S.

Becker: It was that fleeting hour of day when the moon and sun are high and bright at the same time. Like many
things in my life, these summer nights wouldn’t last much longer. I sat quietly on a…

J. Bowman: It looked like a shell, half buried, but as she dug through the sand around its edges, she found it was
something completely different, something she’d never seen before and thought only existed in stories. She had to
be imagining—it simply couldn’t be a…

E. Causey: The dog heard him coming before I did. She woke out of a deep sleep on the rug and was completely
alert and whining at the door. I knew this day was coming, but I hoped…

B. Estes: No windows, no doors, not a single crack in the wall as far as I could tell. I had woken in this white room
minutes before—time seemed to have stalled—and hadn’t heard a sound. If this was a dream, it wasn’t like any
dream I’d had before. No, this was very real. All at once…

M. Hipp: Where I come from, people just don’t do that kind of thing. I mean, really, who does she think she is? In
what universe is it ok to…

E. Kinsey: She had been working in the lab for decades, so long that they would probably name the place after her,
and she had never seen anything like this. This would change everything we thought we knew about…

T. Martin: Everyone else in the house was still asleep. As I sat at my dining room table that spring morning, coffee
perking, I could identify every sound that came through the window, every voice on the breeze. The best part of
living in the same place your whole life is…

H. Midgley: The relentless rain pummeled his shoulders and splashed around his feet. This would be no passing
storm, but it wouldn’t stop him. If he squinted past the brim of his hat, he could just make out…

M. Miello: Salvation had been within reach the whole time, she had just been too stubborn to see it. It had started a
week ago with a phone call from…

M. Mitchell: It’s all fun and games until someone loses a toe. When we all got in the train that morning, we
thought…

M. Nielsen: It hadn’t stopped raining for two weeks. We were beginning to feel like nothing would ever be
completely dry and warm again. If it didn’t let up soon…
L. Peasley: The soldiers had been hunkered down in the abandoned building all night. It had cooled off a little
when the sun went down, but now sunrise was promising another sweltering day. They had to keep clear of
windows, or the snipers outside wouldn’t hesitate.

M. Peecher: Ever since the creature crawled out of the lake, the whole town had begun to show their true colors.
The uncertainty, the fear, and the fascination combined into a potent cocktail that brought out the best in some, the
worst in others. The creature was…

A. Poole: This had to be illegal. It was completely dark, and he had just climbed over two chain link fences. That’s
two more than he’d ever climbed over in his life. Surely people only did that on television. But here he was with a
flashlight in his hand, following…

S. Poole: She was completely alone. No people, no animals, not even a mosquito. She had gone down into the
bunker believing that when she came back up, everything would be the same, that it would have been a false alarm
again. But as she took in the silence…

J. Richardson: I’ve only ever told this story to my cat. No one else knows, not even my therapist—but who tells
their therapist everything, right? It’s not like I’m ashamed or anything, but…

B. Rivera: My mother is famous for her pies. They are like no other pies I’ve ever tasted anywhere else. She has
even been on TV to teach people how to make them, although she left out her secret ingredient. The day she finally
passed the complete recipe on to me…

M. Rumsey: I’m not what you’d call a saint, but I never lie. Maybe that’s what makes me so irksome to so many
people. I tell the truth as I see it, every time. So jury duty may not have been the ideal social situation for me,
especially in such a high-stakes case. From that first day…

A. Shive: “How did you get here so fast?”

“On horseback.”
“On what?”
“On horseback.”
“But we’re in Newark! Where did you find a…? How do you know…? You know what, nevermind.
You’re here now.”
 “Yeah, so, what’s so urgent? I need to get this horse back.”

S. Sjoberg: Wind sang through the cottage in the same old tune, only this time it was both familiar and foreboding.
The waves seemed to whisper secretively, and the candles guttered on the sills. No one spoke for a long time, but
eventually…

M. Wakefield: Sarah had a feeling that she had lived this day already. She had woken up with deja vu, and as the day
progressed, it grew stronger until she was reciting what people said in her head like a script before they started
talking. At the coffee shop…

A. West: The village witch charmed the fields and the graveyard. One with life and growth, the other with rest and
sleep. Sadly, she mixed them up.

J. Willis: “It’s for you!” she called, after answering the phone. When I went to take it from her, she covered the
mouthpiece and whispered menacingly, “This better not be about what I think it’s about, got it?”

A. Willoughby: The footprints in the snow were fresh. They veered off the path and into the woods. I had to make
a choice. It was now or never.