I wake to the sight of a dingy, water-stained ceiling and faded wallpaper peeling at the corners. Poorly constructed columns of musty and yellowed books hold up the ceiling above me. An ancient mattress sags beneath me, flat as a dead possum and twice as lumpy. Yaya must’ve hauled me into the trailer sometime after I passed out. Beside me, something war…

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The chickens and rabbits are fed. I’m spent. I plop down into my weathered, sun-faded lawn chair by the fire pit and let my eyes close.

“So… I have an issue,” Bex announces to my shut eyelids.

Here we go. Bring one woman into the mix and suddenly I can’t get a moment’s peace. “…Yeah?” I grumble, making it clear I don’t care.

Something tugs at the swollen, …

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It’s February, and the tax sale happened quick enough. The sheriff is meant to come kick me off my mountain today. The Dutch folk down the way heard on the rumor mill, it was some fancy billionaire who bought it. They seemed to disapprove of him more than of me and my deviltry.

Bex wanted to be here, but there’s some test or whatnot she can’t skip. She m…

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We rumble our way through graveyards and the skeletal remains of homes, barns and churches, hollow shells of dreams long abandoned. Symbols of hope rot along the roadside, surrendered to time. As we wind deeper between farms and forests, the ruins grow fewer but more desolate, as if we are entering a place few dare to tread. The Appalachian mountains, w…

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Searing pain shoots through my shoulder. My arm nearly torn from its socket as I’m whipped higher into the dark, the earth dropping away beneath me. I claw at the netting with my free hand, finding purchase near the creature’s feathered mane. Gritting my teeth, I pull myself up, inch by inch, until I’m straddling its back. Wind whips at my face as the w…

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It’s dark now. I sit in the bed of the truck, still and watchful. Squonk curls in my lap like a sad, wet cat, his weight warm against me. I stroke the back of his misshapen head absently, eyes locked on the trap. The cluster of soda bottles glimmers faintly in the inky field, barely visible.

Up front, the girl sits beside the great, fat ape. Yaya flips t…

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Morgan’s Grotto would be green and verdant in spring, surrounded by lush woods and soft hills. But it’s autumn now. The leaves are gone. The color’s drained out of the land like old blood, and the trees jut from the soil twisted and bare, curled like desperate, searching tendrils.

The sinking sun stretches long, dark shadows across the brittle grass.

“We …

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“You can’t just take me! This is kidnapping!”

I don’t respond. Not right away, just keep driving until I spot a dusty old convenience store with flickering lights and a broken ice machine out front. I pull in and throw the truck into park.

From behind the seat, I pull out a knotted plastic sack, then dig around until I find what I’m looking for: a pair of…

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I pull into the cracked lot of Town Hall in my rusted-out red Ford pickup. The engine coughs wheezes and squeals as I park. In the rear window, my gun rack cradles my trusty old boom stick—barrel dull, but reliable. In the bed, a blue nylon tarp stretches over something bulky, tied down tight with fraying rope. The corners flap a little in the wind.

I ki…

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The dollar store is empty, stale, and soulless. Black and yellow signs scream about discounts on junk—cheap, gaudy products made by slaves an ocean away. They wrecked a million lives here for their high ideals, only to trade them for the spoils of someone else’s misery. All of it destined for landfills, choking on plastic and dust. But I’m a shopper and shoppers shop.

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Respectable men don’t spend their mornings in dive bars, or so I’ve been told. Before noon, it’s only the hopeless and the aimless, men who’ve run out of reasons to pretend otherwise. Mick’s is packed with them. Old-timers slouched in cracked vinyl booths, bellies pushing against the limits of their poly-cotton blends. Faces slack. Eyes dim. Waiting out the clock with warm beer and cold memories.

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Donna’s Diner is dingy and worn thin, like everything else in this town. No one’s bothered keeping up appearances. An out of order sign rests across the soda fountain. The only warmth left in the place clings to a wall of faded, yellowing newspaper clippings—proud headlines from years gone by, kids long since grown and moved away.

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It’s been a month since the sightings began. No one thought much of it at first. Folks around here are steeped in old stories, tales whispered over fence posts, passed down over weak coffee and strong whiskey. In a town like this, heavy with graves and light on the living, everyone’s seen something strange when the fog rolls in.

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