Chapter 1 Ethan Hull’s eyes scanned the crowded emergency room of Forestview Medical Center, his mind already in overdrive despite the shift having only just begun. The ER was packed, as usual, with the unmistakable chaos of a Monday morning. Nurses and doctors darted between curtained-off...
Part I The storm arrived faster than anyone expected. Six-year-old Evelina McIntyre sat cross-legged on the carpet in her bedroom, a small, cozy space nestled on the lower level of her family’s home in Georgia. The room, with its pastel green walls and neatly arranged shelves...
Troy Davis, a stalwart of the mines for over three decades, lived a life shaped by the grit and grind of the subterranean world. However, one ominous morning, the very mines that defined his existence became a perilous trap. A reckless explosion had reverberated through...
The Owl Witch On a Wednesday shortly after 3 PM, a taxi pulled up to an old house in Rosevine, Texas, an unincorporated community in northwestern Sabine County in Texas. Thiago Angel Martinez, a stocky fifty-year-old man with a bald head, large mustache, and covered in...
Go, Light Your Torches A thin cloud of red dust whips outside the airlock window. I press my forearm against the glass and lose myself in the soft hiss of sand moving against the hull. Wind. The thought almost makes me laugh. I always thought it was...
The air in the room was frigid and stank of rotting meat. The unearthly groans spewing from the small, spindly creature’s mouth chilled Maddie to her core. The vile words it used to remind her of her every mistake and shortcoming filled her with shame...
Chapter One: Surprise I lay my hands against the edge of the bathroom sink and stare at my reflection. I could still add a trickle of blood down the corner of my mouth...
Ellie’s morning consisted of organizing the paperwork of her first client, Edgar Zavala. She was a newly hired caregiver at Lakeside Assisted Living and had just completed her two-week training course. Edgar’s profile was unremarkable. Hispanic male, sixty-eight years old, widower with no military service. Previous...
The sun was emerging from the horizon like the head of some angry fire god awakening from its long slumber, when they crossed over the Georgia border from Florida. The temperature was already beginning to rise, and the day had yet to even begin. It...
“In the desert, the voices of God and the Devil are scarcely distinguishable.” — Loren Eiseley Chapter I — The Saloon Laying in the thoroughfare outside the saloon was a pile of twenty smouldering bodies stacked on top of each other like logs. The gang of bandits that...
“Alice Smirnoff quits, and Bartholomew Brown makes prosecutor.” Shirly sighed as she draped her arm around Bart’s neck. “And to think, Mother said you’d never amount to anything.” “Well, you can hardly blame her.” Bart smirked, letting his hands linger on the curve of her hips....
Shorty Small, a man neither short nor small, drummed his fingers on the ornately carved oak bar. The location being a well-established watering hole on Bourbon Street. Fat Tuesdays only entertained a handful of tourists on this early spring afternoon. With the summer vacation season...
“The past and future dreams us, lays on our bodies like skin, so that we might pass the days with grace. To us were given all the ways and the obligation to travel. To us were opened all the roads of heaven, all the tunnels...
Warrior Biting my cheek, I glance up at the clock on the wall. The minute hand crawls out from behind one of the bars protecting its face. Quarter till three. The lead ball that’s been sitting in my chest since Mariana dropped me off falls to...
This whole thing started with a Rubik’s Cube. Once I learned the algorithm and figured it out, I was able to solve it in record time. I competed in a tournament or two, but eventually, I started to get bored. It became too easy for...
There’s a story that you won’t read in history books. It’s a truth that you only hear in my village. The Pendle witches were innocent, but there is a real witch in the Forest of Bowland. My name’s Thomas, and I grew up in Barley, which is...
The Fool Stepping off the gravel path onto the grass, I stop to let my eyes take in the trees draped in vines all around me. Pedro, my youngest grandchild, takes my hand and helps me hobble over to a small stone bench, almost hidden under...
My name is Darren Johnson. I’m thirty-four years old. I have wavy black hair, blue eyes, a shaven face, and no distinct details that would separate me from the crowd. I work the night shift at a large office building doing housekeeping. The small paychecks...
“… It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all…” -- Jennifer Donnely *** BZZZZZ Try having that sound wake you up. The way the metal screeches as it spins. Try having THAT wake you up, and then realize you’re bare-ass naked and restrained to a chair. What would you...
The sun hangs low in the western sky, painting the jungle in shades of pink and lavender. A cacophony of howls rise lending a primeval aura to the trees. The sounds speak to me. Some deep ache mixing with a fervent longing whispers at the...
