I work for the county sheriff’s office up in NorCal. I received a call in the predawn hours on May the 23rd, 2020 telling me to investigate the collapse of a residence on the street I grew up on. It was hardly surprising to see my friend’s house had gone […]
The Grimoire of Leonard Hopkins Read More »
I — THE GREAT AWAKENING HAS ARRIVED “Where do you live, man?” I asked, reaching out to grab the Skol can left by the window. “Cuiabá.” “Man… that’s a beautiful city.” “You’ve been there?” “Yeah. Made a lot of deliveries in the capital.” “So why do you want to go
I am certain that my fascination with the gone and forgotten stems from my own fear of impermanence. Leaving something behind when I am gone is of utmost importance to me, so I have dedicated my life to preserving and sharing the legacies and lives of others who have passed.
Mr Conrad’s Final Tale Read More »
It was summer 1997 when I moved to Evansville, Colorado. It was supposed to be a pit stop, a cheap place along my route, hopefully to make some money to take me the rest of the way to California. I had some friends living in San Francisco that I’d planned
I had not known initially what to make of the pile of mucus and flesh that befell my doorstep as winter arrived. Snow had yet to begin, but cutting gusts of frigid air whalloped my front door to be let in, only allowed to when the mail went too long
The chirping of a blue bird woke Robert out of his blank eyed stare. His eyes refocused, as his old hands went to rub them back into reality. Their disappointed scowl still staring bluntly ahead. Robert found himself sitting on his porch. He was fatter and older than he ever
My aunt left me her place on Hensel Lake when she died last September. I had visited once as a boy and remembered almost nothing about it, so I drove up alone on a Friday afternoon to see what I had inherited. The road in was a dirt track with
Entry 1: Phonemes There is something peculiar about Phillip, one of my 9th graders. He used to be exceptional at English. I am an English as a foreign language teacher in Germany and I taught the same class last year, and that means I already know him well. But after
The Language that spreads Read More »
No one ever talks about the sounds. They talk about the body.They talk about the wire.They talk about the eyes.But no one talks about the sounds.Because if they did… they’d understand it wasn’t just a killing.It was a sermon. Before the cornfield…Before the crows learned his name…There was a man
The Last Sermon of Malachi Read More »
Detective Flynn entered the building and was instantly met by fellow detective Terry. “What’s the situation?” Flynn asked him as they walked briskly. “Still refusing to talk… said he won’t talk to anyone about it,” Terry answered. They got to the interrogation room and Terry opened the door. There were
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 »
March 2nd, 2026 I don’t really know why I’m writing this down. Maybe because it felt too real to just forget about, and I’ve been sitting at my desk for the past hour trying to convince myself it was just a dream. Of course it was just a dream. I’m
A Hole In The Concrete Read More »
It was a rainy Saturday morning, and I could hear the rain tapping against my window. I looked up from my laptop and let out a soft sigh. The sound was somewhat annoying, yet also oddly soothing, and I thought it might help me focus on the history essay I
The night smells wrong. Not merely damp, not merely cold—spoiled, as though the air itself has been left too long inside something dead and forgotten. Each breath coats your tongue with the taste of old coins dissolved in rot, metallic and sour, thick enough to cling. The fog doesn’t drift;
It was the sound of sobs, soft…muffled, miserable and tinged with a sort of echoing hollowness, that woke me. It was furitive, almost guilty misery..but with the strange quality of the sound, and the location, suggested it was coming from my shower. I growned, trying to roll over in bed..not
My Wife is the Only One who can See Something is wrong Read More »
It was October 1st of 1967, and the campus of Montauk University sat quiet and still in the new morning hours. The sky was dark, street lamps bright, and all students living on campus were asleep. Except, of course, for two figures who sauntered down the sidewalk towards the campus
I still remember the night it happened. I was nine. We were driving home from my grandma’s house late, rain pounding the windshield so hard the wipers couldn’t keep up. Dad was humming along to the radio, Mom was half-asleep in the passenger seat. Then the truck came out of
It seemed as if I were awakening from a dream when I snapped to in the middle of the sidewalk, stopping in my tracks while people behind me yelled as they bumped into me. The cold winter air brushed my cheeks, yet that was the only thing that seemed familiar.
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.
She stopped as her legs ached from hours of walking. She had come far. Very far. The day and night seemed to intertwine; never being distinct if there could be said to be a circadian movement in the subtly shifting grey above at all. There did seem to be very
There were rules in our house that no one ever had to say out loud. Don’t speak when he’s drinking.Don’t look at her when she’s disappointed.Don’t cry where anyone can hear you.Don’t be noticed. Don’t be loud. Don’t be a problem. Silence kept us alive. It was the kind of
He Said He Would Protect Me Read More »
I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween. When I was a kid, that was of course because of the candy and the chocolate bars. As I got older and entered my teenage years, that changed. My love for the holiday remained, but that was because of the costumes and
Little Monsters of Hallows’ Eve Read More »
August 12th – Morning I don’t know why I’m writing this down, or if anyone will ever read it. Maybe it’s for me, a way to remember. Or maybe to prove that it happened—that it’s real. We went camping. Just my mother and me. The kind of trip that sounds
I always thought the old TV in my grandmother’s attic was broken. It would never receive channels, only emit a hiss of static when you tried turning the dial. But last December, I discovered it wasn’t broken after all. The first time I ever laid eyes on him, I figured
