The city seemed endless when it was empty. Half of it, maybe more, was filled with unused treasures that lay moldering in growing mounds of dust. Long streets stayed dark, no longer powered now that no one was left to keep the electrical grids up and runn…

It had been fourteen days.

Two weeks.

A fortnight.

It didn't feel like it had been that long.

It felt like it had been much longer.

I remembered it like it was yesterday, yet it felt like a lifetime ago.

I remembered clearly, the looks on their faces, …

“Well at least this place has a real bed. Stay comfortable, I'll be back.” Lenn said to Liv. He stepped into the dark hallway to the staccato hoarseness of Liv's muffled coughs. She sounded so miserable. He needed to get his hands on some kind of cough su…

Lenn struggled against currents of howling wind and driving rain so strong they felt like the spirits of speeding buses. Keeping the cat protected was almost too much for him. He tucked the arm cradling the cat further back like an American football playe…

“Goddamned cat, you're like a living jump scare.” Lenn muttered.

The cat meowed plaintively, tail up in the air. Matted fur clung flatly to its body outlining a starved frame.

“Yeah, I don't like this weather much either.”

Cautiously, the cat padded fo…

He thumbed the keys upward so that they sprouted beyond his knuckles like metal spikes. Should he retread his steps back into the driving rain and try a different cross street or move through the alley that might house something in it? Straining his sense…

The wind gusted this way and that, sweeping the rain away before slamming it back at Lenn in huge wet slaps. His poncho scudded away from his numb fingers and nearly strangled him until he forced it back under control.

He walked uphill toward the commerc…

The reeds outside swayed, swept by a breeze that I couldn't feel. The candles never wavered so it wasn't just me. The two mountains known locally as the Two Sisters stood high and dark against the star-filled night sky.

“Why do we still wait? It's dark e…

Marcy was dark. Not just dark, but a shade of black that was blacker than any shade of black that you could possibly dream up. She played bass guitar too. Well. Which was part of her charm. Part of the immense and dark charm that she had. She exuded it on…

Story is marked as mature

Jonathon woke to the sound of insistent knocking. Everything was dark: his room, the world outside his window, the hallway beyond his open door.

Knockknockknockknockknock--

The sound was definitely coming from within his room. Heart racing, he crept out…

Story is marked as mature

Nightly, he would walk home from work. John hoped and waited in his secret heart to see the sun break from the horizon to end his everynight.

It was almost as if the sun was hiding from him. He stopped along the sidewalk and turned to the eastern skies.

N…

I don't sleep with the lights off, anymore.

A little over a year ago, I worked as night security at a psychiatric institute. There was one guy who would freak out if the lights were off. On nights when I was on my own doing a walk-around, I would stop by…