The house I grew up in was right next to a set of busy railroad tracks. From my bedroom window, I could watch the trains roll by. There were three types of trains that used those tracks and still do to this day. There were the long, lumbering freight trains pulling boxcars, flatbeds, and tankers, which I …
It was the year of my 25th birthday that my dad told me he was sick. It was hard to hide, really. Obvious. But I suppose it would be hard for such a mountain of a man, someone who’d never needed help from anyone, to admit that, he was, in fact dying. Cancer is a …
Would you believe me if I told you that genies were real? They are, but they’re not like anything you’d expect them to be. The stories say that you have to rub a magic lamp to get them to come out, but that’s only half true. It doesn’t have to be a bottle. It can …
Well you really screwed up this time, didn’t you? You found a gnarly deal on a beautiful home that almost seemed too good to be true, and you jumped at it. And now that you’re all moved in, you’ve started to notice some anomalies. You know the type: the spooky-dooky anomalies of the supernatural persuasion. …
My father is a construction manager and because of his career, we have to move around the country every few years. In my 15 years, I have lived in six different states: New Mexico, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Louisiana, and now Kansas. This past summer, my father was hired to work on a project near Wichita, …
Moving day. A chance to start fresh in a new place. New opportunities, new community, new home. Home. Not just a house. To Eric Sherman, this was a place he could finally call home. No ex-wives to hound him for alimony. No disapproving parents to question his absence of faith and Atheist lifestyle. No bitchy …
During my junior year of college, I was on a bit of a bender. My high school girlfriend finally called it quits for the third time and the lure of the one night stand caught in the sweaty mist of beer and perfume was too much for my angry brain to withstand. I was a …
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 odd nostalgic feel to it, …
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 people whistle, it kind of irritates me. Not like Axl Rose from “Patience” whistles, but just does so to pass the time. When people whistle or hum to themselves it’s always just kind of grated on me, but only when it’s been tuneless. When there’s a tune to it, a melody, it doesn’t get on my nerves, it just makes me… unsettled.
The rain beat a steady rhythm on the asphalt. In the dark sky above, the rumble of distant thunder rolled slowly toward us. “Daniel.” The sound of my name pulled me from my reverie. I turned my head away from the drenched playground and toward Miss Wasson. “Are you with us?” she asked, resting a …
After a short time of exploring the Oklahoma territory where they were forced to go, a group of Native Americans stumbled upon a mysterious plant while hunting. This plant looked like a gnarled tree root, with so many twists and turns within its seemingly fragile length that one could barely tell it was not one …
Ever since I was young, my father would warn me to never open my mouth about my problems. “Nobody will understand you,” he would hiss, putting the fear of whatever he feared in me. “Nobody will care because they haven’t gone through it.” So, I shut my mouth. I never opened it after seeing my …
Part 1 All my friends are dead. Don’t take that the wrong way though. I can’t say I knew any of them when they were still alive. Well, at least most of them anyway. I guess I’m what you could call a psychic. I’ve never liked that word though. I can’t read anyone’s mind, see …
When I was a child my father owned a janitorial company that worked almost every night at our local Showbiz Pizza Place/Chuck E. Cheese’s. He would often bring me to work with him so I could play all of the arcade games without having to wait in line. He’d even spark up the towering animatronics …
In Finland, there is an old but still inhabited yellow apartment, situated in a small city near an important railroad. Almost all of the people living there are over 70 years old, and in fact it seems that younger people simply won’t stay there for longer than a year. If you live there you will …
A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one …
