We were hiking in a dense wood when a sudden rainstorm blew up. We ran for shelter and came upon an old abandoned house. A mansion, really, that must have once been beautiful. “How lucky is that?” you said and bounded onto the porch. I nearly fell through the rotten boards, but you caught my…
Thrives in the Waste
The heat oozed through the windows and pooled behind Scott’s blackout curtains. If he sat still, hunched over his desk, he could stay cool enough to think. Scott’s home office was dim, every lamp left off in favor of the roaring air conditioner that hissed tepid air through its bared teeth. Half-filled applications glowed primly…
Life Clock
The day Marcie left rehab, her mother handed her a gift. “Honey, I got you a new phone with an important app.” “Great, Mom.” Marcie looked out the window as the car pulled onto the highway. The last six weeks had been hell, and she was eager to get back to her apartment for a…
The Shadow
Caw! Caw! Tom tilted his head and eyes towards the sky. Even in the darkness, he could see the silhouette of a murder circling overhead. Waiting for the inevitable, he thought. He turned back to the road. The moonlight made a futile attempt to fight its way through the overarching trees on either side. He squinted…
Incendiary
I’d never been able to eat bacon, not since I burned down the flat where my brother Eddy and I lived with the Bogeyman. It’s the smell. That unmistakable reek of fat and flesh crackling. Even years later, sitting in the food court of a motorway services off the M1, as I attentively cut the…
Benjamin and the Family Gathering
Ben was six years old when he heard his mother weeping, snarling, and, to his amazement, she seemed to be gnashing her teeth. He sneaked downstairs and heard the screams. All his brothers were either in their rooms or out of the house. Why hadn’t they heard this or done anything? The door from which…
The Groom
Part I Marco sat behind the wheel of his Audi A4 convertible, a gift from his parents earlier that year. The road from Smederevo to Belgrade lay drowned in a stagnant fog, the kind that descended without warning and might linger for an hour, a day, or forever—it was never clear which. Mid-May, yet they…
The Ghost in the Field
It began in 1917. Our father, Jeremy, had been gone two years, serving in the Great War. We received messages from him via military mail throughout his first eighteen months. The excitement of receiving those letters was beyond any I have felt before or since. To know he was alive and well. And then the letters stopped….
Watch Out for Deer
If I told you I enjoy torturing my husband, Earl, would you think I was a monster? If you answered already, shame on you. Life is not black and white, and you should hear my story before rushing to judgment—especially the part about Earl’s secret. First off, Earl thinks he’s brilliant. To be fair, he…
It’s Not Just the Dark
If she squinted and imagined nightmares, the house would have looked haunted. With eyes wide open and her darker dreams tucked away, it was just a big gray building adrift in a sea of trees. Charity Barnes opened the rental car door in a cloud of dust she’d trailed in from the gravel road and…