The Casket House
Charlotte Ephram, the bereaved widow, moves with her young son into the mansion of an estranged uncle.
With Love, Aunt Mercedes
Why would Jocelyn’s favorite aunt and uncle send her a doll from Italy?
Mona Luna
If you never met her, you’d think she was a real nice lady, yeah. Good with kids, never kicked no dog. Never sang a hymn out of tune. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she works down at the shelter, handing out socks and toothbrushes.
I go barefoot in my boots rather than take a single thing from Mona Luna.
Blood Runs Cold
Two bankrollers make their escape after a botched job, but one of them may be far more than what he seems.
Just Smile
A bartender educates a patron on why he should never, ever tell a woman to “just smile.”
But You Mustn’t Look Back
you know what it means
but you mustn’t look back
Spore
“Federico” is a unique plant with a strange appetite.
The Green
A man’s lawn wants him dead.
The Atoll
We take shelter next to a low shelf of rock and watch the sun die a slow death on the horizon; an angry red eye drowned in a blaze of orange and yellow. Beneath it, the ocean is flat. A rippling, endless mirror, all of it one terrible display of beauty waiting to devour us like it did Hannah.
Impurity
Bill has spent a lifetime surviving in a desolate world by whatever violent means each day necessitates. Now he seeks a new life beyond the walls of the enigmatic Colony—but he wonders: What will it cost him?