1
Finally, mercifully, the spasms subsided, as the old man’s head lolled back, his mouth hanging open, taking in deep, ragged breaths of stale, recirculated air.Joe DeRouen
2
Fred Ruskin barreled through the rain down Buchanan Street in his battered Pacer, the jar his dead wife had directed him to retrieve from his nephew’s coffin bouncing in the seat beside him.Joe DeRouen
3
Thinking about such things soothed the creature as it dug at the base of a tall oak tree, deep into the ground, covering itself with dirt and leaves and moss; hiding, healing, waiting.Joe DeRouen
4
Shawn slowly climbed the old wooden stairs, listening to the low creak that sounded from his footsteps. He hoped the wood wouldn’t collapse beneath him. But the stairs held strong and a moment later he joined his friend in the kitchen of the old house, a wave of suffocating humidity washing over them as they stepped deeper into its secrets.Joe DeRouen