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 […]
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 […]
The parking lot was empty. Steve ignored the sharp headache that had suddenly come over him and the peculiar feeling that he had done this before. As hard as he tried to keep his eyes on the video store’s entrance and not on the multiple yellow signs in the windows, he found himself reading the […]
Tragedy struck early in Stella’s childhood. Her mother, Clara, was a brilliant professor of quantum physics at the local university. She was renowned for her sharp mind and tireless dedication to her work. Her father was snuffed out in an instant on a rain-slicked road. Clara’s shock and grief pushed Stella from her mother’s womb […]
It was an accident when I saw Mom cry for the first time. I was cutting class and snuck home during lunch—freshman year, each day a unique disaster; I had been slighted by some former best friend and needed to get away—but when I tiptoed into the apartment, Mom’s racking sobs were coming from the […]
The moment the waitress steps over to take my order, I sniff the scent of menstrual blood lingering beneath the stench of grill smoke and fryer grease. My mouth waters more for her than it does the plates of meatloaf and country fried pork making the rounds of the fifties-themed diner. So intoxicated am I […]
Gretchen Ellison was a beautiful young woman, as many men (and a great many women) would attest. Though modest by nature, she wouldn’t disagree. She knew her face had a Madonna-like, cherubic innocence. Her hourglass figure was exquisite. She sometimes braidedher flowing chestnut hair into a ponytail for work. The male clientele really seemed to like that style with a lily-white sundress. […]
It is a lonely thing, to die in a world that is not your own. That is the fate that my brother and I now face. It is even more cruel that the world we find ourselves in is so like our own in so many ways, yet so hostile at every turn. The village […]
Kevin Mulligan was scared shitless. He was twelve now. Twelve was the age you started cleaning the cobwebs. Kevin grew up hearing stories about the spiders. There was always a spooky tale for campfires or sleepovers. Ben Watson told one at Tim Rollins’s house just before his dad came in to say lights out. Ben […]
Luther Balor was woken from his dozing by the hard strike of a match. The faint smell of burned sulfur lingered as he blinked hard and turned his eyes to the butler hovering beside him: a young man dressed sharply in the customary tuxedo of a servant; a white tie knotted snugly around his throat. […]