All I can remember is pitch blackness accompanied by an odd warmth. It felt close, unbearably so. The same warmth always comes. It comes but never goes. It lingers and becomes sickly sweet. Next comes the light — a bright,… Continue Reading
Finish up your chicken, child; those potatoes and green beans. Seventh-Hour Man will get’cha if your supper plate’s not clean. — A childhood cautionary The Canuck Territories | 1 September 1905 Charlie Haggard always felt more alive after a wedding,… Continue Reading
I saw it while taking out the garbage, the biggest beetle I’d ever seen. It lay on its back, black and shiny like plastic wrap. The insect kicked its segmented legs in the air like a futile attempt to ride… Continue Reading
It starts with a low hiss that startles you awake in the early morning light when pigeons scratch their claws against the windowsill and the newspaper thuds against the driveway. The hiss has no discernible source. You know this because… Continue Reading
When he first arrived to town, we took it as a sign, a bad omen sent to unravel us. We all knew about these oddities, distinguished by their missing half, grotesque and unnerving. He was a monstrous sight alright, this… Continue Reading
A man approaches a girl. Balding, plain and pale-eyed, fifty or so. She sits alone, staled knuckles typing an essay, coffee cold, body terse. Her eyes dart back and forth, shut for a moment. Her shoulders stiffen. In broad daylight,… Continue Reading
As Brian struggles with the condom, there’s a creaking outside the cabin. His hands freeze. He and Natalie lock eyes, their breath smoking. They listen for several seconds — wind scattering leaves across the wraparound porch, branches shivering. Brian slides… Continue Reading
The procedure would begin in three minutes. Edyth had already said her goodbyes — some touching, some tedious — to a throng of family members, old friends, and colleagues in the facility waiting room. The old woman chose to spend… Continue Reading
The Reverend Max Walker and his wife, Elizabeth, live a happy, contented life in Pleasant Junction, New Hampshire. Every Sunday, Reverend Max, as his parishioners affectionately call him, delivers a modest sermon in a small white church. Max is an… Continue Reading
He’d wondered, when he started the job, why he needed a belt with so many holes. Now he knew — it fitted around him twice and felt like it needed tightening again. It took months to visit every home in… Continue Reading