When thinking back to my earliest memories, nothing is concrete. A string of hazy images come to mind like random snapshots out of time, each one associated with certain feelings and emotions. They are imbued with a mystical dreamlike quality, a gift born of childhood naivety. The magic of every Christmas when Santa was still…
God, I need to get this down. I need this knowledge out of my head. I’m being, what’s the word to use? Haunted? By a being. A horrid aberration. I can only call it pale face. I remember the first time I saw it. I was twelve, taking a leak at the urinal of the…
My grandma fell down last year and had to spend time in a nursing home. While she was gone, I was cleaning up old shit she had accumulated around the house so she could get around better, and mom and I could find any important papers. I found an old (not really old, like 80’s…
You wake after a wild night of partying to find that while you were wasted, for some reason you had a crude smiley face tattooed on your foot. You write it off as a lesson to never drink that much again. The next time you wake, however, you discover the face is now on your…
I’m frightened. So fucking frightened of something so utterly silly that if I had told anybody that they would’ve promptly laughed at me. Please, God please believe me when I tell you that I’m not making this shit up. When frightening things happen, it doesn’t just take a hit off your cigarette or a swig…
My father once told me when I was little that the easiest way to trap a raccoon was to put a shiny object in a Pringles can. At first it puzzled me, how would that trap a coon? Honestly I was too young to understand. But he explained to me. Raccoons are extremely attracted to…
Joanna thought she looked better than usual today. She ran her fingers through her long, limp, once beautiful red hair, thinking about how the sun would reflect in it. How Ben once said she looked beautiful. It felt like a dream. It didn’t happen to her. “What’s the plan today, kid?” Of course she always…
They say when you take a picture of someone you capture their soul in the camera. They also say if you print it off, that picture contains the soul itself and you can control them with it. I’m not sure where to start. Do you know what the Primordial Soup is? A veritable ocean of…
You awake at a crossroads. You have no idea how you got there or how long you have slept. There are five signposted directions to take: Life, Death, Fortune, Fate and Destiny. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you must, MUST, take the road to Death first. When you arrive at your destination after hours…
I was dying. I knew it, my doctors knew it, and my family knew it. It has only been sixteen weeks since my official diagnosis, yet here I lay, trapped in this generic hospital bed, surrounded by various machines, beeping and wheezing in a haunting melody that has likely been the last lullaby for countless…
Hi. I’m Caitlin and I’m eleven years old. I think. I may have been here for ten minutes or ten years. Every second in this place feels very long. Who I am isn’t really important, but if you must know, I’m a girl who loved school, cartoons, and pop music. I’m floating in a big…
It’s a wondrous thing, getting to work in the U.S. military. Sure, to each their own, Army does its thing, the Marines, the Special Forces, the Navy. I always wanted to be in the Air Force, but one part in particular. I am… was, actually, the Gunnery Sergeant aboard the AC-130U Spooky Gunship. See, all…
On the Disappearance of Aaron Barclay There was an interesting item in the Oakland Tribune some time ago. Apparently a young man, one named Aaron Barclay, had gone missing. Mr. Barclay had been attending the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco and vanished a week before final exams. Some say he killed…
This would be the second house tonight. He knew Cory would be angry, sure – the man was always trying to stick to his “rule book,” and the first Law of Cory was to avoid same night hits – but they were running low on pretty much everything. Harry wasn’t about to starve because of…
I opened the front door of the old house where I grew up and felt the odd aroma of dust rush into my nose. The first step I take makes a rickety board beneath me creak eerily. I make my way towards the stairs and begin to walk up them. The entire house was only…
First of all, I want to stress the fact that this is a real happening. This is not some story written to get what I write on to a public medium. I am only doing this because I think the story needs to be told. The events that I am about to describe took place…
To whoever may find this – My recently deployed expedition into these vast mountains has been proven fruitless to say the least. In the past twenty-four hours I have witnessed events my mind cannot quite grasp. I feel my sanity melting away by the moment as this single red candle’s wax drips upon the cold…
Last week, when I was working my shift at the local museum, something happened to me. Something that can only be described as an unspeakable horror. I will try and recount it to the best of my ability, although I already feel the shackles of suppression pulling on the memory, trying to bury it as…
Our Secret Pond By: Isaac Cook The bright light of the sun flickered over us through the foliage above, as we excitedly ran along the trail that led to our secret swimming pond. Both of us had been through this path many times, so our speed didn’t arise any concern of us getting lost. Coming…
Silence. Silence was uncomfortable, and Amy didn’t like it. Fingers nimbly tap-tapped across black and white keys as she typed up what she hoped would be a phenomenal English essay. She rubbed her tired eyes and sighed, straining to see what she had just typed in the dim light provided by her laptop. The numbers…
The girl who pushed open the shop door was too young for the cane she leaned on. I examined her from under the brim of my dark baker’s boy cap. I sat in my tall swivel chair behind the counter, feet kicked up next to the register. Two knitting needles clicked in my lap, the…
The new house was fantastic. It was an old farmhouse, and looked the part. There were barns and fields, acres and acres of field. My wife, Carrie, and I were looking for a good place to start a family, and this house could not have been more perfect. It was a 10 minute drive to…
Patient 1970 Log 4 Dr. Evans 11:23 am Wednesday Patient shows further signs of deterioration. MRI scans show that brain matter shows no signs of damage, however, the actual electrical currents are continually changing and decreasing. I have been caring for this 30 year old man for about a month now, yet it seems like…
October evenings usually seem bleak and desolate by themselves. However, this one seems a bit greyer than usual. The outside world is a step beyond hopeless and I’m afraid I might know why. The last few days have been ominous. The dark, grey presence has gotten to me and I’ve become jumpy and anxious. I’ve…