On my twelfth birthday, a puppy drowned in our pool. On that cicada-buzzing Sunday afternoon, I lay on a half-deflated raft, my fingertips skimming the warm water. Thunderclouds pressed down, trapping stagnant, rotten-fish-smelling air. Pinhole rays of sun burst through… Continue Reading
The crack of the baseball bat against Jason’s knees incites power I’ve never felt, but I should have smashed his jaw. He drops to the floor, profanity spewing from his mouth. My grip tightens on the bat. I know what… Continue Reading
Everyone is tied down to something, Nicole thought as she regarded the demon from across the greasy, downtown cafe. It was a small demon as demons go, hardly noticeable really as its needle sharp teeth sank into the crimson tendril… Continue Reading
Asha was my spur-of-the-moment walking buddy. She lived five houses away, and if one of us suddenly needed a break from our mom lives we’d give the other a call. Winter and summer we’d plod the two-mile loop, often grumbling… Continue Reading
She sits naked on the floor of her hospital room, knees drawn to her chin, rocking back and forth. Her hospital gown, shredded. Fingertips, red and bleeding from stuffing bits of cloth into imaginary holes in the walls. The door… Continue Reading
I sneak down the stairs and hope she’s passed out in her chair. She awakens in a coughing fit and glares at me. “Get me a beer, girl.” My name is Jenni. She hates me. Calls me “girl.” Whips me… Continue Reading
“…a story, Mommy!” “In a house in the woods, far far away, three bears were living. “The father bear was big and tall with a big booming voice and big hard hands.” “Bears don’t have hands! They have paws!” “But… Continue Reading
The light snow did not faze the sniper, who easily picked off the man who had just left the coffee shop a few hundred yards down the street. He saw the head snap back and the body fall over an… Continue Reading
I’ve been afraid of certain things — loud noises, the dark, the boogey man — but you learn that those things don’t touch you, hurt you, or hate you. That everything that scares you about them is what you don’t… Continue Reading
We ran. We fled as if we were both insane, as if chased or possessed by demons. And maybe we were — possessed, that is. Kathy unfolded the map too much. It spread across the dash and fluttered against the… Continue Reading