My name is John Gray. I was once chief evidence analyst with the Oregon State Police. A half-hour past sunset on September 7th of 2013, a volunteer at the visitor’s center inside the Qualls Nature Education Park on the edge of the Columbia River Gorge...
It is with profound sadness and continued fear that I tell my story. I fear that I won’t have long and if you should chance upon my recording and I hope that you do – I’ll have explained enough that it may act as a...
There are sounds in the haze; you just have to be more alert to their subtleties to hear them. The sounds travel between the thin line that divides the conscious from the unconscious, and when she woke up on the cold, hard ground, she could...
There were only a few select things in this world that Corbin Reef hated more than lazy college professors. Give me a hardass who’ll break you down before midterms, he would say; at least that would show they cared about the class. Corbin was a first-year...
You know, when you hear the word ‘kidnapper,’ the most common culprit doesn’t come to mind. You probably think of some creep with an unshaven face and sinister eyes sitting in a white van with dark tinted windows and the back seats ripped out, duct...
My family cottage in rural Maine has remained unvisited for eight years. We used to use it about every summer for two to three weeks when we were kids. Somewhere between June to the start of September, typically at this mosquito-infested spot in this fairly...
Part 1 The sharp click of a switch and a whirr of static on an old multi-band radio saturated a small Floridian claustrophobic one-bedroom apartment with a loud audio gradience – crawling from low to high back to low pitches of frequency. In a knee-jerk reaction,...
Part I London, 1982 Like a dog come running at his master’s whistle, I RSVP’d yes on an invitation to Vernon Copeland’s Halloween party to view his latest acquisition. A lost piece of cinema from the early ’20s, a screen test hitherto undiscovered, et cetera, et cetera....
For Elombe, at first, the night began like any other. Wakefulness came in a flash. He sat upright in his straw mat, fingers clenched tight around his spear. There had been a chui prowling through their village the last few weeks; it had already dragged away...
27For the past three weeks it was the same dream every night. Strangely enough, the whole scene is in black-and-white, with a grainy finish, like an old film. And I mean an old film, like, pre-1900s. Everything is faded, and seems to swim within itself. There’s...
I pulled into the bar parking lot and stopped the car. I sat there for a moment, letting the engine idle as I thought about what I was doing. I knew my wife and kids were at home waiting for me, but I just couldn’t...
My life was fairly simple. I never really asked for much, nor did I expect all that much either. I was freelancing as a videographer, and had a steady group of repeat customers. Mostly small businesses who wanted me to help them put together ads,...
Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he...
Arnold Willis slowly opened his eyes, dreading what he would see. The small alarm clock on the nightstand read a merciless 5:58 a.m. The sterile hospital wall came into focus behind the clock, in sharp contrast to the brightly-colored balloons which floated at the edge...
October 6th, 1853 When I set out for Port Humber, I had not imagined that this would be where I met my death. Indeed, I must confess that I had always imagined myself beyond death in a sense. Not above it, no. One of the few...
I was awaiting an interview with a dying man, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, watching an ancient television set mounted high in the corner of the hospital waiting room that flashed riot scenes. Placards waving, black faces crying into cameras, the capitol was burning and...
“When you're Dead…you live in a box, and it's always dark, but you're not ever afraid.” – Kelly Link, “The Specialist’s Hat” When Ellen and Juliya were 4 and 6 years old, Dad would leave out the most gruesome parts of the story of the Drognar. But...
Fifteen years ago, something terrible happened to my family. It’s taken a lot of therapy and drugs to help me cope with it. I still think about those days a lot. I can’t seem to get some of the images out of my mind. They...
I watched as my son splashed around in the waves, the sun reflecting off the cool green water. Sean laughed as the waves crashed around his ankles and chased him up the shore. The ocean then pulled away, leaving trembling patches of sea foam that...
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I reached for it, only half-listening to the sales meeting I was in. My boss was rattling on, stressing about how we needed to push numbers, increase our revenue, the usual slog. The other eight salesmen around the table...
