Seeking a fresh start in his small Midwestern hometown, Caleb hopes to leave his troubles behind and find peace. But when a chance detour leads him down Briar’s Bend, a road steeped in local legend, he becomes entangled in a chilling mystery. Drivers whisper of...
The Peddler Man, The Peddler Man Could Bring You Delights or an Old Tin Can There Will Be Nothing to Lack When the Peddler Man Opens His Sack My grandfather was the first to encounter The Peddler Man. He would often tell us stories of sitting on his porch,...
646 – Kingdom of Silla Queen Seondeok stood at her window and watched the night sky while considering the betrayal of Kim Bidam, chairman of the council of nobles. “Emperor Taizong is behind this! I know it!” Gim Chun-Chu, her normally composed diplomatic nephew, yelled while angrily...
Part I I have never been a superstitious man, and can honestly say that I do not believe in vampires, ghouls, demons, or anything else that those youngsters with their vivid imaginations and smartphones like to dream up. But there is one thing that happened a very...
“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” John 3:13 CHAPTER 1 Devon, England. October 1991 The Duke’s Head pub had been derelict for two years now; boarded up, condemned; but no one missed it. It had never been a...
His name was Connor. Dustin Connor, but he never went by that name. Some called him Con or Connor. I called him Mr. Connor. Mr. Connor was the bravest and most imposing man that I and many have ever known. He stood well over six feet...
There was roadkill all up and down the highway this morning. It is nine AM and sunlight is sifting through the treetops. The lake is still and black and crawling with bugs. Thin grass grows beside it, tamped down by the boots of men I’ve never...
James was an eight-year-old boy with the heart of a dog and the energy of a hummingbird. His mother died when he was only five, so he lived with his grandmother, Babcia. They were very poor: their house was a tiny, dilapidated thing, with a...
The boy hated the nights when his big brother snuck out. He would stare at the empty bed in the bedroom they shared, under the large open window in the eave. Through there, every now and again, he could hear the unmistakable metal thuds of...
Tom Strand had to pee. Sixty-four ounces of gas station root beer sloshed in his gut, disrupting the constant thoughts of his mother. The problem was Tom hadn’t seen a rest stop for nearly an hour, and dusk was beginning to settle over the Louisiana...
In places where the very old traditions still hold, August is known as “the ghost month.” Hungry ghosts are said to roam the streets and hillsides, especially at night and especially when things are quiet. Some say that hungry ghosts are created when someone innocent...
The carpet smells of decay and mud as I flatten my face against the floor in an attempt to hide under our queen-sized bed. An incessant banging at the door resonates through my brain, feeling like I’m being impaled with an iron spike. Each knock slams...
Henry never believed the stories. A marketing trick, that’s all they were, meant to lure tourists who wanted to be fooled. That’s what he told the curator, in so many words, during his job interview. The curator gave Henry a tour of the museum just after...
The road is a light brown path of dirt that stretches up and down the shallow hills, running straight from end to end before becoming serpentine at its eastern end where it meets the main highway. Blades of grass struggle to break through but soon...
I grew up in a place called Lair’s Fane or ‘The Fane’, as locals called it, a solid two-and-a-half hours from anywhere worth going. I lived with my grandmother in her rustic, weathered farmhouse just beyond the edge of The Fane, set adrift in the...
My name is Mortimer Lipschitz. I know the name itself suggests otherwise, but I shit you not. That's really my name. I used to wish it wasn't. On all that's holy, I wished it wasn't. But I suppose that the name was never really the...
I moved into my new apartment nearly a month ago. The building’s exterior looked a little run down, but the rent was unbeatable for where it stood. The other tenants all seemed quiet enough and the hallways didn’t smell like piss and stale beer like...
“I want to hear about the Spindler.” Logan listened as the voices of his three friends talked. He watched as the fire before him dwindled. “You sure you wanna do that, Lexi? In these woods?” Logan’s back was firmly set against the back of a broad, old oak;...
Jack Mckay huddled in the cold midnight street with a pale green sleeping bag encasing his lower half. Spindled trails of light reflected off the gleaming roads from damp lampposts. But the cold wasn’t what gave Jack his nightly jitters—not by a long shot. The...
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a story that became well known in all the kingdoms of men. It started as a whisper in the back of ale-houses and progressed to the point of street-corner news barkers. No one...
