You never forget the smell. That’s the first thing they don’t teach you at the academy. You can train for the sights, the…
The walk back to the house was the longest of my life. I carried Emma in my arms, her small, cold body pressed…
The sun came up cautious and pale. I cleaned Noah with a washcloth, brushed his teeth with a toothbrush I’d gotten at the…
I used to think silence meant peace. That was my job, really. As the attendance coordinator at Pine Hollow Elementary for seventeen years,…
It was just past eleven on a Sunday morning, the air inside the Denny’s already thick with the smell of burnt coffee and…
“She locks us in the basement,” the boy whispered through the fence. His eyes were wide, haunted, like he hadn’t seen sunlight in…
The shout cracked through the aisle like a snapped broom handle. Bottles rattled; a teenage cashier flinched. October wind shouldered the narrow doorway…
The cold was the first thing I felt. It was a sharp, biting cold that seeped into my bones and made me wonder…
I saw her moving before I heard her. It was a flicker in my peripheral vision, a shadow of dark chiffon against the…
The fire wasn’t just a fire; it was a monster. It was an orange, roaring beast that had swallowed the night. The Wallace…