The beast rises from modern hell.
Horror
The Nightmare Center (a short story)
“Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” – Sigmund Freud
I.
Dylan yawned, leaned back in his chair. It was another late night at the Nightmare Center, but at least he was collecting overtime. The entire year had been full of late nights, for obvious reasons. The election had peoples’ unconscious selves falling apart at the seams.
“Still here?” Amari asked, bags under her eyes.
“Unfortunately,” Dylan said. “I’m working a double.”
“It never ends.”
Continue readingSalem (a poem)
I’ve spent centuries obsessed with evil
fingers bleeding from scrawling in notebooks,
searching for ways to banish it
to deep corners of space
away from us
where it takes souls,
twists them in black sorcery –
I wake up in Salem, trembling
witches burn, the smell of scalding flesh
the executioner removes his mask,
smiles – I fall into deep sleep
(Photo by Vladimir Agafonkin on Unsplash)
Screams of Harmony (a poem)
lapping waves on the shores of hell
over expanse of red clay & dust
on another planet
black buzzards circle above
pick at bloated corpses –
Continue readingHaunted Shed (a photo)

Creepy Owl (a photo)

We spotted this creepy fellow during a walk around our neighborhood recently. He was lying down in the grass, so I picked him up for a pose. I thought he was perfect for Halloween season!
4 Creepy Books to Get you Ready for Halloween
Halloween is perhaps my favorite holiday. Really, I love all the fall and winter holidays. But Halloween? What’s not to like?! Horror movies, marathon readings of Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps a little Lovecraft.
I compiled a shortlist of my favorite creepy books that are perfect for this time of year. Some of them fall within the umbrella term of “weird fiction.” Others are classic ghost stories that I highly suggest you check out if you haven’t read already. And yeah, they’re all old books – like, really old.
Here’s my list:
Continue readingHaunted House (a poem)
There’s been trauma in this house
we thought it’d be our forever home
instead, ghosts lurk here
ghosts of murders, suicides
they followed us long after we
left cob-webbed hallways –
the trauma here makes us see things
hallucinations, delusions of despair
we can’t escape it.
(Photo by Stefan Ringler on Unsplash)
The Woman at the Window (a poem)
The woman sits at the window
she’s always there, she stares
at the outside world
her sallow skin a testament to an indoor existence
terrified to leave the ivy-covered house like
a cat that fears and is fascinated by the outdoors.
Continue readingCriminals (a poem)
I dream of criminals, being a witness to misdeed
men with dark eyes do dark things in motel rooms
tell me to keep my mouth zippered shut –
I wake with a sense of dread
storm clouds gather outside frosted windows
a woman with an umbrella screams
then runs for her life.
(Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash)