#locations

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.

I lived in an old cabin in the middle of the forest, a place far from people and noise, which was exactly what I longed for. I didn't like being among people or hearing loud voices, so I only went to town to buy food and a few supplies, then I'd return straight to my quiet cabin. Solitude comforted me, and I found everything I needed in the embrace of nature.

“Jalen, you sell drugs?” “What? No.” “Family sell drugs?” I laughed. “You for real right now?” His stoic face answered for him. “Not that it should matter, but I don’t really have a family. So, no, they aren’t kingpins in the drug game.” “Consider yourself lucky. No family is the way to go. No hassles. No buying gifts for ungrateful nieces and nephews who think just because you own a coupla properties, you’re Diamond Jim Brady. Gives me heartburn just thinkin’ about it.”

I still have the book.  And, reluctant as I am to share it with anybody, I can see no other way. Very well, then. This is how it begins: The Knights are lined up all the way down the hall To be blessed by the Queen and the King, With their shields and their sigils and armor and guns And their magical-gagical rings! - They’ve come from afar and they’ve come from a-near To kneel down and mount up and fight, They’re strong and they’re tall and they’re brave one and all –

My friends and I used to do a lot of geocaching after our senior year in high school. For those who don’t know what geocaching is, it’s essentially a worldwide scavenger hunt. People will select sites and conceal a “geo-cache” somewhere unobtrusive, then post GPS coordinates on geocaching websites where other searchers can download the cords and locate the cache. Usually, people who have found the object (often it’s a chest or something hollow) will leave a note or small personal memento for…

The nonstop pitter-patter of the cold rain against my bedroom window set the mood. I found myself rubbing my eyes, unable to follow the now swaying lines. My book was a jumbled mess of dyslexic text. I spent another minute trying to decipher the words, but my exhausted state of mind could not put meaning to them. I folded the top right corner of the page and gingerly placed Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, back on the windowsill.

I would like to start this story by saying that Ray was great. A perfect gentleman and consummate professional. He didn't send a single untoward word or glance in my direction the entire time we were together. Even when things got scary, he put my safety first. And in spite of everything that happened to us, we're already talking about working together again.

A beautiful August afternoon, with its gorgeously blazing sun, encouraged them to hit the road and abandon the comfort of their couches and armchairs. Out of the corner of his eye, Garreth admired the lovely surroundings of Woodblacke. • It's so beautiful here! - he said aloud to his travelling companions. Nick nodded in agreement. Susan had just woken up and began her ritual of stretching in the back seat. • We're almost there, just a few hundred metres more and we'll be at our destination…

The streets, roads and dusty lanes of Colombia have been fertile territory for myths and legends since before the arrival of the Spaniards. Tales of ‘La Patasola’, a one-legged wailing banshee that forever sought her child, and of ‘El Duende’, a backwards-footed goblin that led travelers to their doom, nibbled at the corners of journeymen’s ease for centuries. Although these stories mainly troubled those living in or passing through rural areas, the growth of cities brought with it a new breed…

I'm sure you've heard of the Ronald McDonald House charity. They provide housing for families of sick kids when they're in the hospital. Seems pretty innocent, right? Well, there's another side to the charity. There's another type of Ronald McDonald House, one that not many people know about. There's one in most big cities. You won't find it by looking for it. It doesn't have an address. It doesn't have a sign above the door. It doesn't even have windows.

I must have been six or seven when I lived in Lebanon. The country was ravaged by war at the time, and murders were common and frequent. I remember during a particularly vicious era, when the bombings rarely stopped, I would stay at home sitting in front of my television watching a very, very strange show.

The bell rang and I lifted myself from my seat and headed out of second period. My back was killing me from sitting in the hard, plastic chair for the past hour and a half; I was ready to get out of there.

"Lady Valtin! Lady Rudova!" Béla, who had dozed on the steps of the gazebo, lifted his head and mustered a lazy bark toward the path. An elderly man, wearing a messenger's garb, stood past the bed of daffodils and looked around in confusion. The presence of my large hound didn't seem to concern him, or perhaps he sensed that Béla was not in the mood to cause any trouble on such a nice day.

I couldn’t take the calls any more. I just couldn’t take knowing. There was nothing I could do to stop them from coming through; I had to put an end to it.

I was so excited. I hadn't ever really gone camping before, so the fact that one of my friends asked me to go with him was amazing in and of itself. He made plans for five other guys to join us as well. The plan was to leave right after classes on Friday evening and drive up to an old abandoned farmhouse, which, in Kansas, aren't too uncommon. This one was special, though, or so I was told by Riley, my friend that had invited me. He said not only was the house quite large and well held…

In the heart of the city stands an abandoned bakery. It is a high, sprawling complex of brick and granite, and its great smokestack still stands watch over the loading bays where fleets of gleaming trucks once began their journeys to supermarkets across New England.

I didn’t want to leave Miller County High School. I didn’t want to leave my friends and essentially leave my whole social life in Colquitt, Georgia behind. My stepdad got a new job in Columbus, Georgia. I guess the pay was great, the new house amazing. So naturally my mom talked my younger brother Jimmy and I into the move. She had a new job as a middle school secretary already lined up too so neither my brother nor I had a choice really.

I recovered from a coma I had a while back; I can’t recall the date, but I was driving back from a convenience store for groceries, and one of the overhead cables blew out and hit my vehicle, and then I woke up; it was somewhere like my own home but not really.

The doctor told me it was a figment of my imagination. A hallucination. A phantom limb. Cut off, but the ghost of a feeling remains. The doctor tutted and prescribed me a different pill. I've lost count of how many pills I've tried. There was the yellow one. And the red and white capsule. And the green one. They have succeeded in giving me incontinence, nausea and hair loss. But they haven't taken my girl away.

It all began when our grandfather died.