Author: Malachai Dreadmoor

The Screaming Told Him Toby Was Gone It was the screaming that told Evan the turtle was gone for good. He’d only left Toby alone for a second — not even a full minute — and now his little sister was crying beside the storm drain, hands muddy, face red, pointing down into the dark. “I dropped him,” she sobbed. “He slipped in. I didn’t mean to!” Evan knelt by the open grate. The turtle had been his for two years, since Christmas. Not fast, not fun — but his. A quiet kind of friend. The drain exhaled a sour…

The Girl Who Vanished The hallway lights flickered once. Then again. Long shadows stretched across the linoleum floors like spilled ink. Erin Pelkey ran barefoot through the empty corridors of Hillridge High, her breath sharp in her throat, her eyes wide with panic. Her hands were scraped, her pajama pants torn. Her locker had been open when she arrived — filled with things that didn’t belong to her. Photos of strangers. A note in a language she didn’t recognize. And then the voices started. Whispering. Low and wet. Coming from nowhere and everywhere. She turned the final corner toward the…

Arrival I inherited the house on a Tuesday. No ceremony. Just a call from a lawyer with a voice like crushed paper and the legal equivalent of a shrug. My mother, Elaine Palmer, had died alone in her home — a sprawling Victorian ruin that leaned toward the sea like it was trying to remember something. The house had been in our family for generations, a place everyone avoided except her. My mother was… eccentric. Not in the harmless, cat-collecting way. She believed in presences. Talked to the walls. Slept during the day and roamed the halls at night. I…

Need toThe Dare They only meant to scare the new kid. Tyler McNeil had been in Sycamore Hill less than a month, and already the Dunham twins and Markie Langston had pegged him as the perfect mark — skinny, quiet, always scribbling in a little sketchpad like he was afraid to speak out loud. When they told him there was a dare at the construction site, he just nodded and followed. The new development was supposed to be the future: thirty identical tan homes, replacing the dense woods on the north ridge. The machines had started digging, carving into soil…

The first thing Dr. Evelyn Hayes noticed was the smell. It wasn’t overpowering at first—just a faint, sour tang in the air—but it grew stronger with every step she took down the narrow village street. A metallic scent that gnawed at the back of her throat, making her stomach churn. By the time she reached the small porch of Mr. Abel’s home, it was impossible to ignore. Evelyn knocked, her fist rattling against the brittle wood of the doorframe. No answer. She tried again, a little harder. Still nothing. Hesitant, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. The air…

The fog was thick as a shroud, rolling in from the dense forest and swallowing up the road like a living thing. Cassie squinted through the windshield, watching the trees blur into an unbroken wall of shadows. Her fingers drummed nervously against the steering wheel. “How much further?” she asked, glancing at Ryan, who sat next to her, fiddling with the radio. “About five more miles,” Ryan replied, his voice distracted as he flipped through the static-laced stations. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” But even Cassie couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling in her gut. The car had sputtered and died…

The moment Mia stepped into her new apartment, she felt it—a presence, subtle and cold, lingering in the air. It wasn’t the creak of old floorboards or the distant hum of the city outside. No, this was something far darker. The large, ornate mirror at the end of the hallway caught her eye, its cracked surface glimmering in the dim light. She told herself it was just an old, forgotten relic of the past, nothing more. But as she walked past it, she caught a glimpse of something that didn’t belong: a figure in the reflection that didn’t move quite…

I work the night shift at a small, independent radio station tucked into the edge of a dying town. WZLP 104.6—“Whispers After Midnight.” Most people don’t even know we still exist. The studio is a prefab box from the 70s, a creaking fossil covered in flaking acoustic foam and haunted by the smell of stale coffee and cigarette smoke no one’s admitted to smoking. We don’t play much music anymore. Management decided last year we’d do “community engagement,” which basically means open phone lines, local announcements, and occasionally reading weird chain emails from lonely locals. No one listens. That’s what…

Lena sat at the small wooden desk in her late mother’s study, her fingers trembling as she sifted through the pile of papers before her. The room was dimly lit by a single lamp, the soft yellow glow casting shadows that seemed to stretch and pull in all directions. She had only recently discovered her mother’s journals—scraps of old, handwritten notes, faded scraps of paper crammed into a dusty box in the attic. The delicate paper smelled faintly of mildew and time. It wasn’t until she had started reading them that the truth about her family began to unfold—a truth…

Caroline Winters stood in front of her new apartment building, the tall, aging structure looming over her. The sun was just beginning to dip behind the horizon, casting a golden glow across the faded brick facade. The place wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it was affordable, and that was enough for her. It had been months since she’d left her old life behind—the breakup, the city that never felt like home, the memories of things that didn’t feel like they’d ever truly be forgotten. She took a deep breath and tugged at the strap of her bag before pushing open the…