07 Dec The Mommet
Every day on the bus ride to school through the country, I would see it: the Mommet. That’s what we all called it, but no one seemed to know who had called it that first. The Mommet was an old scarecrow, sitting atop the shallow...
06 Dec My Friend’s Perfect Match
I live in a small coal town on the Ohio river. Our community is pretty well crime free. Since we’re on the river, most disappearances are chalked up to people drowning and getting washed downstream. I want to keep track of my research, and this...
06 Dec The Color of Television Tuned to a Dead Channel
Nash paused for a moment to look up from the unlit, pothole-ridden street to the crumbling shell of an office building towering over him, just to make sure he’d really seen it. And there it was again; a flicker of white and grey light from a...
05 Dec The Basement
So, this one… this is the beginning of the most terrifying paranormal thing that ever happened to me. Technically, this should be titled “The Doll” since it spans several years, and several locations, and the central theme is a ventriloquist dummy I got as a...
05 Dec The Serpent of the Black Swamp
I have an obsession with a woman. She’s a wild child. As unpredictable and dangerous as a boar. As potent as a viper. She’s the kind of woman kids and drunks made legends about. The kind that’ll promise curses to those who trespass against her....
04 Dec Drawn to the Water
My daughter Dharma is six. She’s rowdy and fearless. Dauntless, even. Since she’s been old enough to walk, she’s been drawn to the water. There’s one particular spot in the lake that she’s always been drawn to. We live in the woods on the edge...
03 Dec Ol’ No. 37
The smoke in the air stung their eyes, but all eight men were fixated on the hulking figure at the head of the table. He seemed unaffected by the cigars’ haze, peering angrily through it at his subjects. All nine men held each other with...
03 Dec A Dinner Date
Zaleski State Forest is a short jot from my place of business. I’ve been known to skip eating and use my lunch break to take short treks through the forest in every season. It’s been at least a weekly occurrence since I began the position...
02 Dec Milton’s Movie Reviews
Hey-o! What’s good everybody? This is Milton, with Milton’s Movie Reviews. Before we get into today’s crazy flick, I’d like to thank today’s sponsor, Raid: Shadow Legends - the free online RPG that’s sweeping our screens worldwide. You can campaign with your friends to embark...
01 Dec Arthur Ascending
It was a bright, clear morning, but the ground below boiled and seethed with high-strung energy. The chapel on the hilltop was the epicenter of a tumultuous crowd, the largest gathering of churchgoers it had seen since its first service. This observation was not lost...
30 Nov The Dark Thing
I live in a small town in America’s heartland where nothing much ever happens. People go to work and go to church, and everyone pretty much knows everyone else. We all shop at the same stores send our kids to the same schools. There are...
28 Nov San Borondón Island
There are some things that you struggle to bring into your life. Then there are the things that you do your damnedest to eradicate from your existence. My name is Miguel Ramirez. My friends call me Chico de la Perdición. You heard that right. “Doomguy.” As long...
27 Nov Good Vibrations
The screams were the hardest part. Standing on the dust-covered hill looking down to the container in the darkness, the cries rose up through the air like a sea of Chinese lanterns ready to be extinguished. They did not bring light; only grief. For Larry, this...
26 Nov If You See a Downed Aircraft in the Everglades, Avoid It
About three years ago, a buddy named Will and I went kayaking and slough slogging (think a combination of hiking and swimming) in the Loxahatchee remnant of the Everglades. I had just gotten engaged to my girlfriend of seven years and he was celebrating three...
25 Nov SpiritHoods: The Long Lost
Brenna had been preparing for this fight for months. She had thought she was ready, convinced herself that she could handle it. Now, as the last few miles ticked by on her car’s odometer, the leaden weight sitting in her stomach told her otherwise. She thought...
25 Nov Play It Again
Throw another log on the fire. That’ll keep us warm for a while, keep the darkness at bay. Perhaps we should pass the time with another story by the campfire. Just long enough to see us through past midnight. I’ve told you stories before of...
24 Nov No Good Deed
It was nearly midnight when I first saw her. There was only one 24 hour grocery store in my small hometown and she looked as out of place as anyone could possibly be. Rather than wearing the old faded denim that all the townspeople seemed...
23 Nov Down Here
‘Down Here’. Those were the words my friend whispered to me that night, and though a year has passed, they still fester in my mind, shapeless and meandering like a blinding fog. When I entered his house the lights at the front were off. Outside, the...
22 Nov Sunny and the Ugly Man
Andrew wasn’t sure what his dominant emotion was as he watched the news article unfolding on CNN, but he was pretty certain it was somewhere on the spectrum between hatred and hopelessness. Probably closer to hopelessness by this point, on account of the fact that...
21 Nov The Show Goat
The police cruiser rumbled down the long gravel driveway, trailing a moldering cloud of dust that’d hang there until they left. About halfway down there was a sign nailed to a tree that said: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE IN RANGE. Depicted below this...