Roger Hemlock scowled at the bustling of servants going about their chores in preparation for the wedding to be held later in the day. In his mind, the mere thought of what he considered peasants inside his manor home and partaking of his bounty soured his stomach and mood. All …
I had just gone through a pretty rough divorce a few months ago. For the brief two years my ex and I were married, most of our nights ended up turning into shouting matches and insults. We were always so loud we had gotten several noise complaints and an eventual …
I had not received any replies from my good friend Colorado in over a week, and I wasn’t happy. All my efforts to play games with him online, or even just to meet-up and hang-out, were left on read. Not only was that bad enough, I had nobody to spend …
I was in a room. It looked like the ground floor of an office building. There was a desk with a receptionist, tapping away at a keyboard, and stairs leading up to the next floor. But the design… it was all white. I had to turn away at first, blinded …
As I slowly regained consciousness, I felt a wave of dullness wash over my fractured mind. I couldn’t move, much less remember what had happened before I passed out. My eyes burned as I opened them. I’d spent too much time in darkness to quickly adapt to the incessant flow …
Business trips are dreadfully boring, especially in my line of work. The only good thing about them? Hotels. The tedium of day-to-day dealings bookended with clean towels and a mint on my pillow. If I could live in one, I surely would. There’s just something in the ambiance that soothes …
I stood still for a moment, awestruck. The pictures didn’t do it justice. It was a large but quaint home located on a secluded island near Cape Cod. A small piece of land void of life; only the cottage and a lighthouse visible across the water. Verified as an AirBnB …
I was referred by a temp agency. I had no idea who I would be working for, or what the job would entail. I only knew that the pay was good. A week-long excursion at $725 a night. More than enough to pay off a couple of credit card bills …
For months, I caught glimpses of Claira from the safety of my cubical. So beautiful, faultless. Through innocent eavesdropping and pattern recall, I unknowingly learned almost every detail of her life; when she had lunch, who her friends were, and where she would be at any given moment of the …
August 4th, 1983; my mother is killed in a head-on collision by a drunk driver. The intoxicated individual took a turn onto an off ramp and floored it down the wrong side of the highway. It was the dead of night, and at 1:37 a.m., this drunkard collided with my …
I live in a small, but lively town in Massachusetts. Its local legends have fueled my love affair with the paranormal. It’s a subject that fascinates me to this day. Coupled with insomnia, this passion led me to spend many a night at the nearby cemetery, hoping to see a …
I am a musician. Not a terribly great one, but still, I consider myself a musician. I can play with the best of them, and I know my way around an instrument or two. More importantly, I am a collector. A collector of various items ranging from the odd to …
I stepped up to the dilapidated red building, grinning from ear to ear. This is what brought me thrills in life; abandoned structures across America. This particular one was in Stoneychurch State Park, located in a rural town just south of the state border. I had been dreaming …
It’s funny how the strangest traditions seem ordinary when you’ve grown up around them. One of my friends can’t get through Thanksgiving dinner without someone spanking the turkey, and another kid in my high school said they threw a tea party to celebrate every A. I’ve heard about …
Old houses have a spirit of their own. We don’t usually notice during the day when the sun is warm and the windows are open. Fresh breeze carries familiar scents from the garden and the flowering jasmine vines snaking their way through the crumbling stonework. There is always too much …
As a traveling convention planner, I stay at many hotels over the course of a year. I spend about a week per trip in an all-expenses-paid suite of my choosing, doing nothing but studying the location and interviewing the staff on hand to get a feel for the hotel and …
The Commuter, dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase, commutes to the office each morning on the Tube. He enters Baker Street station at around 7am every weekday, and catches the southbound train towards Canary Wharf on the Jubilee Line. The station is generally not very busy at …
