Christmas has always been a hard time for me. Childhood memories of bickering relatives, drunken tirades, and hostile dinner conversations made me wince at the mere mention of the holiday. In the Christmas of 1989, I broke my collarbone on my new toboggan. In the Christmas of 1997, my brother […]
The bell above the door rang noisily as I entered the bookshop. My hopes of just browsing through the books without attracting the attention of a well-intentioned but usually annoying clerk were immediately dashed. I hate to be bothered while perusing the shelves. But upon closing the door and getting
This is a story about an old Welsh witch. It was All Hallows’ Day, 1 November 1974, when the people of my village awoke to find that my house had burnt down. My parents’ charred bodies were found and identified, but the investigators were unable to find and identify my
I swear I’m not being that pedantic asshole neighbor. Noise ordinance starts at 10 pm and most people respect it because there are a lot of young kids in the neighborhood. But my neighbor across the street is remodeling his house and last Wednesday he started cutting things at 10:30
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I had heard rumors of the game’s existence on various gaming sites and messages boards, but I never thought it was actually real. I spent a little over a year trying to track down a copy, but I always came up empty-handed. That was until a few weeks ago, when
Part I Six years ago, if you’d asked me about the supernatural, I would have told you that it was a pretty entertaining show I’d seen on TV but none of that was or could be true. I know there are plenty of skeptics out there, that’s fair – witches,
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I’ve been blind since birth. As I grew up, everything was described to me in such vivid detail that I didn’t even realize why it was that important to see, especially having no reference point to compare it. We lived in a single-floor ranch house, that’s what Father told me.
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Maintaining a steady pace—placing one foot in front of the other, trudging along as he’d done for the past four months—Sam felt the distance growing between himself and the Creek. A crisp breeze came down from the mountain and Sam took in a slow breath, smiling at the scents of
The Mandela Effect. That phrase never meant anything to me. Spooky, I guess, but it wasn’t something I thought about for more than five minutes. I mean, honestly, until college, I didn’t even know what it was. I’m not one for conspiracy theories or ghost stories or anything like that,
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The only thing worse than motorway driving, is night-time motorway driving. The drizzle doesn’t help, glittering the glare of headlights and streetlights across the windscreen before the wipers smear it away, then it glitters again, then it’s smeared away again. On and on, the thump-thump, thump-thump a bass beat to
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In our town, you prayed for a boy when you first felt that kick in your belly. Mama said she cried the day I came out of her, she was so happy I’d been blessed as a son. Every birthday was a celebration for us, whole family coming around with
Moving day. A chance to start fresh in a new place. New opportunities, new community, new home. Home. Not just a house. To Eric Sherman, this was a place he could finally call home. No ex-wives to hound him for alimony. No disapproving parents to question his absence of faith
It all started after I had that damned panic attack. I am a calm person by nature, always have been. Small stuff never bothered me, even while driving. And I certainly had never been so negatively affected by something that I had a breakdown like that. Of all the places
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In the spring of 1953, when I was nine years old I saw my brother die. I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. The memory has never left me and it never will. Part of it is the trauma, the slow, insidious realization that he was gone, that crept into my life afterward. But there is more to it that I don’t talk about. I’ve held onto it for years, and I don’t want to hold onto it any longer.
News came to London in the year 1820 of a series of brutal murders which had been committed throughout the neighboring counties. Reports that a monstrous man – broad, roughly six-foot-seven in height – had been seen close by to almost a dozen of these incidents. The consistent descriptions of
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I. The snow had stopped about an hour ago, but god damn, it was still a treacherous road. Mark turned up the radio, half to keep himself awake, and half to try to hear the music through the interfering static. The mountains weren’t good for the signal, and even though
I have worked as a paranormal investigator for close to thirty years. I always had believed there was more to our world than what most think. Like the submerged section of an iceberg, there is something under our choppy waters of regular existence. I suppose there is little other reason
The little girl stood outside the door. She stared at it, fidgeting with the frills of her dress. She could always wait until tomorrow… No. She had to ask now. She wanted it and she knew she wasn’t going to change her mind anytime soon. Stepping forward, she knocked on
A Big Responsibility Read More »
I hate birds. I’ve hated birds ever since I was forced to go to my grandmother Vera’s home, who lived isolated in her inherited Victorian mansion. She let most of her estate fall away to ivy and rot, but not the 160-year-old astronomy room- that room was precious to her,
The drive out took a few hours. As I pulled off the main highway and onto the branching road, I was struck with the sense that I was going to be very alone out here. I’m an avid hiker but since many of the hiking trails I’d normally frequent had
Part 1 This is your captain speaking. I’ve just turned on the seat belt sign. We’re expecting a fair amount of turbulence coming up, so we ask that you please remain seated until the sign is turned off. We’re on pace to land at Newark International Airport at 3:30 a.m.,
The Parker Express Read More »
Part 1: A Diner Called Daisy’s This whole thing started on a road trip around four years ago. We left to go from Northern California to the East Coast, traveling through the Midwest. It was me, my wife Kimmy, our 7-year-old daughter Katie, and 5-year-old son Alex. Everything went fine
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The day I found my first hole was the day my best friend came back from the dead. We were in high school and stupid. Jake was his name and we liked to go out to this old abandoned house in the woods after school to just screw around. We
Hello. My name is Raymond Daws. This recording should be considered my last will and testament. It is intended for whomever takes possession of this house at 12874 N. Pryor Road. After setting aside some money for family and other concerns, I should have approximately three hundred thousand dollars left
