Exploring the Old Zoo Nature Trail in Cisco, Texas — There is something about deserted spaces that draws out the explorer in me. Horror fan that I am, I know these are the spots where the paranormal linger. I would trespass into every vacant house if it weren’t for the threat of arrest. Instead, I feed my curious spirit with…

When Yelp Reviews Lead You Astray The past has flavor. It tastes like cherry popsicles melting red down your arm on a hot summer day. It might taste like Saturday night at home, watching the movie of the week and eating pepperoni pizza. The kind from a box kit, with…

This past weekend Andrew and I drove out to the Ladonia Fossil Park. We’d been there before, during Covid. I remembered the solitude and peacefulness of strolling beside the North Sulphur River.

The world is cruel to gentle boys. I knew from the moment I met Richie Taylor that he didn’t belong in East Texas. He came to us not long after the school year had started, before the first football game and after we’d traded our memories of summer for dreams…

I dumped a shovel of dirt over the body. The corpse in question, a dead rat, stared at me with a glazed eye before I covered it with a quart of potting soil. Miracle Grow, guaranteed for beautiful blooms. I hope nothing sprouts from this planting. The rat expired less…

And other creeping horrors — I learned the other day that Pothos is also called Devil’s Ivy. The poisonous nature of its leaves inspires that name, surely undeserved. Pothos are very hard to kill. I can testify to their hardiness. During the lock down days of Covid, I abandoned a pot of ivy. Left to…

The last train travels fast — He opened his eyes to a world gone red. Somewhere nearby a woman sobbed, her keening cries almost drowned out by the chug and clack of a locomotive. The man, forty-two-year-old Roy Ellis, sat up and wiped the blood from his face. Gingerly, he probed the wound on his scalp…

Trouble in the garden — The bunnies were cute until they began dining on my asparagus. Squirrels raided the bird feeders but they were cute and their antics fun to watch so we forgave them. A creek borders our back yard, making us a way station for all sorts of wild life. We’ve had raccoons…

Sometimes they never leave — The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I was twelve years old that year, in 1972, the year Nixon went to China and his buddies broke into the Watergate hotel. …