Sarah draped a second blanket over her shoulders and cupped her hands over her mouth. She huffed on her fingers in an attempt to warm some feeling back into her frozen digits. It had only been three days since the power had been cut off, but already her apartment felt as if it had never been heated. When she had woken that morning, she had felt as if she were lying on a block of ice instead of a bed, and upon finally slipping from beneath her inadequate duvet, she had been shocked to see that frost had formed on...
They gathered in the woods. On Summerisle. The pagan community anticipating a good harvest. Burning the trapped victim in The Wicker Man twisted and crafted into shape by the hands of the children and teachers at school.
I watched from a distance, secretly recording. Traitor in the midst. They were my family, friends, neighbours. I was one of them yet I was not. I was a Christian. Would-be outcast in this community, not that anyone knew. This was going to be my parting gift to them.
Freedom from sin. End of a barbaric ritual. Once exposed to the rest of...
The child wanted the bully's red bicycle, but he knew to take it away would be going against a pecking order that had been around forever.
He walked up to the bully, who was sitting on the slightly oversized bike, and asked if he could ride it.
The bully squinted at him as he spoke, acting as though he couldn't hear him. As though the child had no voice at all.
"Get away from me," the bully said.
The child assured him that he only wanted to try the bike so he could tell his father if that was the...
When represented on a flat surface, a right angle can appear acute or oblique.
the city was empty
winter empty, not
summer empty
snowstorm home-bound, not
bound for Myrtle Beach, or
flown to Florida or
wherever the hell
the neighbors went.
Christ, doesn't anyone stay
home anymore?
Sit on the deck in frayed nylon
beach chairs?
I can't even find them in
the stores anymore.
what happened?
where did everyone go?
it's the city...
it should
never
be
empty.
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead. I knew that this was going to happen. In fact, I knew for three years that today, on my birthday, I was going to die. I didn't really believe it at first but as the day got closer I understood everything.
This whole thing started back three years ago. I had just turned thirteen and I wanted to start earning myself some money. After all, my parents wouldn't pay for everything I wanted anymore. The only job...
Absent. That's what mom has been for the past three years since the day the front door slammed shut on her and the four carrier bags of belongings. That's all she took, her makeup and her best pair of shoes. Crocodile skin. Horrid looking things but they seemed to mean more to her than the family.
Kathleen, the youngest still kept an eye on the front path most evenings just in case mom returned. Rest of us knew that very unlikely as her latest boyfriend had been very rich and mom had always been a gold digger.
We lived with...
Darling, I have done this to you
but I've done this to the rivers, too
I have ravaged mountainsides and
leveled acres of forest
I have seen your look before
in the wildlife of the eroding canyon
in the shattered shy, the moon and sun
sharing the shrinking space.
Find something to do
and do it
before I ruin that,
too
She could tell I was faking it. Unforgiveness. Ten years working at the lab, overtimes, ruined marriage, kids that pretend I'm not their dad, ulcers. I hated her for joking around, waving the scalpel, accidentally killing F7, our first subject to live beyond three months.
In human years he this was equivalent to 20. Tall, dark haired, extraordinarily strong. Yes, he was ugly, but this was of no consequence. We had all grown to love him. .
Sonia, my assistant ran out the room instead of trying to save his life. Couldn't look at me. Knew I would never stop...
It wasn't easy to stack the gold bars in the cellar. Very heavy. I kept one in my bedroom so I could look at it whenever I wanted. Part of me was trying to warn there was something strange going on, another (the greedy part) knew that it was synchroncity that worked this for me.
Cousin Marty told me about the new shop between the Chinese Grocery store and the old-fashioned chemist. Strange as I'd never noticed the shop even though it was supposed to have been there for the last month. Marty showed me the rare whisky he'd bought,...