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I was always afraid of the lunch lady when I was a kid.  I don't know why; maybe it was the toxic stench of her breath, or the dead look in her eyes, or the unkempt hairs dangling off her chin.  No matter what the reason was, my palms grew sweaty and my heart pounded every time I passed her in the lunch line.  I never felt quite at ease until I had left the cafeteria, and even then I still was worried I would catch sight of her in the hallway between classes.

In 2003 a photograph depicting a lost child began circulating on the internet. There was no detail on the child other than what was seen in the actual photo and could be found under the search parameters 'find_me.jpg'. The photo showed a smiling young girl about eight or nine years old. The girl is seen standing alone in front of a swing set, wearing a purple dress with a white flower in her hair. Her name or where she was seen last were never mentioned.

Ever since I can remember I have been able to see things that others cannot. I still remember the days of my infancy when I would, for the first time, sleep in my own bed, in my own room, and how the shadows of unknown beings would haunt my room. Or perhaps my head? All I know is that I saw things, and that, at least to me, these things were as real as the other things that other people were able too see and touch.

I was only 12 at the time. I was playing in the scrap yard with some of my best buddies. My father was good at all different kinds of things, but flourished on vehicles and motorized machines of any type. He was always hauling in a new broken down truck, or an old busted up washing machine, and had no problem with letting my buddies and me play in the scrap piles that lay in the back yard. We were out one day just messing around, shooting Jon's new BB gun, which he had just been given for his…

If ever you should walk into a dark room inside your empty house and see a shadowy figure somewhere within, don’t turn on the lights. It’s better not to know. Don’t run to the bathroom, lock the door, and cower in your bathtub. Don’t hurry to a closet, lock the door, and hide underneath a pile of clothes. And especially don’t return to your bedroom, lock the door, and crawl into your bed. Because every other door in your house was already locked, and the figure still managed to get in.

Now, when I think back to the excuses my parents used to make, I feel like an idiot. I remember being twelve years old, standing at the top of the staircase and watching all of the people filing into our basement. Some men wore white masks, some women wore bonnets. But they all had small suitcases, as though there was a bus stop beneath our house. And every one of them looked pale, frightened.

Everybody knows that if you surf the web long enough, you'll see some pretty sick shit. This is especially true if you intentionally dwell into the dark underbelly of the internet. I've seen quite a few things I don't care to admit to, but one thing that I'll always remember is a site called "normalpornfornormalpeople.com". The first strange thing about the site was that I didn't find it by actually looking for it. It was e-mailed to me by someone I didn't know. The e-mail was as follows:

Found the shit on my porch one night… Fucking ding-dong ditch or whatever. A little baggie with two blue capsules. And a stupid note with two words… “Do try” I figured it was some shitty prank from my “experimental” friends from down the street. We’ve tried nearly every reasonable drug there is, trying to get the most psychadelic trips, maintain the best highs..

In the winter of 1944, with overtaxed supply lines in the Ardennes, a medic in the German army had completely run out of plasma, bandages and antiseptic. During one particularly bad round of mortar fire, his encampment was a bloodbath. Those who survived claimed to have heard, above the screams and barked commands of their lieutenant, someone cackling with almost girlish glee.

I live in a small village in the Western Countryside of England though I better not tell you which, for your own safety above all else. A lot of this won't make sense at first but bare with me, theres a lot I need to say. Let me just start from the beginning.

It started about a year and a half ago. I was on the internet reading about Libya, Gaddafi and the Arab Spring when I felt a sensation on the back of the neck. At first it was just a slight itch but it progressively became more and more intense. It felt as if a little itty bitty ant was crawling up and down the back of my neck. The only way to stop it was to slap the back of my neck. Sometimes it felt like it was burrowing into my skin. Once it burrowed in, I had to itch it away or else it…

I first got in contact with Jack, my former landlord, a little over a year ago when I answered his newspaper ad. I was in a rush to move out as I had just broken up with my significant other, whom I shared an apartment with, and Jack was renting out the furnished basement of his house. The location was good and the price was a steal, and I moved in with a few boxes of personal items four days later.

I cannot tell you when it all began. I have always been plagued by sleep paralysis. I have somewhat learned to deal with it, to recognise it for what it is and wait it out. It always begins with the need to yawn or speak, but my mouth is shut tight. I then try to sit bolt upright, but my arms and body are clamped down to the bed. Sometimes my eyes are open. Sometimes I see things.

The following dialog was found written on a scrap of paper in the cell of a now missing John Doe.

Mandy watched the girl on the television run. She was about thirty minutes into Halloween and honestly she was unimpressed. Was this really what she was staying up past her bedtime for? Was this really worth the risk of her mother finding out that she was not in fact really asleep, preparing for the next day in which she would go to school and learn just like the good children?

I was 15 years old during the weekend in June when everything would change. My mum had decided to skip town to visit her distant family, as she felt that she had earned a break. Nothing unusual about the decision to just up and leave as she often goes to visit 'the other side' as she called it. She'd either visit her parents – a part of the family that I actually enjoy seeing – who occupy a modest cottage up in the hills of some English countryside; or if she was feeling tolerant, she would…

Ralphie had just received a letter that irrevocably changed his life. A letter intended for him to receive almost ten years ago, though it had only just made it to him now, lost by unforeseeable forces of time. The letter itself wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, it had been written by a girl who had once loved him and whom- though Ralphie wouldn’t openly admit it- he still loved quite a lot.

“Welcome to Riverwood.” The administrator exclaimed, shaking the hand of the new night nurse. Riverwood was the town’s only nursing home. It had been built as a hospital back in the early days of Millville. It was a grand three story building, built in an “L” shape. At the far west end of the building was a bell tower. It no longer sounded, the bell having been removed several years ago. It was on a slight hill overlooking the north end of town and was surrounded by trees so thick that it was…

I’ve brought myself back to where it happened, so I can relive the events that occurred five years ago, I shall try and recall them as accurately as possible.

After college my boyfriend and I went our separate ways and I moved into an apartment that I could more easily afford on my own. It was one of those modern apartment complexes with paper-thin walls (and apparently floors), a cookie-cutter layout, and minimal landscaping. Despite their bright white sterility, my rooms decorated up nicely and most of the other inhabitants of Greenfield Court were good, kind people. My only real complaint was my downstairs neighbor. The elderly man who lived…