So here we are again. It is another year of waiting after school for our favorite yellow school bus (Lucky #57) to transport us home from Barnaby Middle School. Tom, Gavin, Henry, Nicholas Dixon, and I are standing beside the gymnasium on the hot asphalt parking lot that’s called the blacktop. There’s no shade around….
Category: Short Story
Heather and The Heathen Part 2
Wake County Heather is the first guest Mrs. Candle has had since Robert’s funeral. She’s come to Garner for dinner at the Candle home per Bobby’s invitation to begin emotional resolution from her past with Bobby and to break her promise. For the dinner menu, Mrs. Candle planned a traditional and Southern meal. She pan-fried…
Heather and The Heathen Part 1
With the rise of superhuman activity in North Carolina, the Federal Government collaborated with the State to develop the North Carolina Supernatural Sheriffs Association (NCSSA). In 2001, eight supernormal individuals entered the Supernatural Sheriffs program to become supernatural peacekeepers. Once sworn in, they worked with North Carolina’s most populated Counties to assist local law enforcement…
Everyday Everett
Ray Everett could have had a better morning. He overslept, burned his eyes with shampoo, ripped a shoelace, and stained his lucky blue button polo shirt with strawberry and banana yogurt. All this before 7:15. Too bad because he always needs whatever luck he can squeeze out of that shirt. Things like these are always…
The Creature of Cataloochee
The majority of the drivers who rubberneck the massive Western North Carolina Cryptid Museum’s billboards have never seen one. The giant cartoon sasquatch wearing pink sunglasses on the sign promises “the best collection and artifacts of cryptids, ghosts, and spirits from the North Carolina Mountains.” Cryptids like the sasquatch and the loch ness monster are…
The Green in Her Dreams
After midnight, Robert Smith exits his house for an outside break from his work and blank painter’s canvas. There’s no need to wear his heavy jacket, knitted toboggan hat, or leather gloves because the night is unseasonably warm for the winter month in Lake July, North Carolina. The year is 1946. Robert gazes up at…
Christmas in Lake July
Annie Lennox’s kind voice is the first thing callers hear when they call the main line to Lake July, North Carolina city hall. Of course, not the famous Scottish-born Annie Lennox. Who fronted The Eurythmics, sang No More “I Love You’s,” and was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in…
Once a Wild Turkey Gobbled
It was by lamplight that Michael Deal awoke. The first drab damn thing the college student sees is a table lamp without a nightshade, standing on the floor a few feet from where he’s sitting. The place (wherever he is) would be pitch darkness if not for the slight radiance from the bare light bulb….
A Trip to Lake July, Not the City
Shortly after the 2020 United State Census, one of those real estate personal finance travel guide eCommerce websites released a report they harshly called “The 100 quickest dying cities in America.” The study looked at municipal population change from their 2010 Census count to their current. Boring! Someone from the website crunched the population change…
Will of the Wilderness
The most epic and legendary hero ever is Will of the Wilderness, the label the Duhart Kingdom gave him. Since his arrival to dominion; he’s grappled with human-eating giants in the Magic Mountains, he rode leviathans like boards in the Narrow Sea, and pulled a star from the dark night and gifted the villages with…