On a cold, dark night near to All Hallows' Eve in October of 1930, I was summoned by Constable John Wakefield to the house of Vernalier Driscoll. The constable was wild-eyed and very nervous, his hair appeared to be standing on end.

The damaged lining of this awkward appellation is just bewitching, begging of the light test prod — OW! and then stern mastery: Introducing the cruelly hooked thumb with ragged nail, plunging up, ripping into and down…

Grace looks at her cell phone. It had been about a week since her Aunt Margaret fell, slipping gracefully down the stairs and pulling her shoulder out as she grabbed the banister, her hand caught in the holiday streamers spiraling down the railing. Every

and oh how serratedly so

Would you take a job living in a computer? What if you had to?

I have hate and it is black not midnight, crisp fresh clear. Unadulterated. It is dirty, poor, gritty solid rough like unripe stone fruit. A peach, mealy and dry. The killing, effete, endures. Silent, my repugnance, sick, eats…

I don't think I minded so much watching the trucks hit him, one breaking his spine with a decisive snap, and the other finishing the job by splitting his skull. I don't think I minded watching as much as I did watching those two boys poking around at his

What was heinous about it was how easy I assumed it would be. That was truly heinous, and it was a mistake in the end to think of it that way. But I’ve learned from what’s heinous. I’ve bought a plastic cylinder filled with nylon zip ties. They’re great f

Ben’s tactic for diverting Monique’s thoughts from the encounter with Zoë and the horrific episode in his dressing room was to dance, dance, dance.

Heaven and hell. Hadley believed in neither. One way or another you’re a meal ticket for someone, best to be the one spending than the one being spent. The worms and insects are getting their meal ticket now, that’s for sure.

Sometimes you want to strike out at me. What is stopping you? There is no stopping you. You know I will not retaliate. Gone is all that I will be to you then.

She looked over from the passenger seat at her husband and smiled. It had been twenty years. She hadn't expected him to remember. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, placed her hand on his thigh.“We'll be home soon enough,” he said. He was not…

And so, many ideas and stories and wonders crash onto the shores of my conscience...

Rain dressed for winter, a win, she thought

here we go.