Paula lives in the cul-de-sac. She likes it there. The smooth curvature that dead ends into the split-level Gary bought for them back when it was enough to work at the drugstore. When the paycheck stretched far enough to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table and clothes on two kids’ backs. A […]

When the first box arrives, you don’t think much of it. Nondescript black, sealed with a glossy logo sticker. Dark Deeds: Midnight Reads for Horror Fans. You set it aside to deal with later. After all, surgeons are busy people. Your practice has been thriving. You don’t have time to look up what to read—that’s […]

Bisma couldn’t bring herself to follow Mama out of the midday sun and into the stranger’s house. Bisma knew she’d have to—in the end she always did as Mama said. Of course she hadn’t asked any questions when Mama ordered her to pick up their cleaning equipment and follow her to the house at the […]

Ruth thought she no longer measured her life in weeks or months, but in bin collections and laundry. Her days and nights were punctuated by bouts of washing up and differentiated by what type of vegetable peel was blocking the plughole, in the way they used to be punctuated by dancing and drinking and art […]