The Lizard of Lamont Goods
LAMONT GOODS. Food you love. Food for your family. The slogan had been etched on banners and billboards all around town for years. Lamont Goods was your basic, run of…
Featured
So, you’re thinking about working for Mr. Bob Hensham, huh? Think he’s the cat’s pajamas or something? Think his business is going places, but you’re wondering, why am I going…
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Fiction
The Bathroom Game
He could see it in their eyes, the way they all looked at each other, the way they all blended in together, the way they all turned back to him and grinned almost on cue. John-John didn’t like those grins.
I AM THE RISE
1 Lydia Whitecliff keeps to herself in Unit 602. She’s my oldest resident. Silver haired, partial to crochet. Quiet. Not a troublesome tenant. A proud native to This City. It’s…
Sucker
I stood before the door to my apartment again, just staring at it. It had been months since I’d even considered looking through the little peephole, let alone opening the…
SCRATCH
The closet door was locked shut. For the first few hours, she kept expecting the door to open. Connolly Hall locked itself every night at ten. No one could remember…
Good Luck, Mr. Flowers
He delivered the flowers a whole hour early. Patty N. hadn’t even finished pulling up the shades on the Juniper Street Market windows when his purple delivery truck pulled up…
The Doom That Blew Into Gnarlywood
The tumbleweed appeared out of nowhere. It had been a typical summer night in central Jersey, humid with the weariness of clouds trying to hold onto the rain a little…
Salt in the Wound
My mother died on a Wednesday night in February. I sat at the kitchen table, staring down at the pinpoints of salt dotted on the dark wood and pressed my…
Nonfiction
Analyzing the Symbolism of Light and Darkness in The Others
The Others (2001) is a gothic psychological thriller that explores concepts of truth, deception, and what secrets lie beyond the ring of light we cast around ourselves. Chile-born Alejandro Amenábar…
The Overlooked Pioneer Who Invented Modern Horror
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…
Poetry
The Conifers
(a villanelle) The conifers spoke to the deciduous treesDeep in the cool, ancient wood.“Wish,” they whispered, “they were a gentler species.” Honey locusts and maples nodded their leaves,Mulberries and oaks,…
Body/Fear
The cold cradled the skin of my ribs as I sat there. The precision in the airis surgical—hair strands felt,every inch wet from sweat.How was I humanwhen all I felt…
Mary
(a pantoum) Mary dug through her sundae, unearthing sweet bits,blind to oblique police-woman glances. Indifferent— archeological zeal? Blood, where her right hand rakedher captor’s corpse.Blind to oblique police-woman glances. Indifferent…
The Hole in My Head
There’s a grave in my pocket, a hole in my headPocket buries dreams, pride, and trust—While the hole swallows what cannot be named. I reach to remember—but then I forgetTrying…
The Principle of Threes
There is a man who speaks for the dead,Who listed the threes of dread:Air, water, food—Miss one and you’re screwed,He’ll weigh you and measure your head.
Creature of the Night
Blood red, myFingers dripWith wantingWhat runs away—So far.I chase you like aLike an owl. Quiet as the nightI swoop downHoping to catch youOnce more,Under the moonlight.We dance our—Last dance.Because tonightYou…
Intertitles
There was a skeletal continuity to the greasepaint proceedingsin the battered copy of a copy Jobyna Theater on dropout Vaudeville Avenue, the feral homeland of late-blooming flower childrenand the stillbirth…
Observance
The black velvet petunias eat away at your antipathy– sunless conduit flowers for unlit obituary candles, Drunk Tank Pink garnish of a burial shroud,