At the door leading to the basement, my fingers locked around the door frame, keeping him from dragging me down into the dark.

“Stop it!” I yelled at him. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You’re dangerous.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up in his voice. “I should have seen it before!”

He had me by my legs, using all his weight to haul me down. Working my foot free, I kicked him hard in the face. He let go and tumbled down the stairs.

“You’re the one that needs locking up!” I yelled.

I slammed the door shut and turned the lock.

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Summer’s Latest

Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror by Texas Women

Read my eco-horror short “Well Being” in this fabulous new anthology, in which a mother follows strange impulses from tainted water to find her daughter.

From Mary Shelley to Tananarive Due and Mariana Enríquez, women have long shaped horror—often without equal recognition. Living closest to the genre’s edge, women know these fears firsthand: lost autonomy, violence, childbirth, survival.

Set in Texas, a land of haunted histories and increasingly restrictive laws, Beneath the Bluebonnets emerges from the raw intersection of terror and endurance. Written by twelve Texas women writers: R. J. Joseph, Lauren Oertel, L.H. Phillips, Kathleen Kent, Madison Estes, Jess Hagemann, Emma E. Murray, Jae Mazer, Iphigenia Strangeworth, Jacklyn Baker, S.G. Baker and edited by Carmen Gray, this collection is urgent, unflinching, and deeply haunting—stories that refuse to look away.