They cornered the man at the edge of a ravine, and the sheriff raised his rifle. “You’ll hang for what you did to all those people in Santa Carla!”
“Not if I kill myself first,” the man smiled, leaping to his death.
Category: Clippings
Snapshot
The man focused his camera on the woman, but she never heard the shutter click. In a week, her skin withered, her red hair faded to grey, and her bones turned to dust. And as a young old woman died in her bed, a striking beauty on the sand hung frozen in time upon the man’s wall.
Celestially Sorting It Out
Dear Reader,
The thing about universes, is they take time to sort out what they want to be when they grow up.
Imagine that.
— Steve
Of Blood and Water
The revolutionaries stormed the final doors, and the king watched. “They are here for us, Sister.”
“Not us,” she whispered in his ear, pushing a knife into her brother’s heart. “You.”
“Why?”
“You would have done the same to me.”
“Never.”
“And that’s why you die a fool.”
The Grinning Man
Dear Reader,
Beware the grinning man who awaits you in your sleep. His only desire is to witness that moment you find yourself unable to return to the waking world.
– Steve
Before the Fall
As the doctors tended to the dying and the priests prayed for the dead, the living waited in line.
“Would you like a rock to speed things up?” the councilman asked.
“Will it cushion my fall?”
“Would it help if I lied?”
“No.”
“Exactly,” the councilman replied with a push.
The Last Light
As the last light faded, the woman reached for the boy. “Close your eyes,” she said.
“Will I see you again?” he asked.
“No,” she said, listening to the wet, unearthly sounds of the darkness. “And if there’s any mercy left in the world, you’ll never see what comes next.”
The Crazyland Express
Dear Reader,
Please remember to keep your arms and legs inside the sheets at all times. There’s no telling what might attempt to snatch them off you, is there?
— Steve
The Faces We See
As she buried her hatchet in its skull, she couldn’t help but wonder what the ghoul had been just days before. A telemarketer, maybe? An internet film critic? Perhaps the manager of a smoothie kiosk at the mall. It helped to put a life to the faces she saw in her sleep.
Peace of Mind
The old man and the girl sat on the shore of the lake, watching the sky burn above them. As the earth trembled and the world began to scream, she took his hand. “I’m happy I met you,” she said.
He squeezed her hand, began to speak, but then nothing else mattered.