There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He looks like a nice enough fellow, but the last time I saw a stranger in that general location, I was dragged through the back of my closet into a magical world where the whimsy was spread so thick, I developed psychic diabetes.

This time, my uninvited guest seems to be wearing one of those hard hats with the drink holders on either side, and the tube that mixes the two. It has a logo on it, but I can't quite make it out. The room is too dark.

The figure...

The red, white and black jacket hovered mysteriously outside my bedroom window, under the old tree. It had been there for about a week, and it didn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon. By the way, what's black and white, and read all over?

I asked my dad about the jacket, and he told me that it was something I'd just have to get used to.

"But why is it there?"

"It just is, son."

"Have you seen it here before?"

"No, I haven't."

"Doesn't it strike you as sort of... odd?"

"Not really."

Throughout the entire conversation,...

The lone zombie shambled toward the clubhouse, where we watched, armed with nine irons and pitching wedges. I turned to Adam and said, "Par three, buddy."

"You're on, Sev," Adam replied, and grabbed a bucket of balls, ran out to the porch, and teed up.

His swing was a bit off, and he hooked it, but the ball stayed on the fairway. Not bad, considering the threat of gruesome zombie death that potentially loomed.

"Okay, this time I got him!" Adam shouted, and teed up another ball.

This time, his shot was picture-perfect, and the ball whizzed through the air,...

Proles. Can't live with them, cant get elected without them. If I had my way, we'd remove them from the process entirely and let the "adults" handle the important stuff. Sure, we'll throw them a bone every once in a while, you know, just to keep up the illusion that they hold some sort of sway, but honestly, who cares what they really think.

The worst are the ones who try to organize. Luckily, all it takes is a well-timed act of violence. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even require anything more than a vague threat. Remember the dairy farmer uprising?...

She'd have preferred the electric chair. Instead, she got the eclectic stare. Why did she always attract the weird ones?

My feet ached, but it was well worth it. I mean, how many times in your life do you have the opportunity to attend a championship? Sure, I had to park about three miles from the stadium. Sure, I somehow missed that city bus that was barreling directly toward me until it was too late. Sure, once the bus rolled over my feet, I experienced agony beyond anything I could have ever comprehended to that point. But we're talking CHAMPIONSHIP, man!

I had to drag myself the remaining half of a mile, crawl to the turnstile, beg to be admitted...

Portraits lined the hallway. No matter where you stood, it seemed like the eyes were following you, staring at you in disdain. Freddy didn't care for the effect, so he hurried his way through the hall to the sitting room.

A large statue stood in the center of the room. The white marble figure resembled a famous historical figure, but Freddy couldn't quite place just which one--perhaps Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin 1.0, to be exact. Ben Franklin 1.2 was currently going through some new, more rigorous testing because Baron Von Bonn's steambot army made short work of the original. Luckily,...

The girls rejoiced. It took them an hour, but they finally found the Moleskine notebook that Julia had so carelessly misplaced. Anna and Rachel spotted it beneath a rock that Julia used to keep the pages opened flat.

Now that the hunt was over, the three girls placed the notebook on the ground and stood around it. They took hold of each other, and began the chant. As they chanted, they began dancing around the notebook, faster and faster, chanting more and more loudly.

A beam of pure white light shot straight into the air and appeared to pierce the...

One of my co-workers told me that one time, when he was living in New York City, he was at lunch with his wife at a deli. They were sitting near a window. As they chatted and ate, they looked out the window, and across the street, they saw a homeless man pull out a pizza box and take a dump in it, right in the middle of the sidewalk, while passers-by passed by and made a point of not looking at him while he did it.

It's one of those stories that made me laugh at first, but later...

The gate closed behind them. The door opened in front of them. The ceiling opened above them. The floor opened beneath them. They all fell for what felt like hours, and when they landed, it wasn't with a concussive thump, but a soft, gentle bounce. They had landed in a huge pile of foam and packing material.

They took a moment to get their bearings. They were at least twenty feel below where they originally stood. They were trapped in a rectangular hole approximately ten by six feet. They didn't find any doors or openings.

They began to panic. They...