When I was fourteen, my mother and father were divorced, and I went to live with my mother and a man she supposedly fell in love with several years ago. We searched for a house for all three of us to live in, and eventually found the perfect house. A few months later, after finding…
Belief is a powerful thing. Well, not your belief: your opinions couldn’t be less important. But there is someone, and there always has been someone, who can control the universe by his powers of belief. You see, at any given moment the universe is controlled by what one particular man believes. All things, right down…
Someone traveling through the barren mesas and valleys of the Dry Mule Tank would be very fortunate to find civilization. In these parts, the land is unclaimed and the sun is unrelenting, the dried creek beds running like veins through the ancient ground, baked and eroded into submission. Solemn, red plateaus rise above the dusty…
We all have our own little fears: spiders, dark corridors, porcelain dolls. Some people have some very strange and obscure fears like things not being organized. Some people are afraid of not being perfect or being alone. But we have to be choosy about the things we decide to fear. Someday, perhaps in our dreams…
When Conner arrived at the gas station, he exited the car with a speed that surprised even him. He took a few quick steps, almost at a run, before turning back towards the car. Under the garish sodium lights of the service station, the little blue sedan looked a sickly greenish gray. It looked squat…
May 26, 2009 Hello Diary, My name is Daniel Franklin. I just got this leather-bound beauty of a book in a garage sale. Its covers are smooth and black; the pages, yellowed and antique in texture—no doubt a detail I will become fond of as time goes on. Hell, I already like it. Gives the…
A couple was sitting in a movie theatre watching a scary movie, and the female of the group wasn’t having a good time. She’d obviously been bored out of her mind. It’d been a late showing, so there was practically no one there and the room was dead silent except for the screening. About an…
My name is Lifeguard. There is a lot of thinking that takes place atop the seat overlooking the pool. I spend most of my days there; watching others play. Watching them have fun. I see grandparents bringing their toddler grandsons and granddaughters to the pool to splash around. Young parents bring their infants to adapt…
My name isn’t really important…but for the sake of this story, let’s just say I’m Ruby. Yeah, that works. In any case, I’m currently a junior in high school, I’ve got a lot of friends, and I’m happy with life. But all of this happened during my sophomore year, and trust me, nothing has ever…
I could barely keep from collapsing as I ran through what seemed to be the never-ending darkness of the godforsaken catacombs. When I’d first signed on to serve as Professor Nickel’s field assistant, I’d assumed that the shrunken old man and I would spend days standing over a blanket of dirt, sifting through broken vases…
One by one the gravel rocks were kicked up off the road. He was half, maybe three quarters of a mile from the house. He felt something fall out of his pocket, but he didn’t care. All that he cared about was getting away. Away from that… thing. It was hopeless though, and he knew…
The realm was beauteous and plentiful, its people more so. No plague touched its borders, no famine its lands. War was seldom seen in this kingdom, whose peaceful lords ran their fortified estates in harmony with one another. The only problem was that peasants were treated harshly, scraping to live on the scraps of land…
There are milestones in your life that you never forget, and renting your first apartment is one of them. What can I say about mine? It was quaint, cheap, and had enough space that I could fit a bed if I really crammed the mattress against the wall. It wasn’t the glorious, romantic idea of…
About 5 years ago I went on a vacation to Wrangell–St. Elias National Park in Alaska. The cool, fresh air, beautiful scenery, and vast expanses of wilderness seemed ideal for my vacation from a tedious desk job back home. I’d saved up for years to finance the trip. I wanted my stay to be perfect….
Rain fell in small silver pools in the bottoms of potholes that lined the city roads, and bejeweled the apartment windows with tiny liquid beads. On her wooden desk, old turpentine-soaked rags and crusted paintbrushes cluttered the space. The room was dim, except for a light that was clamped on her easel, pointed toward an…
“New York, September 30 CP FLASH “Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study….” There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London,…
If you watch every State of the Union Address since it’s been filmed and available on tape, you’ll see that halfway through–exactly halfway through–the President always says the same word. Most say it under their breath during the standing ovations, but some are forced to work it into the speech itself.
The lottery gives you a three digit number and a four digit number each day, right? What else has seven digits split into three, then four? That’s right, it’s a phone number. The lottery is a telephone oracle. Whoever is on the end of the line when you call that number knows something that you…
I chose to sleep the days away chose comfort in dreams, safe from a world so grey My mind gave me comfort my life could not so as I dreamed, I could not stop I was happy at first, with my daily sights European castles with thousands of lights the king of everything, from ground…
January 7th 2007 I have recently discovered the story of a haunting in an old house. A poltergeist, it would seem. My fellow paranormal hunter associates were discussing the matter at lunch, saying how walkers by and neighbours heard muffled screams and growls coming the house, even though it has been abondened for four years….
I was sitting in the upstairs office of the Museum with a cup of coffee when it happened. It had been a long day, and I’d set the work experience kid the seemingly unfuckupable task of dusting the exhibits- after repeating my warning, of course, that some of them must not be touched or opened….
There was nothing about the old library on the corner of South and Second Street to stamp it as anything out of the ordinary, save for its size. The library was so enormous that it was possible (and not infrequent) for visitors to become lost in itfor hours at a time. With so many shelves…
As teenagers, we always looked for new and different things to do. Years pass us by and we build up stories we can tell to our children, perhaps even grandchildren. We learn through various events and gain knowledge through tragedy. When I was younger I decided that when I’m nothing more but an old man,…
I buried my grandfather last week. A deplorable man who made the lives of everyone around him miserable. He left me with nothing but bad memories and debt. I wished him dead every day till he passed away at the overdue age of ninety one. I was the one that cared for him, and I…