Garret was faceless in the mirror. The glare from the ceiling light reflected off the smooth surface, eliminating his features, replacing them with a blank, searing white. No matter how he positioned himself, Garret couldn’t get a glimpse of his face. It was as if the glass in front of him were absorbing his essence.

“I know you’re watching me,” Garret said aloud, directing his words to the mirro...

May 25

Jeremy,

I spoke with Alison today. She seems to be moving past the debacle at Spinster, but I don't want to make any assumptions. One month may sound long, but the mind has a way of warping time. Hours pass like minutes, months like days.

Your letter dated May 12th feels like it arrived just yesterday. How are Eliza and the baby doing? Have you chosen a name for your handsome son yet? His...

It was really too bad that humans had such a knack for storytelling. With just their words, they could make anything sound as if it were the most precious, most unobtainable thing in the universe. Often, these exaggerations would be harmless: you would only end up buying a house or a car, or marrying someone you met online and had only met three months ago.

It became worse when humans began to te...

[Currently reading Hell House by Richard Matheson]

Edith Barrett was a haunted person. When she escaped Hell House, she felt the specters following in her wake—wisps of the tortured, demented, and lonely. Donning masks of comedy and tragedy, their ghostly laughter and lament formed an ever-clinking chain that restrained Edith through her daily existence.

She thought a cruise to a distant island ...

Andrea went back down the stairs, her dejected footfalls heavy on the hollow steps. As she neared the bottom, she heard a slow, ominous creak coming from the first floor hallway. Clutching the banister, she slowly turned toward the sound and noticed a patch of light growing wider, illuminating the dark hallway. She approached the light, which was emanating from a small niche between the wall and t...

The dainty tinkle of the bell staggers across the large expanse of foyer and I look up and immediately think _another infestation_.

There are four of you and you all look like you don’t belong here. Because you can’t read or, if you do, you only read hardbound and only the first few pages. So you can post pictures of your _aesthetic_ books and brag _this is what I’m reading now #bookworm_.

You’r...

Amelia approached the jagged rocks that were pointed at the sky like gargantuan spikes. They slanted away from a shallow crater in the mountain rock, as if a small meteor had blasted into the ground around which they congregated.

The air about them held a welcome warmth; Amelia had been traversing the cold forest for days with only a light coat to protect her from the wind, rain, and icy air. Sni...

Kevin was sweltering in his underwear. His ass was pressed against the rough wood of the pier at Lunar Lake, where he decided to take a swim after he got home from work.

“God the night is fucking bleak,” he muttered as he hopped into the lake, sinking deep before kicking himself to the surface. The water did nothing to cool him—it was warm from the moonlight, and when his head pierced back up thr...

_Dead_.

That was the first thought that came into Luisa’s mind when she saw the woman sprawled on the bed.

The room was bathed in an unnatural red light that made it difficult to see. Nevertheless, the dark smears on the woman’s thighs, the crimson handprints on her back, were unmistakable.

_Blood_. Luisa’s second thought.

Truthfully, she couldn’t believe she had worked here twenty years as a ...

_Forty-nine beakers. Forty-nine freaking beakers._

Natasha paced the lab, head shaking incessantly.

_This isn't right. This isn't. Right._

Spinning to face the storage shelves, she counted again.

_... forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-fucking-nine._

She balled her fists and growled in frustration.

_There should be fifty here. Where's the other one?_

Suddenly, a terrible thought. What about th...