It made no sense that we should be haunted by the coyote, and a whole town no less. If it had been the ghost of the child, or if it had haunted the Weaver family, or Joe Maclean, the man who’d tracked the creature, shot it and brought back the tattered dress of Lily Weaver…
Sam’s Son
The day Sam’s son died was also Sam’s last day of freedom. Sam’s son was named Matt. Matt was ten years old and resembled his father’s good looks with dark hair and blue eyes. Sam was a tall lean man and Matt was a wiry athletic boy that was good in many sports. Matt’s favorite…
Jack
I never understood my father. It might sound clichéd, but it is true. My father had been in active service during the war, fighting against tyranny. I was still in the womb when he departed, off to some foreign place, danger waiting for him on muddy fields with gunfire acting as the song of a…
Southeast
It’s gone, I think. I can no longer hear the clicking sound it makes. Others like it chitter and call to others of their horrid kind. I have been hiding in the collapsed marquee of a theatre (Waiting for Godot was showing here in the before times, the lettering reads) waiting for the thing to…
Excuse the Outburst
When it comes to getting rid of your wife and best friend in one night, timing is everything. So many things can go wrong. So many threads need to align. But the truth is, I could have been an actor or director in another life. I recognize, unlike most, that everyone has their roles to…
And Those Who Watch
Nathan Blaustein was a short man, with narrow, seemingly inert ice blue eyes that nevertheless were penetrating. No one closely observing him as he stood mutely taking in his wife Bea’s histrionic distress would make the mistake of thinking him unfeeling. For there was something in the way he watched her, in the way the…
A Winter March
Finally, someone has lived to tell the tale. He remembers the cave. He remembers the way. He memorized everything. Such a good boy. He was missing his left leg and three fingers on his right hand when we found him. We were besides ourself with joy and fear regardless. The Lads have never returned anyone…
Breakfast at The Grand Continental
The Grand Continental did not look like a place you’d bring your daughter to die. When Paula got there and looked out the window, the view was so beautiful she almost cried. The ocean had that impossible green-blue that water in postcards had—or dreams—hugging a gently curving shore, where couples walked hand in hand and…
The Last Good English Teacher
Lester Grainger had lived in Green Prairie for less than eighteen months, but he would never live to see a full year and a half. There was nothing about him that was striking, nothing that would cause a woman to take notice of his looks, nor would any man find him a challenge to their…
What’s Your Sign
Raymond had just turned eighty years old and didn’t care, age was just a number. He sat at his computer watching an online interview of the famous author of Romance Fantasy, Leslie Sorenson. She was attractive, even sans makeup. Tall, with penetrating green eyes and long brown hair. Seth the blogger had already covered her…