The Girl at CVS

At 11 o’clock, I pulled into the almost empty CVS parking lot. I killed the engine. From my breast pocket, I pulled out the folded, yellow, sticky…


A Single Red Buick

I don't know if it's possible to be homesick while still living at home and in your hometown, but it happened to me twice. Both instances involved…


The Hunt

The hard knock on my door stopped me from wallowing in my self-pity any longer. Joe Dexter, my long-lost friend from college, stood in the doorway of…


Memoirs of an Execution; or, the Night Napalm Death Chickened Out

He did it. He killed my fucking ear. Right there where I was hiding in the garage. The house belonged to the neighbor who was never home, the ghost…


The Return Trip

West Park was as depressing as I remembered. The weathered park benches were still a sickly kind of brown. The spent remains of cigarettes and…


“Exile on Washington Street,” “Like Winter Into Spring,” “The Brotherhood of Night Drivers,” and “In the Valley of Zero”

Exile on Washington Street The collected mass bays for blood. “Kill him” and “Crucify him,” they sing through assorted smiles. This is no ordinary…


Reading Lovecraft on the Beach

I was eighteen and fresh out of high school. A group of us, about eight boys and six girls, went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for our "senior…


The Seaside Cottage

“Pretty spooky, right?” Weber did not know if Scanlan was talking about the cottage or the many empty houses staring out to sea. The two men stood on…


“The Rebirth of Pleasure,” “Reflections from the Death Bus,” “Soft Rains,” and Other Poems

The Rebirth of Pleasure Decorate this tomb with holly and flowers. Brighten the gloom with restless hours. Let life refill the mortuary and put…


Hole in the Wall

I do not know what time it was, but I do remember admiring the dusk as it enveloped the skyline in an amber haze. It was a Friday sometime in the…