By the edge of the cliff sat the man without wills. I approached him reluctantly while the mountains were asleep. He turned his head to face me and his expression was blank. “Have you come to ask me your one question?” asked the man. “Yes,” I replied. It is known […]
Bound in night’s shackles, an ageing man yearns to be free. As he tries to cry aloud only a starved, raspy breath escapes his tired lungs. Too weak to be heard, he faces this terror alone. Nearly suffocating under the potent anxiety carried forth by an atmosphere starved in darkness, […]
This was not here yesterday, Richard thought to himself as he stepped on the bulge in the hardwood floor. He leaned forward onto his right foot, placing as much force as he could on the raised area to test if it would give beneath his weight. It did not budge […]
“Am I asleep or am I awake?” I ask myself for the fifth time this week. I blink rapidly, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of my bedroom. Dark, blurry shapes come into sharper focus. Now, I can see the foot of my bed, piled […]
Looking back, I remember how all of my family’s summer barbecues went the same way. There’d be the initial bustle of uncles and aunts arriving with kids, clinking paper bags full of liquor, and lopsided foil trays of macaroni and lasagna. First drinks were poured, meat was thrown on the […]
Joan was not in the mood for the early shift. In a sleepy daze, without much (if any) mindfulness of what she was doing, she clutched her cell phone resting on her nightstand, and, after a few failed tries, dismissed the alarm that had been ceaselessly blaring for five minutes […]
The three of us sit together in my backyard, beer bottles spread all around our little triangle. Leftover garbage from the sandwiches we ate earlier accompany those same beer bottles. I personally prefer Modelo, but all Santiago managed to bring us were some lukewarm, probably decade-old, Mexican beers that tasted […]
Please check out the Shadows of Shallowbrooke series tag for prior installments! If we have to begin anywhere, I’d say we should start with Peter Hemphill. I need to remind you however, that although this story may start with him, the shadows that linger in Shallowbrooke did not. They resided […]
Summer camp was a memorable part of my childhood, but most memorable was that summer of ’72. It was my last summer as a kid. I had just turned fifteen and was looking forward to starting high school in the fall with the older teenagers. Camp Tonkawa was located in […]
“As the Wolf keeps count of the Deer so there is one that keeps count of Man.” – the Repokan In the winter of 1683, a frontiersman of Swedish descent sits in the light of a tallow candle, a raven feather dipped in ink quivering in his axe-hand above the […]
THE DEATH OF WILLIAM MCLOUGHLIN “It’s like something out of The X-Files,” I said, aghast. It was close to midnight and to my horror I’d been called out to investigate the death of a child, a seven-year-old boy by the name of William McLoughlin. The boy’s father, Patrick, had discovered […]
Part 1 Growing up, people always thought that I had a really big imagination. When I was younger, my mom would ask if I wanted to watch TV or play a board game with her. She was usually prompted to do this after she would notice that I had been […]
Cliff was finally upon the small Louisiana town of Crescent Falls that he had sought out. It was an unassuming, run down town that normally wouldn’t attract anyone. But Cliff was not just passing through, and he wasn’t your average traveler. Cliff had a penchant for seeking out urban legends […]
Marjorie had been lingering outside the nondescript metal door for nearly two hours, appearing to study the door and the faded sign above it. The Deli, it read in dusty script. Her coat was wrapped as tightly around her as the fraying fabric allowed, but still the winter air dug […]
When I was a kid, I had this recurring nightmare that always preceded the death of a loved one. It wasn’t quite a premonition – I didn’t know who was going to die, how they would die, or when – only that it would be within the next few days […]