One of my least favorite parts about being a middle school history teacher is the bullshit “Living History” assignments we give at the end of every school year. Kids are supposed to sit with their grandparents and video tape, voice record, or transcribe their oldest memories for posterity (and for […]
The Living History Project Read More »
It was the year 1992. Peter Ivankov’s life was never the same since then – firstly, because his home country had gone through a massive transformation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union the previous winter. Secondly, 1992 was the year Peter went blind. Early that year, Peter’s mother began
The Devil is in the Details Read More »
I’m sitting here in my basement, freezing my ass off in my boxers and more terrified than I’ve been in my entire fucking life. It’s almost 3am, I don’t want to wake up my wife and I sure as hell don’t want her to ask what I’m writing about. I
I hadn’t been to my childhood home since my parents got divorced. I was five years old when I was last in that home. It was very important to me to have my home in my possession. My Dad built half of the house and the entire backyard. Now that
I’m Not Afraid of the Basement Read More »
The Rodderson Experiments By Henry Parkissel Hey, everyone, it’s Henry from Oddity Watch, formerly known as MagaScream. I would like to preface this article by addressing our recent name change, which was done because people thought that “Maga-“ in “MagaScream” was an acronym for “Make America Great Again.” In actuality, it was intended
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I’ve never posted like this before. But I suppose I’ve never needed to. If you’ve read the title, you know what to expect, and you can move on if you’d like to avoid the topic. I’ll understand. Grief is a funny thing. Professor Farina taught me that in the first
My Son Committed Suicide, and My Wife Blames Me Read More »
We got to the hotel late. The kiddo was a mess, and so was I. I’d let Sally sleep through the flight while I tried to keep our two-year-old girl from having a total meltdown. As the plane started its final descent, my relief was punctured by an absolute nightmare
The two men stood in the crisp, evening mountain air. The woodland that surrounded them on all sides was dense and deep. “So…” the first man turned to the other, straightening up his stab-proof vest. “Where do we go from here?” The other police officer clicked his radio off, and
“So, you think your husband is trying to kill you?” “Yes! He is, I know it. I know he took life insurance policies out of me. Well, we did it together, actually…” “But how does that prove that he’s trying to kill you?” “He is, just trust me. You’ll be
I Kill One Person Per Year, It’s My Job Read More »
“Halloa! Below there!” When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what
I just killed myself for breakfast. I sat in my 100+ degree car, reeking of maple syrup and incapable of many coherent thoughts save for that one. It swayed through my mind like a dead leaf, falling into my consciousness by random assignment. I had been up since 4:30 in
Griffin and I were both 25. We hadn’t seen each other since college but kept in close contact. I was working at a cybersecurity firm, and I really wasn’t sure what he had been doing. He always told me he was “just working on something.” I took a few vacation
You know those stories where a woman walks into the bar, meets a stunning man and gets pregnant, then finds out she’s bearing the offspring of Lucifer? Well, this is not one of those. My mother had me at a young age so, by the time I was 16, she was
I Raised the Devil’s Daughter Read More »
I like to go urban spelunking, “ruin diving” my friends call it. We find a place out in the middle of the nowhere that people have forgotten and we break in to see what treasures they might have left behind. On one of our trips we decided to check out
The sound of the car engine coughing and sputtering made my heart sink and my stomach knot. I always had a bad feeling about driving something that was twenty-three years of age. Even though it only had a hundred-thousand miles on it and had gotten me many places, I always
A Very Lonely Road Read More »
“What the hell is her problem?” I thought to myself as I sat in my cubicle. Angela, one of my co-workers, was staring at me. More accurately, she was gawping at me. At my face. I wanted to scream at her, flip my desk over and demand what the fuck
Why Do People Keep Staring at My Face? Read More »
They gave me a million bucks to keep my trap shut, and I did, for fifteen years. But last night I was making the rounds, and I saw the professor again. I had a heart attack three years back, and I tell you, when I saw him standing there in
The Harvard Wormhole Experiment Read More »
It was the last week of school before Christmas break. That meant that the students and teachers of Ridgecrest Christian Preparatory Academy had little intention of actually working. Most classes had become a social hour but Mr. Winthrop had decided to take this opportunity to give his senior English class
Where the Birches Lean Read More »
There’s this painting my wife loves, called “Death and Life”, by Klimt. I don’t know what she finds so fascinating about it. I made all the right noises when she showed me her beloved framed print when we were first dating, “oohing” and “ahhing” and making up some bullshit about warm
“With little evidence towards his innocence, he is to be hanged the Monday from next on charges of military treachery and murder…as for the state and whereabouts of Private Oswald Arthur Crane, they are still unknown.” – General George Crook (1877) This is the truth, sir. Flecks of gunpowder and
Cold Wind, Cold Earth Read More »
Publisher’s Note: This story is a prequel and takes place before all of the previously released Father Cooke and Magister Alexander stories, which you can find here. The author invites you to read the other tales in the series after completing this one. Oh shit, I thought as I walked
Father Cooke: Cat’s in the Cradle Read More »
Round 1 I received an envelope in the mail recently. I thought it was a bit odd since I had just moved in to my new home, but it was sent to “current resident.” Technically that was me. I figured it was just one of the fake ads that gets
The Serial Killer Showdown Read More »
There wasn’t much about 2015 that didn’t completely suck. My marriage was falling to pieces. My spouse had grown cold and indifferent. Our son hadn’t been diagnosed with autism yet. He was still a toddler. But, we knew there was something off about him. We knew something was wrong. By
It was on the wall, right in front of me, over my bed, hung like a painting. It had one limp hand draped, with bony, serpentine fingers, just above the clock, and its skeletal body cast an eerie glow into the dusty haze that had formed around it. I could
