The spring flu was been going around the school like usual, but some people were sicker than normal. They didn’t just have fever and headache – their faces were blotchy, their eyes bulged, and they all wheezed like they’d just run up 10 flights of...
Jake Thomasson pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down, covering his hand, and wiped away the condensation from the window. It was the third time he had done this in the past ten minutes, but he didn’t want to miss seeing if any cars drove...
The anniversary of Layne’s death wasn’t for another three days, but when “Cochise” came on the radio as I approached that curve, I took it as a sign. Layne’s favorite song. I pressed the gas and shifted gears as Chris Cornell began to wail. The...
“Fuck you!” Nathan Keene screamed at his grandmother. Her quivering lip stiffened and sucked in a gasp. The widening sclera of her aged vision looked as though they’d pop out of her skull. With all the strength his little hands could summon, Nathan slammed the...
Richard Mayes had done well for himself. He and his wife had raised three beautiful boys, and they owned the biggest farm for miles around. No one had so many horses and sheep as he did. Each day he watched over his hundreds of chickens,...
Heather was at her friend Jenny’s house one afternoon. It was just after school and Jenny’s parents hadn’t arrived home from work yet. It was just the two of them, and they were engrossed in a board game. Heather was having a good time, except they...
The boy heard the soft tinkle of a bell as he entered the shop. It was cool and dark inside; not at all what he had expected. Scattered around the small store were all sorts of items. Everything from teddy bears to cuckoo clocks could...
“The year is nineteen-ninety-nine.” That sentence brings me back to my senior kindergarten class when I was five years old, where we used to read out the date on the blackboard every single day. The year 1999 exists as a stain in my mind, however, as...
