There’s a rule about losing things, you know. Everyone’s been there. A sock gone from the dryer. A pen vanished from your desk. A key that was just in your…

Derek Marshall woke up in the coffin. It was not with the sharp gasp of a person who’d survived a nightmare. It was not with the abrupt shock of a…

David barely noticed it, at first. A single black speck crawling across his kitchen counter, weaving through the crumbs of his morning toast. Then another. And another. By the time…

It began with a sock. Not a pair, not two, not even three. Just one. A sock, gray and worn, its fabric soft with age, as though it had lived…

There was a rule in our house: If you think of something bad, knock three times to keep it from happening. It wasn’t a superstition we grew up with—Mom made…

There’s a small antique shop in the middle of town, tucked between a laundromat that smells faintly of detergent and damp carpet and a café no one ever seems to…

Thomas always knew he was perfect. Not in the way a child might claim to be the best at a game, but in a quiet, unshakable certainty that seemed to…

Curiosity killed the cat. Or so they say. But for Clara, it wasn’t curiosity that got her into trouble. It was a simple mistake—a flick of the wrist, a careless…

It began as something Claire barely noticed. The first night, she thought it was nothing. Mark had never talked in his sleep before, but people develop strange habits over time.…

They told him it was pneumonia. Something small at first, but it crept in, insidious. Henry Marlow sat in the hospice bed, the white sheets wrapped around his shrinking frame…

There was once a star, or so the old stories said, though nobody could quite remember its name. It wasn’t a brilliant thing, like the ones that dotted the constellations…