Gods and Monsters Installment 33: Pamela
Reading Time: 8 minutes Vampires followed the deluge of fluid and fear, tracking the lonely, homeless, and lost to the city, drawn by the need for belief, as well as blood.
alternate history
Gods and Monsters Installment 32: Time Before Time
Reading Time: 7 minutes Thanatos never kills. He’s just the messenger.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 31: Small Time Gods
Reading Time: 7 minutes Ever since he found Gabriel in the field, River has been cut off and alone. Separated from humanity by a knowledge that he didn’t even realize he possessed, a perception deep within his bones. An understanding that though fairy tales may come true, they are written in blood and lies.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 30: The Morgue
Reading Time: 8 minutes The door is heavy, about four inches thick. A long narrow staircase leads down into darkness. He is in total darkness. Feeling his way slowly along the wall, carefully tapping his feet to see where the stairs begin, he finds a light switch. Harsh fluorescence floods the stairwell. This light would make anyone look dead, River thinks.
Gods and Monsters Installment 29: Beautiful and Strange
Reading Time: 7 minutes Pamela stands in the doorway. River stops stirring and opens his arms. Pamela doesn’t even need to cross the room. She melts into him, soft as butter into flour. She is cold, damp as night fog.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 28: Journey’s End
Reading Time: 8 minutes That night, Jackson does not come to Bert’s.
Gods and Monsters Installment 27: The Crossing
Reading Time: 6 minutes Jim is standing on the rocky shore of a dark underground river. The only sound is the constant thrum of pebbles which gently lapping waves draw back and fling up the high strand. There is a whisper, the sound of a shadow gliding over hard round stones. Against the blackness he sees a man, tall and lean.
Gods and Monsters Installment 26: Scent Memory
Reading Time: 6 minutes Glistening like a frozen tear, delicate as a kiss, the crystal necklace lies on wine velvet cloth. Jim has never seen anything so lovely and flawless. His breath catches in his throat. It’s out of his price range. There’s no way he can afford it. There’s no way he can walk away. Something in the manner the colors intertwine weaves around his soul.
Gods and Monsters Installment 25: In the Time of Many Pigeons
Reading Time: 7 minutes It is the first time Gabriel has heard birdsong. Usually, birds drop lifeless at his feet. Hearing the song, Gabriel is warmed by an invincible summer. He stretches his arms toward the light.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 24: Wastelands of the Wild
Reading Time: 8 minutes Dust fur falls like rain, feathering into the plumes of a dove. The dove’s wings become sleeves. Amimi is shining like a hologram in the glooming.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 23: History Lies
Reading Time: 7 minutes In the night shadows of trees, shunning the moonlight, a man waits. It is Kristjan, taller than Jim remembers. He is nearly naked, covered only by a wolf skin. In the night, his eyes glow red. As Jim looks at him, unable to turn away, something dark slips beneath Jim’s fingernails, flowing like a shadow into his blood.
Gods and Monsters Installment 22: Delicate Dust
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the mornings, if he wakes beside the dust of a beautiful stranger, he knows he’s drained the world of a bit of color, a bit of beauty, however deadly.
Gods and Monsters Installment 21: Out of Dust – The Lenni Lenape
Reading Time: 8 minutes Out of the earth, up through the floor, dust rises. It clings together, forming a translucent woman. She is brown as earth. Her face is worn. Her eyes are shadows in the night. Red paint dots her cheeks and ears. Her hair is made of darkness, the part decorated by a circle of crimson. “I am Amimi, matriarch of the Lenni Lenape,” she says.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 20: The Love Song of the Mole Cricket
Reading Time: 5 minutes Mr. Jones appears to have been mauled by a wild animal. His body shows evidence of teeth marks and claw marks. The wounds are uncommon.
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Gods and Monsters Installment 19: Lonely Journeys
Reading Time: 7 minutes I drove that ancient pick-up all the way out into the Catskill Mountains. Even after that trek, that good old Ford was running strong. Still is. I rented a place out in the woods about ten miles from Greene Village, New York. It was tiny; just bed, bath, and stove, but I didn’t need more.
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The Skies Our Home
Reading Time: 5 minutes The funeral was hard. But the thing that helped me smile through the tears was counting the times Tom had sat on top of hotter pyres and lived.