They were strange. The people in the woods. Beautiful but strange. They come to town every Sunday dressed in their best, they would be on the last pew, looking as serene as ever, keeping to themselves the whole mass. They’d be dressed in colorful clothes of expensive silk. Bright green, […]
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As the last of the crisp brown Autumn leaves fell to the worn pavement, the young man let out a sigh. So much had happened in the time since he left in the spring of 2001. His home, his workshop, even his favorite stores and restaurants were gone. Walking past
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“There’s an idea that hell is other people. My idea is that it might be repetition.” ~Stephen King I looked down at my feet as I walked along the weathered sidewalk and thought about how worn my All-Stars looked. The black was faded and the white was more ivory than
On October 1, 1957, Callie purchased the small cottage overlooking Cimmerian Bluff. She was quite alone in the world. Having just lost both her parents in a head-on collision three months ago she felt it was time to make a life for herself, to move to a new town where
In autumn 2003, my first year studying at Cambridge University, a rumour began circulating about a VHS tape that was causing students to go insane. Nobody knew who had first found the tape, or where they had found it, but the stories started in October, when a history student allegedly
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A HAUNTING I remember it clear as day, as if it happened yesterday, even though it was almost eleven years ago. I didn’t have the best of childhoods, if we’re being totally honest. However, it was anything but uneventful. This all began on a Friday, on a day where there
I awoke on the day of my reconstruction. Grogginess left my body like a rusted machine. The room seemed to stretch for miles in my drowsiness, an eternal void that I lay in the center of. I reached my arm as far left as I could, rolling onto my side
They told us it was the greatest technological achievement in human history. They told us it would forever change our role on the cosmic stage. They told us it would lead to a Golden Age of exploration, prosperity, and expansion. They were lying. Even after the expenditure of untold billions
The faucet is dripping in the bathroom. It has been the whole night. I haven’t gone in yet. Yet. I moved here two months ago. It’s my first house and I had no idea what I was getting into. I’ve been tearing down wallpaper, ripping up carpets, painting everything. And
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Hope didn’t like being home without her parents. All of her friends did, and they had all shared wild tales of what exactly they had done when their parents were gone. They all seemed to get a sense of satisfaction at disobeying their parents and defying their rules. Hope didn’t
Mark’s head rocked wildly in the pillow as a muted moan popped from his throat. His eyeballs thrashed about under clenched lids, kamikaze fireflies trapped in a skin jar. He jerked awake, and his first sight was the glowing bulb of his bedside lamp. It lit the room in a
Friday 13th November, 2015. At 3:42pm GMT, it happened. The world descended into a sudden, complete darkness. Chaos ensued. In our little office on the 10th floor, we huddled together in that ominous pitch black, awaiting the light. There was a television in our break room, and someone found the
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To whom it may concern, I don’t know your name and you do not know mine. That’s just as well, because I have tried to speak with you these many times before as you leave for work, get your mail, bring your children home from school, or take your Saturday
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“Alright, kids,” the counselor announced, a devilish grin stretching across her face. “You know what time it is!” Jack nodded vigorously, bouncing up and down with excitement. He had been waiting for this moment all day. “That’s right!” she responded. “It’s time for our scary story competition! I want you
Growing up in small town in the middle of Kansas in the 1970s meant that not only was there not much to do as a slightly mischievous teenager, but if you did want to do something, anything, you had to come up with it yourself. This usually meant anything from
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This was it: night one of my new job as the night watchman for Disneyland. Anywhere else, I’d be referred to as an ordinary security guard. Here, I was a cast member. Something about that label just oozed sophistication and privilege. It was now 12:00 AM. All the cleaners and
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My name is Jim Hutchison. Most people call me Hutch, even in my professional life. My family-owned business is as a concrete contractor, and we perform work for a variety of private and federal clients. One such client is the Texas State Department of Corrections. It was work at one
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“Bobby! Pay attention!” he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying?” she continued. Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before
Until recently, I had considered the reserve near my home just another quiet, if slightly unnerving, relic of pre-suburban life. With sub-divisions and commercial sectors rising steadily around it, the knot of thick trees, greenery and long, straw-like grass had been cast aside by time; a mottled green and brown
If there was any doubt by the turn of the twenty-first century, by the dawn of the twenty-second, it was an unmistakable reality: technological civilization was unsustainable. In 2130, with the global population nearing eleven billion, Earth was Hell. We all but exhausted our reserves of conventional petroleum, and the
Have you ever wondered why we see ghosts? Maybe they have a message for us. Perhaps they’re trapped somewhere between our world and theirs, oblivious to the fact that time has gone on without them. There have been tales of long-lost family members visiting us in our dreams and unexplainable
“Will you be with me when the time comes?” Caitlyn asked. Her voice was soft and cracking due to dehydration. Even with the saline solution being pumped through the IV she was still far too weak to talk properly. Her lips were white and cracking like the earth in Death
Chambliss, the wealthy only son of a prosperous sugarcane plantation owner in Louisiana is madly in love with Camellia, a slavewoman, though they keep their relationship secret from his father, and are separated until the father’s passing, upon which Camellia moves into the house with Chambliss. When a cholera outbreak
There it is! In between the static. It’s faint at first, buried deep in the hiss, but after you hear it, after you know it’s there it becomes so loud you want to cover your ears and scream. I can sound the words out for you, but that’s it. We
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