Long ago, there was a Buddhist priest named Kaian Zenji who always wore a blue robe. He spent his days travelling around Japan, meditating, praying and trying to help those who were in need. One evening, he came to a village called Tomita. As soon as the people there laid […]
When I was young my grandmother used to tell me stories of her youth. When I was about the age of fourteen, she told me about her and my grandfather’s time in a Polish city by the name of Bedzin. She described Bedzin as a quaint city; it had been
I sat on the bus, on my way to school. Listening to music, and paying little to no attention to the other students. At one of the stops my mind snapped back to reality. I looked towards the small house. Tommy’s house, I thought. A hand slipped through the drapes
The first thing I remember of my arrival in Ahtunowhiho, the small Native American village in the northern reaches of Minnesota, was the smell. The familiar aroma of soaked dirt permeated the air and was instantly noticeable as soon as the doors of the cramped, twelve-seater plane were opened. The
The Silence of the North Woods Read More »
“I’m so cold.” This was the first thought that entered into Amber’s dazed consciousness. Her eyelids flickered open to see nothing but hazy darkness around her. Moaning softly, she struggled to raise her body from the prone position she lay in, wrapping her bare arms around herself in response to
The events in this story occurred on a warm & humid night in late August of 2008, the night after Tropical Storm Fay ripped through our town in Gadsden County, Florida. Looking back on this, I will say that the terror of that storm was nothing compared to what followed
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After a night of carousing with his buddies, Billy was ready to head home. “Are you sure you want to walk home by yourself?” asked Todd, “You’ve heard the rumors, right?” “What rumors?” ask Billy. “You know, the problem…with vampires.” He said that last word almost in a whisper. “Oh
“Fuck, it’s cold.” You would think I’d be used to it by now. Pulling my scarf a little tighter, I take one last drag off my cigarette and flick it to the ground, crushing it underfoot. I watch as it flares for a moment — a fleeting fight for life
I always have a torch in my pocket these days. I found a small LED one at an electronics store for a couple of bucks, and I keep it on me at all times. It’s actually really bright, despite the size. I bought five, the other four are placed in
Not Afraid of the Dark Read More »
It was the Christmas of 1965, before man had landed on the moon, before the wall had fallen, before many things good and bad. For me it was the last time that I knew innocence, before the creeping shadow which engulfed my family, before the madness, before death; before. It
The Advent Calendar Read More »
If there was one thing I knew for sure it was that the moment our new neighbors moved in next to us, things in our quiet little suburb seemed to fall out of place. Now don’t get me wrong, the walls of my house didn’t start to bleed or anything,
It’s the Little Things Read More »
I didn’t want to move to a new place. All of my toys were in boxes and we didn’t have any T.V. Mom told me to play outside but she was always busy and Dad was at work. There weren’t any kids around there anyway. Mom told me to explore
The neighborhood always was a tight-knit community. The gatehouse kept out all the wrong people, and the rotation of retiree guards provided a second filter for the riff-raff. Most homes went for over half a million, but a few sold in the quarter-mil range. All of those, they were in
No Body, No Crime: A Cheery Holiday Tale Read More »
I wasn’t very old when I first saw it. Maybe about five or six or so. It was a long time ago. But I remember it well. For what feels like the longest time, the whole experience of it felt like…a dream. Like it never really happened, just a little
The river runs foul with the stench of death. It won’t be long now. For ten years I have fled, found each and every rock to hide beneath, a plethora of gutters soaked in the outcast remains of civilisation. No city, nor village, nor town has provided me with shelter.
A routine can be defined by a series of regular actions followed in a similar pattern. Most people have many routines they follow on a day to day basis, be it a morning routine before they go to work, or the order of machines they visit when they go to
I never knew something as simple as a knock on the door could forever send me into a frozen state of terror. It all started with a cold and rainy autumn evening. The wind was blowing fiercely, whistling through the little cracks in the windows and door frames. I was
It all started as a story. A single piece of text that people enjoyed to read. It was a way of passing the time with jolts of fear and suspense. Wondering if it were real or not. People would read them, contemplate them, then laugh with friends about them. I
The Holder of Many Read More »
Endless. Dark. That was the road in front of me, stretching out farther than the eye could see in this inky blackness. Not a star in the sky tonight, and the moon seemed to be hiding from view as well. That was okay because I actually preferred the dark stretch-
Mirrors, a window in which one’s true self can be viewed. But something has always been off about mirrors, you can’t deny it. Deep down in your brain there is always some bad feeling that you can’t quite put your finger on when you stare into a mirror. That, my
“OPS-3 do you read? OPS-3 do you read?” I launched myself for the radio receiver, and jerked up the mouthpiece. I wiped away the film of sweat from my forehead before replying. “Receiving.” My throat was tight with a lump the size of a golf ball. “It’s good to hear
The Devil’s Cosmonaut Read More »
Statistically speaking, you are a deist. Nine in ten people on the entire earth believe in some god or set of such. Christianity, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Hellenists, you name it. You believe that your all powerful being of choice created the universe. And most of you are certain that you
Have you ever wondered at the mystery of sleep? That dark unknown of time when our conscious reality slips away and only slippery fragments of strange and obscure memories we call dreams occasionally cling to the outer reaches of our minds in a broken, hazy recording of this lost period
Have You Ever Wondered at the Mystery of Sleep? Read More »
I would ask that before you read this you switch off all the lights in the house . As you will soon find out, you are perfectly safe. We have always found comfort in light. For early man it provided security and protection from nocturnal predators and, in the form
