It was that time of year when ‘fresh corn’ signs along the rural roadside are a common sight. Not being a big connoisseur of either fresh produce or farmer’s markets, I had never pulled over for one myself. But it was one particularly attention-grabbing sign...
If you’ve heard of Overbrook, it’s probably because of The Overbrook Impaler. What a way to put your hometown on the map, right? He’s why half the world heard about our quiet coastal town. Tommy-Lee Rawlings. That’s how he was eventually identified. He preferred girls. The...
When I was growing up, we had an amazing toy store in our town. It was designed to resemble a medieval castle with multiple floors and took up an enormous portion of a nearby strip mall. You wouldn’t find national toy brands like Mattel or...
Chapter 1 A loud screeching noise interrupts my shower. Reaching for my towel, I hear it again, only louder. I get out of the shower and towel off quickly. Listening carefully, I don’t hear the screech I heard earlier, and think to myself it must be nothing....
Valan forest, Derbyshire 1984 I sat in the driver's seat of my aging Ford Granada and listened to the rain pound relentlessly on the car's metal roof, a sound I had always found strangely soothing. Once the torrent subsided, I looked outside to watch late afternoon...
My friends Kev and Nat were about to celebrate their fourteenth anniversary and wanted it to be something special, so after a few months of indecision, I made the suggestion they renew their vows. “We’ve done that before though!” Kev told me. “Hmm, but have you...
Blue. Life is blue. Existence, awakening sentience, all of it is blue. Not black, nor shining brightness or anything, but blue. True blue. Once in a blue moon. That’s a saying, right? The blue of ignorance, wafting like…oh, what are they? Those lovely warbling mountains...
There are very few absolutions I have in this life. But leave it to me to ensure that I absolutely had three. Firstly, there is no one on this planet who knows the workings of the St. Magisford national park as I do. Woven through...
Growing up in Lenora, nobody died. Not in that quiet, dust-flavored hamlet. Even with a humble town like ours, the small sadnesses you’d see every so often were gone, however young, old, or misfortune. The hospital beds lay empty, aside from the drunks resting off...
Friends like Quinn Perser were hard to come by, especially in Stonedirt County. He was one of those spectacular people, the kind you meet once in your life, if you’re lucky, that knew how to complement every aspect of you. Held a good conversation, shared...
My name is Darren Johnson. I’m thirty-four years old. I have wavy black hair, blue eyes, a shaven face, and no distinct details that would separate me from the crowd. I work the night shift at a large office building doing housekeeping. The small paychecks...
It began as another dreadful day working overtime in the hellish place, we called home. Deadrock Correctional Center, a place where we send tormented souls to suffer until the end of time. I was just twenty-one when I started, still green behind the ears. My...
I’m afraid of the moon. Stupid as I know that sounds, I am, I’m afraid of the moon. I’m afraid because of what it can do to people. “Lunacy,” “Lunatic,” both have two things in common. They both mean insane or crazy, and they both have...
“That can’t be what I think it is,” I said out loud to myself. My friends and I had decided to get together at my place for some good old-fashioned fun. Our version of such includes competing in college drinking games. I’ll tell you right now...
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” --Friedrich Nietzsche There’s something looking at me in the corner of my room. I throw one bleary half-opened eye toward my ancient alarm clock in...
I’m glad you are here. Beside this fire. Isn’t this nice? How often do we, as humans, have a chance to take a moment? Just a moment to pause and look around. Especially beside the fire. As a child, I loved sitting by a campfire. ...
I can hear them right now. Scuttling and scampering about. I can hear them whispering, debating on who’ll get the first bite. On which parts of me they’ll want to eat first. I can hear them from under me, under my bed. The floor and the...
“… It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all…” -- Jennifer Donnely *** BZZZZZ Try having that sound wake you up. The way the metal screeches as it spins. Try having THAT wake you up, and then realize you’re bare-ass naked and restrained to a chair. What would you...
Before we get into things here, let me ask you a question. What would you say if you were told by a close friend of yours that you’ve known all your life that they encountered something strange in the ocean while on a cruise? Would...
The first time was probably the least tragic, or at least, the least painful. The least haunting, as well. It was three years ago; my health had taken a nosedive. Cancer, stage three. I’d been a chain smoker since the end of freshman year of...
