Night One Hello, I am Sally, or Sal for short. I have a story for you that happened about a year ago. I need to tell someone because it is a tale that has been gnawing away at my mind. It is a story that still haunts my nightmares today […]
While others can find forests unsettling in the dark, I’ve always found that there is something uniquely tranquil about walking through a forest at night. There would be no one but me and the sound of the wind through the trees, the rustling of small animals through the leaf litter
Don’t Look, Don’t Listen Read More »
The sound of the doorbell echoed through my empty house like a banshee’s wail. It was Halloween night, and I was alone. Not by choice, but because it was my ex’s turn to take our kids, Lily and Ben, trick-or-treating. The custody agreement was part of the divorce proceedings. Though
The Unanswered Doorbell: A Halloween Nightmare Read More »
A young, dark blond woman with a backpack checked the list of stores in her hand. Of the seven names, she crossed out four. She checked her phone for directions to the antique store Gifts of Old. She put her phone away and read the back of the paper, a
My grandfather has been acting very strange lately, and has begun sleepwalking again. For this reason it was suggested to me by my parents that I write a journal to keep myself busy, and to keep track and document my grandfather’s behavior here. They will be away in Europe for
October 31st… Some love it, some hate it. Uber Christians claim Halloween is a day full of devil worshiping and witchcraft. While on the other side of the eerily festooned fence, creepy and depraved individuals seem to use the day as an excuse to grow even more alarming. Then, somewhere
It was Halloween night, my parents had just left with my little brother to go to a party at the middle school. I didn’t go because I was in the 11th grade and just spent the day drowning from essays and tests, so I wasn’t in the mood to spend
Don’t Answer The Door At 9pm On Halloween Read More »
A mild night in the New England countryside. An empty field with an omnipresence of untrimmed grass and wild weeds left to grow unabated. The field is surrounded by a lumbering audience of trees. The moon casts its glows of judgment, the dim light graciously cast is swallowed by a
Composer of the Unknown Read More »
It’s scary how times have changed, those we thought invincible, taken away without so much as a fight. The world feels a little colder these days, well, at least to me. I miss my mum, I would do anything to have her back, to just sit here with me on
I should have known this would be a fucking scam. I thought as I sat and waited in the parking lot while the clock digits kept increasing. We had been waiting 45 minutes for an event that was supposed to have started. An event I knew nothing about. That’s what
At three A.M. I was awoken to an ear piercing scream coming from the woods. Waking up my husband, I ask him to listen to the sound, it persisted for several minutes. “It sounds like a mountain lion, it’s probably trying to lure in some bait, no one screams like
The Screaming In The Woods Read More »
The rusty black Sedan crept along the road opposite Claire, moving at under 10 mph. Claire stopped walking and pretended to check her phone while ignoring her shaking hand and rising heart rate: the signs of an on-coming panic attack, worsened by alcohol. The Sedan finally stopped, but she heard
In the pitch black darkness of nightfall, many unsavory things can and often do take place. We are told at a young age that nothing can get you in the dark… that you’re safe. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the truth. There are indeed monsters in this world… sometimes they’re in
Read Part 1 here I searched for Ruby for three days straight. It had started to feel claustrophobic, staring at the world outside of Shadow Lake butknowing I couldn’t leave. I continuously prayed that somehow, Ruby had escaped the barrier andwhatever doom awaited everyone who came to this town. I
That time at Shadow Lake (Part 2) Read More »
The first time my brother and I made a deal, I ended up in the hospital. I remember being at the park when I was five years old, my legs swinging as I flippedinattentively through the pages of a book. My brother Rowan hummed beside me, his hazel eyesscheming. We
That time at Shadow Lake (Part 1) Read More »
Today was a weird day. It was another long day at the office. Piles of paperwork stood a mile high on my desk, and it’d taken hours to even make a dent in it. I couldn’t have been more relieved when the clock finally hit 5:00. I hightailed it out
He won’t stop staring Read More »
I am wondering if anyone has ever shared this same experience, or anomaly – I’m not sure exactly what to call it. I’ve had it happen twice in my life so far. The way it just literally crops up out of absolutely nowhere, with only a last second warning, I
1 A couple of years ago, me and my now wife, Anna, decided we needed a short break away in the country to recharge our batteries and enjoy the outdoors. We looked at a lot of places before deciding on the small town of Camelford in Cornwall. We found ourselves
The Camelford Forsaken Read More »
I performed my heart out on stage, but I don’t think it was enough. It was like moving through tar, with every action every word being forced out of my body like how I was being forced to act on this stage of suspense. Their eyes seem to pierce my
The Show at the Barn Theater Read More »
It’s always fun to walk down Mexico City at night. The distant sounds of the street’s music boxes coupled with the visible smoke of the tamale carts and the streetlights make you want to stay forever, and there’s no hot sun to burn your face. I had gone out to
I fell asleep in the Mexico City subway Read More »
It was cold and dark that one wretched morning in the city of dead dreams. Dilapidated buildings, decadent sentries of another time, towered on either side of me as I sped by on my way to the warehouse downtown. An ill-disposed wind howled in every direction; beggars huddled together and
It had been at least three years since I had last seen John. I wondered if “best friend” was still applicable, given the circumstances. Somehow semantics were the last thing on my mind. Who left a voicemail in this day and age, anyway? Only John. His social and emotional ineptitude
When people come across something unexplainable, they try to find rational reasoning behind it. I mean, it’s only natural, right? Well, sometimes things are better left unexplained. I learned this the hard way. It was a cool Thursday afternoon. I had just got off work, and wanted to take a
The Door That Leads to Nowhere Read More »
My name is detective Derek Wallace, of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, in Cook County, Illinois, and for the last two and a half months I have been assigned to one of the most brutal, and confounding cases that I have seen in my time as an investigator. Admittedly, I
