#reality

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.

When you hear of crime writers, you think of people like Michael Connelly, or Rick Castle. Those guys are schmucks compared to me. The same plotlines rehashed over and over and repackaged into new covers with slightly more entertaining titles each time. You see, with me, everything I put in the pages of my books are legitimate. Now, I don’t just look up old crimes on the Internet and try to make them more appealing to the modern reader. No, that’s too simple. I make the crimes.

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.

In the summer of 1996, the town of Newport Bay was struck by an odd and gristly phenomenon. Earlier that year, the employees of a small animal shelter had been found mauled and eaten, by what appeared to be a rather large animal. The location and severity of the wounds added to the already powerful feelings of dread, fear and paranoia the residents were experiencing. Being eaten alive is often thought to be one of the worst ways to go, and while everyone has their own opinions on the worst ways…

The trip was fun. From what we could remember at least. Olivia and I had made the weekend trip down to St. Augustine, Florida with her younger brother John. The four hour drive from Albany, Georgia to one of America’s oldest cities was long and boring. The four-lane highways we traveled along were barren and isolated, surrounded by nothing but miles of impenetrable forest save for the occasional shithole rest stop.

“That’s my childhood house.” I wasn’t turning down the street I grew up in. I wasn’t standing near the large oak in the front yard of the house where I’d lost all my baby teeth. I wasn’t sitting inside the kitchen, where, on my fifteenth birthday, I accidentally dropped the cake my mom had baked, which made my family laugh so hard that we shed tears. No. I was holding an oil painting at a Goodwill on the other side of the country. “That can’t be possible,” my husband said.

“This is still dumb,” says George.  He holds up the stack of note-cards, squints at them through the flicker of the firelight.  “I mean, it’s real dumb.” Our campfire has started to burn low in the gathering dark, and the embers swirl up and away in a sudden gust of autumn wind.  I shiver, and I pause the video I’m recording long enough to pick up another log.

In 1998 I got a new teaching job in a new town. To save money I moved into a small house that was for rent. My roommate, Claire, was nice enough and the two of us got along easily. I moved in and found my room. While unpacking I came across an old framed photograph. Three men dressed as hospital orderlies were sitting together in the living room of the house. These three men had once lived in the house I was now renting with Claire. I didn't want to throw away the photograph, it didn't…

This Is How You Teach a Child to Die Slowly. "I exist in two places: here, and where you left me." — Margaret At wood. • There it goes again. It starts with a frightening silence. Then… slam! "Jesus!" my mother screams, like she's just realized how close she is to actually meeting Him. We run again. My brothers dive under the bed. My sister clings to my mom, as though she's thinking "maybe this time, she'd actually go, and I can go with her."

When I was a kid I used to play down by the creek that was behind my house. I'd throw rocks, play with plastic army men, make little houses out of mud and sticks having them sink into the creek. On a particular hot day in July when I was about nine I was sitting by the edge of the creek. I had my feet in the water trying to cool down as the day was unbearably humid. I had my eyes closed and didn't hear her walk up. "Hello" I heard an older voice say. I open my eyes and see a thin middle aged…

3:47 pm. August 4th, 1973. My name is Kevin Matthews. I am at the Matthews Lakeside cabin in Black Rock Park which I received in my dad's will. I'm writing this to document my odd findings of my family's lakehouse.

When I was young, we were left unattended. My friends and I rode our bikes deep into the fields and returned at our leisure. We rarely played in the same location and often ditched it after a few days. With each new adventure, we drifted further from civilization, and one day, we struck gold, figuratively speaking of course.

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:

Ever since I was a boy, I have always loved the woods. Well, had might be better word, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As a child, I lived in a house right next to a heavily wooded area. Every day, I would go out into the woods with my friends. We covered nearly every inch of those woods. Hiking, camping, climbing trees, you name it. The woods were our playground and we controlled them. Or so we thought....

This is a game where the participants get the chance to meet the twin they've never known in life. It's a simple game to play, but the repercussions can overwhelming. The twin is a reflection of who you really are, not who you pretend to be. If you're a genuinely good person your twin encounter will be pleasant and gratifying. But if you're a bad person, someone who bullies, lies, steals, cheats, manipulates or hurts other people, then your experience will be dark and painful.

-11/8/12 -

I'll never forget the summer of 1998, or the encounters I shared with my classmates. When I was ten years old, just two weeks into the beginning of the school year, the entire fifth grade was taken on a special week-long camping trip to 'Camp High Hope' in Indiana. Being ten years old, the idea of spending a week away from home, without any parents or siblings, just friends and the other kids from school, was one of the coolest experiences you could ever hope for as a child.

I have never been as happy as I was on my eighth birthday. My mother handed me a heavily wrapped present containing my very first gameboy and a mint Pokémon Gold edition.

I live in South London in a third floor flat in a five story building, two floors above, two floors below. Being that I live in London I’m used to seeing people act drunk, crazy or violent; Especially at night when the nutters come out. But what I experienced two nights ago shook me to this very moment, so I feel I have to write it down in case my situation becomes more weird than it already is. Why did he choose my door!?

A few months ago a friend of mine, who is an up-and-coming nature photographer, decided to spend a day and night alone in the woods outside of our town. She wanted to get photos of the woods and wildlife as naturally as she could for her portfolio. She wasn’t afraid of being alone, as she had camped by herself many times before.