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Spousal Duty
Shared coffee in the quiet mornings, holding hands on a walk. Not to mention the tiny, unglamorous sacrifices no one posts about on social media.
Shared coffee in the quiet mornings, holding hands on a walk. Not to mention the tiny, unglamorous sacrifices no one posts about on social media.
The moment the waitress steps over to take my order, I sniff the scent of menstrual blood lingering beneath the stench of grill smoke and fryer grease. My mouth waters more for her than it does the plates of meatloaf and country fried pork making the rounds of the fifties-themed diner. So intoxicated am I […]
It was an accident when I saw Mom cry for the first time. I was cutting class and snuck home during lunch—freshman year, each day a unique disaster; I had been slighted by some former best friend and needed to get away—but when I tiptoed into the apartment, Mom’s racking sobs were coming from the […]
Monday I’ve always had a little brother, haven’t I? He’s eleven, between Kesley, nine, and May, thirteen. I remember when mom and dad brought him home from the hospital. “Isn’t he adorable?” they asked as they showed him to me. When I look back at that day, why can’t I see what he looked like […]
Gretchen Ellison was a beautiful young woman, as many men (and a great many women) would attest. Though modest by nature, she wouldn’t disagree. She knew her face had a Madonna-like, cherubic innocence. Her hourglass figure was exquisite. She sometimes braidedher flowing chestnut hair into a ponytail for work. The male clientele really seemed to like that style with a lily-white sundress. […]
Dragović cursed softly as he approached his storefront. The front windows were shattered, with shards of glass glinting in the morning light as they lay scattered across the sidewalk. He unlocked the front door, carefully draped his suit jacket over the counter, and brought out a trash can. He went back in for a broom […]
It is a lonely thing, to die in a world that is not your own. That is the fate that my brother and I now face. It is even more cruel that the world we find ourselves in is so like our own in so many ways, yet so hostile at every turn. The village […]
Kevin Mulligan was scared shitless. He was twelve now. Twelve was the age you started cleaning the cobwebs. Kevin grew up hearing stories about the spiders. There was always a spooky tale for campfires or sleepovers. Ben Watson told one at Tim Rollins’s house just before his dad came in to say lights out. Ben […]
Luther Balor was woken from his dozing by the hard strike of a match. The faint smell of burned sulfur lingered as he blinked hard and turned his eyes to the butler hovering beside him: a young man dressed sharply in the customary tuxedo of a servant; a white tie knotted snugly around his throat. […]
The ticket blepped out the machine like a tongue. Laughing to himself, giddy with jetlag, Rory used both hands to take hold of it. One hand would be impolite in Japan. Written in English: Midnight Ferry with Vending Machines and onboard Entertainments. The waiting room was empty, and too bright, with pale gray walls and wan […]
“And so the little girl, well-warned against the wolf and snug in her bright red cloak, skipped along into the woods to see her grandmother…” Guilhaume Barthélémy wiped his balding pate in consternation as he listened, the nursemaid’s thick Germanic accent now lilting lightly over the words. Her new fluency hardly registered, however, in the […]
Although he couldn’t save his wife, Matthew said he was lucky to escape the woods. Later, it came out that, on the first day of the hike, he hit her on the head with a stone and pushed her off a cliff. Apparently, it was planned all along. Her body struck the rock wall twice, […]
Marcy and her thirty-two-year-old son, Ricky, were sitting on the couch watching the evening television. In front of them was a small table with food, both on the plates and scattered around. The program was a soap opera that they rewatched numerous times. Cigarette smoke dimmed the already weak lighting. The peeling wallpaper was adopting […]
When we think of modern horror—the kind that unfolds in suburban living rooms, that transforms everyday objects into instruments of terror, that locates dread not in ancient castles but in the psyche itself—we inevitably think of Stephen King. King’s sprawling novels have defined the genre for generations, his name synonymous with contemporary American horror. But […]
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