My girlfriend, Amber, shook several thick envelopes in my face as soon as I came through the front door. “Do you see these? Huh? Huh?” she snarled with her teeth bared and nose scrunched. “They look like junk mail to me,” I said. “They are junk mail! And...
My friend Shannon had been through quite a bit in the past few years, and that was the only reason that I didn’t immediately call the police when I stopped by her work and found her halfway through the process of climbing out of a...
Let me start my story by telling you something about me, the most important thing, in fact: I find things, and I fix them. That’s who I am. If you don’t know that, you don’t know me. I’m a second-generation auto mechanic, born-and-bred. I’ve been repairing...
my dad taught me how to use the internet because sometimes he said he felt too lazy to scroll and he just wanted to sit and smoke cigarettes and drink beer and i would read out the answers in the threads he liked the sound...
Part One: Once a Butcher's Wife Calla Lily Cottage stood among the rose bushes and assorted potted plants atop of Willow Vale, basking in the mid-afternoon sun. White walls adorned with climbing ivy, a thick thatched roof, and aging lop-sided windows gave the building a distinct...
Some nights are worse than others. Some nights, I wake up alone in the dark with a cold chill settling upon me, seeping into my flesh. Other nights I toss and turn until I wake with a half-remembered image of my brother Aaron’s face. In...
Paige watched with wide eyes as her friend was ushered into a cage with iron bars jagged with rust. An iron arm swung the cage over the edge of the filthy fishing boat. Paige pressed her hands together, her eyes welling with panic. ”No, please!” she pleaded. “She...
Sickness overcame Emily without warning. While we strode, arms linked, through downtown after a late movie, taking turns trashing it—Emily became silent, and stopped walking. I thought maybe she’d stepped in gum, or forgot something at the theatre, but on her face grew an expression signaling...
My wife Vicky means more to me than my own life. I’ve consulted doctors after hours, anonymous clinical helplines, even a suicide hotline for Christ’s sake. The only course of action that I have left is to release her into professional medical care. As weak...
Growing up, I never saw a single carved or smashed pumpkin. The only smashed pumpkin I ever saw was thrown down personally. It was years ago. I was still young. Maybe we’d gotten the idea from a story on the radio or a comic. A...
When the quarantine began, I thought life couldn’t get any worse, but it only took a week of silent streets and empty lots for that to change. On the seventh night, sitting and staring across the block from the window of my apartment, I saw...
It had rained off and on that summer night, leaving the forest dark and humid. Pushing through the wet underbrush after his friend, Noah wiped his hands on his pants, gripped his flashlight tighter, and complained, “But what if the ghost is real?” Crunching through the...
The day I accidentally witnessed my physics teacher die horribly, I didn’t know what to do. I went to my classes in a daze, sat there stunned for hours, and wondered if people would think I had something to do with it if I reported...
When I first saw him standing out there on the sidewalk, I thought nothing of it. I certainly didn’t think he’d still be out there come September. I lingered at the window for just a moment, decided that the night-bound silhouette across the street was...
I don’t have a gambling problem. That’s the first thing I want known. It’s also what they all say, right? No, I’m not addicted to gambling, but I have a co-dependency issue with someone who is. I’m not the coolest guy on the block, and I’m...
A single day added onto my sentence meant the difference between a normal jail and the unending nightmare of Pembina Prison. I was supposed to get 364 days. That was the deal. But the judge didn’t like my ‘attitude,’ whatever the hell that meant, so...
This is the 2nd in a multi-part series. If you haven't already, please read the 1st part here. Part II To this day, I don’t know what came over me, but as the cops entered the room, I was overwhelmed with the idea that they meant me...
Part I Something extraordinary began happening to me this past month, and I’m not sure whether I ought to be relieved or terrified. For all I know, it’s been going on for several months, or possibly years. Hell, maybe it’s been going on my entire life,...
It was a cloudless, sapphire-blue sky that day. We had the camping trip planned for a month, and it took even longer than that for us to coordinate our vacations, so that we could all be there together. It was a reunion I had dreamed...
Nestled just off the Appalachian Trail, near the border of Virginia and West Virginia, where forests grew thick and pressed in on all sides, sat a small region known as Dry Branch. Barely more than a collection of campgrounds, Dry Branch rarely received visitors, save...
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