#locations

“Wanna hear about the weirdest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen in the ocean?” Harvey, the old salt who lived at Neptune’s Net, asked me one night. “Buy me a sip of Cutty Sark, and I’ll tell you something only a handful of people have ever heard, and all of them are dead,” he said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. His gravelly voice gave the ancient mariner a gravitas you wouldn’t expect from a drunk at the end of the bar.

You open your eyes, but there isn’t anything to see. It’s all blank- whether its white, or black, it doesn’t matter. But then it does- a blinding light fills your eyes, and you squint away. When you open them again, you’re in a building. No, not a building- a train. The windows show the scenery outside moving at such a speed that you can’t even tell what you’re passing by. The interior is simple but sophisticated- mostly white, with a few booths set up against the left wall.

A wooden totem looms in the corner, its faces twisted and hungry in the lantern light. Every year, Father carves a new one—works of pride that terrify me, though I’d never say so. “Elam,” he calls, eyes on his work, “pass me the chisel.” It’s heavier than I expect, but light in his hands. He carves with masterful ease. “Want to try?”

1934 was a different time. Not just in Savannah, Georgia but in America. We didn't have many luxuries back then. Or much optimism, for that matter. Not when we were in the midst of The Great Depression.

I needed the job. Without a bachelor's degree, my previous nursing work hadn't paid much, certainly not enough for me and my four-year-old son Julian to get by. So yeah, life as a single Black mother wasn't easy. Especially considering I was only twenty-three.

My parents died in a car crash when I was fourteen. Don't feel bad for me or anything. I've made my peace with that years ago. Life with them was never great, but I do miss them. It's just that if they taught me one thing it's to not sit around wallowing in self-pity. I just wish they hadn't sent me to live with my Aunt Louise.

After moving to a small town in southern Michigan I got a job as a cashier in the local store. After work I would walk home to my small house and order a small pizza. This was my routine for two weeks when things took a strange turn. I called in my usual order to the pizzeria when a new voice, one I hadn't heard before answer the phone and told me "The usual? No problem. I'll deliver it in less than five minutes."

I won’t say I was excited to be there. Excited is the wrong word to use when visiting such a dark piece of history, a place where so many souls passed. I had been granted unprecedented access to the camps where the Nazis had committed horrible atrocities. As a historian, I was excited, but as a human being, I felt an unexpected lump of dread mixed with the vague feeling of disgust.

Darkness. Not a peep in the void. Then shapes, sounds, blurred and distorted, but growing into something more tangible. I feel my feet on the floor and my arms by my sides. My mouth is dry, and my breath comes to me in short gasps. Tasteful piano music soothes my aching brain, though I see no piano. I blink the haziness away and take in my surroundings, realising with moderate shock that I’m in my household ballroom.

“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.

I'm glad you were able to return. Most would have walked away, chuckling to themselves at the notions I shared with you last time. It takes a special kind of obsession to ask questions and return, inquisitive and demanding. Well if you want more answers, this old man is going to need more libation. After all in this world, everything has a price. Including this conversation. I want your full birth name. Last time? That was advertising. You want my story, I want your name. What I intend to do…

I used to go diving a lot. Not so much anymore, but a couple years ago I was really into it, had my license and everything. It’s really beautiful down there: the pale patterned sand, the water washing away the distance like a blue mist, and flashes of the brightest colors you’ve ever seen as some fish darts into view. I’ve done my share of exploring wrecks and grottoes, but my favorite thing to do is hover right where the shelf plunges into the deep. You get the greatest dynamics there as…

I owed it to him, I suppose. He was my best friend, after all, and he had always been there for me when I was in trouble. Six months ago, Mike's uncle had died after a year or so of illness. Mike took the news hard; the man had been like a father to him. It had taken him those six months to build up the courage to head round to his uncles old place in the country, and get his affairs sorted out.

I was never a big fan of school. I didn’t like most of my classes in high school, barely had any real friends, and absolutely despised waking up at 5:00 a.m. Myself and my neighbor, Kelly, would get in my car around 5:45 and head to school. Before you ask, Kelly and I had a short fling when she had first moved in next door, but we just weren’t a match. Anyway, living in the backwoods in Geauga County, Ohio, we took the back roads. There isn’t much outside of main roads out here, but there were…

During a period from 1946-1952, in a small town in western Germany, the residents heard what resembled a six-gun salute on the fifteenth of March every year. Some residents made frequent trips into the surrounding hills in hopes of finding the source of the noise, but to no avail. The townsfolk eventually coined the area as “Gunpowder Hill.” The children of the town even created a legend about it, stating that soldiers, who in that time were missing but presumed dead, had been killed in an…

Winter break!

A dream of pale, flesh colored thread. I blinked back the darkness encompassing my vision, revealing again the dusty room we had been biding our time in. I must've fallen asleep, and the Sun was now dead, the window revealing night blanketed over the countryside. The moonlight casted shadows of corpses of forests and dead verdure, the sheets of snow reflecting the light with a strange sheen.

We all have that one story, don't we? The one you grow up thinking about, but never actually grow the balls to tell anyone. Well this is my story. I don't know what I'm hoping to accomplish by telling you. Maybe I'm looking for someone to tell me that I'm not insane, or maybe once I put it on paper it will...Hell, I don't know. Just someone read this...just please.

Some neighborhood kids and I are going to commit a felony tonight, but it's no big deal. We've been committing a felony for almost two weeks now. We've developed a new pastime, and this all began when Cody Winters told us about the Railroad Game. This is the type of shit that happens when you live in a quaint suburb, filled with kids and teenagers that have nothing better to do.