On March 1st, 1992, a co‑worker at a health insurance office in Sydney brought something into work that none of us had ever seen before. He came in early, before most of the staff arrived, and sat down in the break room with his personal photo book in his hands. […]
My vision was hazy. I could feel warm liquid trickling down my forehead as I attempted to lift my head. The car’s blinker thundered inside of me like a heavy bass. I tasted the blood inside of my mouth, and the coolness of the night seeped into the cracks and
Melody wakes up screaming. It’s midnight. Her body jolts up. Eyes shut tight; mouth open wide. Screams rip from her throat. They turn into sobs as Buster jumps onto the bed. He nestles his head in by her side, purring and watching her catch her breath. “You’re okay,” she says.
It was a minute past midnight on a humid August Saturday in Manhattan, and Adrian DeCaux sat alone in his office. From twelve stories below, he could hear the drunken yelling of the night. From what he could hear, the crowd on the sidewalk below was in good spirits. There
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”– Friedrich Nietzsche There’s something looking at me in the corner of my room. I throw one bleary half-opened eye toward my ancient alarm clock in an attempt to
Terror in the mind of the Abyss Read More »
It’s my oldest memory. I’m standing in dad’s office, books are raining from the shelves as the ground shakes under my feet. It’s an earthquake, my first one so to me it’s pretty scary. Cap is still in diapers. He won’t remember any of it. Dad’s bookcase slides over and
It had been the journey from Hell. Six hours squashed together in the stickily claustrophobic confines of the station wagon, the rain beating an incessant tattoo on the vehicle. A new job, a fresh start, a new beginning – it had been meant to be all of that and more.
The Harvester Of Eyes Read More »
Over by Snap-Neck Swamp there are trees of a very particular type. They are tall and gangly, with slender boughs that sway this way and that and very few leaves to grace the tips of their branches. Their dispositions are quite wretched, and though one may gaze upon them for
You were always against moving away from your family and friends. You didn’t want to leave the city, the coast never appealed to you anyway. You didn’t want to move from a place with a population of one hundred thousand to one with a population of five. It didn’t matter,
The Sewer Under The Lighthouse Read More »
Sophia and her family – her mother Lila and her father Johnathan, lived in a little village where the grass carried dew in the mornings and the evenings were bright with the stars and the moon carrying faint rays of light over the fields. She had been nine years old
Have you ever heard the idea of spirit guides or divine protectors? How about the idea of long deceased family members watching over you and guiding you through life? I’m sure you have, I mean haven’t we all? Well mine is, different. For the longest time I assumed I was
Something watches over me and it is not an angel Read More »
Grey sea beneath a grey sky. Tossed carelessly between the waves, I cling desperately to the promise of air. Something awaits me within the water’s depths; I’m certain of it. If I look down, in the brief moments of calm, I will see it beneath the waves. The wind’s frigid
My name is Katherine Mallory. I’m a police detective with the Chicago PD’s Criminal Intelligence Unit, the CIU. I usually handle your run-of-the-mill cases: Drug trafficking, black markets, and Kingpins of hidden syndicates; these were my jurisdiction. Admittedly, our networks haven’t been as stacked lately, crime was unusually low. That
The Insomnia Problem Read More »
A loud sound woke him up, “A chair falling, maybe,” he thought. He could hear the sound of the living city coming from the window on the other side of the apartment. Next to him on the bed, was laying the girl he loved. She looked so peaceful while asleep.
About a month ago I wrote a blog post upon the recommendation of my therapist. During the prior few sessions I had been recounting some troubling occurrences from my childhood. These were events that, for years, I vowed to be true despite urgings from the few close to me that
Happy’s Nightmares Read More »
The business card left in my mailbox was unassuming. A simple white font affixed to a black background. But its claim was bold: There is now an in-dream hotline you can call to escape nightmares! Simply find a red rotary phone in your dreamscape, dislocate it from the receiver, and
The In-Dream Hotline Read More »
I had nightmares about the place for weeks. Every time, it was exactly the same. I stood before a large oak tree, alone, in a vast field of dead grass. Roots from the tree wove in and out of the dirt, far from their source, twisting in unnatural ways. Its
The Tree From Which Dead Things Grow Read More »
The things that haunt a man the most, are not usually the choices that he’s made, but rather the choices that he never did make. I’ve lived through some of the worst hells that you could ever imagine. 9,490 of them to be exact. Every night when I
I’ve Had the Same Dream for 26 Years Read More »
When the leaves began to fall that first week in October so many years ago, I could not have been less prepared for what would ultimately alter the course of my life and any foreseeable future linked to it. Autumn was the time of year that I would spring to
Dark, cold and eerie. Those are the only words I can come up with to describe the house in which I had lived with my family for the majority of my life. Mostly dark, blistering cold during the winter, and always eerie. Sometimes there would be strange noises coming from
There was nothing strange about Amber. She wasn’t too tall or too short. She was of average height and weight. She wasn’t ugly but she wasn’t pretty either and her grades, although passing, were never top marks. She lived in an average house, with an average family, in an average
There’s an old, abandoned mission in the hills west of Tucumcari, New Mexico. It’s about a 3-hour hike from the nearest access point by car. It’s not marked on any map and there’s no clear trail to it, but if you had a day or two to spend searching, you
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
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
Never Stop At Roadside Memorials Read More »
