The Transylvania Express rocked and rattled through the Romanian darkness. Despite the name, it was a slow train running on Soviet-era rails. Anastasia, a twenty-five-year-old hospice nurse, was returning to her compartment at midnight when she bumped into her great-great-grandfather.… Continue Reading
How do you kill a vampire? It was a question Grigore Nicolau first asked when he was 4 years old. He was hardly unique. Many of the boys he knew growing up in his hometown wondered the same. There was… Continue Reading
Sarah had escaped the Big Smoke to spend a couple of weeks in Wales, a village by the sea. Somewhere she could be a stranger; somewhere to recenter herself and possibly — possibly! — even get wind of a companion.… Continue Reading
They barged into my hovel, not understanding who I was. The name “witch” screamed off each tongue as they held their torches high. Not one of them knew it really meant wise woman. Polished red jasper, shiny black obsidian and… Continue Reading
The Collector, through no shortage of hearsay, means and compulsion, met one M. Muñoz underneath the Old Bridge. Birthplace unknown, age unknown, first name unknown, dubious wedding band on ring finger, Muñoz bled into his work—cut open his body and… Continue Reading
Sometimes the toads would just sit out on the lawn, a choreographed semi-circle of horror, reverberating their low growly groan around our blonde weatherboard house in a way that tickled my spine. If I had enough courage I’d shine our… Continue Reading
Bugs and spiders scatter as he tugs open the creaking, wooden bulkhead doors and peers down into the darkness. “There’s a light at the bottom of the stairs,” she tells him. “Just feel for the string and give it a… Continue Reading
Cuck0o88 said to close the lid on little Pippa. It felt a bit odd, but everyone clapped and I went for it. When Pippa first sniffed her new suitcase-turned-cushioned-bed, her tail wagged left-right-left-right, like a pendulum on meth. My lifeline,… Continue Reading
I rented the same beach house as the one we vacationed at fourteen years ago. That was the last summer for the five of us, the one before the children began disengaging from Tyler and I. The one of our… Continue Reading
A baby bit Janey’s heart and then her heart turned black. Her heart had been a live, beating thing; it had led her first to Harry and then to the white waiting room with little wooden blocks painted in primary… Continue Reading