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 […]
It’s been about seven months since I signed my year long lease for this shithole apartment. I don’t think I’ll be making it another five months. I’m not sure if I’ll even make it another night. My cheapness might’ve cost me my life. I was going to make this a
I Found an Extra Light Switch in My Apartment Read More »
I was a Disney kid. Obviously. Heck, I even still have toys and figurines of the mouse himself lying around my room, specifically a large, stuffed plushie of Mickey. However, as I grew older, the nostalgia that had soured into curiosity led me to question what the workers did behind
I am certain that my fascination with the gone and forgotten stems from my own fear of impermanence. Leaving something behind when I am gone is of utmost importance to me, so I have dedicated my life to preserving and sharing the legacies and lives of others who have passed.
Mr Conrad’s Final Tale Read More »
ORDINARY FOLK had no reason to fear the Moon. Or so they thought. It hung in the sky as a welcome guardian, pale as paper in its various phases, providing light to travelers and highwaymen when it was full. It meant no harm and could do no harm. Yet tonight,
Blood Moon: Bound in Blood and Magic Read More »
I have been lucky enough to have lived a relatively full life. I have travelled far and wide – from the rainy cobbled streets of London to the jagged peaks of northern Thailand. Along the way, I made many friends and enjoyed careless flings with temporary lovers before they all
I Found My Friend in the Woods Read More »
Be it curiosity, a sense of amusement, or something much darker, the man found himself walking toward the dilapidated structure that peeked through the trees at him. His feet swept through the grass as he approached the treeline. The sun was shining and the bright rays warmed his skin. He
Something in the Void Read More »
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
The Man in the Photograph Read More »
Johnathan woke up in a daze to find himself all alone. The alone part was normal. The alone part wasn’t strange. What was strange was that he woke up in a graveyard. “What the fuck…” Johnathan pushed himself, sitting upwards, onto the wet earth beneath him. As he leaned back
The Topkapi Palace was alight with the celebratory shouts of the governors, generals, and janissaries though none was heard so loudly as Sultan Mehmed II for his great Ottoman Empire had finally felled their greatest Christian enemy, that terrible heir to the Order of the Dragon, Vlad III. The expansive
It’s late October, and I’m stuck in this dead-end job at Marty’s Video Rentals. Halloween’s coming, so the place is crawling with people who think they know horror. They don’t. They rent the same tired slashers, the same monsters that never change, never learn. Outside, the streets are strewn with
Tonight’s lucky customer Read More »
My grandmother died at 3:33 AM on a Tuesday, and her TV wouldn’t turn off. Not wouldn’t—couldn’t. We unplugged it. We cut the power to her room. We even took a hammer to the screen, but it kept playing, the jagged cracks creating a kaleidoscope of images that shouldn’t exist.
“Hi!” I walked into the room and waved at the beautiful dark-haired woman sitting in front of me. Her pale features stood out starkly against her dark brown dress and the maroon wall behind her. She looked up, and a smile instantly spread across her face, revealing dimples on both
I sleep with my window closed now. Not out of habit, out of fear. There are monsters in the world, real ones. Serial killers, rapists, the kinds of things we can name and lock up. But the supernatural? That’s different. It’s older. Quieter. Easier to keep secret. It hides in
I Sleep With My Window Closed Now Read More »
In the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where rugged ridges jutted upward like the ancient, weathered spines of slumbering giants, and the valleys plunged into deep shadows that clung stubbornly to the earth, the forest guarded its mysteries with a quiet, unyielding vigilance. The people who called those mountains home,
Hello there, I managed to scrounge up a pile of power banks left behind by previous passengers. In total, these could last me a combined 47 hours worth of laptop battery perhaps more if I used them sparingly. I will try to be quick, so the spent battery is not
We boarded a Ferry, Please Help Us Read More »
The following are journal excerpts taken from four in-resident counselors working a summer camp in coastal Georgia (c.2012). All entries are transcribed wholly and completely unfiltered. * James – 7/1/2012 This is a log of repeated occurrences from Tortoise Cabin (location—across the estuary from counselor quarters). Desc. For many, many
The envelope was thick, cream-colored, and addressed to me in elegant, unfamiliar script. It arrived on a day like any other – a Tuesday, rain slicking the windows of our tiny apartment, the air inside smelling faintly of stale cooking and damp laundry. Lily was colouring at the chipped Formica
Her Horrific Inheritance Read More »
The Easter basket arrived this morning, though I live alone and ordered nothing. Inside, nestled amongst the garish plastic grass, wasn’t chocolate, but a single, impossibly large, milky-white eye staring up at me. It wasn’t glass; it felt disturbingly organic beneath my hesitant fingertip, cool and slightly yielding, veined with
I grew up in the small Florida Town of Ellaville, By the time I was 5, it was 1944. Ma was a receptionist on night shifts and Pa was shipped off to the war four and a half years ago. We missed him a bunch, but being young I only
As a devout Catholic, I had waited all my life for the Rapture. When it finally came, I realised the falsehood of my God. It was four days ago now, though my perception of time has had a tendency to warp and distort lately, so it might have been longer
The Choir of the Hollow Sky Read More »
Having something you can’t control is difficult. That’s what I was thinking the other day when a coworker asked me if I had any experience sitting kids. I do. On top of being a full-time babysitter most of my teenage years, I had to put up with the shenanigans of
The mountain was tall and malformed. It jutted out of the earth as a singular monolith, unbothered and undisturbed in its growth from any other rock formations budding up against it and contorting its growth or shape. For millions of years, it was left as a black sheep in the
One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place. ― Emily Dickinson What does a madman’s mind look like from the inside? Does it look like an empty house with vandalized masonry, broken gates, cracked cement pathways
