#reality

I jumped and dropped my paint brush when I heard the front door slam shut. My nerves were immediately settled when I heard the familiar voice of my husband. “I’m home!” My painting could wait. I smiled and made a beeline to the front door. He wasn’t supposed to be back from his work trip till tomorrow. “You usually text me when you’re getting home early,” I commented as I went in for a hug. “I lost my phone. I’ll have to go get a new one tomorrow,” he replied.

Two months ago, I almost died. When you imagine your death, most people think they're gonna go peacefully in their sleep at a ripe old age. Very few imagine you'll die because you slipped in an oil puddle in your driveway and cracked your skull on the cement. That's what happened to me, though. My car, an aging beater I had kept for longer than any rational person would have, nearly took me out before I had a chance to sell it. The betrayal cut me deep.

I’m closing up for the night when I get the call: Aunt Cynthia’s been in a car accident, a bad one.  Her back’s broken.  Uncle Dan’s disabled too, so he’s reluctantly asking everyone in the family to come out and help if they can. I can. The next day I cash in my vacation time, load up my head-turning 2009 Chevy Impala, and hit the road on a cross-country trip from New Hampshire to Uncle Dan’s place out near Vegas.  I don’t like flying.

I remember when I first woke up here just a couple of weeks ago. It’s probably not like any place you’ve ever seen. Not that it matters anymore, now that I'm stuck here. You see, for the past few weeks, I've been stuck in some sort of hell. Because I have found myself trapped. Trapped in a never-ending expanse of cardboard. I don't know if I'm alone here or not; I'm mostly writing this so my mind has something to do. Hell, I don't know if I’ll even get out of here, wherever this place is.

“Come play with me.” That line… it’s a cliché for the horror genre, is it not? You all know what I mean, the unsettling apparition of a child, or maybe just the voice, beckoning to you. What is it about children that gives them the ability to be so damn creepy? Maybe… maybe it’s the fact that, generally speaking, children are helpless and anyone with a nurturing side to their personality wants to help them and care for them. I mean, if any one of us saw a child in trouble, I’m sure we’d rush to…

The following story was originally posted across 8 different installments spanning the months from October to November of 2017. They describe the true events that occurred at a now infamous small town gas station. PART ONE

We didn’t have much to do. Not in Cairo, Georgia anyway. That’s Cairo pronounced with a ‘k’. Kay-Row. Not like the one in Egypt. Instead of pyramids, we had our beloved Cairo High Syrupmakers. But besides those Friday Night Lights, we didn’t have jack shit to be honest. Just an old theater and a museum downtown. There wasn’t much us twelve-year-olds could do even this close to Halloween.

The moment the air dropped, everything went haywire. It felt like the room got smaller by the second as people dragged in empty breaths. A woman in diamonds tried to fan herself with a napkin and started crying when it ripped. The man beside her, in a bright velvet suit, clawed at his shirt until all the buttons flew off.

The warnings first came through on social media. It was a fairly ordinary Sunday morning as I sat behind the intriguing screen of my computer. For some many hours I had been checking my feed on Facebook, when an article caught my eye. Now, I'm not some sucker who gets drawn to obviously fake messages spawned by trolls online, but hey, it was Sunday and I was bored. One of my friends had shared an article entitled 'The end', and if I had half my wits about me then I wouldn't have even…

For my niece's sixth birthday I bought her a Barbie doll. She loved dolls and stuffed animals, and loved playing pretend with them even more. Whenever I stopped by my sister's house I could always hear my niece playing with her toys, speaking to them as if she was having a wonderful conversation and would sometimes make her dolls talk back.

A hard copy of the following document was discovered in a disused office suite on the outskirts of Manchester, New Hampshire. Extensive research has so far failed to turn up any information about the former tenants or the provenance of the “report”.  The investigation continues. – A. A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This after-action report recommends the complete and immediate abandonment of high-value target SODA BOTTLE despite the costs to be incurred by the Organization as a result. BACKGROUND

“Dude, SHUT UP!” “What?” “Yeah, he’s right so please shut up. You’ve been telling the same exact setup, it is always something like someone just hunting a guy down and then everybody dying. Be original for once.” My friend, let’s call her Lucy, said to Jake. I threw my head back and laughed as I put the melted marshmallow inside the s'mores, broke chocolate bars, and slid them inside of the graham crackers.

"I heard birds singing outside. I didn't know birds still came here." "It is a beautiful day to be alive." — Unknown ... I wake to warm light slanting through the curtains. The air smells of toasted bread and coffee, and in the distance, I hear my mother humming a familiar tune, soft, gentle, but off-key. It sounds like she's humming with her mouth closed.

“I was fourteen at the time. I and my friend Leo Carper went to the Grizzly Rocks,” the storyteller hesitated as he stumbled on a thought, then continued: “I should have put it a different way, so I correct the error. Leo should have come first: of the two of us, he was the major figure, as it were. Daredevil is about him. Ringleader and photographer par excellence,” the storyteller paused and could not go on for a few minutes as he rode out his overwhelming feelings. “I thought back to his…

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we had succumbed to the glorious embrace of…

I have a fear of heights. My fear is... quite recent and it’s only affected me now. I’m sure that by the end of my little story you’ll find my new found fear quite rational. When I was younger I would love to shimmy up trees or climb up small hills. I liked to explore outside a lot.

"The last few nurses we've hired have all flaked on me," Jim said with an exhausted sigh. "Please tell me you don't plan on flaking."

"I had a weird dream last night." "A really. Weird. Dream..." ------ My name is _______. I'm a good guy I think. And I like good people. That's pretty much my sole criteria for deciding if I want to hang out with someone. And I pride myself in my ability to tell good people. Once I decide you're good people, we’re good. Friends for life.

Someone asked me, “Who are you?” I answered quickly, “I’m glory.” But they smiled. They looked into my eyes, not kindly. “No,” they said, “Who are you?” The question didn’t leave. It followed me home, sat at the edge of my bed. Who am I? Who is glory? I try to think. A depressed soul? Too easy. A tired one? That’s just the surface. Glory. Glory. Glory. I’m limited by my problems, That I can't see past them. Glory. Glory. Glory. Say it enough times,

Another bullshit Friday night. That was all it was. I was back home from the college dorms at Georgia Southwestern State University and back home in Albany, Georgia for the summer. The June heat was torture. My thirst further increased by the heat and the constant loneliness. At nineteen, I had no money, no girlfriend, no friends for comfort to go clubbing with, and needless to say, I didn’t have a fake I.D. to buy booze for these most lonely nights.