Budget Ghost Hunting

An obsessive amateur ghost hunter seeks a ghost caught on security footage in the company basement. But the ghost in question wants more fun than a mere budget hunt.

Ten-Cent Husband

An abusive husband hunts down his hard-of-hearing wife and corners her in her mother’s barn. With the help of her hearing guide dog, she must face off against him when he opens fire on them both, threatening to drag her back to the home she escaped.

The Hopeful Wanderer – Call to Launch

Rhythmic, echoing creaking drew me across flat empty plains to a flat, empty house. An untidy row of windows stared out from the house's weathered flanks at the setting suns blazing orange and purple across the sky. My favorite kind. Next to the house stood a tall, tall tree, beneath the branches of which creaked … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Call to Launch →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Open Me

No path ahead, no path behind. Just four flights of concrete stairs embedded into a hillside invisible beneath a blank blanket of snow. These, for some reason, just damp, not buried along with everything else. Upward, the pale hill sloped into the pale sky. Downward, more snowy hills rolled away into infinity. It felt like … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Open Me →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Longing to Leave

When I left a labyrinth full of unsettling creatures, I went out through the wrong exit. Ahead, a simple wooden gate, twice my height with a neat pitched roof, blocked my way forward, more wooden fencing stretching to either side. Almost as if to keep those strange cave creatures from getting out this way. Although … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Longing to Leave →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Forth

A deep groan sounded through heavy fog as I inched my way up to a lane of thin ice running through a frozen lake. Though I was on the lookout for travelers along this lane, I also watched against any misstep that would send me plummeting below to a shivering grave. Several such lanes of … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Forth →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Buried Tracks

At the bottom of a lake long dried up, my hazy gaze rested hopefully on a cloud building in the distance. Dust rose up around my plodding feet, settling on my cracked tongue. The size of this lakebed desert must have grown since the last estimation. I didn't have enough water to get back; I … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Buried Tracks →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Preservation Efforts

Without a breath of air to stir them, a plume of snowflakes rose up from the drifts coating the mountainside. Where the morning sunlight had not yet touched, deep blue shadows crept beneath a forest of firs. Nothing moved but the flurry of flakes, whirling around each other, the whole cluster angling upward along the … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Preservation Efforts →

The Hopeful Wanderer – Burning Roads

Someone set a field on fire with me in it. Gray smoke rolled skyward and drifted along the tilled dirt, tangling around my feet and stinging my eyes. I had picked this field to cross because nothing grew in it, so I couldn't imagine what the fire consumed. Pulling my shirt up over my nose … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Burning Roads →

#Spooktober2020 Day 30: Plague

My mouth was a weapon. One I could aim and fire at anyone. But once. Just once. Too obvious and the authorities would take me down. Shouldering my way through the crowd, I grinned at the knowing. So, so many people had gathered for our high school reunion. I hadn't been invited, but found out … Continue reading #Spooktober2020 Day 30: Plague →