I don’t know when you’re going to read this, but I can tell you when it started: I was out for a walk alone in the woods when the entity came for me. It was beyond a blur. It was, for lack of a better term, absence of meaning. Where it hid, there were no…
The red lights are only making the pain worse. It is an immense, earth-shattering pain, in my midsection and in my head. I try to move, but I can’t; I try to speak, but I can’t do that either. It hurts too much, and my voice obeys me no more than do my joints or…
The day Jeffrey Woods and his family arrived at their new home, the sky was overcast and the weather was muggy. The gray skies seemed to punctuate his mood. Jeff was not thrilled to be here. Their new home was beautiful though, a true example of his father’s new found success, but still, it wasn’t the home he’d known.
I’d always known that my great-grandma was an orphan, but in late October of last year, she decided to tell me the truth about what happened to her family. We were visiting her for her birthday. It was a tradition in our household; a road trip we knew in the back of our minds we’d…
My grandfather is 95 years old and doesn’t have long left in this world. There’s nothing but a mess of tubes and wires to tether him here with us. It’s difficult for him to speak, but each rasping whisper carries a severe weight that cannot be interrupted. My family doesn’t talk about things like death…
I’ve never much cared for religion. I mean, it’s interesting and all; the old parables and philosophic insights from people two millenniums removed from the present. I particularly enjoy the books of the Apocrypha, and the Bible’s magnum opus of Revelation, if for nothing else than the interesting stories. Even some of the tenants, like…
Every city claims to have them, and every city will tell you that theirs is the best. Most larger places will lay claim to having quite a few. I am of course speaking of secret bars. The kind of bars with no name out front, where a secret password is required to get in. This is what…
The things that haunt a man the most, are not usually the choices that he’s made, but rather the choices that he never did make. I’ve lived through some of the worst hells that you could ever imagine. 9,490 of them to be exact. Every night when I lay down to sleep, I find myself…
At first, I didn’t think anything of it. My neighbor would stop to chat with me, leash in hand, and I would catch glimpses of the metal slider dangling from its belly. I assumed it was wearing a piece of pet clothing, or that perhaps it was the byproduct of some awkward veterinarian procedure, but…
I am a chronic sleep talker. Always have been. Everyone who’s ever slept in the same house as me will tell you that. My parents, siblings, friends, and especially my exes. They’re the ones who got an ear-full. It was something we’d laugh about in the morning, because most of what I’d say would be…
As an investigative analyst for the FBI, I spent years combing through the depths of the digital colossus known as the “Dark Web.” It’s mind-numbing work, filtering through thousands of illicit sites offering services ranging from outrageously fake to bone chillingly real. My name is Clara Sanders. I’m 35-years-old, unmarried, and come from a loving…
A few years back, I worked as a nurse in the geriatric unit of the hospital in my hometown. There was one old woman there with pale blue eyes whose mind was still fantastically sharp, and her desire to socialize and make new friends set her apart from most others living in that wing of…
”Am I going to die?” The kid asked me as he was being rolled into the operating theater. It was a question I’d heard a thousand times before, but answering it truthfully hadn’t become any easier, even after years at the hospital. ”Of course not, we’re gonna fix you right up.” I lied. He’d been…
I’ve been dead now for almost five weeks, it feels different than you might think. Of course, I’m not really dead, if I were I wouldn’t be able to write this account of what happened to me, but legally at least, I have been declared dead. Once you’re dead it’s surprisingly difficult to prove you…
My husband is dying. Despite his good prognosis after the accident, he gets weaker every day. When he became unable to even say my name, I got desperate. I posted details of his condition on every forum I could find. Medical, accident survivors… I even posted it on a sketchy “deep web” forum called Help Yourself. That’s…
We had all liked Mr. Winscot. He didn’t mind when we used the sledding hill on his property and he always gave out the best Halloween candy in the neighborhood. So when we heard he’d been taken by the Tall Man, everyone was really bummed out. You wouldn’t have heard of Tall Man, so let…
I was referred by a temp agency. I had no idea who I would be working for, or what the job would entail. I only knew that the pay was good. A week-long excursion at $725 a night. More than enough to pay off a couple of credit card bills and a good chunk of…
I used to look out the rusted iron bars of my window and dream about being a bird. The chain that shackled me to my bed was just long enough to reach the windowsill, and so every night after my father would visit my room I would lie awake and wait for the first rays…
He could feel his stomach almost twist as the aircraft started its long ascent into the sky. He was already holding onto his seat, yet now he couldn’t help but tighten his grip even more. How long had it been since he’d last been on a plane? A good fifteen to twenty years, perhaps? Probably…
My mom hates her father. Grandfather Jack’s name might as well have been a swear word when I was growing up. Dad told me the story once, on the condition that I never tell mom I knew. Jack was married to my Grandmother Kathy for 22 years before he cheated on her. It wasn’t a…
Do you know what it’s like to live without a soul? Because I do. It’s like watching a romantic movie that’s so perfect you find yourself falling in love with the character. Then the lights come on, and you suddenly remember that person doesn’t exist. And even if they did, they would never care that…
Constance would not tell anyone who the father was. Not when her mother cried nor when her father yelled. Not even when her older sister, Emily, sat on her bed and held her in her arms – rocking her gently. Constance was four-months pregnant when she told her family, and was already beginning to show….
Have you ever wanted to love someone, but couldn’t? That’s how I felt about Tammy. We never should have gotten together in the first place, but it was her birthday and I didn’t know what I was getting myself in for. She invited all five of us from the office and I was expecting to…
I’m a student at Bridgewater State in Massachusetts. I share a dorm with my roommate, Wallace. We both major in computer science, and that’s all we’ve ever talked about on the rare occasions that we actually speak to one another. We don’t have much else in the way of common ground. You see, Wallace is…