Samantha told me about it on our third date. We were watching a movie on her couch when I made my move to kiss her. She whipped her hand in front of my face and blocked me. “There’s something you need to know,” she said. I braced myself. Here it comes. …
It’s quite an interesting concept: those little “pass it on” messages, I mean. Chain letters and people telling you, “post this in five different comments or else you’ll die tonight.” Interesting indeed, but the idea lacks originality. It’s the same story with each one. “Pass it on or die.” People …
I found something I shouldn’t have, or maybe I should, I don’t know. I was helping my parents move out of their old house and into mine. Their house was about ten miles from the nearest town and even farther from a hospital. This scared me ever since the doctors …
If you’re armed and at the Glenmont metro, please shoot me. Make it a headshot. Shoot me in the temple, aiming slightly downwards. I need the bullet to travel the shortest possible distance through my brain before it hits my hippocampus. If I’m lucky, the sensation of the gunshot ripping …
If You’re Armed and at the Glenmont Metro, Please Shoot Me Read More »
Erica hated the lack of hygiene. Erica absolutely despised unhygienic people. Just thinking about the slightest chance of her physically touching a “dirty” person chilled her spine. She refused to drink from another person’s cup. She avoided sharing food with others. She would be utterly disgusted by people who talk …
“Can we go on the roller coaster?” “Sure we can,” Kent assured his son, whose eyes brimmed with hope and enthusiasm. Little Brian ran ahead towards the ride as his father walked quickly behind. It was one of those old, rickety coasters that won’t keep you from falling out unless …
You know those people who you tell the time of events to 15 minutes early because you know they would be late? The ones who would be late to their own funerals, as the saying goes? Well, that’s me. Prepare as I might. I can never seem to get anywhere …
I love numbers, even numbers to be exact. I like that there are 48 stairs leading up to my cell. I like that I get precisely four hours of leisure time every day, no more, no less. I like that my wake up time, my breakfast time, my lunchtime, and …
Jake Thomasson pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down, covering his hand, and wiped away the condensation from the window. It was the third time he had done this in the past ten minutes, but he didn’t want to miss seeing if any cars drove by outside. He was sitting …
In the dark of the night, little children often feel as if they see demons in their closet, and as if someone is watching them. The inky blackness of the night changes their familiar bedrooms once the watchful sun sets below the horizon. For most children, a blanket over the …
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 …
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 …
Shawn took one last drag of his cigarette. He didn’t smoke regularly, but this occasion nearly called for one. It had been years since his last job interview, and it was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking. He looked at the cigarette and remembered the time …
About half a year ago, I moved into a new apartment downtown. It’s hands-down the most upscale place I’ve lived in—rooftop access, a fitness center, a pool, huge windows with beautiful views of the city… this place had it all. My leasing agent said apartments in that building were going …
When I got the first one, I was literally seconds away from stepping onto the plane when a call from “UNKNOWN” blared from my cell phone. It was a ringtone I hadn’t heard before, one I was pretty sure hadn’t come with the phone. Normally, I wouldn’t have stopped to …
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 …
It was approximately 12:15 when I entered the Johnson County Community Health Clinic. I was there for an appointment I had set up weeks ago, just a routine checkup. It wasn’t a new place for me; I had been there a couple of times before. However, the place had an …
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.
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.
I. Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary …
Did you know that, once introduced to routine, our brains are capable of accepting it to the extent that when something changes, it doesn’t notice? The change could be small and harmless, an object there that wasn’t, or something moved to another room that you would normally duck around on …
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 …
I’ve decided to write this out in the case that something bad happens to me. I’ve begun to play a dangerous game, and I can’t guarantee that I will come out on top. It all started about a month ago. I work at a small grocery store stocking shelves. I …
Roger glanced around the desert once more. Nothing but the cloudless sky and the sand scattering in the wind, with a few cacti dotted around the landscape. With nothing else to do, he checked his magazine, already knowing how many bullets he had. Full. Adjusting his helmet, Roger sighed and …
