They were two old friends, and they decided to meet each day in the park. The park was not far from Stanley’s house, where he had lived his whole adult life. When his children were small, they would go down on Sunday afternoons, around the time his wife couldn’t stand them in the house anymore….
This Is How You Run from Monsters
1. Open your eyes. I know you don’t want to. Remember, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. This is one of those times. Open your eyes. 2. Breathe. You were so smart to hide. Under your bed was perfect. 3. Move to the door. Open it a little. What do…
The Rough Draft
There was something familiar about the man sitting alone on the station bench reading a carefully folded newspaper. Nelson Wilcox had the unsettling sense of somehow knowing – and yet never having met – the man. It was not a case of having “seen him somewhere before.” This might appear to be a seemingly immaterial…
The Porcelain Mother
The doll head had no body. That was the first affront. It sat — always sat — on the highest shelf in the hallway alcove, where the sun never reached and the wallpaper peeled. It was there when he was born. He remembers this, though the memory is impossible: the cracked white forehead, the perfect…
The Morning After the Nightmare
That stupid Bulwer-Lytton was right, John Moreland thought as he struggled to see where he was going down the dark two-lane road. It really IS a dark and stormy night. Moreland was trying to make his way to his sister’s house, and normally didn’t take this route, but a huge pile-up and traffic jam blocked…
The Keystone Witch
May 14th I was allowed five minutes of peace after finishing my Southern Rockies report before they sent me to the Northern lakes and forests of Wisconsin for more field work. I arrived earlier this afternoon but can’t remember the name of the Podunk town I’m staying in. Downtown is a single road with crumbling…
One for the Devil
Baines had knocked several times on the mahogany door that morning but no response. You never knew with Mr. Lavery he could be a real devil, give you hell. Yet when mother was dying, he’d been so kind. You had to handle him carefully. Not everyone would suit the job. Ricky Lavery finally rolled out…
Farewell Francis
“True! -nervous -very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?” – Edgar Allen Poe The plastic accordion curtain slid back, and he could see into the bathroom. Would it have…
Tether
Pat had recently gotten really into staring at ceiling fans, primarily the one in his bedroom, but he wasn’t particular. The one in his bedroom was good. Well not good, but interesting. Sort of. What he meant was that he could look at it for a long time without feeling like he wanted to stop…
Plucking the moon from the Bottom of the Ocean
No one lives in my house now. You can tell because, at night, there are no lights. People should have lights on at night. Not too late at night, people have to sleep, but around dinnertime or just after, when people go to the den to watch Get Smart or something else with a laugh…