Amphetamine Daydreams

A woman gets a cursed tattoo on her hand. A crow. If she does something against "the rules" it pecks at her. At first the rules are easy. Don't eat this food. Can't use that color lighter.... But they've gotten worse. So has the pain from the bites.

When Pfc. Chester Michael had gone over all the ways he that he might die in the war, when he thought about them back at the barracks weeks before Utah Beach ever happened, the top things on the list were: gettin shot, gettin blown up, and gettin fuckin shot. Weren’t those the normal ways that soldiers were dying in this war? Yeah. So that’s probably how he would die too. By getting shot at, and those shots not missing.

Isaac Freedman used to be just this old cook that I buy my coke from. Nice enough guy, I guess. Didn’t really know anything about him until recently—but he definitely was a little cooky. Think: “Dumbledor—but, like, if Dumbledor did a ton of candyflipping in the 90s and now he goes under a different name cause he believes the CIA has it out for him, so he never leaves his house and usually doesn’t even put pants on, and he somehow has the best coke hook-up in the Midwest.

I’ve been having the same dream now for a long time. It’s a recurring dream…or nightmare. I can never tell for sure because the emotion is different. The details are the always the same—the smells, the sounds of my shoes, etc.—but I never know what’s on the other side of those doors. I do now.

A group of bandmates celebrate the recent success of their album and tour by going a trip. But it's a bad trip. A very bad trip...

Joseph isn't a painter. He's a junkie. Well...he was getting clean. Was clean, for a while. But then he started seeing it.... An abomination that threatens all life on Earth. And only he can stop it, by painting.

Jason Cole was working on finding a suitable picture for some newsletter or something. One of 10 or 20 specific photos he would find that day. Same old thing he’d done a hundred times before. Looking through stock photos, this time for a cooking ad.

Gus Valentino is still an entry-level delivery driver. But when he gets a big job, delivering live cargo, he thinks it's gonna be his big break. And it's just a tiny little guy! A norblan, for a little girl's birthday present.

A journalist finds something on a recording that she made. A soft, ghostly voice. Her reporting piece is put on hold as she tries to discover who the voice belongs to. Or belonged to...

Contrary to popular belief, to be ignorant is to be left in the light. For in the darkness truth and madness reign, and once you glimpse the horrible, abominable truth you may never again bask in the blissful illumination which is unknowing.

Doctors have been traveling back in time to vaccinate populations against viruses. But nothing has been changing in the present. One man is about to find out why....

A man is tortured by a sound that only he can hear. It was easily ignored at first. But now the insomnia is getting to him. He must find a way to stop the noise.... Anything is better than this.

The Galactic Delivery Company will delivery anything, to anywhere in the galaxy.... Gus Valentino is finally moving up the ranks within the company. So the last thing he wants to do is fail now. But the package to be delivered is within a highly secured bank vault....

Two men are trapped in darkness. A shipping container, buried underground. No idea who locked them in there. It's been days. A week. Maybe more. And then the lock opens. Something is thrown inside with them. A gun. With only one bullet.

A volunteer candy-striper stays over night at St. Mary's hospital to watch over a boy from her class. The same boy that had asked her to the school dance five times already. The same boy that she'd rejected five times already....

One winter night, as the snows fall outside their home, and a boy cannot sleep, his father tells him the story of a saint. A martyr. She is well known to all Christians in the land. Her, and her infant child. She is credited with stopping the reign of the pagan king.

I didn’t want to do the holograms. I never did. I reiterated this fact to myself as I saw her standing there, beautiful as ever. My sweet Mollie. She even was wearing that blue dress that she loved so much (I loved it even more, if that was possible—she looked so good in it!). And even from where I was standing, 10 feet away, I could see the curls in her blonde hair bounce as she turned her head. I could see her blue eyes. Vibrant. Real. So real...

Teenager Andy Cogen just discovered that he can use the predictive text on his phone to affect the real world.... But does he know that the genie doesn't always grant your wish the way you wanted him to? A short story of suspense and weirdness set at the St. Michael's High School from The Game We Don't Play Anymore.