The camera didn’t look like something that should still work. Didn’t feel right from the start. When my sister handed me that box on my birthday, I could tell it’d be a pile of garbage. She’d always been a cheapskate, the woman can’t walk past a yard sale without stopping. […]
Followers of the Flaming Hand Read More »
I stepped out into the quad, salted caramel latte in hand to savour the brief moment of peace between my lectures. The air smelled faintly of salt and seaweed that drifted in from the bay and a light fog had settled overhead leaving droplets of condensation on benches and the
ASYNC INTERNAL DOCUMENT Interview & Field Report — Case File 23-DELTA Prepared by: Senior Archivist T. CaldwellSubject: Wanderer Designation WD-041 (“Carla”)Status: Recovered / Stable / CooperativeClassification: LEVEL 2 — RESTRICTED CIRCULATION**Date of Report Compilation: [REDACTED] — PREAMBLE This document consolidates findings from three separate interview sessions conducted over the course
Case File 23-DELTA (leaked) Read More »
This is it for me, I am damned. I don’t know where I’m going afterwards, but it’s probably nowhere good. After everything I’ve done, I don’t deserve to go to the good place, wherever that good place is. Where would the bad place be? Hell? Some other horrible place where
I would first like to clarify that I do not want to write this. My therapist ordered it. They said, “Revisit the wounds until they stop bleeding.” I take the aripiprazole, and I think that should be enough. But no. Now I need to drift through memory like a bilious
The Cat in the Windowsill Read More »
I stand on the beach, watching the great waves of the Southern Ocean roll toward me like endless rows of undulating beasts, their white crests sparkling blindingly under the harsh July sun. The briny scent of the sea drifts upward, carrying with it that familiar ache of melancholy, a feeling
Into The Mangrove Forest Read More »
I am going to die soon. My name is Ed. I am eighty-one years old, living in the Bright Shades Nursing Home. I have three kids, two sons and a daughter, and seven grandchildren. I love them, and they love me. But they don’t believe me when I tell them
Something’s In The Nursing Home Read More »
While I was getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts back at Woodbury University in 2006, I and a few of my classmates got the opportunity of interning at Disney Animation Studios for about 6 months. In that time I got to speak to a lot of heavily talented animators, even
Thunderstorms yielded a surprising amount of rain, slowing the immediate progression of the wildfire to a dull advance. It sulked through the understory as if it were pouting, greedily gobbling dead grass but hesitant to touch the heavier fuels. It was biding its time and snatching chance like a spoiled
I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of my phone going off. It wasn’t that of a phone call or a text, or even an alarm, rather, it was the familiar chime of the notification that I would get when my front doors’ doorbell camera
The photograph looked ordinary at first. On a quiet Saturday morning, the small neighborhood yard sale did not look very exciting. A few folding tables stood on the sidewalk in front of a modest brick house. Cardboard boxes sat under the tables. Old blankets were spread across the grass with
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Ding dong! Erin Tucker (“Erry” to anyone besides her mother) looked up from her tablet to see which of the locals had come to bug her before she finally got off work for the weekend. She heard the man, and his distinct not being a local, from the other end
Twelve missed calls. My eyes never shifted as my phone continued vibrating on the old oak counter. My hands softly gripped the wet glass of my sixth pour. Thirteen. I’m tired of this. Tired of the noise, the fighting. I’m tired of holding onto this chaotic thing my wife and
The first time Alice saw that inkwell, she was in the old attic of her grandparents’ house, a dusty, forgotten room where time seemed to have stood still. It was tucked away in a dark corner, half-hidden under a messy pile of old books, whose yellowed pages smelled of mold
A degree in wildlife management. It sounds so exciting, and the $70,000 piece of paper has certainly ensnared many bright, nature-loving youths with the allure of grand vistas and endless adventures, and I am one who heard the sirens call. From a young age, I knew people weren’t for me.
The Thing behind me wants me to turn around Read More »
I was pedaling as hard as I could, the tires thumping on each new slab of wood on the railway track. The railway was a clear cut through the woods, separating a once thriving forest into two distinct parts. Though summer break had only started a week ago, we already
Music in the Branches Read More »
My name is Holly West, and for a decade I’ve been sent on various operations to investigate the strange, the unexplainable, and the downright horrifying. Cryptids, sinister cults, sentient buildings. You name it. My organization deals with the things the cops can’t hope to. While my job isn’t as particularly
Tales From The Agency – Part 1 Read More »
Prologue – Past I’ve always felt like I was playing a part. Since my earliest years, I was just a mediocre actor in a family drama, playing the role of the son or the brother. I never felt close to them or cared about their feelings, but I pretended otherwise,
I Lost My Heart To the Sea Read More »
It started with a photo; it was dark, the moon was golden against the sky, the stars were out, and I thought that my iphone and filters were all that I needed to be a master photographer. So I pulled over on the side of the highway last Monday night
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The night smells wrong. Not merely damp, not merely cold—spoiled, as though the air itself has been left too long inside something dead and forgotten. Each breath coats your tongue with the taste of old coins dissolved in rot, metallic and sour, thick enough to cling. The fog doesn’t drift;
Isabella walked to the front of her grandmother’s casket. Her grandmother looked peaceful in her repose, wearing her favorite dress. Isabella guessed that she just didn’t understand what had happened. It felt as if she had just visited her grandma for afternoon tea not long ago, and then days later
The Brooks Brother’s Hardware store stood alone on its main street block. Chipped layers of white-washed paint contrasted the darkness inside the tall narrow windows. Faded posters advertising Case knives and hand tools hung in the ground level windows, but the only thing in the second story windows, was a
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I didn’t choose the dead minute. It chose me.The first time it happened, I was twelve, hiding in my bedroom while my parents screamed downstairs. Plates shattered. Something heavy hit the wall hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. I remember staring at the clock, begging time to move
The month I had to spend every summer at a children’s camp was the most loathed period of the year for me. A place where children were supposed to rest, laugh, and socialize with their peers was, for me and the other wards of Clover Camp, hard labor. A tour
About one shift at Clover Camp Read More »
