The world can be a cruel place. I had always been optimistic about life and the promises it held, and that even with life’s ups and downs, working hard and striving for the best one could be always led to better things. My perspective changed after...
We were having another lockdown drill when I found out about Holly Reyes. I was in Social Studies, third period, when Principal Weston’s muffled voice spat at us from the ceiling. We all sighed and ducked under the long tables, limbs shoving aside plastic chairs...
My name isn’t really important, but for now, I’ll go by Monty. A little backstory, I grew up in a small town just outside of Hartford, Connecticut. Real nice place where everyone knew everyone, you never locked your doors, had a real charm to it....
“Can we go on the roller coaster?” “Sure we can,” Kent assured his son, whose eyes brimmed with hope and enthusiasm. Little Brian ran ahead towards the ride as his father walked quickly behind. It was one of those old, rickety coasters that won’t keep you...
He hoped the tape recorder would still work. It was one of those small portable ones often used in schools or libraries. Teddy didn’t even realize the irony of his action. Angie was, in fact, the one who had bought it for him....
You know those people who you tell the time of events to 15 minutes early because you know they would be late? The ones who would be late to their own funerals, as the saying goes? Well, that's me. Prepare as I might. I can...
Here is the journal I kept during my time at The Ash House. At times I was unable to write, so some entries are recorded by memory. At the time of this journal, I had just been dropped off to the Ash House by my...
It was cold. Cold and dark. That’s all I could feel when I stared into the black abyss, that made up its eyes. There was a tingling sensation in my feet, that slowly rose up in my body like panic trapped inside of me. I...
The spring flu had been going around the school like usual, but some people were sicker than normal. They didn’t just have fever and headache – their faces were blotchy, their eyes bulged, and they all wheezed like they’d just run up ten flights of...
The night of Christmas Eve 2008 is a blur, depending on how much medication I am given that day. I can avoid the nurses for a couple of hours, but not too long. I suppose you’ve heard about me in the papers or on your...
Jake Thomasson pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down, covering his hand, and wiped away the condensation from the window. It was the third time he had done this in the past ten minutes, but he didn’t want to miss seeing if any cars drove...
Growing up, or at least since the mid-two thousands, my house always had an Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season. If you don’t know, Elves on the Shelf are these little elf dolls that are supposed to be scouts for Santa Claus. I...
One contrary wheel wobbled erratically as Thomas Moon pushed against the weighted shopping cart. He looked down at the mountain of Christmas presents and imagined his poor wallet gasping for air and fainting in a huff. He smiled as his wife, Christine, waddled up to...
My father is a construction manager and because of his career, we have to move around the country every few years. In my 15 years, I have lived in six different states: New Mexico, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Louisiana, and now Kansas. This past summer, my father was...
Let me just make something clear: I never get to go out somewhere nice. Like ever. My best friend and I struggle just to pay our bills every month, so anything fancier than McDonald's is usually out of the question. We'll save up for months to go...
Christmas has always been a hard time for me. Childhood memories of bickering relatives, drunken tirades, and hostile dinner conversations made me wince at the mere mention of the holiday. In the Christmas of 1989, I broke my collarbone on my new toboggan. In the...
I’ve been blind since birth. As I grew up, everything was described to me in such vivid detail that I didn’t even realize why it was that important to see, especially having no reference point to compare it. We lived in a single-floor ranch house,...
The only thing worse than motorway driving, is night-time motorway driving. The drizzle doesn’t help, glittering the glare of headlights and streetlights across the windscreen before the wipers smear it away, then it glitters again, then it’s smeared away again. On and on, the thump-thump,...
The little girl stood outside the door. She stared at it, fidgeting with the frills of her dress. She could always wait until tomorrow...
Part 1: A Diner Called Daisy’s This whole thing started on a road trip around four years ago. We left to go from Northern California to the East Coast, traveling through the Midwest. It was me, my wife Kimmy, our 7-year-old daughter Katie, and 5-year-old son...
A couple of months ago, I found a diary written by a young girl, Florence Blackwell, who was a patient at the Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital on Long Island. Without telling the entirety of the story over again, there was one person who was instrumental...
I grew up on Long Island, right outside of the Kings Park Psychiatric Center, home of the legend of Cropsey. I was always a good kid, never broke any rules, never really pushed the limits of what was and wasn’t “allowed”. But recently, I moved...
My sister loves minions. The yellow, banana-eating, overall-wearing, big-eyed things from a family movie called Despicable Me? Yep...
I’m a vigilante online predator hunter, and I can’t explain the bizarre things that happened last night. I jolted awake in bed as my phone blared with a message. hey baby. we’ve been talking long enough. i want to meet you now. My blood turned to ice as...