He huddled down deep in the trench, trying to ignore the stench of blood and shit, trying to compress his body, make it seamlessly fit into the join of wall and floor. The bombs kept falling, shrieking as they passed by his hole, roaring as they broke into a thousand, thousand pieces which flew at him, bright, hot, searing his skin. There were rats in the trench with him, fat with war, fur greasy, eyes sparking with fear at the noise and tumult. He was, oddly enough, happy to have them there ...

It was an old, ornate and oddly carved flask that jake discovered in the backroom of the house he had just bought. He thought that he had seen it all before he acquired this house. He'd been around the world several times investigating the occult and anthropological oddities and had seen an awful lot. Some of it amusing and just plain odd and some just plain awful. He had gotten to the point where he needed to rest up, become someone else, someone relaxed and at peace with himself. So, he jum...

It was dark out, no moon and the stars that coldly glittered overhead seemed only to make the darkness even more impenetrable. It was like a cloth was clinging to his face, blinding him, a smothering, cold and dank cloth. Why did he have to come here to this place on this night of all nights? What imp of the perverse directed him here and why did he not resist? He moved forward slowly, feeling his way through the cemetary, the tombstones vague light blurs in the darkness, wraithlike, taunting...

She came at night, when the air was still, and the only sounds were the rustle of small creatures and the mournful hooting of a solitary owl. Victor didn't know why she picked him, why she seemed to have set up a nocturnal vigil around him. She would float up against his window, tapping on the glass and asking for admittance. Sometimes she seemed an orphaned child, a waif with hollow, pain-filled eyes, skin blue with cold, her clothes in tatters; and she wrung his heart with pity. Sometimes s...