Mark sighed and looked out at the night sky. He was standing on the roof of his apartment building, four stories up. Sometimes Mark just liked to stay up here and reflect, it was quiet and peaceful. Looking down you could see the normal hustle and bustle of city life but if you looked up you could see the beautiful sky, and sometimes even a full moon or some stars.
The last thing I remember hearing once I ran out of the school building were the excited shouts and screams of every student around me, trying to start their summer break right away. Many people tried to push and shove their way through the exit doors, swarming out like flies,
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My girlfriend, Ruby, and I had been together for about a year before the dreaded question of visiting her parents reared its head. Although she assured me that her folks were relatively laid back and easy going, that did little to settle my nerves. This was my first long term
It was a clear night in a small community near San Francisco, California when a mysterious blue light was seen by several residents as it fell from the sky. The next morning, a none-too-bright man in his early twenties went to check out the field where the strange blue object
I inherited Chandler’s Candles from my pa, who had inherited it from his grandma, who inherited it (I guess) from her ma or pa. It’s a dying art, honestly, and I will be the first to admit that. Artisan candles can be costly, and most potential patrons would much rather
The storm door clacked against its frame without rhythm. Chickens scuttered through the dirt, clucking restlessly. The clouds had sunk low over the farmhouse. They smothered the earth, draining the red shutters and dirty white house of their color. “Mama, there’s no time!“ Verna was walking Pa down the porch
Working in a nuclear reactor is difficult work, no matter what the task. Even the most menial job, including mine – janitorial services – required rigorous education on emergency procedures, and that we be subjected to frequent training drills, and most tediously, handed flurries of clearance codes and floor plans.
I used to work the late shift at an old-fashioned cafe in my hometown. I lived in a relatively small town where everyone knows everyone and everything about everybody. Honestly, I really liked my job as a barista. I found pleasure in the constant smell of coffee, and in the
I grew up in a tiny town in Vermont. Tiny in terms of population, not size—there were huge sprawling farms and wooded areas, but almost no people. More cows than people, which is standard for a lot of small towns in Vermont. So, clearly, not the most fun in the
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Looking back now, all I can see is his damn face. It looks at me, as I close my eyes. I can see the dripping of the black liquid, as it falls from his eternally-smiling mouth. His teeth are small and sharp and sit in rows, like a shark’s do.
We called it The Deef. It was supposed to be a joke. We had a game, the group of us. It didn’t really have a name. It was just the cryptid game. It was simple: every time we got together, one of us had to share a monster story. That was basically it. We’d started it back in college, and just sort of never stopped. There were more rules than that, of course. It had to be original. No more than one story introduced per get-together. Whoever had the best monster was winning.
I still dream about the ocean, waves capped with foam, the whispered poetry of high tide, pools filled with brine-crusted treasures. I dream about storms and faces. A roar of thunder wakes me to a cold sweat and an empty room, and I try to fall back asleep. I try
The vault is open. Fisch has some flash bangs he snagged from when he was in special forces. He tosses one through the open door. We cover our ears. Inside, civilians are sprawled out on the ground. Powder hangs in the air. The windows are bleached. Those people depositing their
I wish I had my big sister’s hair. Hers is soft and light. Touching her arms is like touching peach fuzz. When she sweats her skin looks like melted butter. It’s not fair. My hair is thick, wiry, and black as spider legs. I’m only thirteen and I have thicker hair on my arms and legs than most boys on the Tanglewood Junior High football team.
The Backrooms is a relatively recent example of internet folklore that is still expanding its scope and mythology. Essentially, the backrooms posit the existence of a ‘place’ that people can slip (or ‘noclip’) into and become lost or trapped. An unreality behind or parallel to this reality, The Backrooms are
I never wanted to go on that stupid hike in the first place. Yet there I was, allegedly enjoying nature and getting healthy exercise while hiking from “cabin to cabin” in the Norwegian mountains with the devil spawn otherwise known as my class. Woohoo, right? For a misanthropic misfit like myself, it was a nightmare. Within half an hour of walking on the uneven path over the heather, I was at the back of the group.
You’d finally done it. After weeks of digging around and bugging the lady at the front desk, you’d found it: the elevator code for floor zero. You make your way to the nearest elevator, trying your hardest to contain your excitement. You’ve been told so many rumors about the place that you weren’t sure if they were even fiction. Some said it was a dark room full of spiderwebs, some said it was full of old mannequins, and some said it was just a storage floor with nothing interesting to see.
The worst thing I’ve ever done in my life happened about twelve years ago, when I was a sixteen-year-old kid living in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the early fall, when the leaves were just starting to turn orange and the temperatures were starting to fall, hinting at the freezing chill that was only a few months away. School had just started, but it had been going on for about a month now, so all the excitement of going back and reuniting with old friends had been replaced by the realization that we were captives in a place that only wanted to load work upon us. Understandably, my friends and I were all eager to do anything that might remind us of the worry-free, responsibility-free days of summer.
The top half of Councilman Jones’ body hung by a steel cable looped around his neck and tied off to an old oak tree on one end. It was still dripping blood, bones and veins and torn bits of intestines dangling down where the legs should start. The cable was stretched through the air, over to an ash tree ten yards away from where the other half of the body was hanging by the legs.
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The soggy heathland hugged itself underneath a dome sky. Tracts of mire lay sunken in some places, valleys of soft earth unable to withstand the oppressive atmosphere above it, while other acres were crumpled against the high rock beneath them. Dry and tender grass creased by an icy warm wind,
I was always close to my uncle, even if I was too young to truly know or understand him. He was a military man for the whole time I knew him and usually told the most batshit crazy stories you could imagine, but they were never exaggerated or made up. He was in Desert Storm and came back telling us about all the things that were over there. We were positive he was making up the part about the camel spiders, but the Brittanica set my grandparents had proved it to be true! He talked about how big they were, how fast, and skin-crawlingly ugly and nightmarish they appeared. He also made sure to mention he’d only really seen them twice.
I ran as fast as I could. My heart was racing and I could feel my side cramping up. Don’t look behind. I told myself. And so I kept running. I could hear movement behind me. Faster and faster until I felt excruciating pain on my ankle. I screamed and fell on the ground, allowing me to be face to face with my enemy. A python. It looked at me almost as if it knew me. And I stared right back. I could feel it’s hatred. I’ve done nothing to you. I said in my mind. The snake shook its head and moved behind me. I felt paralyzed. As the snake made its way around me, it hissed in my ear.
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When you are met with the sort of anxiety which, ultimately, is there to make you consider the possibility that your own memory is a lie, it is only natural to face difficulty in recalling even things that happened a short time ago. If I was open to undertaking so thorough an examination of this then I am confident that I would identify a good few reasons for the acute nervousness I feel; even so, it should go without saying that I am not inclined to accept my emotion as fully justified: it undoubtedly rests on some sinister delusion.
The hull of the ship moaned and groaned under the strain of its frozen enclave. HMS Stargazer and its crew had initially set out into the deep unknown to map uncharted territories, but winter descended quickly upon them and they found themselves trapped between stars and ice for months. Supplies were running thin and the captain of the ship, a tall and clean shaven gentleman by the name of Gerald Northington, had assembled groups of hunters to venture out in search of seal meat. The most recent hunting expedition had yet to return and Northington was pacing anxiously up and down his quarters.
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