Part one. A melancholy recollection of traumatic events. I hate bullies. Bullies have set the course of my fairly chaotic life, since day one. My father was a bully. My Mother wasn’t much better, if I’m being honest. My parents were very religious, and I don’t mean just go to […]
The house is set at the end of an abandoned road behind a line of pine trees. The road used to be a part of the highway system and the house was built after the new system had been put in and was put there for its privacy. The original
I still remember the events of my awakening. It wasn’t the first time I’d awoke in the tower – by that time, I’d long since lost count. So many times, I had slipped into a brief unconscious respite only for searing pain to jolt me back to life, wailing in
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Read Part one here It was gearing up to be a long night. The place was packed two-deep with thirsty patrons, and our barback was nowhere in sight. I wouldn’t know it until hours later, but he had quit out of the blue, leaving me to manage the tides myself.
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Twice in my life I’ve wished for a magic wand. The first was eight years into my marriage, when our heart-wrenchingly tender obstetrician told us there was nothing left to try. I never shared my husband’s fascination with magic and conjuring tricks, but at that moment, hearing that news, I
When I was a kid, my stepfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. “A magician,” I answered quickly with worldwide clarity. He huffed at that answer. “That ain’t a job, son. Wearing makeup and doing a little dance at parties ain’t a job to seek.
One last crimson heart. That’s all there was. John stood in the storage closet-like room, barely breathing. The only light was a sliver from the hallway and a flickering incandescent bulb strung up in the center of the room. Directly under the fleeting yellow light sat a green box atop
One Last Crimson Heart Read More »
When Matt originally proposed the idea, I thought he was joking. Crash a wedding? Like in the movies? Pull a Vince Vaughn? I loved the idea, but the thought of actually sneaking into a random wedding to pick up chicks, well… it just wasn’t possible. Someone would realize we didn’t
It is 1894. Fog hangs heavy on this cold, still, San Francisco night. Madame Grace, a young woman of African descent, stands before the door of a dark, three-story, Victorian-style house. The turban atop her head to the jeweled anklets draped above her feet, speak of a spiritualist. Charles, her
Read part one here Father Carroway wandered about in the ever-extended void of subconscious. Unable to feel or perceive anything anymore, he wondered if he had indeed perished through either the means of the serpent’s venom or the trauma of the crash down the spiraling stone stairs. “Am I dead?”,
The Black Rock Chapel Horror part two Read More »
The ocean wind clutches at my upturned collar as I write this on the deck of the ferry, bearing up at the rising silhouette of the approaching island through the frosted glass of the grey morning. The little outcropping looks to all the world like it’s considering succumbing to the
My partner and I were called out as part of an investigative team, regarding a cruise liner that had struck rocks and capsized the night before. The people that did make it to the life rafts had abandoned the ship too early out of fear, and the sea tossed the
Since last year, I’ve become a huge fan of those YouTube channels that talk about small mysteries recorded inside the United States. You know, those channels, with their dark backgrounds, white cursive letters, spooky thumbnails and soothing but ominous voices, which sometimes narrate horror stories as well? From the west
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My hometown is residence to a large, and long abandoned, psychiatric hospital. Its official name was the Johnathan H. Murnow Regional Psychiatric Hospital (named after the founder). Everyone else that didn’t work there called it “Murnow’s Mental Hospital.” It’s the same story as any large hospital in the U.S. that
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From a young age I always knew I would become a soldier. I was born into an upper-class family with a proud military tradition. My grandfather was wounded at the Somme, and my father served under Montgomery in North Africa. It was always expected that I would follow in their
This is a story that goes back to my time in college at the University of Oregon, back in the 1980s. Eugene then was the quintessential college town and well known as a refuge for the surviving hippy culture of the 1960s. The counter culture is part of the city’s
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It did not dawn on me for an eternity that it was my fault it happened. It seemed unconnected, unimportant, something not even to waste my lonely time to think about. Now it is the only thing I can think about because I am reminded every time I see him.
From the author: READ HORROR, RAISE MONEY FOR CHARITY: One of the communities we used to work with in Zambia have been in touch to say that they are really struggling to pay for masks, sanitiser, soap and even food for the school kids. I know everybody is having a
I happened upon the book at a kiosk in my town’s annual witchcraft festival. The seller, a young, red-haired woman, told me it was known as the Book of Memories. If you wrote down a recollection on one of its many blank pages and closed the book shut, it would
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The things that haunt a man the most, are not usually the choices that he’s made, but rather the choices that he never did make. I’ve lived through some of the worst hells that you could ever imagine. 9,490 of them to be exact. Every night when I
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I was almost friends with a monster when I was eleven years old. I would have preferred a human friend, but my family had just moved to a new city where everyone was cold and distant. My father promised that I would meet new people at school, but
(A short film based on The Attic in the Basement, winner of Best Director in the BC Student Film Festival) “Quiet down, back there!” I yelled whilst driving down an all too familiar road. My best friend and his girlfriend wouldn’t stop laughing loudly with each other, much like young
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This is roughly a true story. True in that it was told to me by my father, rough in that his memory had decayed with age, leaving his recollection of the year 1975 a bit scarred. He asked me to write it down a few years back, but I never
In my hometown, there is a unique shop of oddities called “HexWorks” that I frequent. It’s an old-world boutique that specializes in niche products that I’d describe as being vintage-style with a modern spin. Their items include cloaks, pocket watches, lapels, bizarre art prints, lavish jewelry, and Victorian
Never Use Cheat Codes on a Ouija Board Read More »
