Miranda’s knees were locked and there was a slight tremble in her legs. Despite the cool weather, she felt sweat break out onto her back the moment they stepped into the clearing. The cold snap had settled in a few days ago. Fall was coming. This time of year seemed to ignite a sense of adventure in the kids in her neighborhood. Herself included. How else could she explain standing at the edge of Evergreen Woods, or as th...

My sister Sally and I stood in our grandmother’s darkening living room staring at the wall. Staring at the painting to be exact. The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough or as I referred to it Nightmare Fuel. Our mother used to send us to our grandmother Rose’s house every summer. We loved our grandmother, but we hated that painting. It hung above the TV directly across from the couch and the two chairs that bookended it. Ther...

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...

I watched my copper mailbox dangle from the door of my bar through the blurs of my windshield wipers. The rubber gripped the glass, not a forgotten drop or streak. They were new. The car was new. The mailbox was rusted and tarnished.      It was Sunday, I’d just gotten out of one of those fancy Catholic Cathedrals I’d found in inner-city Moscow,  and as I trudged through the rain, I begged God that the mailbox be empty. I...

u·to·pi·ayooˈtōpēə/NounAn imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect   Lines. Entry 1)  I should not be writing, or feeling. They tell me that numbness is normal. They imagined the signs, they envisioned the nightmares, and they feared the potential credibility that lay within the pages. More important than their future, they feared their imagination. What beasts, what society, what ideas could they...

She awoke and was sleep walkingHer and her American Girl dollWhat she saw was rather shockingThere was blood dripping from the wallsWhose blood was it she thoughtHer mom and dad alive in bedShe was scared and distraughtPerhaps she had hit her headWas this just her in a dreamThe blood perhaps not thereWas it not really how it seemedThis was probably just a nightmareShe closed her eyes Went back to her bedroomShe didn't wan...

"A mental asylum!" Sam's eyes grew wide and concerned at the thought of my new job offer. "Annie! You said no of course?""No, I took the job.""Annie! So you are as crazy as you look," he teased. Sam lightly nudged my arm and my heart leapt. I couldn't help it. Sam was one of the most beautiful people I had ever met. There was something about him. His aura was warm like there was a hearth deep inside of him always ablaze."...

Social media. It’s a strange place.A place where an apology can result in being blocked by a so-called friend. Where mention of something proposed an ocean away can trigger an overreaction so extreme that a guy who always seemed nice and normal now comes across as a complete nutcase. Where folks who get together in person for coffee every week can have such a heated disagreement that they end their longstanding friendship...

And then I shot up from bed. The weather is acting up. I had a bad dream, but what was it? I can’t remember. . . Wait, where is she? Is she okay? I have to check up on her. I don’t know why, but I think she’s in danger! This is what the boy thought to himself as he awoken from an unpleasant slumber, only to be confronted with these feelings of concern and uncertainty. The boy gets up from his bed. He sees that it is dark...

When we first moved into our new home, we saw we had endless woods out back. It looked so magical, like a fairytale. It drew me in immediately, but I was warned not to come into these woods. I was told repeatedly, they are just too dangerous. “Promise me, my sweet daughter, don’t go into those woods,” my mumma would plead with me, I promised her, saying what she wanted to hear. Daddy would beg me, “don’t go into the woods...

It was a cold, lonely Friday night in a small town in Indiana (Friday the thirteenth, to be exact). The wind howled with a cry like an anguished wolf, and made the bare limbs of the trees tremble like feverish invalids. It was the kind of night that foreshadowed a chilling fate. Alissa Sawyer was lying in her snug, cozy bed, safe from the elements that raged outside. She was having an unusual bout of insomnia, and all her...

Mallen's Bridge irishmik60 Tis a little known fact that there are literally hundreds of stone circles and mounds throughout the British Isles. Stonehenge being by far the most famous. Their arches and monolithic structures have astounded mankind from earliest recorded history. Some say space travelers built them thousands of years ago. To others, they they became the place of worship and strange doings of Druids. Yet earl...

In June 2010 a freak fire gutted a 16th Century farmhouse in Hampshire. During the renovation following the disaster the owners found, concealed beneath the floorboards, the diary of one Joseph Mortimer; a thirty-seven year old land owner of modest holdings, who died in 1583. The details of his fate are vague and his body was never found. Below is presented the final entry. The language has been updated somewhat, but an e...