I sat on the wide ledge looking down at the people walking by on the sidewalk far below. They really did look like ants when viewed from so far away. I hope I don’t land on anyone. That would royally suck, for them. I wasn’t...
There is a banana lady in every town. You might have to look for her, but I would advise against this. She is not someone you would like to meet. You may find her on a less popular side street in your neighborhood. She is always facing...
Working in a nuclear reactor is difficult work, no matter what the task. Even the most menial job, including mine - janitorial services - required rigorous education on emergency procedures, and that we be subjected to frequent training drills, and most tediously, handed flurries of...
I used to work the late shift at an old-fashioned cafe in my hometown. I lived in a relatively small town where everyone knows everyone and everything about everybody. Honestly, I really liked my job as a barista. I found pleasure in the constant smell...
Looking back now, all I can see is his damn face. It looks at me, as I close my eyes. I can see the dripping of the black liquid, as it falls from his eternally-smiling mouth. His teeth are small and sharp and sit in...
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The worst thing I’ve ever done in my life happened about twelve years ago, when I was a sixteen-year-old kid living in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the early fall, when the leaves were just starting to turn orange and the temperatures were starting to fall,...
I was always close to my uncle, even if I was too young to truly know or understand him. He was a military man for the whole time I knew him and usually told the most batshit crazy stories you could imagine, but they were...
The hull of the ship moaned and groaned under the strain of its frozen enclave. HMS Stargazer and its crew had initially set out into the deep unknown to map uncharted territories, but winter descended quickly upon them and they found themselves trapped between stars...
When people whistle, it kind of irritates me. Not like Axl Rose from "Patience" whistles, but just does so to pass the time. When people whistle or hum to themselves it's always just kind of grated on me, but only when it's been tuneless. When...
I am currently sitting in front of my computer, scared witless. Any moment now I am going to be killed. Today a friend of mine told me a story. His aunt had taken care of him since he was a small boy, and she told him last...
I wake up in a strange house. I don't know how I got here, but I know I need to leave. The place is dilapidated, and dark, a place nobody has lived in for years...
I am terrified of sleep – or, more accurately, what occurs when I do. For as long as I can remember I have seen spots when I sleep. More precisely, I see them when I close my eyes to go to sleep. Between the second I...
It all started after moving into my new house. Yeah, that’s pretty cliché. Believe me, I know, but it’s what happened. I never experienced anything supernatural before and, though interested, I never really expected anything to happen to me. I was able to rent the house...
As I entered John Kirowan's study I was too much engrossed in my own thoughts to notice, at first, the haggard appearance of his visitor, a big, handsome young fellow well known to me. "Hello, Kirowan," I greeted. "Hello, Gordon. Haven't seen you for quite a...
The rain beat a steady rhythm on the asphalt. In the dark sky above, the rumble of distant thunder rolled slowly toward us. “Daniel.” The sound of my name pulled me from my reverie. I turned my head away from the drenched playground and toward Miss...
I. In the heart of a second-growth piney-woods jungle of southern Alabama, a region sparsely settled by backwoods blacks and Cajuns—that queer, half-wild people descended from Acadian exiles of the middle eighteenth century—stands a strange, enormous ruin. Interminable trailers of Cherokee rose, white-laden during a single month...
The taxi drove off, leaving Funk on the Hoddeston lawn, surrounded by valises. Funk was thinking it more than merely odd that Barclay, for whose coaching he had come prepared to spend a month, had not met him as planned. He tried the screen door;...
You needn’t think I’m crazy, Eliot—plenty of others have queerer prejudices than this. Why don’t you laugh at Oliver’s grandfather, who won’t ride in a motor? If I don’t like that damned subway, it’s my own business; and we got here more quickly anyhow in...
Simza stumbled through the dark forest, tripping over indiscernible tree roots in the darkness. She sensed that something was wrong with the baby, and was afraid, but she had no one to confide in. She had wandered away from the camp when she started feeling...
When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call on Adrian Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father appealed for a subscription. Just before we left my father said, “Mr. Borlsover, may my son...
I was 22 and a bored young woman with a nearly useless degree in French Literature. It was only natural that I worked at my mother’s bookstore until I found a “real job.” I preferred the afternoon shift because it consisted of some high school...
Bill Tanner, a retired USPS mail carrier, ran a local haunted house that had become quite well known in the city where he lived. Established as a terrifying and fun way to unleash people’s greatest fears upon them, it was aptly named “Tanner’s House of...
I had the house to myself, my parents were spending the weekend in Toronto, and I’d spent the day hanging out with my girlfriend. Up until I dropped her off at home later that evening, it was an ordinary day, as close to perfection as...