The Craig’s List ad read: For Sale or Trade. Rocking chair: vintage, lightweight, sturdy, haunted. Purchaser should feel comfortable with otherworldly companionship. Ghosts attached to chair do not appear to be hostile or dangerous. No warranty. Final sale. No return. Serious inquiry only. $25. There was a photograph attached. The chair was ugly. Mud-colored roses […]
I’m not exactly sure what Larry does. I’ve worked in this office building eight years now and haven’t figured it out. Larry was here when I started and he still appears. Not all the time. Not every day. Sometimes I’ll go a week without seeing him. But he always pops back up. By the coffee […]
AGE 7 Marko raises his first banner, a red shawl, into the teasing wind and marches behind a weathered wooden float. Brass trombones and trumpets howl across a hot, dusty world. He chants as loud as his fellow celebrants: “Never slothful! Never shelter! Sunder monoliths to sloth! “Ever onward; chase sun! Mother Ceremonium!” Marko shouts […]
Only the desperate follow the trail of rumor to my grotto beneath the marketplace, hidden behind a curtain of thorny vines. Glossa is a witch, they say. An enchantress. But, eventually, they come. Purple shadows ring Siopi’s eyes when she seeks out my den. The purple might be weariness, save for the sickly yellow mottling […]
“Taylor, did you get your toys packed?” Mom was coming up the stairs. Taylor carefully fitted the last pack of Legos into the moving box. Next to him sat another box labeled “DONATE.” He avoided looking inside that one. Mom reached into it and pulled out a dirty stuffed dog with no tail. “You decided […]
The Mothers will walk with you to the edge of Morana Street, where the pavement ends and the woods begin, but no further. Thank them for taking care of you these past few months, and for taking care of your sister. They will want to pray over you. Let them, even if you do not […]
“Cut out her heart and bring it to me,” the queen said, and so the huntsman did. He brought no deer’s heart in its place, for the huntsman was loyal to his queen. He brought her the heart, and she ate it, and the blood stained her lips like dye. Her wrinkled skin grew pale […]
Doused in sugary sunlight, Janie chugs milk straight from the carton. She wipes her sleeve across her pouty fourteen-year-old mouth. “I’m off.” “To school?” Carol asks, ever hopeful. Janie’s laughter rings like wind chimes during a storm. “I’m needed elsewhere. Kansas, I think. Dunno where exactly—mornings mess with my intuition.” “What’s in Kansas?” Carol turns […]
The night before Eli’s birthday, his mother made him watch as she jabbed a mop in a bucket and nodded toward the kitchen floor. She told him not to move. “Poison,” she said. “Poison, poison, boy-son.” The only light was the window’s moonlight and a bare bulb swinging in the pantry. “But I… I just… […]
Hi. You there with the big teeth and the appetite for human flesh. I’m the girl who’s going to survive your horror movie. Yeah, me here in the driver’s seat of the van. I know there are a bunch of rules and tropes and things for how this is supposed to go down. But before […]
