Chris descended the stairs, each creak of the old wood like a countdown to something inevitable, something sinister. His eyes locked on to the scene below: his son, pale and wide-eyed, was huddled close to Mary. The brute—no, not just a brute, more like a caged animal, muscles twitching with barely restrained violence—paced back and […]
It wasn’t when I got the hang of cursing, exquisitely and generously, tutored by the bigger kids at the back of the school bus. It wasn’t when I puffed on my buddy’s mom’s unfiltered Kools in the woods – throat raw, lungs afire, coughing triumphantly. It wasn’t when I thumbed through Dad’s Playboy magazines and […]
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 […]