The date had been awful. Their friends looked like they had fun, though. A quadruple date on a day as special as Valentine’s wasn’t anybody’s idea of romance at first, but David, being the talented salesperson he was, made quite convincing points on why it would...
I had rooted myself to the rickety wooden seat for the better half of the hour before I met the man who would make me unbearably rich. He trudged into the pub away from the sodden night’s air, his trenchcoat dripping with early autumn rain....
My last name is Forcz, and people often ask about my nationality. I tell them I'm Romanian-Hungarian. Several years ago I became very interested in the history of my family, a phase a lot of people go through. I actually hired a genealogist to help...
There are sounds in the haze; you just have to be more alert to their subtleties to hear them. The sounds travel between the thin line that divides the conscious from the unconscious, and when she woke up on the cold, hard ground, she could...
There were only a few select things in this world that Corbin Reef hated more than lazy college professors. Give me a hardass who’ll break you down before midterms, he would say; at least that would show they cared about the class. Corbin was a first-year...
It was just another hot day in The Cove. The Watcher was so still, if not for the sweat dripping down his brow, he could have been mistaken for a mannequin. Locals never paid any mind to individuals such as him, though. Outsiders are plenty around...
You know, when you hear the word ‘kidnapper,’ the most common culprit doesn’t come to mind. You probably think of some creep with an unshaven face and sinister eyes sitting in a white van with dark tinted windows and the back seats ripped out, duct...
I was the only one home when my father called me in for his deathbed confession. He wasn’t very old in the grand scheme of things, only fifty-eight, but after a violent mugging that took place about twenty years ago, his physical health hadn’t always been...
Two months ago we moved into our new place. It’s honestly amazing: huge property, beautiful forests, and an old barn out back that my wife Lydia hoped to remodel into a workshop. She loves wood carving. We have two sons and a daughter. Elliot is ten,...
I cannot share all the details of what happened on March 3rd, 2018. As a doctor, I’m not allowed to share certain private details, so names have been changed, and I do not mention what hospital I worked at at the time. There has to...
Tarmac turns to dirt, and the van bounces across uneven ground, causing my pen to roll off the passenger seat and the hanging cross to swing violently from side to side. There he is, walking straight towards me, about a hundred yards head, swaying his...
I should have taken more notice of the graffiti when I arrived at the Highbrooks. But the sad fact is that the strange scribblings on the complex were the least of my worries here. Traveling alone is never something I would recommend when you are in an...
My family cottage in rural Maine has remained unvisited for eight years. We used to use it about every summer for two to three weeks when we were kids. Somewhere between June to the start of September, typically at this mosquito-infested spot in this fairly...
New Orleans is a city alive with death. Things have a way of coming back from beyond. There’s something about the city that gives everything an extra spark. That sort of force can interact with the world in strange ways. One of those ways was the...
Until last week, I paid little attention to apartment 23. I knew that an older Japanese man lived there...
My brother Marcus was already dead before I came to Odessa. He was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer just six months ago, making him a walking corpse. When he got the news, it changed him. He started to do crazier and crazier things, just to get...
Urban legends are the bread and butter of the American culture. No matter where you go in this beautiful country, you will find whispers of these dark tales that often circulate around a campfire, and perhaps none as prevalent as the stories concerning crybaby bridges. A...
My name is Harry, and I’m dying. Less than a few weeks ago, I was in my car, sitting on a ledge. Engine revved, looking toward the open lake. I could hear geese calling out and looked toward the clouds to see they were breaking through...
Have you ever driven down a road and glanced back at the rearview mirror and thought to yourself, “That car wasn’t there before?” It’s a common enough phenomenon; there are so many merging lanes and exits and ramps on most highways that it’s easy to not...
I could smell the stench of death before I even stepped out of my truck. In its glory days, this place was the jewel of the neighborhood, the American dream personified. A sprawling two-story, three-bedroom house only a few miles from the beach. Looking at it now,...
