It is with profound sadness and continued fear that I tell my story. I fear that I won’t have long and if you should chance upon my recording and I hope that you do – I’ll have explained enough that it may act as a...

There are sounds in the haze; you just have to be more alert to their subtleties to hear them.Β  The sounds travel between the thin line that divides the conscious from the unconscious, and when she woke up on the cold, hard ground, she could...

There were only a few select things in this world that Corbin Reef hated more than lazy college professors. Β Give me a hardass who’ll break you down before midterms, he would say; at least that would show they cared about the class. Corbin was a first-year...

You know, when you hear the word β€˜kidnapper,’ the most common culprit doesn’t come to mind.Β  You probably think of some creep with an unshaven face and sinister eyes sitting in a white van with dark tinted windows and the back seats ripped out, duct...

My family cottage in rural Maine has remained unvisited for eight years. We used to use it about every summer for two to three weeks when we were kids. Somewhere between June to the start of September, typically at this mosquito-infested spot in this fairly...

Part 1 The sharp click of a switch and a whirr of static on an old multi-band radio saturated a small Floridian claustrophobic one-bedroom apartment with a loud audio gradience – crawling from low to high back to low pitches of frequency. In a knee-jerk reaction,...

Part I London, 1982 Like a dog come running at his master’s whistle, I RSVP’d yes on an invitation to Vernon Copeland’s Halloween party to view his latest acquisition. A lost piece of cinema from the early ’20s, a screen test hitherto undiscovered, et cetera, et cetera....

For Elombe, at first, the night began like any other. Wakefulness came in a flash.Β  He sat upright in his straw mat, fingers clenched tight around his spear.Β  There had been a chui prowling through their village the last few weeks; it had already dragged away...

27For the past three weeks it was the same dream every night. Strangely enough, the whole scene is in black-and-white, with a grainy finish, like an old film. And I mean an old film, like, pre-1900s. Everything is faded, and seems to swim within itself. There’s...

I pulled into the bar parking lot and stopped the car. I sat there for a moment, letting the engine idle as I thought about what I was doing. I knew my wife and kids were at home waiting for me, but I just couldn’t...

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