Mascot Purgatory
The amusement park called _Dreamville_ had closed in the late 1960's, and had perhaps been in its heyday in the 1940's and 1950's. Strangely, it had been built on the grounds of what had once been a graveyard; most of the graves had been relocated...
The Guide
While hiking in the forest in Maine one day, remembering the words of Robert Frost, I took the road less traveled, and it did indeed make all the difference...for I became hopelessly lost! I plodded along mile after mile, cursing the beloved New...
Labyrinth
The winds of October had turned cold, and Mark pulled up the zipper on his hooded sweatshirt as leaves swirled and danced about his feet on his evening walk. Darkness fell so early these autumn nights, and the eighty degree days he had experienced only...
Days of Future Past
The jackal-headed god Anubis raised a hand-held anti-grav, and trained it on a stone block weighing hundreds of pounds, causing it to rise effortlessly in an invisible beam. He guided the precision-hewn block to a gap in the wall of the pyramid under...
Dark Nativity...
_ **Dark Nativity** _ John and Marsha were hoping for a baby, but instead they got a Velociraptor. At their prenatal sonogram, Dr. Janus examined repeated images, only to determine that there was no mistake. "I'm afraid I have bad news," the...
Something Tentacled This Way Comes...
Carl wasn't having a good day to begin with, and getting lost in an unfamiliar coastal city at night promised to be the cherry on the cake of his day. When he walked down an alley which turned into a dead end, Carl was disturbed to hear footprints...
In Our Midst...
Old Pete had been a fixture on Oak Street for as long as people could remember. Out of his small, ramshackle shed he sold newspapers, candies, gum, and other assorted notions to bypassing folks, all of whom knew Pete by only his first name. Old Pete in...
Strange Brew
One night in a rural area of South Carolina, a scaly, red-eyed creature paused from chewing through a chrome bumper at the sound of leathery wings approaching. "Hey, Gringo!," said the fierce-looking creature as it descended to Earth. "Why are you...
Sideshow
Alicia Kitten was heartbroken to learn that Tom Cat had been catting about around town, stepping out on her and even siring a few litters of kittens with some of the uptown felines. One day she confronted him about it, looking at him with her enormous...
The Augment
**The lithe figure moved with athletic grace and speed almost silently through the woods, keeping comfortably ahead of his pursuers from the secret government installation called only, "the Shop." Their scent signatures were readily discernible to him,...
The Familiar
**The Familiar** The sorcerer Hieronymous stood by an interior window, considering from the parapet the angry mob advancing on his Bavarian castle, his black cat, Bane, perched on his shoulder. It was a standard group of irrate townspeople bearing...
Apocalypse
**Leonard peered out of his apartment window at the gruesome scene on the street below, and pondered that the humans still living didn't deserve his help. They had, after all, mocked and scorned him all of his life, making him feel like a loathsome...