Hollis Gommer sat on a bench, one shoelace irreverently untied, the laces brushing against the dusty concrete, the other tied in a pristine double knot, hardly untied for several days now. The evening sun beat upon the back of his head, even filtered through several layers of pink and orange clouds. He wondered somewhere in…
Unlike the larger circuses that dominated the railroads, the little medical show still puttered along in the old ornate wagons and trailers. This made travel much harder but allowed for the doctor to make his own curious, meandering paths. Max often wondered how his life had been hitched to every whim of this strange little…
Deep beneath the New Mexican desert, there is a lost city in a dark cavern. Many have journeyed to the deep city, some have returned, some have not, completely vanished without a trace. As for what happened to the builders of the city, no one knows for sure. What I do know, is that I…
As noted in the title, this is a sequel to The Fort and Survival. “Baby, come on! We need to go!” Ryan yelled as he slammed the trunk of their Hyundai sedan. “I’m coming!” Carla called from inside the house, appearing seconds later carrying a gym bag. “I just got some clothes for Kyle.” She…
In 1975, my best friend disappeared. I’m going to tell you what happened. It won’t take long because the story is a short one, but that’s a necessity of the facts. Quite simply, there aren’t many. Here they are: His name was James Wade. He was thirteen years old. One night, he went to bed…
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I’ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and…
Don’t bother trying to find it. You won’t find anything about the name of the town or what happened here. This manuscript will be found long after the events that transpired in this place, but I hope against everything else that you’re someone in a position of power. I pray to God himself that you…
People kept going missing from my town over the last couple of years. Their mangled remains were all that were ever found of them (if anything was found at all), and many thought that some sort of large predator was to blame. I guess that in the end, they weren’t far off, but they may…
Sarah’s Coulrophobia by Kiriakos Vilchez Ever since Sarah was a little girl, she was terrified of clowns. Fortunately for her pride, a lot of people harbored that same fear. The idea of a person being goofy and happy all the time, dressed up in a silly costume, made a lot of folks uneasy, so she…
The broken blade flashed as it streaked above the desert, circling end over end then striking the rocky ground with a clink. It lay there gleaming in the slanted rays of the sun like lost treasure. The other half of the blade remained lodged firmly between spiky ranks of spines in the barrel cactus, only…
Szomorú Vasárnap, or Gloomy Sunday in English, is a hit song written in 1933 by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress. It’s more commonly known as the Hungarian Suicide song because of hundreds (if not thousands) of suicides that had been inspired by listening to it. The song itself has been has been covered several times, most…
No doubt all of you horror aficionados will be familiar with the world’s most famous (or perhaps infamous) spooky hotels. Whether it’s an old establishment harbouring restless spirits or a run-down hostel that has been the scene of violent deaths, there is sometime which draws us to these macabre venues. Every hotel has its stories…
Jeremy Miller was never a man of God. Whereas all the other kids he grew up with spent their Sundays in their respective holy houses, Jeremy spent his Sunday mornings glued to the television. He grew on the knowledge of the Discovery channel, the girth of the internet, and the pages of his textbooks. He…
“Dread- a strong feeling of fear about something that will or might happen” (Webster’s Dictionary) What was that noise? I groggily shuffle out of bed, fumbling my way to the light switch. After my eyes adjust to the blinding flood of light from the hanging lamp in my bedroom, I scan the space. Nothing. It…
I am going to start by saying I am terrified of spiders. Actually, terrified is to mild of a word to describe it. In fact it got to be so bad, that my boss told me that if I did not overcome my fears, that they would have to fire me, since it was getting…
There’s this famous “haunted” hotel in the Philippines. It’s named “Diplomat Hotel.” I am not sure about it’s history since word-of-mouth information tend to distort real history. All I know is that it was an old seminary for Jesuit priests about a decade ago, just about when the city (Baguio City) was founded. It was…
September 2nd 1868 Arrived in Cheyenne in the new Wyoming Territory early this morning on the new Union Pacific line. Has been three years since I rode the locomotive. Did not realize it would remind me so strongly of Atlanta. Spent the last day of the journey with the phantom smell of blood and iron…
There are exactly 17 people on this earth fated to kill you. If you somehow manage to avoid these 17 people during your lifetime, you are taken to a place of monumental beauty where you are stripped of all clothing and branded on the space just above your navel with a name. When you are…
I’ve always been a creature of habit, and few observations ever elude my mind. That’s why I can recall any event down to the smallest insignificant detail, but recently my memories haven’t matched up with reality. On any given weekday, I’ll return from work. My keys will be in my left inner coat pocket. I’ll…
7:00pm Friday – At the Bar “One little drink won’t hurt” said Kylie, sealing her fate and condemning herself to the worst night of her life. 10:00pm Friday – In the Car of a Stranger “I think you passed my street.” She was very sure in fact that her street had been passed. She’d been…
My best friend was in Pompeii. I wasn’t, of course, or I wouldn’t be standing here staring down at a museum display titled “A BLAST FROM THE PAST!!!” A kitsch red LED volcano flickering gently in the background, flinging deep shadows across expressions of abject misery behind a velvet rope for the small children to…
The Neurocranial Exploits (a short story by Dniwara Redman) Crack one, crack two. There is now a visible tear in the flesh. The once wavy brown hair of Professor Emery is now tainted crimson with the blood from the open wound on his scalp. The smell of his apple-scented shampoo is still present in the…
People don’t die cleanly. It’s messy, miserable work. Everyone fights back, regardless of age or gender. It’s an animalistic instinct driven by the bolts of adrenaline rushing through their brain. Fight. Resist. Run. Escape LIVE. Those were the thoughts whirling behind the bearded man’s eyes as my knife slid into his body. A choked gargle…
Ever since I was small I’ve had a fascination with old things, buildings specifically. Something about things that rot and decay is beautiful to me, I don’t really know why. As a kid I’d get into all the dark, dusty spaces I could. The attic, the crawl space in our roof; I’d hide under my…