The tenor for the trip was set when the two mild, innocent-looking Midwestern girls got up from their seats on the Greyhound, a few hours before it was set to arrive in New Orleans, and went into the tiny bathroom at the back of the bus together. They emerged an hour later looking hot: tube tops and frilly skirts, full make-up, glitter, and curled hair, ready for New Orleans. This was Mardi Gras, folks. I was, at the time...

The lake called him from uncertain dreams at dawn. Today was the day. He awoke. Frost covered the edges of the windows. Through the clear glass at the center of the pane he saw the snow still blowing hard. Its vehemence contrasted sharply with the warm calm of the bedroom. He kissed his wife as she lay sleeping, petted the cat, then slipped out of bed as quietly as he could. The cat joined him as he put on his slippers, p...

My big brother Jon packed a snowball with mittened hands. “It’s fake.” “What’s fake?” I knew what he was about to say. Sometimes when it’s your brother you just have to listen. He threw the snowball at me. “The snow. Fake. Made of plastic.” He started making another snowball. I wondered how much he’d had to drink. I hadn’t seen many bottles, but sometimes he hid the bottles. He’d been going downhill since his wife left hi...

My neighbors, I imagine, know me as that guy who stands in the middle of the street for no apparent reason. Is he okay? they probably wonder. Perhaps someone should call 911 Okay. It’s a little embarrassing, but I’ll take the hit Trees block our windows; I need to leave these walls to look at clouds, the moon, a starry night Things that I can’t see from inside my house. I stand in the middle of the cracked asphalt and fee...

Birdie’s son left in the Spring. She rarely saw him in that last six months he’d lived there anyway. He'd worked full time at Domino’s, came home after midnight, went straight into his room in the basement. She heard the TV. She heard the trips to the fridge for food. Occasionally she’d hear a friend of his come in with him, play video games for a couple hours, leave. She listened from her bedroom on the second floor. Aft...

“I fucking hate magpies,” said Tony, passing the pack of cigarettes to his friends gathered around him in the dark of the basement. “They’re mean,” said Bobby, as he took a cigarette and passed it down the line. “I hate the way they swoop. They’re scary.” “Ooh, Bobby’s scared of birds,” said Kyle, receiving the pack and pulling out a cigarette. “Scared the little birds are gonna poke at his little head.” “Stop it, Kyle.”...

To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, bluejeans, and a red hoodie. Only she heard the whirring servos, the soft click of gears, the hum of electronics. Only she knew who she really was. “Come on,” said the boy with the gun. “Five high, six die. Earn it.” He handed her the gun. Her frail, all-too-human finger curled around the trigger. This wasn’t happening to her. This wasn’t her life....

My grandmother tried to kill me in my crib when I was two months old. She’s dead now. Did I kill her? I don’t know. It’s not a simple question, and there are no simple answers. All I remember is being covered in blood, her blood, as I lay in my crib. # I never met my father. He was a passing fancy, my mother told me. Someone to keep her loneliness at bay. I never met him, but I’ve seen him, swimming in my underwater dream...

“It’s all lies,” Seth told us, as he passed the joint to Cam. “The government will never tell you anything important.” Seth and Cam and Kyle huddled in the shadows of Cheyenne Mountain military base, partying, telling conspiracy theories as if they were ghost stories. Civilians could not enter the actual Cheyenne Mountain military base, but the city had built a public park below the military base. The park served as a no...

Screams erupted from every ride in the carnival, even the not-particularly-scary ones like the Ferris Wheel and the Turtle Train, as Conor walked the midway. The smell of funnel cakes and corn dogs and cotton candy washed over him. Discarded hamburgers and crushed lemons from discarded cups of lemonade littered the ground. He looked in the hall of Funhouse mirrors and saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Long red...

In dream, my skin has been charred soot-black, not all over my body, but on my arms, my legs, my penis, my chest. In dream, I only notice the burns if my eye happens to fall upon that area of skin. There is no pain. No pain, but a deep, shuddering fright when I see my blackened flesh and am reminded once more of the severe burns I carry. It was a dream the night of September 11th, 2006, five years after that other Septemb...

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....

“Where the hell are all the forks?” John grumbled from the kitchen, not for the first time. “Emily takes them,” said El from the dinner table. “No I don’t!” wailed Em. El turned to her Dad. “Emily takes them and she hides them,” she said. “This is between her and me,” said John. “No need to get involved.” Sensing a temporary victory, Em added, “And quit calling me Emily!” John shushed them both and continued making breakf...

Em asked her Dad to mount a full length mirror on the inside of her door when she was nine years old. The mirror whispered to her just after she turned ten. Or rather, something in the mirror whispered. She had just started fourth grade, and for the first time in her life noticed that others looked at her, others judged her: her clothes, her skin, her weight, her hair. She started hearing words that had been around her al...

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...