Kneeling before the Knight, Edwin accepted the scroll with great honor. It was such an odd thing he held; one of the likes he had never experienced before. The parchment was cold to the touch and made from leather of the deepest black. It was absent of moisture. Still, it
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On October 16, 1962, every man, woman, and child disappeared from the town of Edmonson, Kentucky. The date is relatively easy to pin down. The day before – October 15 – a traveling salesman named Arnold Johnson passed through the small town in an unsuccessful attempt to sell an exciting
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I don’t know what to do at this point, which is why I’ve come here. What I’ve seen has changed me. I don’t know if what I’ve seen is real, but I believe it to be as I saw it with my own eyes: a horrific sight from the darkest
There is Something Going Through my Garbage Read More »
You know what would be delightful? To maybe watch television, or just sit around the house, or take a ride in the car without my father bringing up religion. Father is a master at turning any conversation into a lecture about faith. Anything he reads, sees or hears in the
A Question of Faith Read More »
One of my first memories as a child was a funeral. My uncle’s funeral. He was my mom’s half-brother and considerably younger than her as he was from her dad’s second marriage. I think he was in his mid-twenties and he was addicted to ecstasy. Of course, I didn’t know
It started when we called out to the stars; into the darkness. We felt so small, tumbling through vast emptiness while clinging to the skin of the world, and without a single reason why. We were curious, yes, but ultimately I think we were just terribly frightened. And we were
This is a continuation of The Fort, so please read that story first! Ryan opened his eyes and squinted against the brightness of the hot, desert sun. He was dazed, and for a moment he struggled to remember where he was. Lifting his head slightly, he groaned as a trickle
A tropical retreat in Cozumel full of sun bathing or scuba diving? Kayaking with the whales, or sky diving in Nova Scotia? Or how about that eerie and highly illegal trip into the Paris catacombs where Holestead paid the fine eagerly without batting an eyelash almost as if he had
When hiking alone in my twenty-fifth year in the southwestern barrens of the Newfoundland interior highlands, I found myself lost for three days in which events took place that disturbed me in ways I thought not possible. In those seventy-two hours I wandered aimlessly but not without purpose into what
“Look, Tony, just get outta town. Let things settle down. I’ve got connections in Iliad, they’ll rent you a place to lie low.” A phonograph played jazz music, adding a modern ambiance to the otherwise rustic lobby. Tony shook his head and leaned over the hotel counter, slipping a twenty
The tropical waters were warm, even on a night dive, but Aaron still wore a wetsuit. He switched on the video camera attached to his mask, then pressed the start button on his waterproof wristwatch. 70:00 popped up in black against a staunch grey background, and quickly turned to 69:59,
There’s a concept I read about once online, on a forum that discussed Artificial Intelligence. A user known as Roko theorized a possible future where mankind creates an extremely powerful AI that comes to run the planet. It would be, for the most part, benevolent. It would advance technology, keep
An Offering to the Basilisk Read More »
Note: This is a sequel to Rose – Part 1 – please read that story first! The weather that day was not fitting for a funeral. Especially a funeral as sad as this one. It should have been rainy and gloomy but there was not a cloud in the sky.
As I lay awake tossing and turning in my bed I kept thinking about how stupid my co-workers were. Thanks to a few choice idiots screwing up a report I had to stay past time and consequently couldn’t get to the pharmacy to collect my sleeping pills, plus since it
The early 80’s. A military outpost in a small northern town surrounded by endless snow-covered flatlands. In the summer, the white nights would start, the snow would thaw, and the flatland would turn into a mossy slough where you couldn’t make a step without a pair of rubber boots. Even
Personally Leonid Ilyitch Read More »
A few months ago one of my closest friends at work and I realized our feelings were growing into something more than just a friendship. In our company it’s frowned upon to date coworkers. Technically not against the rules, but frowned upon. When we decided to take our relationship to
I Don’t Want to Go into the Woods Read More »
The night of July 13 is one I will never forget. I was seated by the campfire, staring into the bright dancing flames surrounded by darkness. My two friends, Dave and Chris, were sitting across from me, all of us sitting in those cheap fold-up chairs that you get at
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The Carpathian mountains cast a long shadow as the Sun set. I was in this God-forsaken place for my brother. He had left three months ago, leaving a voicemail before vanishing. He said he was on to something, that it might take some time, but that when he returned, we
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I thought it was a great house and at a price we could afford, despite being laid off after ten years of steady employment and a new baby in my wife’s arms. The area was rural, the nearest neighbors not even a sight from our kitchen window, and the previous
I had been in the apartment about 6 months when I started to see them. They should’ve scared me but they didn’t. The only thing I felt at first, as I recall, was fascination. To me it seemed as though it were happening to someone else. It was as if
Inside a Shadow I Wrote This Down Read More »
Sometimes I’ll just stare out the window and think about it. I’ll think about it long and hard. While it happened decades ago and I have moved on with my life, I still get the biggest chills when I remind myself of it. I tell myself all the time that
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I stood where the bronze sand and blue water met, creating a seamless border that extended south for as far as I could see and on the north side disappeared beyond the formidable sandstone cliffs. The Sun on the horizon of the ocean was setting quickly, tinting the water a
I stand at the top of my stairs, socked toes curling into the carpet as one hand squeezes the door handle and the other hovers over the light switch, trying to decide if it’s safe to turn the lights out. It’s nearly seven at night, I have about an hour
It Lives At The Bottom Of My Stairs Read More »
I was ready to die. It’s funny; we, as human beings, like to imagine ourselves as fighters. We like to think that when death grips us by the throat, prepared to drag us into whatever beyond awaits us, that we’ll instinctively resist, either out of desperation to live or even
