By the time Thomas Grady turned sixty-eight, most people on Margaret Street had stopped taking him seriously. They were polite about it, of course. Small towns tend to be. Neighbors waved when they passed his house, exchanged a few words with him at the mailbox, and listened patiently whenever he
The Woods Beyond Margaret Street Read More »
Samir stood beneath the concrete awning of Masjid al-Noor, rainwater dripping from the edges of his black coat, and studied the brass lettering bolted above the entrance. The letters were a tarnished green and the glass doors behind them were filmed with dust. According to the O.S.A. report, the building
The Damned’s Congregation Read More »
The kitchen smelt of booze. Like it always did. Jack was slumped over the table, snoring. His hair matted with his own sick. A halo of empty bottles around his head. I grabbed a glass and slowly poured the water so not to make a sound. Then, I crept out
The Gods of the Long Grass Read More »
Night One — 11:17 PM The refrigerator hums in the kitchen, falls silent, then starts again. I’ve been staring at the same paragraph in my nursing notes for nearly twenty minutes. Outside, rain taps against the window while tree branches scrape and rattle against the frame. The temperature has dropped
The Shadow That Stayed Read More »
My job’s an interesting one. Putting “loan shark” on any résumé likely won’t end in success. Adding “hell’s best” at the beginning will probably succeed in a one way trip to the nearest psychiatric ward. So, yeah, it’s odd. Sure, the hours are horrible, but those benefits do be hitting.
I’m Hell’s Best Loan Shark Read More »
St. Bruvia was always a hungry town. It was an old place, older than most of its residents, with crooked wooden houses leaning toward one another beneath heavy snow and onion-domed churches whose ringing carried across the river. Whenever a family moved into a new house, they left something beneath
Hunger of St. Bruvia Read More »
I grew up in a quaint town. The kind where everyone knows everything about one another, truly hellacious. As a child, I was reclusive, so you can imagine I hated it whenever anyone butted into my business. I would just shyly walk away until I found a quiet spot to
The Bard of Blackwater Read More »
I was born on June 10th, 1992. At least, that’s what my birth certificate says. It’s not as if I remember. In fact, I don’t have a single memory of my life before I was ten years old. My first memory is a vivid one. Just a young boy calling
I Don’t Think I’m Real Read More »
Twice, two separate times, in the span of only six months, it’s happened. I go to bed, like any other night and wake up outside, lying on the ground in the middle of the woods, staring up at the eerie pine trees that rise above me. I can’t move, I
Unconscious Burden Read More »
I have this friend, Randall. Good guy, and all. Just a bit weird, y’know? I don’t know. Like, I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like he’s from another planet, sometimes. Just the way he talks or acts around people, I guess. Yeah, it’s not important–not to what
I Watched a Cursed Film from the Dark Web Read More »
The comment was buried so deep under my latest video that I almost missed it. Try Dimer Ridge. Nobody comes back alone. No likes or replies. Not even a profile picture attached to the account. Just that one sentence sitting underneath a video where I’d spent twenty minutes walking through
A book swiftly closed with a loud thump, and I turned around to toss it towards the pile. I stopped for a moment, admiring the never-ending tower of journals that came before it. A thousand pages each, centuries upon centuries of my duties recorded within them, ink slowly fading from
An old truck came wailing through the autumn. The truck had once been white, but years in the rough had degraded the thing into an ugly gradient of browns. Now on the first asphalt in many long miles, the truck serpentined through the cursive country roads of some rolling land
Running from the Devil Read More »
I do not tell this story to people anymore because nobody believes the story about the fire lookout tower. Even the friends who were with me that night at the fire lookout tower refuse to talk about what happened at the fire lookout tower. It is one of those things
The Last Fire Watcher Read More »
The first tooth arrived in the heart of a pear. Years later, whenever Adeline tried to explain everything that had happened, she always found herself returning to that afternoon, though she knew the true beginning might have been much earlier. Perhaps it began in the graveyard behind her grandmother’s house,
The Girl Who Kept Finding Teeth Read More »
Farmer Adams was a grumpy shell of man. He treated anyone who trespassed on his property as hostile enemies. He wasn’t the violent type to pull out a shotgun or pitchfork. His bark was worse than his bite but his bark was powerful. His angry yells traveled miles and his
My friend Johnny and I run our own general contracting company. We specialize in waste removal and general repairs. We have an absolute work horse mentality. No job was too big or too dirty for us. That was until the Morrison farm. The job that left both physical and psychological
Deep in the great woods in England’s heart stands a small village of Eldenmoore. In the 16th century it was ruled by the great Baron Armstrong. He was a tyrant of a man known for little more than cruelty and greed. Few who lived under his rule had kind words
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 »
‘I need a cab, at Lexington square, Richmond, Virginia,’ the text reads. “Where are you headed?” The reply doesn’t come right away. This is nothing new–not in my job. Sometimes, my fares are not so forthcoming with their destinations–something quite perplexing to me, given that they are requesting my services.
I Drive a Taxi Between the Realms: Entry One: Dering Wood Read More »
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
The dying rays of evening bleed across the horizon, leaving behind fleeting kisses as the sun departs until the morrow. In its absence, a vast congregation of trees gathers around us, casting long shadows in their wake-offering a fragile refuge where predator and prey wait in silence. “Mommy? Are we
I’m about to dive into a cave filled with screams of the dead. It’s insane. Even after the complete upheaval of everything I thought possible, the most pressing thing on my mind are two words: I told you. She’s going to hate reading this, but that’s why I’m doing it.
I’ve been a police officer for a long time, and there are certain things you learn to ignore if you want to sleep at night. This is not one of those things. I’m writing this anonymously because I was involved in a case back in 2019, and despite everything we
Grandma’s Footsteps Read More »
