“Mom!” Kayla knew right when she yelled it, trouble would soon follow. Trouble always did, especially when her mother had started her liquid dinner around lunchtime. Kayla, 7-years-old, was in bed, covers pulled up tightly up to her nose. Her blue eyes peeked out widely, searching for the noise that caused her to utter that […]
Sarah Whitechapel was currently struggling to imagine life without her ring finger. The knuckles of her left hand ached as she drew her fingers into her palm for the thousandth time that morning. She’d been told it helped to visualize, but it was difficult to picture nothing where there’d once been something. It was difficult […]
Marty flinched under his covers when the door slammed out in the living room, but that slamming door, followed by the muffled cries of his mom, meant that it was over. The curse words, the yelling, the breaking of things, it was over. Marty sighed. Soon, his mom would cry herself to sleep, and the […]
I really liked his grave. The cemetery overlooked a deep lake where birds flew all around. The little grove around the church was also perfect. It wasn\’t too thick, too wild, too sparse, or manmade. It felt and looked, well, natural and beautiful. The grounds themselves were pretty well-kept. Most of the other tombstones had […]
The feathers started as the coarse black hairs that grew out of the mole between my human shoulder blades. If I were a blackbird, I had sung, the Scottish ballad about losing love to long stints at sea, but I didn’t mean it. I’d whistle and sing. I’d follow the ship that my true love […]
The mouth jutting out of the pillow had the teeth of a piranha, snapping its jaws, dripping thick, gooey yellow saliva, and making tiny squeaks that echoed like distant screams. Squatting down in front of him, his father shook his head, the dark bags under his eyes deepening. Stephen had night terrors when he was […]
“‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, WHEN ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, NOT EVEN A MOUSE; THE STOCKINGS WERE HUNG BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE IN HOPES THAT ST. NICHOLAS SOON WOULD BE THERE” — CLEMENT CLARK MOORE Jake Norton was tired of hearing everyone’s talk about Santa Claus. At twelve, he […]
A plastic wheelie bin had just gone skittering down the road when Colly Glennon heard his son roaring. “Daddy, dad-eeee.” It was just after 10pm and his six-year-old Cillian should already have been asleep. They stayed up late watching Despicable Me 2 for what could easily have been the thirteenth time. They feasted on popcorn […]
“Ethan, are you ready yet?” Jessica’s voice drifted down the hall, sharp, like the clack-clack-clack of her heels against the hardwood floor. “We’re going to be late.” Impatient, as usual. “Almost, Dear,” Ethan called back. His fingers slid through his hair which he coaxed into perfection. The brush lay forgotten on the counter. His movements […]
So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. […]