08 Sep The Other Cheek
I’d just begun getting intimate with my wife, and we had gotten a good rhythm going when she suddenly froze. “Shh, Trevor, wait...
07 Sep The Dowsing Girl
That damn Sarah Hatley is dangerous. She’s been “dowsing” for dead animals ever since the last of the winter snow melted. The Hatley girl is always carrying that same crooked bit of a willow branch. Sarah holds it out in front of herself with her...
06 Sep Subtle Reminders
“Damn, Pete!” my newest employee Marlon exclaims as he nods his head across the bar. “That woman’s eyes are all over you. It’s that time again, huh?” I try to hide my devilish smirk as I give a nod of my own in agreement. I slide...
05 Sep Two Men Wait for Sunrise
Kel and Sidney sat in near-perfect silence, taking turns to draw from a handle of vodka that they shared between them. The bottle of liquor was one of the most expensive ones left at the corner shop. It hadn’t mattered that it was expensive, because...
04 Sep Pick Your Poison
“Feeling down? Have a sinister sweet tooth? I have just the solution, Cordella’s Confections! Over on the corner of Brigantine and Salado Open every Monday through Friday, eleven to four.” A woman’s smile froze on screen. Cordella Joilee appeared perfect to the average eye. A gorgeous woman, about twenty-eight...
03 Sep Illustrations
For the rest of my life, I’ll remember Tali. I didn’t know her personally, but her art permanently changed my town. Our community never recovered and it probably never can. I distinctly remember so many of her illustrations. There was always such surreal and vivid...
02 Sep Iceolation
Debbie Sanderson was a dream come true at five-foot-nine with a quick wit, perfect smile and the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen. We’d met on a discord server about two months back and really hit it off. Our conversations evolved from messaging to phone...
01 Sep I Inherited My Father’s Snuffbox
I’m used to mysteries in my life. I never met my mother, for example. My dad used to talk about her all the time, but she always felt like a pretend character, or like maybe she was just an imaginary best friend of his. Dad...
31 Aug The Courtesan’s Blade
I never quite figured out who decides which lost souls have a right to be remembered and which ones don’t. I got a phone call while I was sitting next to my dying wife. I know that the medical equipment was supposed to be keeping her...
30 Aug Tale of the Roof-Reacher
“They say that if you look into this pond, the dead who lie beneath its surface will stare into your soul, and see the secrets you’ve kept hidden.” “They also used to say that if you touch yourself, you’ll grow hair on your palms. Well, do...
29 Aug Momma Won’t Stay Dead
Posted at 11:00h
in Deaths, Murders, and Disappearances, Illness and Injuries, Strange and Unexplained, Zombies and the Undead 1 Comment
My sister didn’t come to the funeral. And I honestly didn’t blame her one bit. There towards the end of Mom’s life, things had gotten unbearably rough. I took a semester off of college to stay home and help Dad out during Mom’s last few months,...
28 Aug Listen to the Sounds of Your Extinction
My hands trembled as I pressed the cold metal against my own temple. I was ready to go, but I needed another minute to deal with the finality of it all. I wanted death, and I'd made damn sure the gun wouldn't jam on me....
27 Aug Jim’s Not Here
29I leave dinner to pick up the phone, cupping my hand over my mouth in the hallway. “Who is it?” There’s a second of feedback, a high whining noise, and then a response. “Jim’s not here.” “Sorry? Who’s Jim? In fact, who is this?” I ask a flurry of questions,...
26 Aug I Bought a Working Time Machine
Posted at 11:00h
in Apocalyptic and Dystopian, Science Fiction, Strange and Unexplained, Technology, the Internet, and the Deep Web 2 Comments
All of my life, I’ve heard people say we are heading into a new utopian age of progressive enlightenment, and while I really wanted to believe that to be true, with the things I have seen going on with the world, I’ve had to remain...
25 Aug Bad Trip
It was my fifth day in Gloaming, Nevada – an unincorporated township skirted on all sides by scorched barrenness. I had never been this far west before, and so the craggy, acacia-dotted desert was dazzling to my senses. I remember wishing that I could extend...
24 Aug Skip to the End
Let me just get the obvious out of the way first; yes, I’ve actually been to the future. No, don’t ask me about the Pandemic, or the Climate Crisis, or the next election, or next week’s lotto jackpot. I’ve been to the far future, long...
23 Aug My Grandfather Never Spoke About His Time at War
How much do we know about our grandparents? Like, I mean how much do we really know about them? It can be easy to forget that your old, withering and often wise family members had lives long before we were alive. They were kids with...
22 Aug Snow Angels are Illegal Where I Live
My town is in one of the northwestern states, which, if you know anything about the northeast, means snow like...
21 Aug The Fall
Spring and summer are Daddy’s favorite seasons. He loves the smell of freshly-mown lawns, the stroke of sunbeams on his face, the songs of crickets at night, and the painterly bloom of plants...
20 Aug Naked and Afraid
Hiking has always been a hobby of mine. Every year I try to find new trails, seemingly untouched by man. I’ll travel across the globe in search of the best, most scenic views you can imagine. Bangladesh, Fiji, and the alpines are some of the...