The night his father died, Jeff Olliet's lungs were full of the same crepe myrtle and Spanish moss that teased his nose now in the full swelter of day. He leaned on the tree, listening to the congregation in the church singing about the sweet by and by as the river accompanied their chorus. He …
The Bite
The decision to lance the boil on his face didn’t scare Gerry. Why visit a doctor and pay good money for something he could easily do? Holding his knife (the one with the coon hound on the grip-- his nicest, cleanest pocket knife), he readied himself for the first slice into the ping-pong sized protuberance. …
Dorothy Ann Distelhurst
September of 1934 was a busy month. One million textile workers went on strike in the United States on the first. Evangeline Booth was the first woman to be elected General of the Salvation Army on the third. On the fifth, the 8th Nuremberg Rally opened in Nazi Germany. On September nineteenth, the same day …
A Dark Engine
As the sun set the rain began, an early Spring rain that doubled the dark between the lazy flashes of lightning and rips of thunder, making the neon sign- Ellroy’s Diner, Pizza, Burgers, Beer- all the brighter at the edge of the highway. The crowd was sparse at the diner, but it wasn’t the rain …
The Long Summer
Author's Note: This story has not had a proper second draft. It was the summer before our freshman year at Tawesville Central High School that Ben Tork died. Ben was one half of the Tork twins, the other half being his sister Brandy, and by all accounts he was a stand-up guy. He was a …
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
When I was sixteen (which is further in the past than I care to admit), I went through a phase in which I intended to read all the books that people said I shouldn't read. To this day I'm not quite sure who those people were or why they wanted to monitor my to be …
Lois Holler
Author's Note: This story has not been through a complete second draft yet. It's near the end of July when it begins. The threat of school is still a few weeks away, the air conditioning blasts in every house and eggs could fry on sidewalks, but autumn is near. You know it, you can feel …
…and lose his own soul
1 It was a cold November afternoon, the sky grey and heavy with clouds. The park was practically empty except for the little girl dressed in her warm winter best on the swings. She propelled herself through the air, knowing full well she was supposed to go straight home from school once the final bell …
Daisy
Keith shut the door, locked it, and carefully lowered the steel bar in place across it to ensure no one could push it open. It wasn’t foolproof, but it had worked so far. The evening sun’s golden glow crept through the boards that covered the windows, and Keith realized that it was deathly gloomy in …
Charlie
Charlie haunts my house. This brittle white house upon this leering hill, this house stricken with pops and groans and a constant howl of wind at the eaves. I do not know where he came from, if he lived a life before this, or if "he" was ever a living man at all. Charlie haunts …
Curio Macabre 