The submarine mess hall was total chaos. It rang with clanging trays, raised voices and general hubbub. Even so, Nathan’s head snapped up when the first rivet pinged free. The sharp fracturing of metal was followed immediately by a second report as the massive pressure...
He woke up, wiping the sleep from his little eyes. He squinted, straining his vision back into clarity. Morning? he wondered. He shuffled from the bundle of raggedy cushions he'd been sleeping on. He peeked through the blinds at the world outside. In doing so, he...
Part I If you think playing Twister with a ghost is strange, you’re right. But that’s not even the strangest part of what happened. It’s what happened after that really made me question what I’d done. I guess I should start by explaining how I ended up...
May 3rd It’s been months since I’ve written in this journal. I’ve been preoccupied with applying to medical schools, and now I’ve been accepted to the program of my first choice. I’ve gone on at length about this university and its merits, so I’ll restrain myself...
Troy Davis, a stalwart of the mines for over three decades, lived a life shaped by the grit and grind of the subterranean world. However, one ominous morning, the very mines that defined his existence became a perilous trap. A reckless explosion had reverberated through...
Working for the defense industry has always been a trip. I started out in the late 90’s, working out of Yuma, AZ, engineering the next wave of unmanned surveillance drones for the U.S. military. Technology had come so far by this point…nothing seemed off-limits, and...
Part I James Walker pulled up to the curb of their new duplex, letting out a slow exhale. The move to the town of Ridgewood had taken longer than expected, and the sun was already starting to dip below the horizon. This was supposed to feel...
The Owl Witch On a Wednesday shortly after 3 PM, a taxi pulled up to an old house in Rosevine, Texas, an unincorporated community in northwestern Sabine County in Texas. Thiago Angel Martinez, a stocky fifty-year-old man with a bald head, large mustache, and covered in...
Part I I remember everything about that day at Lake Newell. The way the sun gleamed off the water, the shouts of laughter echoing through the park, and the bright colors of picnic blankets sprawled across the grass. It was supposed to be a perfect day—the...
Go, Light Your Torches A thin cloud of red dust whips outside the airlock window. I press my forearm against the glass and lose myself in the soft hiss of sand moving against the hull. Wind. The thought almost makes me laugh. I always thought it was...
As long as Paula and I have been married, there hasn’t been a chance for us to slow down. Not to say that is a bad thing, of course; it’s just that after seven years of work, school and taking care of aging parents, we really,...
Part I The soft glow of the bedside lamp bathed Terrance’s room in a warm, comforting light. The familiar scent of fresh laundry clung to the blankets as Abby tucked them around her son, smoothing the edges and making sure he was snug. It was part...
It was the sort of bizarre incident that would forever haunt a small town such as ours. The Catsup Massacre, we called it, though it wasn’t exactly a massacre in the traditional sense. No one could quite agree on how or when it had happened,...
1 Timmy stood close to the shiny champagne-colored box, his hands trembling as they cautiously gripped the smooth rounded edge. His eyes wide-open with shock, his lips clamped tightly, fighting every urge he could muster to keep from squealing out in horror. He knew what he’d...
I can’t explain it, but he’s been here the whole time. No one believed me; my wife thought I was insane, but he’s been here the whole time. My son, Dale, was five when he went missing. We were at the park by our flat when it happened....
The air in the room was frigid and stank of rotting meat. The unearthly groans spewing from the small, spindly creature’s mouth chilled Maddie to her core. The vile words it used to remind her of her every mistake and shortcoming filled her with shame...
The winter winds howled through the trees surrounding Whispering Pines, a small, isolated town known more for its exceptional cold than for anything that would draw outsiders. The town was built on the edge of a large, deep body of water that locals called Blackwater...
The night was heavy with silence as Amy pulled into the driveway of her small, single-story ranch home. The glow of the streetlights barely reached the edges of her property, leaving the surrounding trees shrouded in darkness. After another grueling twelve-hour shift at the hospital,...
The sun was setting, casting long shadows through the trees on Harold’s rural property. It was an evening like any other, the kind Harold had grown accustomed to since his wife, Henrietta, passed away twelve years ago. These walks had become a routine, a way...
“Do you play video games, Terrance?” The devil asked as he sat perched atop the podium. I held my wife’s dying body in my arms, tears streamed from my face, and her blood covered my bare chest. I looked up with a mixture of hate and...
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