The room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief as the brute stormed away, each glancing furtively from face to face. “The boy called you dad?” Stanley finally asked with unapologetic calm, as though he wasn’t sharing the living room with the disemboweled carcass of his wife’s closest friend. The leader gave a disapproving […]
“Mind if I smoke?” Mike asked, drawing a smashed pack of Reds from his front shirt pocket. Noticing a row of pipes on the end table beside what appeared to be Stanley’s evening recliner, he added, “Actually, why don’t you have a smoke with me?” “Why not,” Stanley said, reaching for his pipe and a […]
“God damn it, Stanley!” Mary’s scream reverberated through the house. She sprinted back toward the kitchen, Dorothy’s footsteps pounding behind her. They barely had time to process the terror before it struck. A vise-like hand clamped over Mary’s mouth, silencing her scream. An iron grip encircled her frail torso, squeezing the air from her lungs. […]
The explosion shatters the night. The room shudders; windowpanes rattle like the chains of the damned. Another mortar attack in East Asia. The echo of screams, the gut-punch blast of a grenade rips Stanley from the depths of sleep. Another day of horrors. His eyes snap open, pupils dilated in the darkness, senses sharpened to […]