Horror and Wholesome
Auntie Bells wasn't really my auntie, or anyone else's for that matter. I'm not sure she even had any real family at all. It was just what everyone called her. She'd been a fixture in the neighborhood since long before I was born and there wasn't a single person who didn't at least know of... Continue Reading →
Before she was the drainage ditch Dahlia, she was someone’s daughter, a friend, maybe a sister or a wife. A person somebody had to have known. She’d been found in a ditch off a rural road a few days before by a trucker who’d pulled over to relieve himself. Naked, severed in two at the... Continue Reading →
It wasn’t a surprise when Kaylyn started handing out invitations to her Halloween party before homeroom. What was a surprise was that I received one. I stared at the orange envelope she was holding out toward me and then up at her. “For me?” I asked uncertainly. Kaylyn and I had never been friends. Acquaintances,... Continue Reading →
When my daughter was young, she liked to make up silly rules for our household. On Wednesday evenings, we all wore a sock on our right foot, but nothing on our left; if someone sneezed, the only polite response was “Godzilla nights”; if you dropped something you were carrying, you had to leave it on... Continue Reading →
“Be a good one.” It was what my grandfather said to me when I told him I wanted to be a cop. I promised him I would. I’d been nervous, standing in front of him and the rest of my family and saying it out loud. They were all college educated and white collared. I... Continue Reading →
Jack O’Lanterns were never part of my Halloween. Gran didn’t allow them. She didn’t approve much of any modern All Hallow’s Eve traditions, but especially not the carved pumpkins. “A Devil’s gift to a damned soul,” she’d say. Her Irish lilt was always thicker when she was was reproachful. “As long as I’m under this... Continue Reading →
It was winter when they started going missing. The kids from Dunburry. An eight year old boy was first. A tragedy, to be sure, but the last time anyone saw him, he’d been heading out toward the lake. Most suspected he’d wandered on to a weak spot and gone through. The town would have to... Continue Reading →
It was a vacation of firsts. My first time on a plane, my first time out of the US (yes, Canada still counts!), my first time taking a ferry. My husband kept insisting it wasn’t a big deal, that we were just visiting his parents, but I might as well have found the wardrobe to... Continue Reading →
Calum gave me the Alexa. He thought it was a sweet surprise. I thought of it as another “smart” device to listen in on conversations. I had barely gotten used to using an iPhone, already three generations old by the time I’d gotten it, to help keep our long distance relationship running smoothly. I had... Continue Reading →
Stories By S.H. Cooper 