Life tends to have its favorites, and I have never been one of them. My sister was lucky to be born first, as life favored her far before I came along. She got most of our parents’ wealth, she graduated valedictorian, has her masters, has a beautiful family— “Kam!” Ashley’s […]
The Woman in the Mirror Read More »
I work for the county sheriff’s office up in NorCal. I received a call in the predawn hours on May the 23rd, 2020 telling me to investigate the collapse of a residence on the street I grew up on. It was hardly surprising to see my friend’s house had gone
The Grimoire of Leonard Hopkins 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 »
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 »
Read Part One here THERE ONCE WAS A PREACHERALL SKIN AND BONESNO ONE KNEW HIS FIRST NAMEHIS LAST ONE WAS JONES This clusterfuck all started on Halloween. At an emergency Town Hall meeting, we’d all come together to discuss the obvious: we were starving. At the rate we were going,
ON SEPTEMBER 22, three harbingers of death arrived at the same time: the Autumnal Equinox, the stopping of the Astronomical Clock in Old Town, and the arrival of TB-9000 in Prague. No one paid much attention to the first event, but the second and third brought great concern. Legend said
Martin pressed the record button on the handheld unit and held it close to his mouth as he ducked under the rope the patrol officers had strung between the trees. “October fourteenth, 1972,” he said. “George Washington Park, Centralia. Arrived on scene at approximately nine forty-five in the morning. Initial
A Speaker Of The Trees Read More »
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 »
SILENCE IS GOLDENREMEMBER THIS RHYMESILENCE YOUR VOICEWHEN IT’S YOUR TIME At sixteen, you must decide. Our doctors say it doesn’t hurt a bit. They use a local anesthetic for the procedure, and it takes less time than filling a tooth. Your throat is sore for about a week afterward. Then
Henry Callum had made this drive so many times he could have done it half asleep, and on some of the earlier mornings, he nearly had. Forty miles out of Centralia on roads that stopped being roads about twelve miles in, just packed dirt and gravel cutting through the Douglas
A Ritual In The Forest 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
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
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
Brooks Brother’s Hardware Store Read More »
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 »
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
I was born into this world made from the Earth from soil and bones, from that which is dead and that which is living. My creator formed me in the crude shape known as man, but I am not like them. My form is coarse, jagged, with no warmth to
That Which Is Molded Read More »
DO YOU KNOW what nitrogen hypoxia is? It’s how I’ve chosen to die. Our state is the sixth to adopt this method, behind Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Some human rights advocates and medical experts consider it cruel and unusual punishment tantamount to torture. However, haven’t they said as
I Lead a Death Cult Read More »
There are days I wish I had done something to save Jeremy Tillman. It’s been twenty years, and it all started with the beta for Hushlands. Jeremy Tillman was one year senior, and we used to collaborate frequently, both of us being game designers. Actually, my career began with him,
A lot of questions have been asked of me lately by many different parties. My parents want to know why I almost refuse to leave the house anymore. My doctor wants to know what has been causing my insomnia. The police want to know my whereabouts and actions on the
The Wood Witch’s Ritual Read More »
1 I’ve never been the most sensible person. My mother would always tell me that I was “the dumbest smart person she knew”. I always figured that was just classic mom razzing, something that happened to every kid when they made some silly mistake that was easily avoidable. I recently
It was early October. Acorns were raining down on the tin roofs and cheap ravaged asphalt shingles of the mobile homes around Lake Junior in Interlachen, Florida, like mother trees were dropping their kids off to make their way in the world. Across the lake the entire sky was illuminated
The wind stung with the foretelling of winter and leaves spiraled down from the trees in a whirlwind of crimson, amber, and gold. His stride quickened, anxiety biting at his heels, an unseen foe pursuing his thoughts, if not himself. Perhaps the threat was imagined, perhaps it was tangible. The
A Reckoning in Ashes Read More »
Read Part One here Read Part Two here * * * HELLO AND WELCOME to our pre-Halloween sale at Cinderella’s Curios and Pawn! I’m Katrina Overman, and I’m so glad to meet you. You might recognize this place as having been owned by a woman named Sophie Tafus. My late
Let me just begin by saying that even though I’m not the biggest computer geek in the world, or by any means what you would refer to as an “iPad Kid”, being grounded sucks. Having my phone and Xbox taken away wasn’t the worst part of being grounded. However, it
The Reenactors in my Town are Acting Strange Read More »
