Once upon a time, my hometown decided it wanted to try and get its name on the map. It was the height of the real estate bubble and people were buying, developers were building, and our small city was looking forward to a sudden and steady growth spurt. The thing about bubbles, though, is that... Continue Reading →

No one noticed when the strays started to go missing. It was just a cat here, another there, nothing too unusual for feral animals. Even as a kid, I was used to them coming and going of their own accord and sometimes wouldn't see them for months. It was just how things worked in a... Continue Reading →

My daddy put the “good” in good old boy. He was hardworking, stoic, and he kept his mouth shut unless there was something that needed saying. All he wanted out of life as to drive his trucks, make his living, and take care of his wife and kids; the rest was just background noise. I... Continue Reading →

There wasn't much for a young boy to do in my hometown. It was all long stretches of tired looking strip malls and gated communities for the snowbirds to flock to when autumn set in up north; very South Florida chic. It was the kind of place where an eight-screen movie theater opening up at... Continue Reading →

When you're a scrawny, awkward kid from a poor family, you're going to be teased. A lot. It's just one of those inescapable universal truths that nobody questions. Still, you expect it to remain almost exclusively a peer-thing; something that your classmates do when there aren't any adults looking. Even if the teachers happen to... Continue Reading →

Except for the whole murder thing, Courtney James seemed like a lovely young woman. She was bright, articulate, a dedicated college student and well liked waitress at a popular restaurant. I met her when she was sitting in an interrogation room at the precinct. She was a bit on the larger side, dressed conservatively in... Continue Reading →

I was woken up by the sound of whining and scratching outside my bedroom door. "Go lie down, Mystic." I mumbled from the depths of my pillow. As soon as I spoke, the sounds ceased and the house became still and silent once again. A thought crept its way through my sleep soaked mind, a... Continue Reading →

Crinklebottom had been passed down in my family for the past couple of generations; a nighttime companion to help ward off bad dreams and those pesky monsters who live under the bed. In his first incarnation, he was a stuffed brown bear with button eyes that my great grandmother sewed for my grandfather when he... Continue Reading →

Hope makes you dumb. It makes you forgetful and blind and overly eager, especially when you're a teen girl on the outs with your best, and pretty much only, friend. It was a tale as old as time; two childhood besties who pinky swore to never, ever stop being friends grew up and grew apart.... Continue Reading →

Just about the first thing anyone new to the neighborhood learned was to avoid Bud Filimore. Cantankerous, territorial, and fueled by what seemed to be a deep-seated hatred for just about everything, he was the kind of man that childhood nightmares were made of. Although he'd only lived there for a few months longer than... Continue Reading →