The night was young. In our world at least. 2:14 AM, and me and my husband Ricky were standing out in the open shed behind The Post Searchlight. Stanwyck, Georgia's local newspaper. Like nocturnal detectives, Ricky and I were wired for the graveyard shift. You had...
Publisher's Note: This story is part of the author's Father Cooke series of interrelated stories. If you enjoy it, the author invites you to click here to read the other tales in the series. “If you are going to keep me tied to this chair, at least...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbG9jGEMTDU[/embedyt] Mrs. Claus sat in her rocker, a half completed sweater resting on her lap. The alarm clock on the small table beside her rang its shrill alarm through the warm air of the house, announcing that it was now 1 AM. She reached for...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx9oT1f0-aM[/embedyt] I usually spend every New Year's celebration at home with a bottle of liquor as my only dependable company. Last year, I was doing just that while binge watching Supernatural. I remember checking my phone to see what time it was – 11:57 PM....
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJWs3X9AXM[/embedyt] Serial killers have always fascinated me. Ever since I was a kid, I've found myself both scared and intrigued by psychos like Ted Bundy or Clementine Barnabet. And as I grew older, my interest only increased. I was from Atlanta. Growing up in lower-class Latino...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTdGYcMSJfI[/embedyt] My weakness was always power. I don’t mean that in an inspirational way you might find in fairy tales or The Children’s Book of Virtues. I mean it literally: I will do anything for power. Anything. And I did. I suppose my attraction to power stems from my miserable start...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDQBh9Hoa8[/embedyt] The first time you meet your girlfriend’s family is extremely important. Maybe they will become your family too. You have to be funny and charming, but not too funny or to charming that it seems unnatural. You don’t want to be a faker or...
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVtbc2PJXTc[/embedyt] My parents own a Santa animatronic. I think it tried to kill us. Now, I know what you might be thinking. This story already sounds like a kid’s overactive imagination during a season that relies on the magic of imagination. I don’t mean to oversell...
It was the summer of 2019, the 16 year old Thomas Mitchell and his family went on a trip to their cabin in the Stillwater State Forest of Montana. He had two younger brothers, Felix, who was 10 and Michael who had just turned 14. They usually...
Author’s Note: For those of you who might be curious, this is intended as a companion piece to The Perfectly Behaved Boy – A Dark Christmas Tale, a story that was published on this site two years ago. However, this tale was written so that...
“It’s creepy,” Dan balked. “It’s cute,” Julia countered. “Besides, it’s fun. I mean, geez Scrooge, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Dan picked up the doll and turned it over in his hands. It was the prototypical Christmas elf as imagined by Hollywood in a red onesie, Santa...
My dad built his dream cabin in the southern Ozarks back in 1991, a reward to himself for achieving early retirement. The damn thing took nearly a year to build, what with the county having to actually build the road to my family’s property at...
There was once a very well behaved eight year old boy named Miles. He did all the things that good children are supposed to do, nearly all the time. He ate all his vegetables, unless they were carrots. He completed all of his school assignments,...
"Fuck, it's cold." You would think I'd be used to it by now. Pulling my scarf a little tighter, I take one last drag off my cigarette and flick it to the ground, crushing it underfoot. I watch as it flares for a moment — a...
It was the Christmas of 1965, before man had landed on the moon, before the wall had fallen, before many things good and bad. For me it was the last time that I knew innocence, before the creeping shadow which engulfed my family, before the...
I had managed to keep a healthy scepticism of ghosts, ghouls and all things supernatural until I was 28. I found most claims of such things to be dubious at best, and harmful at worst. I was very much in the camp of the classical...
Staring at the tree, whiskey in hand, Pete was pleased that this year would be different from the last. It had been the strangest time of his life, but he truly felt like things were finally coming together, and when better to come together than...
Patrick Finn arrived home from his Christmas conquests, beating out the snowstorm by mere miles, mere minutes. He felt not only the foreboding presence of a hazardous blizzard, but also that of something else. Something darker. It felt as if it resonated not only within...