On Thursday we killed everyone, and it was every bit as wonderful as she had hoped. But on Friday, the first day of our perfect new life together, I woke up with a bad feeling. Late morning sunlight slanted through arched balcony doors. I blinked at Marcia, sleeping next to me on a massive mahogany… Continue reading A Little Bad Luck
Hollow Faces
Mile after mile of Texas highway thundered away beneath the navy blue Mustang. Jeff pushed the muscle car into the far left lane and dropped the hammer. Sara’s hair flew back. The high southern sky stretched blue and clear over the bone-pale landscape opening around them. Scarred by dry arroyos, the land was dotted with… Continue reading Hollow Faces
Vacancy
Ethan nearly drove past without noticing it. The directions the man from the gas station had given him weren’t very clear. The gravel road off Highway 22 was unmarked, veiled by a dense thicket of dark pines. His headlights skimmed an old, weather-beaten sign hidden behind the brush; gold letters too faded to make out.… Continue reading Vacancy
My Brother
Life had never felt the same since the murder of my father. He had been a cruel and wretched man—harsh, loveless, and incapable of seeing me as anything more than his second-born and, therefore, unworthy of much regard. I had no illusions about his feelings, and yet, in the wake of his death, something restless… Continue reading My Brother
Coyote Storm
It made no sense that we should be haunted by the coyote, and a whole town no less. If it had been the ghost of the child, or if it had haunted the Weaver family, or Joe Maclean, the man who’d tracked the creature, shot it and brought back the tattered dress of Lily Weaver… Continue reading Coyote Storm
Sam’s Son
The day Sam’s son died was also Sam’s last day of freedom. Sam’s son was named Matt. Matt was ten years old and resembled his father’s good looks with dark hair and blue eyes. Sam was a tall lean man and Matt was a wiry athletic boy that was good in many sports. Matt’s favorite… Continue reading Sam’s Son
Jack
I never understood my father. It might sound clichéd, but it is true. My father had been in active service during the war, fighting against tyranny. I was still in the womb when he departed, off to some foreign place, danger waiting for him on muddy fields with gunfire acting as the song of a… Continue reading Jack
Southeast
It’s gone, I think. I can no longer hear the clicking sound it makes. Others like it chitter and call to others of their horrid kind. I have been hiding in the collapsed marquee of a theatre (Waiting for Godot was showing here in the before times, the lettering reads) waiting for the thing to… Continue reading Southeast
Excuse the Outburst
When it comes to getting rid of your wife and best friend in one night, timing is everything. So many things can go wrong. So many threads need to align. But the truth is, I could have been an actor or director in another life. I recognize, unlike most, that everyone has their roles to… Continue reading Excuse the Outburst
And Those Who Watch
Nathan Blaustein was a short man, with narrow, seemingly inert ice blue eyes that nevertheless were penetrating. No one closely observing him as he stood mutely taking in his wife Bea’s histrionic distress would make the mistake of thinking him unfeeling. For there was something in the way he watched her, in the way the… Continue reading And Those Who Watch