Waylan stood in the dim light of the early morning, his truck parked at the edge of a forgotten dirt road. He bent down and laced up his knee-high snake boots, pulling the strings tight to make sure they fit just right. The boots were tough and made for rough […]
Read Part One here Read Part Two here “You can’t fight what you can’t see or hear.” – Marion Strickler “For good to have any chance, there needs to be something pure.” – William Rayne “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are
The first tooth arrived in the heart of a pear. Years later, whenever Adeline tried to explain everything that had happened, she always found herself returning to that afternoon, though she knew the true beginning might have been much earlier. Perhaps it began in the graveyard behind her grandmother’s house,
The Girl Who Kept Finding Teeth Read More »
My attention is occupied by a nature documentary at low volume. It’s late spring and raining lightly outside. The narrator’s reassuring received pronunciation introduces tonight’s protagonist, a rare species of desert-dwelling toad. Greg once told me, after a few Japanese highballs, that participating in the illegal trade of exotic amphibians
Mother Nature Doesn’t Love You Back Read More »
Horror begets horror. Seldom do instances of demoniacal dread possess the common courtesy to inflict themselves upon us in isolation. Rather, they enter our world accompanied by all manner of nighted terrors and hellish abnormalities. What at first appears to be a unique and singular event leads down only to
The Shadow From The Stars Read More »
Shaleville Police Department Date: July 15th, 2025 Lead Case Investigator: Detective Lance Giles Evidence: A brown leather bound journal with a number of diary entries by one Jamie Trench. Case Notes: In relation to the missing persons file reported by one Sherry Trench, for her son Jamie and his fiancé
The Bones Under Greyveil Read More »
Most people in North Carolina had heard of the Reed mine by 1831. The story of the boy who found a yellow rock the size of a smoothing iron had already strained the patience of preachers and tavern keepers alike. They repeated it often, their voices rising with the part
The sun was beginning to set, and my patience was wearing thin. I had walked that exact patch of grass three times already, looking for the same thing that nobody had managed to find before me.The forensics team hadn’t found it, nor had a few bloggers who had taken an
It was summer 1997 when I moved to Evansville, Colorado. It was supposed to be a pit stop, a cheap place along my route, hopefully to make some money to take me the rest of the way to California. I had some friends living in San Francisco that I’d planned
Lakeshia was not sure of the time; she did know that it was very late, and dark according to the window. Rain came in a steady drizzle outside. Droplets which reflected orange colored light pelted the thick glass. The hospital, unusually quiet now. Her window displayed mostly darkness, aside from
Now I’m gonna start this saying I’m not the smartest man in the world. I never did well in school, always getting in trouble of one sort or another. I barely graduated and that was only because there was a teacher who saw some glimmer of hope within me and
Confessions of The Crawler Read More »
I had not known initially what to make of the pile of mucus and flesh that befell my doorstep as winter arrived. Snow had yet to begin, but cutting gusts of frigid air whalloped my front door to be let in, only allowed to when the mail went too long
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 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 »
Now that I’m trying to tell the story of how I died, I’ve found myself appreciating the craft of eulogy more than I ever did in life. I’m finding it difficult to find where the story of my end begins. It all started with it, I suppose. I saw it
The Shadow’s Thrall Read More »
Recently my family was contacted by a storage unit company. They said my dad was listed as the secondary contact for a unit under my uncle’s name. Which was strange, as my uncle had been a missing person for nearly 14 years now. Which apparently the company didn’t know, explaining
My Uncle was Obsessed with Holes Read More »
Tink tink tink tink tink….the soft sound echoes through the room. My hands shake, my heart races and my eyes go hazy with unshed tears locked onto his hand gripping the gun handle like a vice. I bellow out in a broken pleading cry dropping to my knees, gripping onto
It was Tuesday after lunch when I noticed the Door. I was walking back from the equipment cupboard to restock my phlebotomy tray, when I passed Dr Clark’s room and stopped. The examination couch that usually sat unused against that stretch of wall was gone. In its place was a
A New Doctor Just Started Working at My Surgery. I Think He’s Harvesting Something. Read More »
By the time Jean-Luc finally arrives, the only things awake are the moon and me. It sits in the sky a perfect, silver half-slice, dewy in the way all things get around dawn. It’s cold out. My breath fogs around my cigarette, and I hear the bus before I see
You think you know your family. What they look like, how they speak, how it feels when they pat you on the back and say ‘welcome home’. None of us truly know any other person; not completely, often not in the ways that matter. I thought I knew my family,
I Inherited the World’s Worst Genetic Condition Read More »
We moved into the flat above the butcher’s two months ago. It was a step down from our old place; John lost his good job and we had to make adjustments. The place wasn’t exactly the Ritz, but it functioned. The wallpaper popped and flaked when you scraped a nail
The Floor is Sticky Read More »
Stacy and I switched the power on and sent ourselves to an early grave. I say an early grave, but I don’t expect there will be anyone left to bury us. It was an honest mistake, one we couldn’t have foreseen. To any who may read these words after the
A Thing of Flesh and Copper Read More »
Heather found herself in bed, unable to move a muscle—trying her hardest to shift her arm and wake her husband sleeping next to her, but to no avail. She was in sleep paralysis—a phenomenon she’d read about but never experienced until then. It frightened her to lie there helpless, but
I remember the day that the red angels came. It was a hot, scorching day. So hot that the roads began to melt. So hot that it was dangerous to go outside, lest you pass out from the heat and die of a heatstroke. I was at work when it
