There are eyes looking at you out of those pictures. The smiling perfect family in the unwrapped photo frame, the cheerful child beaming at her math homework on the math book, the laughing women running through a field of sunlight on that brochure you picked up. There are creatures that slide their souls into perfect images and live in a flattened world. They watch us, their perfect teeth gleaming in perfect smiles, their perfect eyes following our movements. And they lure us

The smell of tar was thick in the night air and the white floodlight cut harsh wedges of darkness on everything; the machines, the people, the curbs. Dave Porterfield sighed, planted his shovel on the ground and tried to wipe the sweat off his face with a hand that was already grimy. He looked at the half a mile of wrecked asphalt, ripped up benches, and crumbled masonry in front of them. He had a kind face, a lump of a nose and eyes that usually looked on the world with mild

My mother never turned the mattresses. That could have been just an odd housekeeping peccadillo if she weren’t the sole proprietor of a bed and breakfast. When I was thirteen, a guest mentioned it on the way out, “Hey, you could let your mother know those mattresses could stand to be turned or replaced or something. That thing had a ditch so deep I might as well have been sleeping in a coffin!” He laughed loudly and shut the door behind him, but his death-related simile made

Joy was used to having nightmares about her old bedroom; the blood on the floor, the window shattered, the wall buckling in. But for the first time in three months, she had a dream of a bedroom instead of a nightmare—of her bedroom, though she had never seen it before. She woke. Reality snapped back onto her like claws sinking into her chest. Her skin ached with the cold; the grimy quilt she clutched around her was doing little to stop the tremor in her limbs. A cold light

Gina had really wanted to be a therapist. It was admittedly not great to figure that out now, after losing her certification, her receptionist, her only wealthy client, and her professional reputation, but it was a starting place, she reminded herself, and we all need to start with small decisions to help us set big goals. The thing was, she really wanted to be a therapist, but she also wanted money and the things money could buy. Nice clothes, a good car, and an apartmen

“What are these pictures? Why do you have them? Do they mean something to you?” There was no answer from the teen girl sitting across from her and Gina had to restrain herself from visibly gritting her teeth. Just a teen girl , Gina said to herself, You’re the therapist, you’re in charge of the situation , but that teen girl couldn’t be more than five years younger than Gina, and it was hard not to react to her as a peer instead of a patient. The girl wore dark, tight cloth

This is a re-post for Christmas. I've been working on a larger project and haven't done as many short stories, but I've always been really pleased with this one, so I thought it was worth bringing out again. Percy Jones told lies. Not believable lies; those the other children could have forgiven, after all, a kid had to look out for himself, especially a weedy, bespectacled kid like Percy. Plus the elves who watched over them would frequently ignore an infraction earned in th

Once home, they separated to their houses, still wordless. But there, their experiences began to diverge. Dean sat with his family around...

You have to be careful about who you bring with you to rob a temple for treasure. Dean thought wistfully that it would have been nice to...

It should have been difficult for the boy to clutch his sheaf of new hire paperwork, run to keep up with Griffin, and still manage to...

Every night Rim dreamed of her parents—what even were parents? She didn’t know, but they were clearly nightmares since they looked just...

The gate over Alice’s flower garden is still there, and the cheerful little hand-painted sign proclaiming “Welcome All!” is there, too,...

He was aware, judging by the redness of her face and the way the tip of her hat was trembling with suppressed rage, that he should stop....

I have recently been published in an anthology of short fiction! You can buy the book or the ebook here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8HS...

First of all, you should know that a haunted house can’t choose to be a haunted house. A house has to reflect the character of the people...

Sometimes she would sneak out of her rooms in the early morning, when the fog was lifting off the gardens, and find the door in the far...