When the quarantine began, I thought life couldn’t get any worse, but it only took a week of silent streets and empty lots for that to change. On the seventh night, sitting and staring across the block from the window of my apartment, I saw...
It had rained off and on that summer night, leaving the forest dark and humid. Pushing through the wet underbrush after his friend, Noah wiped his hands on his pants, gripped his flashlight tighter, and complained, “But what if the ghost is real?” Crunching through the...
The day I accidentally witnessed my physics teacher die horribly, I didn’t know what to do. I went to my classes in a daze, sat there stunned for hours, and wondered if people would think I had something to do with it if I reported...
When I first saw him standing out there on the sidewalk, I thought nothing of it. I certainly didn’t think he’d still be out there come September. I lingered at the window for just a moment, decided that the night-bound silhouette across the street was...
I don’t have a gambling problem. That’s the first thing I want known. It’s also what they all say, right? No, I’m not addicted to gambling, but I have a co-dependency issue with someone who is. I’m not the coolest guy on the block, and I’m...
A single day added onto my sentence meant the difference between a normal jail and the unending nightmare of Pembina Prison. I was supposed to get 364 days. That was the deal. But the judge didn’t like my ‘attitude,’ whatever the hell that meant, so...
This is the 2nd in a multi-part series. If you haven't already, please read the 1st part here. Part II To this day, I don’t know what came over me, but as the cops entered the room, I was overwhelmed with the idea that they meant me...
Part I Something extraordinary began happening to me this past month, and I’m not sure whether I ought to be relieved or terrified. For all I know, it’s been going on for several months, or possibly years. Hell, maybe it’s been going on my entire life,...
Is Doctor Disrespect one of your heroes? I know he was one of mine. Yes, was. I guess I still respect the guy. But he went down one motherfucker of a rabbit hole and dragged me down with him. I’m seventeen and I wash windows. That’s why...
It was a cloudless, sapphire-blue sky that day. We had the camping trip planned for a month, and it took even longer than that for us to coordinate our vacations, so that we could all be there together. It was a reunion I had dreamed...
Nestled just off the Appalachian Trail, near the border of Virginia and West Virginia, where forests grew thick and pressed in on all sides, sat a small region known as Dry Branch. Barely more than a collection of campgrounds, Dry Branch rarely received visitors, save...
“Is it true? Did every cop in the precinct call in sick tonight?” I asked my friend who lives across the street from the police station. “Yeah, Wayne.” I heard him answer as I could also hear him racking his shotgun. “Can’t say I blame them,...
I met the love of my life on my lunch break. I was cramming a BLT into my mouth while leaning forward on the painted wooden bench in the park near my office. The weather was perfect. Lush green leaves were swaying in the whispering breeze,...
Tommy Ihlman was only seven years old when his parents bought the house on Tamara Lane. Though it was no mansion by any stretch of the imagination, the five-bedroom raised-ranch style home seemed like a palace compared to the one-bedroom studio apartment he and his...
A few days ago I got a text message from an unknown number reading “I got your proof.” I stared at the words for a bit, thinking it was a wrong number. Then I remembered the last time I’d spoken to Jeremy. Jeremy, my younger cousin,...
“Daddy, why is mommy so cold?” She was dead. Maurice knew that much, but why was she so cold? His father, a stout man named Gregory, was silent. Everyone knows we die. Not even children deny it. Yet knowing a fact and believing it are different....
“I know where them bodies are,” the boy said. Sheriff Burke eyed the skinny fifteen-year-old sitting in one of the two wooden chairs on the other side of his desk. He knew the kid. Knew him well enough to notice he was wearing his Sunday best,...
The sky was dark, threatening rain as Ryan got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Uncle Selwyn’s house...
I have been doing this for many years. Sure I have changed schools a couple of times, had to even move states to help with my wife’s elderly parents. But I have always viewed the kids on my bus as an extension of my family. At the...
Prejudice has always required three main ingredients: One, lots of people with one or more common traits. Two, other people that don’t share those traits. Three, enough people upset over it. Silverkey Crossing has always been predominantly white like any small town of the Midwest. Said...
