It wasn’t the time of the call; Blake was used to that, and he was a light sleeper – call it the nature of the job. When the call at 1AM is from your doctor, that raised both eyebrows. Blake wasn’t sick, and his next physical was over six months away, so obviously Dr. Miller…

1. Call from Customer WI5223 to Qualicare Refrigerators Ltd, Des Moines Headquarters, June 23, 2019. Call transcribed December 1, 2019. “This is the Qualicare Refrigerator Customer Service Line. My name is Natalie. How may I help you?” “This is Eileen Mayers. Is this who I call when my fridge acts funny?” “Absolutely, Eileen! Can you…

Panic laced its fingers through Greg Eskew. I’ve got us lost, put us in danger. He looked at his wife, Valerie, his eleven-year-old son Michael, and his eight-year-old daughter Chelsea. All three wore new hiking boots. Relax, we’re not that far from civilization. Just a day hike. We can still get back by dark and…

Alex DeNozia worked nights. He was a forklift driver at a warehouse in Colorado Springs, and it was his job to load up product onto trailers for next day delivery after the other guys on shift had organized the product onto pallets by type and destination. It could be mind-numbingly boring, but Alex didn’t really…

Creeping, October fog lay thick around the Chamberlain Hotel’s empty veranda and clung close to the windows, like fragile, but heavy hands pounding silently on the thick, leaded glass. On better days, one could have sat in a fine wicker chair, drinking strong iced tea and watching the slow New England summers roll down the…

Elise was sitting in the rear passenger seat of her parent’s car, and her mother was driving. She was small enough that she was not allowed to sit in the front passenger seat. Her gaze turned from her mother’s right shoulder to the window to her left, where an endless field of emerald corn stalks…