The next morning Eric was escorted to his cell under strict watch after completing his three hour therapy session, with the same results as day one. Not a damn thing had changed in his behavior or his way of thinking. As they neared his cell he could smell an unusual stench to say the least. He couldn't quite describe it, but it made his nose curl in disgust. The guards stopped their march and followed Eric's lead, curlin...

He spat in the guard's face and managed to shove him to the ground before two more restrained him. While he struggled and thrashed violently, he slammed one man against the wall and the other against a filing cabinet. You'd think they would learn not to try and take advantage of him. He may be crazy, but he sure as hell didn't bat for the other team. The warden's voice boomed through the hallway and he could hear him stom...

Immortality. That was the reward, that was the promise, and he knew it was his. Soon he would live forever. Nobody would have taken it seriously. Nobody who thought rationally that is. He knew that should he have told anybody of this belief, then they would either have laughed at him, or politely made their excuses and left. Yet, he was convinced that it would happen, and soon he would no longer fear death. Kenneth Ambros...

Day One She smelled like strawberries. He didn't know if it was her shampoo or perfume or just some natural mysterious scent from her skin, but she smelled sweet and hugged him so hard that he could feel her heart racing against his own. And right before she pulled away he couldn't help but try to remember the last time someone had embraced him like this even though they were very familiar with one another. This was diffe...

As they drove away, the expression on their faces darkened and became serious. In the rear-view mirror, they watched as the Riordan country stately home slowly became smaller, until a turn on the path took it from their sight.  The party continued there, but other people had left, and some were getting ready to leave as Mr and Mrs Stockton approached the open gates to leave the estate.  “Why didn’t you stick up for me?” s...

One, two ... soon he'll be coming for you. There is a darkness with which we are becoming accustomed to, and it returns every once in a while whether we want it to return or not. No matter how often it comes, or how long it lasts, we never really get used to it at all, now do we?   Half-past six on the morning of Christmas Eve and Christine opens her eyes. Such an odd way to wake, just opening the eyes to stare at the dar...

What do weather people know? They predict the weather for a living and generally get it wrong more than they get it right. They have been predicting big snow in Castletown for the past four winters and no real amount of snow has stuck in that amount of time, well apart from the winter just gone that is. The winter before last it snowed for a couple of hours but it didn't last much more than that and when four days had pas...

Annie Nevins has been working as a nurse in the same hospital for almost six years and in those six years she had never come across anything particularly strange, unusual or out of the ordinary, well that was or is until right at the end of one shift in particular. Having made her way into an elevator so she could then make her way out of that hospital she had been working in for almost six years to then begin the journey...

Then for a dwelling place, far 'neath the earth crust, blasted great spaces they by their power, spaces apart from the children of men.  Surrounded them by forces and power,  shielded from harm they the Halls of the Dead.                                        - The Emerald Tablets of Thoth      I was once told by a friend that the desert was a terrible, unforgiving place. He wasn’t wrong.   In the end, though my pride as...

My name is Dominic Melvyn, and I am a criminal psychologist. Today, I am at a criminal medical institution where of five patients I was scheduled to meet, I have seen three of them. All the inmates are, I suppose insane. They are in here for their own good, kept away from society as they pose a danger. I am helping in their reformation, pointing them in the right direction until they are able to walk amongst the public as...

David Thompson was the type of person whose IQ was nowhere near three figures, who came across as someone who was not quite a simpleton, but oafish, who fell for any scam and con that came his way. Ask him the time, and he would stare at his watch for a while whilst he worked it out. Directions were also a problem when he knew where the place was. Yet, to this day, he always managed to be quite wealthy, and kept himself n...

My parents were on a business vacation and we children were not eager to accompany them. My father convinced me to stay in our cottage where we have been spending our summer since the beginning of first grade. The cottage was located in northern Sweden, in the middle of nowhere. Our nearest neighbour lived 40 minutes away and there was not much to do either. The wildlife was the only surroundings since the cottage was bui...

The basement didn’t show up on John’s radar until about a year after they had lived in the house, though other spots did, and much more quickly. His daughters took note of the upstairs hallway before they even moved in. Em said it felt weird. John felt it too, and even Alice, who did not put much faith in the supernatural, said she thought of the countless footsteps of previous lodgers and families who used to live here....

He was deep in thought, contemplating the dilemma before him. He walked back and forth, trying to figure out how he could light five fireworks without the first one exploding before he could light the fifth. These fireworks, or bangers, made in Japan, were not average bangers. Each one was like a miniature bomb. These ones were strapped around the head of Carl Gershan, who was tied to a chair, barely able to move, near a...

The girls had been getting along pretty well together in El’s room, El playing teacher, Em playing student (they always played the same roles without variance), but then Em had turned rebellious on her teacher and was threatening to not do her assignment until El shared some of her apple. Now they were fighting. John and Alice knew this because they were on the first floor of the house, in the family room, directly below...