11 Jun Idle Thoughts
As a kid, I read a ton of sci-fi. Pulp stuff, real trash, most of it, but it inspired me. It told me that there were things out there to be discovered, that there were new worlds to open up. No matter how far we’d...
10 Jun Happy Birthday
Today’s my birthday. That’s not generally something I bring up. I don’t celebrate it. Almost no one knows when it is, and I like it that way. I don’t like being put on the spot. I don’t like the falseness of people wishing me a happy...
09 Jun To Have and To Hold
I was supposed to be at my friend’s wedding this weekend. And the thing is, maybe I was there? Only I’m pretty sure it was canceled. I went to the bride’s funeral. But—let me back up. I knew both Aldin and Petra from college. They met...
08 Jun Under Construction
I thought it was just like any other construction zone. It looked the same: same cones, same signs, same trucks. And honestly, if people would learn how to drive, I probably never would have noticed any differently. But people get stupid in the face of...
07 Jun The Depths of Trust
It had been a whirlwind romance. Hakamiah Morrison had been head over heels for Delilah from the moment he first laid eyes on her. He was not greatly skilled in the art of seduction, or indeed even conversation, so it took a few tries to...
06 Jun The Murk
Obadiah had forty different words for fog. From his fishing shack on the waterfront, he watched various fogs come and go, ebbing and flowing around the town. He needed every one of the words to describe the varied types that ran their blurry touch over...
05 Jun David Knows a Shortcut
There were three things everyone could tell you about David. The first, the one everyone noticed immediately, was that he was handsome. Like, Hollywood handsome. He had a roguish charm, too, a disarming smile that lit up his face and made everything all right. Men,...
04 Jun What is Going on at Liberty Chapel
I'm from a smallish town. In a town like that, you know everyone's business, for better or for worse. You all go to the same school, shop at the same stores, show up on Sundays at the same churches. More or less, anyway. My town had...
03 Jun The Bus Ride Down Foulcroft Row
It was just after dark, and I was standing by myself at an abandoned bus stop on an almost equally abandoned street, waiting in near pitch-black conditions for a bus that logically would never come. Most of the streetlights didn’t work anymore, and the derelict...
02 Jun My Jolly Sailor Bold
Captain Saul Saline (also spelled Selene, depending on whether he was feeling salty or loony) took a pair of methodical, tottering steps out of the elevator and into the command module of his scrap trawler, the ‘SS Saline’s Solution,’ more informally known as ‘The Grimy...
01 Jun An Abhorrent Vacuum
The Ontological Vacuum Chamber had been intended to create a pocket of absolute Nothing, in the purest, philosophical sense of the term. It was to be completely devoid of not only mass and energy but space and time as well. This would not be like...
31 May Can’t Stop the Signal
“So… you’re trying to cash in on this whole ‘analog horror’ fad? Is that it?” the eccentrically dressed yet curmudgeonly old shopkeeper asked as he disinterestedly pawed through the jumbled collection of off-brand VHS tapes I had brought for him. I couldn’t say that I blamed...
30 May Where the Dead Ride
The stink of cigarettes and stale beer enveloped me as I pushed through the door of The Last Call. George Jones crooned from the jukebox and across the crowded room, Sherry Carter balanced a tray of drinks. She weaved between tables, her red hair like...
29 May The 8-Ball
Chapter 1 The Gift On my eighth birthday, in 1968, I got an odd birthday gift. I was certain everything it represented was true, and I was quick to ask it questions as I awaited the triangular answer to appear in its purplish-blue form underneath its black...
28 May Pea Ridge (Part 2)
Sunday Night Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The world has turned upside down. Glen was right. Fuck! Aliens! About 5:30 p.m., Snaggle wanted to go outside. I followed him out, rifle slung over one shoulder. He sniffed around the fence before he started barking his head off. Then I heard...
27 May The Call of the Wendigo
Chapter 1 Pat pushed his way through the tall grass of the woodland, navigating the trees and trying to find the source of the sound. Somewhere up ahead, a woman was hurt. He could hear her crying out for help. “Please…I think it’s broken. I can’t move...
26 May The Chair in the Closet
Nine Months Earlier A computer programmer working at Simitrek, a software development company, typed at his office computer. He looked at the stack of forms on his desk, then looked back at his computer screen. Suddenly, his stomach let out a gurgling noise. He rubbed it...
25 May Cozy Murder Guild
Chapter 1 “First of all, Ms. Fitzhugh, I want to thank you for doing this interview for my ‘Between the Covers’ podcast.” “Please call me Vivian, dear. Ms. Fitzhugh sounds so stuffy!” Randall laughed and took a sip of his tea, “Of course. Vivian it is. And if...
24 May The Last Night Before the World Ended
Even so close to midnight, the unseasonable heat and humidity clings to the night air with a ferocious grip. Though only one week until Christmas, the temperature feels like mid-September. Regina Parker groans. Enduring one summer per year in Arkansas is enough. The second she...
23 May Omega Forest
“Ye needn’t think the only folks is the folks hereabouts.” — H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror “Even in this world, more things exist without our knowledge than that with. And the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there.” — Judge Holden, Blood...