“It’s creepy,” Dan balked. “It’s cute,” Julia countered. “Besides, it’s fun. I mean, geez Scrooge, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Dan picked up the doll and turned it over in his hands. It was the prototypical Christmas elf as imagined by Hollywood in a red onesie, Santa hat and painted on […]
Elf on a Shelf (with a Knife) Read More »
Daniella flew through the front door and threw her books on the coffee table with disdain. “I know…right? I mean, geez…what a bitch.” She was talking through her Bluetooth which was commonplace but still earned her a fair number of strange looks in public. It was 2017 for heaven’s sake,
The sound of the autumn leaves crunching beneath my boots projected itself through the forest around me. Finally, I could breathe in the fresh air of the mountainside and feel alive again. I love my place here in the mountains, there is just something special about the peace and quiet.
Why I will never play the Ouija board again. This is why I will never play the Ouija board again. It was 1964 and my sister and I were 13 Year old identical twins. We were living with our mother in rural Scotland, parties were all the rage in the
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Awake. Lisa bolted upright in bed, hazy vapors of fear still wavering in her periphery. The details of the dream were quickly escaping leaving only the overwhelming terror that had just gripped her psyche a moment before. Shaken, she wiped her long bangs from her sweat soaked face and deeply
Many of these stories are about games that have gone out, been enjoyed by millions, and then some random person in the middle of nowhere has experienced something creepy. Haunted, hacked, or otherwise, the games have been said to torment their users with haunting imagery such as no eyes, bleeding
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I lifted my head and stared into the surrounding darkness, completely unaware of where I was or how I had gotten there. I couldn’t see much of anything. It was very dark. Only two thin shreds of light came at me from the highest parts of the walls on either
Late August, 2005, 8:00 A.M, New Orleans I woke up to one of the more valuable things I own in my apartment. A crappy alarm clock from a nearby store. I was extremely poor. The apartment wasn’t too nice, I had no TV or a car. I lived alone, so
I’m a normal high school student. My friends and I make silly YouTube videos, we do our schoolwork (most of it, at least) and we like hanging out with each other. However, something strange has come up, and none of us really know what to think about it. It all
[For what should be obvious reasons later in the story, I’m withholding my friend’s name. I’ll just call him Matt or Matthew for the sake of privacy purposes or whatever the whole thing is.] It’s been over 10 years since it happened. When I was really little, I met my
He’s In My Head and He Won’t Go Away Read More »
In the wake of the 2016 American election, several changes occurred in the country. One of the more highly publicized and celebrated of these developments was California’s legalization of marijuana for recreational use. While the objective impact has thus far been quite subtle, a small number of people who live
The Trailer The trailer always gets me. This one showed a child with brown skin and blond hair dressed in blue, sleeping under a tree. You won’t wake up, the caption reads. The child is walking, growing and shrinking. Several flowers approach it, mainly lilies. The only aggressive one is
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I suffer from Schizophrenia. Before you jump to any conclusions about me…before that word “schizophrenia” flashes its stigma and makes you think of serial killers, mass shooters, and the like, let me dispel a few things. I am not Norman Bates. I am not Ted Bundy. As a matter of
The dealer was effusive in his praise for the artwork. It was just so life-like, he gushed. It wouldn’t be cheap, he admitted, but it was well worth every penny the artist was asking for it. I knew the drill. Let the dealer do the talking. Don’t ask about the
Horror in real life doesn’t come suddenly, it’s not a shock, or a reactionary scream. Horror in real life is a slow realization that occurs over the course of years. It needs time to mold, decay, and spread. True horror is painful, often sad, and tragic. It’s a slow deterioration,
Dear Mr. Valentine, As per your request, I’ve collected reliable morsels of information from the many and often incoherent accounts that detail the events which transpired in Merton on September 2nd, 1996. It is only with great reluctance that I reveal this information to you, for I fear for my
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You know that horror movie trope about mirrors? The one where the protagonist is near a mirror and they look or shift away from the mirror for just a moment, and when they look back, a ghost, killer, or some other entity appears, and then usually rapidly disappears when they
Message Body: Intuitive ads. You see them everywhere now, and don’t really give it a second thought. Ads that use tracking cookies to track your browsing history or personal profile and provide suggestions that might appeal to you. You know. The way Amazon suggests new books based on what you
Intuitive Advertising Read More »
Inspired by the news article: The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a national park tree “Gid’yap, Goldie… jes’ a little farther now.” Statten Cready rolled exhausted in the saddle of his beautiful flaxen mare and tapped her lightly on the rump to get her to pick
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The grandfather clock struck eleven as the wealthy old man rubbed his eyes, tired from reading one of his many dusty books that were stacked neatly on a tall oak bookshelf near the creaky chair on which he sat. He was a collector of the fine arts, having always had
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There was definitely something wrong with the tree, thought Casper. He was not a farmer or an arborist – it wasn’t that he worried the tree was not healthy or anything like that, as he did not know enough about trees to know the difference. What concerned him is that
The audience laughed as the young man in the top hat smiled. The trick he had just completed had apparently been more than enough to please the crowd. As the man slowly walked away from the almost blindly bright spotlight, he kept his face focused on the crowd, continuing to
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I woke up in the box again. Stuffed inside the darkness, shoved against all the others. The only light coming from the thin opening near the top of the box where the walls meet against the roof, shooting a thin beam of silver moonlight in a line, covering the entire
Kneeling before the Knight, Edwin accepted the scroll with great honor. It was such an odd thing he held; one of the likes he had never experienced before. The parchment was cold to the touch and made from leather of the deepest black. It was absent of moisture. Still, it
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