04 Oct October 14th
Monday, September 9 I can’t go back to the shop anymore. I had thought it was safe, but I was wrong. It caught me by surprise. It was… it was too much. I probably shouldn’t have blown up the way that I did. That was stupid. ...
03 Oct No Death in the Dollhouse
Deep in the woods, there’s a beautiful mansion. In this mansion, would seem to be a happy home. In the back garden and in the front yard: children play, laugh, and have fun. There is no mother and father, so to speak, just as almost...
02 Oct Unfamiliar Roads
You know how you’ll sometimes be driving, and it suddenly clicks that you spaced out for most of the trip and don’t recall a chunk of time on the road? That was what happened this morning as I pulled off the freeway and realized that...
01 Oct I’ve Been Banned From Calling 911
I’m really at the end of my rope here. No, check that. I was at the end of my rope weeks ago. Now I’m sort of clinging to the side of the cliff by one bloody fingernail. I didn’t even know that you could get banned from calling...
30 Sep Party Poopers
The first time I saw it, I was exiting the final train that evening. The station was practically abandoned at that point and uncomfortably quiet. I try to avoid getting home so late, but I wanted to take Monday off so that I could go...
29 Sep Fire and Brimstone
August 8th, 1991 The cultists calling themselves “Baal-Daeva’s Truth” had become so efficient at home invasions that neither of Samantha’s parents were able to call the police before they died. The firefighters with Engine 21 were the first emergency responders on the scene, and I was...
28 Sep Star Snot
The moon hung heavy overhead through a striated bank of clouds, and even though it was a weeknight, the Levine family was gathered on the front lawn, necks craning up and peering into the sky. The meteor shower was due to start at any minute...
27 Sep I Followed Her Home
For months, I caught glimpses of Claira from the safety of my cubical. So beautiful, faultless. Through innocent eavesdropping and pattern recall, I unknowingly learned almost every detail of her life; when she had lunch, who her friends were, and where she would be at...
26 Sep All the Women in My Family are Cursed
Though every poet considers the heart to be for more than pumping blood, I wonder whether any could hold an organ in such esteem if they lived a day beneath my skin. Is it not said that those who suffer have seen the eye of...
25 Sep Mr. Smith
“I’m sorry, Mister Aching, but could I ask you to remember for me what was giving you trouble?” Remember? Oh, yes. I remembered. It had been last night—not a good night by any measure. Kyle had come home from work, and I’d forgotten our anniversary. He...
24 Sep Stay Away From the Ocean
In 1989, we detected a faint call coming from the depths of the ocean. A strange cry from a massive creature, traveling alone in the vast blue waters below. At first, it sounded like an oddity, a malfunctioning hydrophone, but then we heard it again...
23 Sep Plastic Jesus
Stretching through one of the United States’ largest deserts is highway 50. Aptly nicknamed “the loneliest road in America”, it is indeed as secluded and desolate as one might imagine. On this particular night, the western horizon was lit up again and again in spectacular...
22 Sep A Warning From a Night Mara
Darkness coats nearly the entire room, a comforting blanket of emptiness in which only a small nightlight in the shape of a tacky, golden elephant pierces through the inky blackness. I stretch my long limbs languorously, clawed fingers scraping against the high ceiling as I...
21 Sep Randonauting is Not a Game
I shouldn’t have gone. I didn’t want to go. Why did I go? Melanie… it’s all her fault. It was all her that we went. She told us about this app a while ago in Discord. Said it helped her see parts of our town we’d...
20 Sep The Cookie Jar
I recently inherited my grandmother’s house, or, technically speaking, my father did. He signed it over to me without much of a fuss. I guessed he’d never really been interested in the farm, but recently he’s started telling me about things that happened when he...
19 Sep Haunting Ain’t Easy
Haunting ain’t easy. Not one bit. Them Hollywood studios make it look so easy, when in reality it’s a chore. You see, I’m a ghost myself. My name is Ernie Harris, and I’ve been a ghost for 115 years now. When I was alive, I...
18 Sep The YouTuber
Being a successful YouTuber comes with a lot of advantages. You’re invited to gaming assemblies, conventions, and you attract the interest of prominent sponsors and the privilege to be treated like a king. I even met some of the most well-established names in the industry, some...
17 Sep I Moved into a Haunted House
So, I came into some money. You see, my aunt Martha passed way after a long battle with cancer. I was her favorite nephew, so she left me a little extra in her will. At that time, I was living with my girlfriend Tara, in...
16 Sep Let Us In
“If the children come knocking at your door and ask to enter, you must never invite them in or they'll devour your soul.” “Is that what she screams about?” I ask. “Shh, you’ll unnerve her.” Nurse Monro, the nurse who’s training me on how to handle difficult...
15 Sep His Unconquerable Enemy
I was summoned from Calcutta to the heart of India to perform a difficult surgical operation on one of the women of a great rajah’s household. I found the rajah a man of a noble character, but possessed, as I afterwards discovered, of a sense...