Hope didn’t like being home without her parents. All of her friends did, and they had all shared wild tales of what exactly they had done when their parents were gone. They all seemed to get a sense of satisfaction at disobeying their parents and defying their rules. Hope didn’t […]
Mark’s head rocked wildly in the pillow as a muted moan popped from his throat. His eyeballs thrashed about under clenched lids, kamikaze fireflies trapped in a skin jar. He jerked awake, and his first sight was the glowing bulb of his bedside lamp. It lit the room in a
Friday 13th November, 2015. At 3:42pm GMT, it happened. The world descended into a sudden, complete darkness. Chaos ensued. In our little office on the 10th floor, we huddled together in that ominous pitch black, awaiting the light. There was a television in our break room, and someone found the
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To whom it may concern, I don’t know your name and you do not know mine. That’s just as well, because I have tried to speak with you these many times before as you leave for work, get your mail, bring your children home from school, or take your Saturday
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“Alright, kids,” the counselor announced, a devilish grin stretching across her face. “You know what time it is!” Jack nodded vigorously, bouncing up and down with excitement. He had been waiting for this moment all day. “That’s right!” she responded. “It’s time for our scary story competition! I want you
Growing up in small town in the middle of Kansas in the 1970s meant that not only was there not much to do as a slightly mischievous teenager, but if you did want to do something, anything, you had to come up with it yourself. This usually meant anything from
When You Go A-Knocking Read More »
This was it: night one of my new job as the night watchman for Disneyland. Anywhere else, I’d be referred to as an ordinary security guard. Here, I was a cast member. Something about that label just oozed sophistication and privilege. It was now 12:00 AM. All the cleaners and
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My name is Jim Hutchison. Most people call me Hutch, even in my professional life. My family-owned business is as a concrete contractor, and we perform work for a variety of private and federal clients. One such client is the Texas State Department of Corrections. It was work at one
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“Bobby! Pay attention!” he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying?” she continued. Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before
Until recently, I had considered the reserve near my home just another quiet, if slightly unnerving, relic of pre-suburban life. With sub-divisions and commercial sectors rising steadily around it, the knot of thick trees, greenery and long, straw-like grass had been cast aside by time; a mottled green and brown
If there was any doubt by the turn of the twenty-first century, by the dawn of the twenty-second, it was an unmistakable reality: technological civilization was unsustainable. In 2130, with the global population nearing eleven billion, Earth was Hell. We all but exhausted our reserves of conventional petroleum, and the
Have you ever wondered why we see ghosts? Maybe they have a message for us. Perhaps they’re trapped somewhere between our world and theirs, oblivious to the fact that time has gone on without them. There have been tales of long-lost family members visiting us in our dreams and unexplainable
“Will you be with me when the time comes?” Caitlyn asked. Her voice was soft and cracking due to dehydration. Even with the saline solution being pumped through the IV she was still far too weak to talk properly. Her lips were white and cracking like the earth in Death
Chambliss, the wealthy only son of a prosperous sugarcane plantation owner in Louisiana is madly in love with Camellia, a slavewoman, though they keep their relationship secret from his father, and are separated until the father’s passing, upon which Camellia moves into the house with Chambliss. When a cholera outbreak
There it is! In between the static. It’s faint at first, buried deep in the hiss, but after you hear it, after you know it’s there it becomes so loud you want to cover your ears and scream. I can sound the words out for you, but that’s it. We
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“I’ll never ask for anything else again, I swear, Mom!” As kids, we’ve all said it at one point. We find something that seems the most amazing item in the world and we just have to have it, no matter what. For me, it was the newest handheld, a Game
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“You may commence, Chief Inspector.” The two constables started to write down notes as I began, my sweating forehead reflecting the bright shine of the desk lamp despite the harsh cold temperature. A notebook with a cheap webcam was recording our talk. “We were called the September 29th, Dundee division.
Juliet stood on the sidewalk, hands on her hips, and stared at the house. How depressing. Her Aunt Camilla had passed away just three short months ago. An aneurysm or stroke is what the doctors had said. Camilla had been in her nineties and a spinster. With no husband or
Every culture has its own unique folklore- traditions and tales passed down through generations. In the modern day, these are often looked upon by most with the idle interest of a time gone by, but I have always found them to be quite fascinating. They reveal so much about the
I’ve been blind since birth. This in and of itself is not what this is about, but it’s a crucial part of the story. Throughout my life, I’ve used lots of different kinds of assistive technology; braille keyboards, voice command apps, adapted smartphones… Recently, I tried human echolocation for the
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It has been six weeks since my first sighting of the wicked old hag. I woke up in the middle of the night and went to roll over, but my entire body was paralysed. I lay there, scared and helpless, contemplating my predicament when I became aware of a presence
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I didn’t want us to move, but my parents didn’t give me a say in the matter. My father’s new job paid much better than anything he could have landed within driving distance of our home in the city, and the new company agreed to hire my mother, too. Not
“Our church is no more. Our arrogance and ignorance brought forth our destruction. We are all that’s left of the once glorious church. Christianity now relies on us to survive.” -Pope Pius IX, addressing the Magisterium in the ruins of St. Peter’s Sqaure All Hallow’s Eve – 1856 The hollow
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November 4, 2015 – 3:20 am – Entry 1 Journal of Tyler E. Rivington Today is the day that I venture to the other side of the World. That starting sentence seemed a bit bombastic, but it’s true. I will be travelling to a rather small town, possibly village, not
