Henry Callum had made this drive so many times he could have done it half asleep, and on some of the earlier mornings, he nearly had. Forty miles out of Centralia on roads that stopped being roads about twelve miles in, just packed dirt and gravel cutting through the Douglas […]
A Ritual In The Forest Read More »
My name is Frank Delacroix, and I am seventy-four years old. I am not a violent man. I have never been a violent man. I have spent the better part of my life volunteering at soup kitchens, attending mass, and doing what I believed to be the work of a
A Meeting At The Church Read More »
The house appeared in her search results on a Tuesday morning, nestled between listings that were either too small or too far from town, and Abby had stopped scrolling. She looked at the pictures for a long time. A craftsman-style two-story in Ridgefield, Washington. Good bones, the listing said, and
A Door To The Basement Read More »
The bus reeked of fast food wrappers and recycled air. Benjamin had been sitting in the same position for so long that his lower back had developed a dull, grinding ache he was certain would never fully go away. He shifted in his seat, pressed his forehead to the cold
A Restaurant On The Cliff Read More »
The apartment was quiet at 5:47 in the morning. The kind of quiet that sits in a room like a held breath, broken only by the quiet drone of the refrigerator and the distant moan of traffic on the street below. Clarissa moved through it the way she always did,
A Mirror In The Bathroom Read More »
I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of my phone going off. It wasn’t that of a phone call or a text, or even an alarm, rather, it was the familiar chime of the notification that I would get when my front doors’ doorbell camera
I don’t know what I saw in that damn chapel. I don’t even know if it was real or not. I sure as hell hope not. So, I came here to tell my story. Maybe someone could help me. Maybe just telling it will make me feel better – help
They come in the snow. Always in the snow. Always when the snow is deep and the woods are quiet. So very quiet. At first, it was just one or two who came. Silently moving up the pasture toward the house. They didn’t come too close back then. I thought
Now that I’m trying to tell the story of how I died, I’ve found myself appreciating the craft of eulogy more than I ever did in life. I’m finding it difficult to find where the story of my end begins. It all started with it, I suppose. I saw it
The Shadow’s Thrall Read More »
“The moving truck is gonna be here in 20 minutes!” I heard my fiancé, Roger, shout from downstairs. “Okay, almost done!” I shouted back. I had been up in the attic packing boxes with the last of our stuff for the last couple of hours, in preparation for our big
Who is Melissa Harbenton? Read More »
By the time Jean-Luc finally arrives, the only things awake are the moon and me. It sits in the sky a perfect, silver half-slice, dewy in the way all things get around dawn. It’s cold out. My breath fogs around my cigarette, and I hear the bus before I see
Stacy and I switched the power on and sent ourselves to an early grave. I say an early grave, but I don’t expect there will be anyone left to bury us. It was an honest mistake, one we couldn’t have foreseen. To any who may read these words after the
A Thing of Flesh and Copper Read More »
Jason watched the hands of the clock ticking. The hour hand was moving to nine o’clock. The hour he dreaded so much. His eyes darted around the room. In the corner his blue lava lamp cast fleeting shadows that resembled dogs, silhouettes and long-fingered hands, prancing and clawing up and
The Eyes of the Angel Read More »
“Why does a writer write? Because they must.” -Anton Richards These words have been repeating in my head for the last week. They pound in my brain like a jackhammer. They prevent my mind from resting and keep me awake at night. That is why I am here at 3am.
The Curse Of Imagination Read More »
1 – The Rosebud I wake up to sunlight.A heavy, warm stripe of it is lying across my face, the kind that comes through high windows in the late afternoon. It is bright enough that it forces my eyes open, and for a moment I don’t know where I am.
Growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was no stranger to roaming the woods. Ever since I can remember, I have been out in the woods building forts or terrorizing the small creek frogs I so desperately wanted to catch. I lived right next to a thick collection of
Lady Vermella’s piano was large and black. It was covered in a thick, feathery layer of dust. Its keys were turning yellow. It pounded out a strange, haunting melody every night under Lady Vermella’s fingers.Lady Vermella lived in an ancient manor on the top of a hill above the town
Read Part One here We both drove back to the station and handed in our gear and changed. I could still smell the faint odor clinging to my uniform. I suppressed the urge to gag as I threw it back into my locker without any finesse, just wanting to get
Just Another Summer in ‘95 Part Two Read More »
I want to say this happened in the early summer when our park was full of hikers, campers, and tourists. Montana had its beauty in those summer months, so I couldn’t blame them.A lot of the tourists hadn’t spent a day camping or even been backpacking. A lot of them
Just Another Summer in ‘95 Read More »
If you’re reading this, it’s because I have no other choice. Nobody will listen to me, not even the police. It’s only a matter of time before they come for me, and when they do, this is the only evidence of the truth. There is something under the boardwalk in
There’s Something Under the Boardwalk Read More »
Would it make a good cereal bowl? It may be too shallow for a cereal bowl. An ashtray, or a cat bowl would be better. “Johnson, you copy?” The voice came muffled from the other side of the door. “Copy, Bradley.” Johnson’s static voice came prelude by the trill of
My Friend in the Elephant Mask Read More »
There is this idea I have always clung to. Most people won’t even consider it. Are our ideas our own, or do they come from somewhere else? Maybe some are our own, but sometimes we pick up a signal from the universe, a forgotten memory locked in time. I have
My family was always a little bit strange. We owned a failing antique shop in my town for as long as I could remember. My father was quite eccentric and collected various knick-knacks and assorted artifacts. I saw them mostly as junk and still had no idea how we were
The Cry of The Fox Read More »
I grabbed Olivia’s shirt collar as she scream-laughed — that awful sound that always made my spine twist. I hated when she did that. In all fairness, I thought she was actually screaming. Earlier, when I’d been in the shower, it came through the phone like a murder scene —
