Part I It was the siren that woke him, though the sound at first didn’t register as real. It wormed its way into his half-dreaming consciousness, a drawn-out wail that ebbed and surged, pitching awkwardly between mournful and mechanical. Dennis blinked against the dark, lifting his...
Part I Michael and I had been best friends since the first week of high school. I met him in the lunch line, both of us shuffling forward with our plastic trays, silently weighing whether the nachos looked edible. He cracked a joke about the cheese...
I can’t believe I’m finally creating a record of this after so many years. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but my therapist tells me it needs to be done. She says it’s time to let go of the past and that talking about...
Part I Tom Bellamy hadn’t heard of the place before he bought the wood. Erin called him on a Tuesday morning with one of her usual leads, telling him she’d found something special—”prime old-growth oak, maybe a century old,” salvaged from a demolition site out past...
Part I The lower levels of Ashford High had been sealed off years ago, after a pipe burst during a particularly harsh winter and flooded the basement with rancid water. Mold took root, the ceilings sagged, and several classrooms on the lowest floor were condemned. Since...
Part I I’ve spent most of the last year convincing myself that what happened wasn’t my fault. But when I close my eyes, when I let myself really think—really remember—I always end up in the same place: the sound of metal screaming against asphalt, the smell...
Part I Martin Greaves arrived at the Cortland Municipal Archive just after eight on a Tuesday morning, two days after the city finally cut power to the upper floors. The building, a vast brutalist monolith set between two defunct overpasses, had been shuttered since 2007, but...
It wasn’t my fault that Albie went into the lost mine. I keep telling myself that. I guess if I really believed it, I wouldn’t have gone in after him. It was my fault that he had the lantern, after all. This all started on a...
Sarah stands in front of the house, staring up at the dirty windows and the sad roof. She remembers it looking very different, full of vibrant hues. She’s not sure whether it’s her memories coloring the paint a brighter shade of blue than it is...
I approached the Bucket of Blood pub from the other side of the street, waiting to cross after the Number 7 bus tore down the road. The neighborhood was quiet on this slow weekday afternoon, and this suited me just fine. I glanced up at the...
Part I Elliot Foster had never considered himself important enough to be noticed, let alone targeted. His work was dull, procedural—precisely the kind of job that ensured he remained anonymous in a world increasingly governed by algorithms and automated oversight. Each morning, he logged into his...
Part I Julian Webb had always prided himself on staying ahead of the curve. He wasn’t reckless—just forward-thinking. He kept himself in top physical condition, tracked every calorie, every rep, and every measurable sign of progress with obsessive precision. So when he learned about Inkai, he...
Part I The conference room at Argenesis Biotech was as sterile as a surgical suite, the kind of place designed to inspire confidence. A wall of glass separated the attendees from the laboratory beyond, where scientists in crisp white coats moved with quiet efficiency among sleek...
Every morning, the grave of Ken Kline is found disturbed, as if he has been climbing out in the dead of night. Pastor David Locklear isn’t one to believe in ghost stories, but when he sees Ken rise with his own eyes, he follows him—and...
On the last night of summer, three teenage boys dare each other to enter the infamous Crowder House, an abandoned mansion with a sinister reputation. What starts as a simple test of courage quickly turns into a fight for survival when they discover that something...
Part I The air in the Rockies had a way of slipping into your lungs, cool and clean, before settling in your chest. Eric drew in a long breath, savoring it. His hiking boots crunched over a gravel-strewn path as he wound his way through the...
Trapped in a soul-crushing job, Sammi spends her days dealing with inconsiderate coworkers and a dismissive boss, desperate for an escape. But when her laptop mysteriously connects to a Wi-Fi network labeled "DO NOT CONNECT," she finds herself on a website that asks one simple...
Roger Westle is no stranger to artificial intelligence, but when his experiments with the latest AI model take a bizarre turn, he begins to question whether he’s dealing with mere lines of code—or something far more sinister. At first, the responses seem normal. Then come...
When teenage metal detectorist Edward Hartwell unearths an old silver ring, he doesn’t expect much. But the moment he slips it onto his finger, strange things begin to happen. Weeds wither at his touch. A creeping warmth pulses through him. The ring isn’t just metal—it’s...
When an ancient executioner’s hood arrives at the Pinehurst Historical Museum, it brings more than just history—it brings judgment. As staff and visitors experience disturbing phenomena, unease turns to horror when a man is found beheaded, his crime detailed on a centuries-old parchment. More...
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