Letter from the Editor Vallie Lynn Watson ‘Tis the season! Our “Boo”din theme of “monsters” has me harkening back to the last election cycle and remembering how I dealt with said stress: Halloween decor! Still early in the pandemic, I spent just about every day of October 2020 on my…

Lost in Canterbury Colette Tennant __________ Once, after a rough crossing from Calais to Dover, I entered England for the first time. Unashamed tourist, traveling alone, I slept the first night at Canterbury’s Pilgrim Inn. Maybe because I was by myself, they tucked me in a corner room under the…

Making King Kong Carla Sarett __________ Marion Cooper  needed a monster.   So he made King Kong upright.  His beast stood  like a human  killer. The real  challenge lay in adjusting  the frame’s size  without nonstop  distortion, his Kong could be  dwarfed by the  Empire State, even a billboard.  Kong was…

Stop Motion & Psalm [Crows rustle in the pine out back,] Clay Matthews __________ Stop Motion This spirit on the water now hovers over the darkness; I am moved to speak, and love pours out like honey and covers everything I forgive. In hide and seek you called my name;…

Never, Never the Ouija Board Mark Hendrickson __________ To believe in ghosts seems a foolish thing (even ghosts don’t believe in themselves). Yet in the darkness my eyes have seen a message spread beneath the needle, slowly spelling out belated warning:  Never buy the Ouija board— cardboard casket gathering mold, …

They Come, Growling Foster Dickson __________ Everything was tomorrow.  But not now.  Some was yesterday, and most went  by unnoticed. That one kid  humanized what was left over, and  the green sprouts went on, shooting  up. The hard brown dirt allowed little  cracks, and what was before unseen,  unknown, came…

Tedious Monster Kathie-Louise Clarke __________ What waits under the bed for you to-night? a ligature tied tight, or a claw’ed hand that tedious monster positioned to fright little children fearful of the dark-ness dread night’s yearn-ing to bury them in sand while adults seek un-lit rooms of dark’s caress where…

It Came From the Roommate’s Beard J.B. Stone __________ His beard was so massive, so brooding, so thick, that one could fit more than a dust pile of fugitives from a vacuum bag, but a whole damn buffet. Daryl seemed to be more beard than man. Every time I would…

The Cherry Pit John R. Muth __________ # This story occurs as so many do:A tale of murders, ending with one too. # It can only do good to confess my distaste for the brothers residing at Edengarth manor. An ironic, if quite bold, name, considering their origins. Their house,…