My town had a homecoming parade for me. Not so much a parade as a fair. And not so much for me as for the whole town. Scheduled regularly. Every other week in the summer. Nobody missed me coming home, except Jake, my best friend from high school. The town thought my muscles could be put to better use working here. My parents disowned me the moment I set foot out of our borders. Jake bucked the trend even though he was timid. That was one of the reasons he didn’t sign up for the military, the other being that he was a bit ofRead More →

I sniffed the air and wrinkled my nose, rolling up my window. Farms were the worst place to work. Hated going to them, hated apple picking, hated everything about them except the food that eventually got to my mouth. I took a look at the fence as I drove up the long driveway. It was broken right through the middle, lots of chunks splintered about. I smiled, already putting pieces together. Janice, the proprietor of this establishment, came out to meet me as I pulled up and stepped out of my van into the fetid night air. Her white hair spoke one story, while herRead More →

School the next day was different, brighter somehow. I felt like running the track a hundred times, or eating ten pounds of hamburgers. Life was pretty good, at least until I actually got there. I seized up, feeling the anxiety of being around people well up inside me and a cold sweat begin to form. “Don’t worry about them,” Jeremy said by my side. “You can do this.” “Can they see you? Oh god I’m talking to a cat in school,” I grumbled to myself. “They cannot see me if I don’t want them to. And your words to me won’t be heard aloud, it’sRead More →

I don’t mean to say I literally danced with demons, but I do make the occasional contract with them for my immortal soul. It wasn’t until the second summoning that I realized demon’s don’t talk with each other much, or their interns, or whoever they used to make these binding legal agreements. Long story short, you can make quite a number of demonic contracts with a single soul. I’m sure there’s a clause in there about this sort of thing, or maybe I’m the first person to make multiple contracts. I guess I’ll find out when I’m dead. Speaking of which, that’s what I wasRead More →

Harold rested in his recliner, shifting uneasily. The pigeons were back. He watched them through half-open curtains. The pigeons roosted underneath his overhang and tarps on his vine garden, probably drawn by crumbs from all those kids playing across the street at the playground. He turned up the TV louder, hoping to scare them away with the old western gunshots. The birds shuffled but did not fly away. He loathed the bird droppings all over his patio and walkway. He detested their ruffling of feathers at night. He despised their cooing in the morning. He hated everything about those flea-ridden rat birds. “You’re a poorRead More →

Did you ever feel the need to jump off a high place and end your life? At 18, I stood near the edge of my college building. Not on the edge, I didn’t want to attract attention, and it was late at night. I just wanted it to be over, to let the night take my pain and sight away. “If you don’t jump now, you’ll never lead a normal life again,” said a voice from behind me. I started, looking around and seeing nobody. The door still remained shut and jammed in case someone came up. “I’m Jeremy Monroe,” the British sounding voice saidRead More →

I was out of liquor. My entire house was out of liquor, and I was on my way down to the bar. I didn’t dare, especially in my drunken stupor, take the longer drive all the way to the store. I was likely to be denied again. The trip was only about a mile, down a bluff with a beautiful stream. My wife and I used to go walking along a path that descended into the gully along the road. It didn’t have any streetlights on it, but I could drive it with my eyes shut. They were doing some road work, well, the constructionRead More →

I live in the northern mountains of the Adirondacks, a wilderness so vast that it takes up the majority of New York state (although most people think New York as only the city). It is so utterly untouched in most areas that there are no trails or roads to travel to get to the lost places between the hills. In such a place lay the Featherburnt Theater, a small outdoor theater that ran for nearly 50 years before being shut down. It was rumored that the theater had shut down because of the death of the main actress, a hippy kind of girl who wasRead More →

My fellows in the city rejected me, whether out of fear, or the fact we’re all loners by nature. “Don’t you touch me!” the homeless man screamed at me, “Don’t touch my stuff!” The area where I was in was less than appealing. This particular Chicago winter wasn’t harsh, but it wasn’t pleasant. The freezing necessitated that I find a warm place or get a hotel. Hotels have less exits than you might think– a story for another time. The man tottered onward, content I wasn’t going to steal his junk. He’d probably stab me in the throat for my laptop if he knew IRead More →