I'm from a smallish town. In a town like that, you know everyone's business, for better or for worse. You all go to the same school, shop at the same stores, show up on Sundays at the same churches. More or less, anyway. My town had...
It was just after dark, and I was standing by myself at an abandoned bus stop on an almost equally abandoned street, waiting in near pitch-black conditions for a bus that logically would never come. Most of the streetlights didn’t work anymore, and the derelict...
Captain Saul Saline (also spelled Selene, depending on whether he was feeling salty or loony) took a pair of methodical, tottering steps out of the elevator and into the command module of his scrap trawler, the ‘SS Saline’s Solution,’ more informally known as ‘The Grimy...
The Ontological Vacuum Chamber had been intended to create a pocket of absolute Nothing, in the purest, philosophical sense of the term. It was to be completely devoid of not only mass and energy but space and time as well. This would not be like...
“So… you’re trying to cash in on this whole ‘analog horror’ fad? Is that it?” the eccentrically dressed yet curmudgeonly old shopkeeper asked as he disinterestedly pawed through the jumbled collection of off-brand VHS tapes I had brought for him. I couldn’t say that I blamed...
The stink of cigarettes and stale beer enveloped me as I pushed through the door of The Last Call. George Jones crooned from the jukebox and across the crowded room, Sherry Carter balanced a tray of drinks. She weaved between tables, her red hair like...
Chapter 1 The Gift On my eighth birthday, in 1968, I got an odd birthday gift. I was certain everything it represented was true, and I was quick to ask it questions as I awaited the triangular answer to appear in its purplish-blue form underneath its black...
Sunday Night Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The world has turned upside down. Glen was right. Fuck! Aliens! About 5:30 p.m., Snaggle wanted to go outside. I followed him out, rifle slung over one shoulder. He sniffed around the fence before he started barking his head off. Then I heard...
Chapter 1 Pat pushed his way through the tall grass of the woodland, navigating the trees and trying to find the source of the sound. Somewhere up ahead, a woman was hurt. He could hear her crying out for help. “Please…I think it’s broken. I can’t move...
Nine Months Earlier A computer programmer working at Simitrek, a software development company, typed at his office computer. He looked at the stack of forms on his desk, then looked back at his computer screen. Suddenly, his stomach let out a gurgling noise. He rubbed it...
Chapter 1 “First of all, Ms. Fitzhugh, I want to thank you for doing this interview for my ‘Between the Covers’ podcast.” “Please call me Vivian, dear. Ms. Fitzhugh sounds so stuffy!” Randall laughed and took a sip of his tea, “Of course. Vivian it is. And if...
Even so close to midnight, the unseasonable heat and humidity clings to the night air with a ferocious grip. Though only one week until Christmas, the temperature feels like mid-September. Regina Parker groans. Enduring one summer per year in Arkansas is enough. The second she...
“Ye needn’t think the only folks is the folks hereabouts.” — H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror “Even in this world, more things exist without our knowledge than that with. And the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there.” — Judge Holden, Blood...
The sun hangs low in the western sky, painting the jungle in shades of pink and lavender. A cacophony of howls rise lending a primeval aura to the trees. The sounds speak to me. Some deep ache mixing with a fervent longing whispers at the...
Chapter 1 I pulled up my shirt to study my back in the mirror. It stung. I couldn’t believe Wade could do this to me. If I’d held questions if this was only a game or real—I now knew as the pain and fear ripped through...
A tall, well-built man stood in a lavishly decorated Victorian-style living room, staring into a full-length mirror with an ornate golden frame. There was nothing reflected, no image in the glass looking back at him, nothing but the shimmer that the overhead light cast upon...
Chapter 1 Kevin’s stomach rumbled loudly as he sat staring at the bank of black and white monitors in front of him. “Dude… You hungry?” He slowly turned to his coworker and replied. “Yes, Lucas. I am hungry. What could have possibly given you the clue?” Lucas lit up...
Wednesday Autumn was Thor's favorite season; the world changed around him in an amazing cornucopia of scents. The color of the leaves meant nothing to him, but the aromas did. Fungi bloomed as quadrillions of spores feasted on decaying matter. So much of the woods around...
Dallas skipped a stone as he sat on the bank of a tributary of the Elk River. His aluminum, two-man canoe gently bobbed in the lazy current. His gear already loaded, he waited for his partner. He yawned, stretched his lanky frame, and scratched an...
Chapter 1 The thumping inside my chest pounded in a rapid cadence, not skipping a beat. I swear it felt harder and deeper with every slide of my knee drug across the rough and aging concrete encasement. Both sides of the ledge were separated by the...
