Read Part One here Read Part Two here * * * HELLO AND WELCOME to our pre-Halloween sale at Cinderella’s Curios and Pawn! I’m Katrina Overman, and I’m so glad to meet you. You might recognize this place as having been owned by a woman named Sophie Tafus. My late aunt, curator of countless collectibles…
I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween. When I was a kid, that was of course because of the candy and the chocolate bars. As I got older and entered my teenage years, that changed. My love for the holiday remained, but that was because of the costumes and decorations. I had this one…
I’m just a college student who has come to Croftmire for anything but fun. So, why’d I come all the way from Montana here? Consider it a way to honor my friend from childhood; and as a way to get my head out of the pity I felt since my girlfriend, and I broke up….
It’s late October, and I’m stuck in this dead-end job at Marty’s Video Rentals. Halloween’s coming, so the place is crawling with people who think they know horror. They don’t. They rent the same tired slashers, the same monsters that never change, never learn. Outside, the streets are strewn with brittle leaves, the air heavy…
Let me just begin by saying that even though I’m not the biggest computer geek in the world, or by any means what you would refer to as an “iPad Kid”, being grounded sucks. Having my phone and Xbox taken away wasn’t the worst part of being grounded. However, it certainly wasn’t the best, the…
A gust of October wind sent a shiver up my back. Goosebumps prickled through my ghost costume, the former bed sheet flapping like a flag in the wind. I followed what I could see of my best friend Mikey from hand-cut eyeholes. The top of his matte brown dollar store cowboy hat bobbed ahead. I…
My name is Lydia. I’m 30 years old, and I love celebrating Halloween with my best friend, Martha. Martha and I have been best friends ever since we were ten years old. We do everything together, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. You see, when I was seven years old, my…
“Base Camp this is Hunter Two-One Actual. Still no sign of any Feral activity, over, or Dingo Two.” “This is Base Camp, copy that. ISR’s got you cleared as well.” Mike lowered his hand from the radio and turned to us. “Let’s keep moving. We gotta locate Dingo Two.” I nodded and gestured to the…
If you’re reading this, you know what sorry state you have found me in. I pass on my condolences for whatever trauma I may have predisposed upon you, and it is with my deepest sympathies; for it is a fate that we shall undoubtedly come to share in kindred. However, there is some solace, for…
Honestly when I mention this to people, no one else seems to remember this. I’m not sure why this seems to linger in my mind every night. When I mention the riots in 95 they talk about the riots in LA. They don’t remember the sirens screaming all night. They don’t remember the men in…
How far am I willing to go to make my dream come true? Through hell and back, that’s what I kept telling myself. Through hell and back. I’d been out of a job for 6 months. At first, I told myself it was just a rough patch. Everyone goes through them, right? I sent out…
As I myself am writing this message under unappreciable mental strain, by tomorrow I shall be no more. My food supply as well as medicine and water had been running out. I’ve been stuck on this liferaft for a few days, floating lonely in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a hundred miles away from…
Kai couldn’t remember the last time he’d caught himself feeling truly frightened. He had watched all of the scariest movies he could find, devoured countless ancient tales of mystery and macabre, and even researched real-world accounts of ghostly sightings and unexplainable encounters. All of it bored him. Of course, he hadn’t always been so unbothered…
I’ve probably mentioned it already, but y’know, it’s that time of year again. And, honestly, I only met him twice. But my buddy Jon got the lowdown — said he spoke to the guy’s boss and everything.Yeah, the kid’s name was Tom. Thomas Lowman, I think. Worked for one of those property sharks downtown, near…
I like to drive past spooky places.You can find them anywhere, if you know what to look for. An abandoned building, a mist covered field, a quickly darkening forest at sunset. It was one of my favorite pastimes as a teenager. The town I grew up in was a short distance from a huge number…
I feel compelled to tell you all a story. One about mirrors. They are so much more than you could ever imagine. They aren’t simply vessels for reflections. They are a gateway into an entire world, a dying realm on the brink of collapse. My friends and I call it “The Other Side.” Over there…
On August 20, 1968, the armies of the countries forming the Warsaw Pact, primarily led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia less than an hour before midnight. Three hours later, I watched my village, the only world that I knew, burn. The invasion of my home country didn’t last long. The attack was well-coordinated, and…
Derrick comes back from the daily meeting with coffee in a styrofoam cup balanced on top of a folder marked “Third Quarter Staff Feedback Report”. The coffee, filled with a mix of brown sugar and powdered vanilla creamer, is what will make or break his mood for the day. It will break. But he’ll forget…
August 12th – Morning I don’t know why I’m writing this down, or if anyone will ever read it. Maybe it’s for me, a way to remember. Or maybe to prove that it happened—that it’s real. We went camping. Just my mother and me. The kind of trip that sounds innocent: a tent in the…
Lord, forgive me if I’m all over the place. The sheriff wanted me to ‘jot’ down everything that’s happened, or at least, everything that I can describe. They were kind enough to get me one of them assistive keyboards to type this all out. Even getting everything out there, I’m not sure they’re going to…
It’s amazing what lives within our oceans. Ecosystems of life entirely separated from our comfortable surface existences. It’s a momentous event when the worlds interact: people cheer when they see dolphins breach above the waves, there are organizations devoted to helping the sea turtle population make their way back to the water, and so on….
It all started last Monday. I received a call from his basketball coach. My son, Riley, had been acting more strangely than usual. He said my son had seemed to intentionally pop two basketballs alone in the locker room. I made my son play for the church league after school. Even though I know he…
My grandmother died at 3:33 AM on a Tuesday, and her TV wouldn’t turn off. Not wouldn’t—couldn’t. We unplugged it. We cut the power to her room. We even took a hammer to the screen, but it kept playing, the jagged cracks creating a kaleidoscope of images that shouldn’t exist. Channel 0. A channel that…
Barker watched from his car with a morbid sense of curiosity as the mark crossed the dual carriageway and went into the greasy spoon Cafe opposite. Barker had been on the trail of the mark for almost a month before finally catching up, just outside of Glasgow. Dragging on the last of his cigarette, he…