Part 1 This is your captain speaking. I've just turned on the seat belt sign. We're expecting a fair amount of turbulence coming up, so we ask that you please remain seated until the sign is turned off. We're on pace to land at Newark International...
Shawn took one last drag of his cigarette. He didn't smoke regularly, but this occasion nearly called for one. It had been years since his last job interview, and it was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking. He looked at the...
Katy took a long hit on the pipe. Her eyes rolled up and back into her head. She choked on the smoke that invaded her lungs, and an attempt at a giggle was unsuccessful. Her blue eyes watered and her almost-laugh was strangled by another...
Any mother who has more than one child will admit-if she’s honest-that she has one child who worries her more than the others. This has nothing to do with love, but rather some children’s propensity to find trouble-the child most likely to get in a...
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered as she crawled into bed and spooned against my back. “Jesus, you’re cold,” I murmured. She only snuggled closer, throwing her leg over mine. I lay there for a few beats, caught between my alcohol-induced sleep and wakefulness, until I realized whatever...
For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Sarah Barkley. I'm a cop in a small, rural, Pennsylvania town currently stuck working the night shift. I work with a lot of older guys, so they tend to treat me like a rookie...
Craig Brockwell was found by his wife, dead on their living room floor, a plastic garbage bag tied off around his neck, and an empty bottle of Xanax on the kitchen counter, next to a suicide note. My initial external examination of the body revealed no...
Roger glanced around the desert once more. Nothing but the cloudless sky and the sand scattering in the wind, with a few cacti dotted around the landscape. With nothing else to do, he checked his magazine, already knowing how many bullets he had. Full. Adjusting...
I don’t know about everyone else, but I have always had terrible vision. Generally, it gets worse from year to year, but there are some years I’m able to skip the decay. I wear contact lenses because I’ve tried to avoid the nerd stigma my...
I know that people are going to call this out as bullshit so I'll just say it right now. I'm a demon. At least that's what most people would call me. The truth of what I am and where I'm from is a bit out of the...
Tinnitus: a nightmare of a disease affecting millions of people, myself included. How could I best describe this condition? An incessant, nail on a chalkboard screeching that goes on for every minute of every day. Just imagine never experiencing the true bliss of utter silence. Maybe it’s...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuwaWChxW6o[/embedyt] I just got this sweet little job over on the Northside. It's too cool; I sit with this old lady from the evening to early morning. I don't like to party and all that, so I don't mind. I get there and feed her...
The new epidemic is already beyond its patient zero. Whether or not I am infected, I am confident that Mr. Bridestar will soon have me murdered. He will do this in order to keep the disease’s name unknown. I won’t let him win, though. At...
This week, I was supposed to digitize all of Dr. Marnen's patient files. I was feeling good about my progress when I saw it. A second filing cabinet, hiding behind the shelves, that I’d never noticed before. Sighing with fatigue, I yanked open the first drawer. I...
She tried pulling herself back, but however hard she tried, however hard she pushed, she could not stop her feet dragging her towards the open window. She dug her heels into the wooden floor, feeling splinters coming off it as her feet dragged her onward. Her...
The road had been covered in a dense fog. Denise decided to rent a room for the night, seeing as she had parked near an unfamiliar hotel. She got out of her car, looking around for any signs of an entrance within the grey haze....
“Alright, can you count backwards from 50 for me please?” The nurse asked sweetly. I nodded and opened my mouth. “50, 49, 48, 47…” I could barely remember finishing the numbers, as all I could suddenly see was darkness, as my mind succumbed to the anesthesia. Before...
John sat with his grandmother on the balcony terrace overlooking West Bay Road and the lower Hampshire valley. The lush green fields from springtime were now singed-brown; the lack of rainwater that summer was turning the place into the Mojave Desert. A screaming hawk flew...
I am Andrea Lewis, and I am a nurse. This is my story, and how I came to care for my patient, Andrew. Andrew had always been different from the other children. His frail body and weak immune system were two factors in a life filled with...
My wife and I moved into our new apartment just a few months ago. Before this, we lived in a large cottage overlooking a beautiful lake. It was my wife's dream home for the three years we lived there. We didn't want to leave, but...
White. That was Jim’s world. The walls were white, the floor was white, the orderlies wore white. It was an upsetting, all-encompassing white which left him feeling a little dizzy. And there wasn’t much for him to do besides be absorbed in it. Occasionally, the sounds of...
Home again after a difficult but very rewarding day of convincing people not to give up on the gift of life. Richard Burner often had to deal with pretty stubborn suicidal people, but so far he had always been able to open their eyes to...
It’s quiet. There is no sound. No light. Nothing but the darkness. I am asleep...
As younger siblings tend to do, I absolutely worshipped my older brother Calvin. He always seemed like the coolest person in the world to me. Everybody liked him. He was president of his class, a star baseball player, and just had an all-around great personality....