1
Let me see what I can come up with, ' she said, and seemed to take a new satisfaction in it now. Something wrong to do, a law to break, and if she was lucky she might even get to steal, and it must have been then that everything changed between us and each of us didn't just have a neighbor to pass the time with but the closest thing either of us could find to a friend. ("Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls") .Brian Hodge
2
I caught one last glimpse of her face, howling something at me. There were too many vowels in what she said, and they were in an unkind order. ("Substitutions")Michael Marshall Smith
3
Leaves that rustled, twigs that scraped and rattled. But the thin shapes weren't falling, they were scurrying head first down the tree-trunks at a speed that seemed to leave time behind. Some of them had no shape they could have lived with, and some might never have had any skin. She saw their shriveled eyes glimmer eagerly and their toothless mouths gape with an identical infantile hunger. Their combined weight bowed the lowest branches while they extended arms like withered sticks to snatch the child. ("With The Angels") .Ramsey Campbell