A few years back, I worked as a nurse in the geriatric unit of the hospital in my hometown. There was one old woman there with pale blue eyes whose mind was still fantastically sharp, and her desire to socialize and make new friends set her apart from most others …
One night outside Longfield, Massachusetts was all it took to never feel peace again. The little town is not too far from Thoreau’s famed Walden, and curiosity drove me and some like-minded friends to make the trek one hot summer. It’s a little place, and so secluded that you won’t …
At no point during the night was she more than a half-mile from the police station, but the park was thinly lit, and the road snaked through forest in both directions. I took a personal interest in her story after I learned about how badly her body had been mutilated. …
The message has been smuggled via a plaintext file saved to a MicroSD that I pray survives its trip to the surface. If the journalist or civilian receiving this can read this message, I am posting covertly from a deep marine lab that officially does not exist. Its codename, as …
The new epidemic is already beyond its patient zero. Whether or not I am infected, I am confident that Mr. Bridestar will soon have me murdered. He will do this in order to keep the disease’s name unknown. I won’t let him win, though. At least not completely. Although this …
Two whiskey sours, one Old-Fashioned, and a Madras. Where’s the cranberry juice? I’ll have to cut up another orange. I can’t find a sugar cube; I wonder if Mr. George will notice it missing. Be very careful about which whiskey sour gets the antifreeze. Add extra lemon juice to that …
It was my fifth day in Gloaming, Nevada – an unincorporated township skirted on all sides by scorched barrenness. I had never been this far west before, and so the craggy, acacia-dotted desert was dazzling to my senses. I remember wishing that I could extend my stay, but also knew …
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Mr. Hansen’s body was interred in a stately mausoleum of his own design years ago, and yet he still works for us. I’m forced to interview with the remains of the sad dotard almost daily. The world honors Hansen for his invention of countless beloved animated characters, and it’s that …
The image above is a sketch by Maximilian Schäfer, a criminally insane arsonist formerly committed to the now-defunct Gelassenheit Asylum outside the city of Linz, Austria. Weeks previous to his violent suicide, Max began complaining to staff about an unpleasant visitor who was arriving daily to harass him. According to …
You know who you are. I wrote this because you’ve been complaining recently about how you want to be set free. I decided to post a letter to you here, on your favorite website, for you to find and read when you log on. I want to show you that …
That woman over there, in the corner of the room, is really a terrific tease. I don’t even think she means to be, but I’ve simply never encountered anyone like her. She’s got this breezy, powder-blue sundress on, and stylish ankle-strap sandals on her pedicured feet. A girl as pretty …
A stone quarry is an awful place to be at night if you’ve got a nervous disposition, like I do. The silhouettes created by the hewn rocks look like stalking figures, and the whole place is haunted by twisted shadows. Even worse, tonight it’s raining. The heavy plinking of water …
Tending to my sister Emily is a taxing job. It’s been perhaps three years since she’s become too infirm to leave the house, and I’m afraid I’m often the only company she can enjoy anymore. She used to love spending days in the park so much. I am always heartbroken …
It was a few weeks ago that the hay bales started creeping slowly away from the house. Every morning when I woke up, each had moved a few hundred feet from where it was before. I assumed it was pranksters with nothing better to do, and I so I ignored …
December 10th, 2003 My frozen hands tremble as I fumble to work my little butane lighter. The tips of my fingers are raw and bloodied already, and I wince in pain with every failed attempt to spark a flame. Finally, I achieve a jittery fire which impatiently dances atop the …
Even as the sun vanishes behind the tall, impossibly green trees and the rainforest around me fades into darkness, the air feels unbearably hot. I can’t walk anymore tonight. I’ll have to find a place to sleep. The leather pouch that the mystic gave me just before I left the …
The native villagers around these parts say that there’s a stretch of tundra just north of here that is occupied by benevolent spirits. These spirits grant insight and warning to whoever visits them at night, once the sun has disappeared entirely and left the world in jet darkness. I drove …
The snow rests pale on the naked metal of the shacks around me. The pastel paint stripped away in ugly patches, the rusted iron underneath leers orangish-red at my intrusion – like a thousand fiery eyes set in the suffocating whiteness that is all around me. There is no one …
