The results were in. Now all I had to do was decide whether to go and get them. They wouldn't tell me over the phone, despite my rather pathetic begging. It wasn't done, it wasn't their procedure. It had to be done face to face.
I doubted that good news would have to be done face to face. If it was good news surely they would have said, "It's good news, you don't have to worry any more, you don't have it."
Because that was easy. I would be delighted, of course, and the person on the other end of...
The year was 1986. She was five and happy. But she did not want to be six. There was something about six that scared her, put her on edge, made her think of grown up things like losing teeth and moving up to the next class with the mean teacher who didn’t allow her pupils to laugh during lessons.
So she came up with a plan to hide. She took her favourite toys (she was five, after all) and a little food and a carton of juice and crawled into the loft where no one ever went. There was nothing...
"Of all the times my back has to go out, it decides to do it with a freaking hurricane coming," Susan fumed. "I haven't even had time to board up the windows or glue down the silverware."
The dark storm clouds crept closer and closer and closer to her home.
"Why is that godforsaken mailbox so far from the house?" she cried, needing to focus her frustration at being completely helpless on something, on anything.
Susan tried to stretch out her back, tried to stand up, but the pain snapped at her lower back lips whips. She cried out, hoping...
The wagon was now about 100 feet away. I was rooted to the spot with fear. Perspiration ran down my face and my heart was pounding in my head, I was shaking and powerless to move.
I looked at my son who was stood just a few yards away, His face full of fatigue and fear. I thought I could hear his thoughts..."this is hopeless," we can't do a thing and there is no hope.
If only someone could come and help I thought and screamed it inside a hundred times.
I don't remember the trip to the hospital.But, I...
She stumbled blindly through the woods, images of every horror movie she'd ever seen flashing through her mind. Admittedly there were very few of them, but they all seemed to involve people getting lost in the woods and meeting an untimely end. The Blair Witch Project had been the most recent, and she hadn't been able to sleep for weeks after watching it. But this was only a game.
Only a game. She kept repeating the words under her breath, letting them calm her. Only a game. None of this was real. Her best friend, lying motionless on the ground...
It approached.
It was too bright. Light wasn't meant to be frightening, but this one was - it was too bright, and there was too much there, it meant too much.
Easier to turn away. But that wasn't an option anymore; there were other powers at work here. There was no escape route.
Everything was happening too quickly. No time to work out what to do, no time to even begin to create other options.
Just the light. The light and the fear. And the horror that was approaching.
In a rush, in a horrific scream, bathed in terrifying light,...
The button glared at her from the opposite side of the elevator. Her eyes were strained from staring at it. The harsh elevator light that made the button cool cold and hatefully professional. It made the emotions associated with the button written in neat braille and caps lock seem to be resolutely finite.
She had been standing in the elevator for too long now. It was now or never. She shook herself. Ignored the panic bubbling in her thoat, choking her, and clawing in her belly, and stood straight.
Her sweating hand pointed her slim finger straight, and she jerked...
Atop a ferris wheel the poor anxious squirrel found himself above the world far far away from the comfort of his tree and pile of nuts. As the wheel spun behind him, Mr. Squirrel ran ahead trying to keep up as he felt with every turn he would fall. As he lost ground he noted ascending higher and farther away from the ground. 'A telephone pole... a cable... a branch?' he thought could perhaps bring him to safety. When suddenly a gush of wind caused his tiny claws to slip across the rusty painted metal and he slipped. Falling, falling,...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. The bed felt heavy on the other side. A draft of warm and slobbery air was on his neck. He flicked and flicked the switch, and failing and rubbing his finger raw he leapt out of the bed and ran to the wall. The lights coming on, the room appearing all at once its sterile, diseased-yellow look. The covers tousled, pillows strewn, the light greyish-yellow stain like a teardrop on the wall behind the simple wrought-iron headboard.
Panting now, hand clasped tight on the switchplate, and wits coming back only like a smoldering fire. There...
The waves crashed into the enormous ship and smashed mightily into the sides, reducing them to no more than sodden firewood. Men clung to the sails and mast as the captain yelled, "Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Lord have mercy on us all!"
And the first few men who obeyed their captain were lost forever to the ferocious seas, pulled down by the weight of the ocean, by the fierceness of the waves as they rolled and rocked and never stopped moving. The rest were too afraid to leave the confines of what had been their home for these many long...