22 Mar Toast Wanted
This is the story of how a novelty toaster ruined my life. First of all, I want to clarify that I’m not the kind of guy who buys a novelty toaster. I got it at a white elephant gift exchange a couple of years back. You...
18 Mar Paper, Platinum, Stone
On what would have been our fiftieth anniversary, I bought you a marble headstone. Stone is the recommended gift for ninety years of marriage, but my being around another forty is a gamble for which the odds are too long. Gold is the traditional gift...
17 Mar The Peeper
7:35 pm, November 28. Sheriff Ron Ball and Deputy Ernest Dingle: On-duty. Unit 1, we got a 10-70 at Royalty Deluxe Luxury Mobile Estates. I repeat, a 10-70. Unit One, do you copy? Sheriff Ball looked at Dingle. No more than five minutes after they’d parked for...
16 Mar An Ancient Evil
The shivering Cro-Magnon man shifted uncomfortably in the dark. His back across the hard rocky surface was certainly an untenable reality for any decent sleep. He grunted and moaned and awoke with a start. Another nightmare. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. His back...
10 Mar A Touch of Graveyard Dirt
I made a terrible mistake. You see, it started when I was seven years old, and my father tried to reshingle the roof all by himself. I don’t think he really had any idea what he was doing, but I heard him tell my mother that...
09 Mar The Ashland Express
The Chicago suburb of Englewood is no stranger to murder. In 1893, it was home to Dr. H. H. Holmes, who built a hotel with the sole purpose of murdering his employees and patrons. A good hundred or so died in his gas-rigged rooms, their...
08 Mar The Jack Monster
My father has always been somewhat eccentric, prone to tall tales of his childhood, keeping collections of old knickknacks and assorted antiquities he’d find at auction, and strict adherence to bizarre house rules. Growing up in his home, the same home he grew up in,...
07 Mar Two Stories of the Haunted Cave
“Where are we going?” I was seated between my brothers Roger and Greg in the back of my brother-in-law’s black Scirocco. It was three days until Halloween, and our parents had left my sister and her husband in charge as they went to attend a school...
06 Mar Blood Brothers
“I’m not going to let you do this,” said Eugene. “You’re the closest thing I have to a brother and I don’t want you to die.” His eleven-year-old knees shook and buckled on the sidewalk of Mountain Road, that cold night in November. The bracing...
03 Mar All in Good Fun
“So, you ready?” Will stands proudly at the bedroom door. His backpack is strapped on securely, but he still holds on to the straps, a ready and willing adventurer. His hoodie is zipped up to his neck but he keeps the hood down. He knows better...
01 Mar Bugs in the System
After World War II, Russian agents descended upon German specialists habituating in the Soviet Occupation Zone, and forcefully deported them to the USSR to work on their own scientific projects. This maneuver, dubbed Operation Osoaviakhim, included renowned astrophysicist Dr. Dietrich Volkov. He performed cosmonautical operations...
26 Feb Child of the Garden
A heavy mist rolled over the lush grass of the cemetery, muting the hues of green land and blue sky with a heavy veil of grey. The already morose atmosphere was exaggerated with the crowd of friends and family members swallowed in black clothes. We...
25 Feb The Baggedy Man
My Aunt Mel was one of the strongest women I ever knew. She stepped in to raise my little brother Keith and me after we lost our mother to ovarian cancer. Not many other people would have done the same, especially having to step in...
24 Feb Roadside
You know those people who you tell the time of events to fifteen minutes earlier than they start because you know they’ll be late? The people who would be late to their own funerals, as the saying goes. Well...
23 Feb Cat Call
I worked for over twenty years as a police officer for the Lindley County Sheriff’s Office before retiring at the beginning of last year. I’ve often been asked a lot of questions about my time in law enforcement, the main one of course being, ‘What...
22 Feb The Tattoo
Like most teenage boys, I believed that I was a wolf, not a sheep. And, like most teenage boys I was wrong. I was very much a follower. Specifically, a follower of Daniel Lawman. Daniel Lawman was the coolest boy in school. Handsome, charming and effortlessly intelligent....
19 Feb Painting the Roses Red
My neighbor Dr. Gregovich suffered both of life’s greatest calamities. The first was falling in love. This is a rebellious and generally discouraged affliction to which he accidentally exposed himself when he was just five years old. Elaine, age four at the time, had given...
17 Feb My Self-Help Tape Told Me To Kill Myself
I hate my job. I hate selling days of my life while barely earning enough to sustain it. I hate my boss, who tells me I’m lucky to find stable work in such an uncertain world. I hate my friends who treat dreams like an unfortunate...
07 Feb Mannequin Lake
I gently lowered the canoe into the calm water. Matt stood behind me, clutching the two oars, anxious to start fishing. Ripples rose to life and expanded out into the vast lake, quiet trumpets that announced our entry into the cool blue realm. The sun crept...
31 Jan Geitefødsel: The Night of the Goat
In my youth, I had a wild streak. I was a teenager during the years when heavy metal began to get old. The group I ran with was fine with the classics, but they wanted something a little more extreme. We wanted something wild, raw...