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Cliff clicked the volume knob a few times, the fiddle and banjo amplifying as he turned onto the dirt road. His headlights ran across the pasture as he turned, illuminating the eyeshine of a few whitetail deer grazing among the cows. Barbed wire fences ran along both sides of the road, and cottontails skirted away
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Gary opened the door, pausing to read the paper sign that was taped to the inside. W.A. Meeting Room 207 Gary hadn’t been in the school in years. He didn’t remember much, but he wove his way through the dark hallways, running his hand down the cool, metal lockers. 207. He opened the door. Inside
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He had followed the rusty old van into the middle of a farm road, just south of the casino. A man got out and walked out in front of the car, following the road in the beam of the headlights until they clicked off, blanketing him in darkness. It was Halloween night, and laughter spread
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“Hey, man,” I said into the phone. “What are you up to?” Rick laughed. “What am I always doing? Working. Why?” “You switch careers or something?” Rick paused. “No.” “Huh,” I said, sighing into the phone. “Weird. Well, alright, I’ll let you get back to it.” “What in the hell are you talking about?” Rick
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The ship finally came to a stop. It had fallen at a steep angle, skipping off the rocky terrain and skidding to a stop in a dry, grassy field. The creature inside was relatively unharmed, and the craft’s engine shut off as the hatch to the outside world opened. The creature was short, pale, and
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It was twenty after midnight. I had my double-barrel shotgun pinned against my chest, the barrel resting on my knee. The front iron was trained in the direction of the door, but drifted aimlessly as I felt my eyes give in. I awoke suddenly, the shotgun clattering onto the tile. I was dreaming. What was
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“Earl, quiet yourself!” The old preacher stood, arms outstretched over the casket. “Earl now! God is talking!” Earl shook his head and kept his head down, shoveling another heap of dirt into the hole. The preacher, Joe, shook his head and hissed, quietly dissolving into the air. Earl could still hear him grumble as he
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He had been dead awhile. That was really all he knew. He didn’t recall how he knew this because so much time had passed since he had figured it out. Or, at least, he thought it had. He asked around, but no one could really help him. There was a lonely gal across the street
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I woke up to the sound of Rooster barking. I picked up my phone and squinted the sleep from my eyes. 5:03 My nap had run long. I got up off the futon and stretched my arms, feeling the familiar pop in my chest. “Ugh,” I moaned. “Sunday naps…phew.” I flicked my hand through the
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It was an incredibly still morning. The frost clung to the bark of the trees and the frozen leaves crunched underfoot. Danny stepped gingerly through the trees, clutching his rifle close to his chest. He walked slowly down the rocky bluff, flicking his head around cautiously at any noise he heard in the dark forest.
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The boys huddled together, close to the orange flame and staring out into the night that surrounded them. The men,on the other hand, sat far apart, staring deep into the embers and chewing the dried fat of the bison they had pulled from their leather bags. They were all far from home, but the men
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The clouds moved in and the rain pattered against the window. Softly at first, then beating the house with the full force of the fifty mile per hour gale. The shingles began to peel away from the roof, revealing the soaking wet plywood underneath. He watched as the shingles fluttered away in the wind, dancing.
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I met Billy when I moved into the house next door. He was a young guy, and came around that evening with a beer in hand, grinning and shyly offering the sweaty bottle just as the sun was disappearing over the ozark hills to the west. We did the standard introductions, and he asked what
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She hired me because I could blend in. No one noticed me at the supermarkets, the doctor’s office, the deli—I was invisible to the human brain, a simple blank space.Perfect, she said, and I started right away.Halloween season started in September, but no one really packed the lines at the haunted house attractions until October,
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The cities were huge, and it was easy to fade into the roving rushes of hurried people, and even take one for pleasure regularly without notice. The cities were, no doubt, the perfect place for someone like me. But it was time to go home. I arrived in Anchor on a whim, tired of the
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“Is there anybody here?” Marissa’s question hung in the air, floating across the rafters of the attic and landing softly somewhere in the dark. Joel looked from Marissa to Mark. All of them had the tips of their fingers on the small wooden triangle, which sat lifeless on the board of numbers and letters. They
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One of these days, it’ll stop raining. He sat quietly in the cab of the truck, his boots and jeans coated with a stiffening layer of thick, red mud. He turned the ignition and began to start the truck, but released it. No use. I’m not getting out of here today. He was miles away
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I kicked the toe of my dusty brown boot through the red cake batter that was now forming at my feet. The dirt oozed across the burned-out lawn, aided only by gravity and the viscous outpouring of blood that leaked from the boy’s cranium. The shovel bit into the rock and grit with an unnerving
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He woke to the sound of crunching leaves. His fire had burned to little more than blackened piles of ash and glowing specks of coal. The cave was dark, as was the world outside. He assumed that there were still a few hours yet until the morning dawn would eliminate the need for fire, so
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He didn’t remember having that much to drink, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t had any to drink at all, but after last night, he was sure that he had drunk enough to drown an Irishman. He had wanted to break into the church for years. Not that they had any money, or gold,
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Johnny came through the front door, closing it loudly. He tossed his keys onto the coffee table, but never heard them clatter against the glass tabletop. Instead, he only heard the soft thud of the keys hitting the carpet. Strange, he thought. Johnny walked carefully over to the couch, feeling gently for the coffee table
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Halloween Street 