It was a Tuesday, and so I smelled smoke. Not a nice smoke, either. Not the smoke of s’mores and pine trees and dirt goddamn everywhere, but an unnatural, violent beast that scorched the back of your throat and watered your eyes. It hung lazily across my room, catching and clouding the sunlight like morning … Continue reading Chapter 1 →

Keller’s house was a tidy affair. A single-level box, pale blue with pale yellow grandma shutters and trim, placed neatly in a half-acre plot of kempt grass. A narrow brick path led from the street to the front porch, where hung a swinging bench overlooking a sculpted warthog and a doormat that read “Smile.” The … Continue reading Chapter 2 →

Don drove because Don always drove, but not because we necessarily wanted him to. His car was a modified plumber’s van, all boxy and windowless in the back with an aggressive antennae array sprouting from the roof. It was painted a matte gray and had “Lawn and Garden” in sweeping green letters across each side. … Continue reading Chapter 3 →

I entered softly, willing my shoes to land silently on the tile. The foyer was comically luxurious, the whole thing seemed to be carved from marble and then what I assumed was a similarly expensive polished, white stone. A chandelier with a thousand tiny crystals and a hundred wax candles descended from a ceiling that … Continue reading Chapter 4 →

Owen was the kid who never stepped on bugs.This unusual affinity for the souls of the soulless didn’t emanate from some internal reservoir of misplaced empathy since Owen was, objectively, a dick, but rather a perceived moral high ground from atop which he could turn his nose up at my failings with a sense of … Continue reading Mirror →

Unrelated

A warning and a request

Quesarito x2, soft taco x4

Pizza sauce, pepperoni, cheese, cracker

Penne, canned tuna, canned peas, marinara