The Crossing

There is a wolf in the forest, with teeth like glinting knives and hungry, hungry eyes...

Christmas Alone: A Ghost Story

It is December 20th. Brian is alone. That’s all right. He never liked Christmas anyway...

Lucy

When she closes her eyes, she can still hear the drip of the transfusion, can feel the needle piercing her skin...

The Man I Met in Bedlam

I knew a painter once, when I was mad and they shut me in that dreadful place, full of screams and grey walls. I call him a painter. He was a murderer as well, of course...

The People in the Photograph

I walked past a picture of Paris on the sidewalk this morning. Old superstition says photographs steal the soul. Utterly ludicrous, of course. Photographs don't steal souls. They merely copy them. Ah, I can hear you scoffing. But the photograph copies everything else, doesn't it? You think I am just a mad old man, don't...

In a Glass Darkly

They watch it on the monitors: grey against grey, shadow against shadow. And the more they watch, the more they cannot agree. "Like a bird," says the first man. "A bird with a plume made of smoke." "No, no," mutters the second man. "Like a hooded man. A hunched, thin man, his legs like matchsticks...

The Man in the Half-Built House

A man lived in the half-built house, amidst bricks and plaster and dust. He wore a pair of hole-ridden boots and a coat of patched grey. His hair was wild and overgrown as the woods, a tangle of grey and brown. No living thing dared approach him save the rats, who ate from the palm...

The Things Under Bridges

Do not trust the things under bridges, no matter what they promise you. They dwell in the mud, in the shallow reeds, dragging themselves through the long grasses. Their necks are as the trunks of crooked trees, their eyes are serpent slits, their toes are long and grasping, and their faces are the pale white...

Where They Keep Madness

Rain pattered against the roof, echoing through labyrinthine halls. The candle in Jennifer's hand drizzled slow cascades of wax as its flickering flame cast shadows upon the doors. The Professor stood by her side, wearing a somber suit. His eyes were black and darting. "This is the deepest part of the asylum," he said. "This...

Infestation

Sometimes, Bob thought that he might be able to feel at home if it wasn't for the insects. They crawled over every surface, hid in every corner. In the middle of the night he could hear them scurrying through the walls, across the floor, across the ceiling. Tiny legs in the dark. He'd tried pesticides....