The Problem with the Drains
“Man, that shift sucks!” I hear it all the time. I can understand why people say it; I used to think the same thing. I still do some days. I’m one of the lucky people ...
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Santa’s Magic
The night of Christmas Eve 2008 is a blur, depending on how much medication I am given that day. I can avoid the nurses for a couple of hours, but not too long. I suppose ...
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Stay Off the Ice
Ever since grade three, my friends and I could make Derek Zimmer believe anything. Anything. From Pop-Rocks and Coke will make your stomach explode; to earwigs actually burrow in your ears (and one’s on your ...
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A Christmas Story
I sigh, stretch, and push myself away from my laptop. I let the chair spin for before lazily dragging my foot to stop it. I had been working on a new story. One about Christmas, ...
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Sole Survivor
He was cold. Bitterly so. It was not the unforgiving December wind creating lazy vortexes in the freshly falling snow; rather, it was the numbness that consumed both body and soul in one fatal, unseen ...
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11 Rules for Idiots Who Bought a Haunted House
Well you really screwed up this time, didn’t you? You found a gnarly deal on a beautiful home that almost seemed too good to be true, and you jumped at it. And now that you’re ...
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Carrots and Whiskey
The alarm was horribly loud in his left ear, a persistent high pitched beep forcing him from his dreamless, alcohol-soaked slumber into a hangover-heavy wakefulness. Jim groaned, rolling away from the insistent machine and negligently ...
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The Elf on the Shelf
Growing up, or at least since the mid-two thousands, my house always had an Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season. If you don’t know, Elves on the Shelf are these little elf dolls ...
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The Reason I Don’t Do Cold Readings Anymore
I don’t do 'cold readings' anymore. I don’t tell fortunes. I don’t read tea leaves. And I do not do contact ‘the other side’. Look, don’t judge me alright? It was an easy gig. I ...
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Graffiti Joe
It was the Christmas season. It had just gotten dark, as I was finally able to leave the office that night after working overtime. The streets were damp from the heavy rain; it had been ...
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White Christmas
Living in lower Alabama, we rarely receive snow. I spent most of my life wishing for a white Christmas, a white Christmas that never came. I have only seen snow twice in my thirty-three years ...
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Tonight’s Entertainment
In the dark of the night, little children often feel as if they see demons in their closet, and as if someone is watching them. The inky blackness of the night changes their familiar bedrooms ...
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Pretty Paper
One contrary wheel wobbled erratically as Thomas Moon pushed against the weighted shopping cart. He looked down at the mountain of Christmas presents and imagined his poor wallet gasping for air and fainting in a ...
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My Old Home Videos Showed Me a Life I Never Lived
No matter what you see in the coming months, regardless of how convincing it might seem; Know that I didn't want to die. I'm going to take all possible steps to prevent my predetermined demise, ...
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Christmas, 1996
“Someone has taken their love of fear one step too far.” Don LaFontaine’s iconic voice emitted from the television set. I ran over to the TV cabinet, nearly knocking over the Christmas tree that Ryan ...
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My Grandmother Left Behind Some Really Dark Secrets
I really don’t know where to start with this except to say that my grandmother, God rest her soul, has never been a mystery to me. She was an open book to all of us, ...
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The First Day of School
My father is a construction manager and because of his career, we have to move around the country every few years. In my 15 years, I have lived in six different states: New Mexico, Illinois, ...
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It Wasn’t a Reindeer
“Christ,” I muttered to myself, as the first flakes of snow started to fall. They gathered in fuzzy clumps over the windshield before my wipers cleared them away. I’d been waiting for fifteen — no, ...
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