Ashleigh Berlin 
I was ready to kill the monster next door. I had a heavy aluminum baseball bat in my hand and the terrified scream of my missing five-year-old daughter echoing in my ears. I didn’t wait for the police. I didn’t wait for my wife. I kicked open the side gate of the property adjacent to …
They call me cruel for leaving an old, one-eyed dog on the porch in freezing rain. But you can’t drag a soldier off his post, even when the war is over. My name is Sarah. And for the last two years, I’ve been living in a house that feels too big, with a silence that …
They thought the old man was deaf. But as I carved the Thanksgiving turkey, I heard my son whisper the plan: sell my ranch, lock me away, and kill my dog. It all started around the dining table, the solid oak one I built with my own hands forty years ago. The air should have …
I thought I was going to be sued, or perhaps arrested, when I found my hundred-pound dog pinning my elderly neighbor against his porch swing in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. Let me back up. My name is Giulia, and six months ago, I moved into a quiet cul-de-sac in Ohio that felt like …
I have to hold my breath when I hug my dying wife because the metallic, sweet stench of her decay triggers a gag reflex I can no longer control. My name is Lucas, and I am a fraud. To our neighbors in this quiet suburb, I am the “Saint.” They bring over tuna casseroles and …
Everyone said the foreclosed farm was empty, but they were wrong; something vicious remained, guarding a scarecrow wearing a dead woman’s dress. Part 1: The Beast of the Cornfield Sarah Jenkins hated foreclosures. The silence always felt heavy, like the held breath of a family that had lost everything they owned. She parked her company …
I was lying in a hospital bed, technically alive, when I heard my son calculate the cost of “putting down” my best friend like he was discussing the trade-in value of a used appliance. To my son, David, and my daughter, Sarah, the math was simple. I had suffered a mild stroke. I could no …
My son owns a smart home worth millions, but I just walked out of his Christmas dinner before the appetizers were served. He asked me to choose between his imported Italian floors and my fourteen-year-old dog. It wasn’t even a choice. For the last decade, my life has been defined by two things: the rumble …
Part 1 — The House Stayed Silent Until the Dog Hit the Radio Mae Carter hadn’t played a song since her husband’s funeral—until his Labrador rammed the broken radio to life at midnight, and a voice crackled through the static that only Mae was supposed to recognize. The silence in Mae’s house wasn’t peaceful anymore. …
Part 1: The Reserved Booth The day I tried to unreserve the corner booth to keep our highway diner from closing, the blind old dog under it stood up—and wagged at the tattooed man who walked in.He hadn’t moved like that since my boss died, and the stranger said a sentence only her missing son …
Part 1 – The Last Ride On the morning Earl Walker signed the paper to end his old dog’s pain, he did something nobody expected him to do again. He wiped down his hunting rifle, tightened Duke’s faded collar, and turned his truck away from the vet and straight toward the pines. The kitchen was …
The man looked like he strangled bears for fun, and for six months, I watched him drag terrified, bleeding dogs into his rig. Last Tuesday, I finally called the cops. I’ve worked the graveyard shift at the Interstate Diner off I-40 for six years. You see everything out here: runaways, drug deals, broken dreams. But …
Part 1 – Today’s Forecast: 100% Chance of a Beautiful Lie This morning, our entire street agreed to tell the same lie to an old man with cloudy eyes, and it might be the only reason he still gets out of bed. By 7:45 a.m., our block is in position. Coffee mugs steam on porches, …
Part 1 — The Heatwave Window They found the old man slumped in a dead ’75 pickup in the middle of a cornfield—engine cold, windows up—while a golden dog beside him fought for breath like the whole summer was trying to kill it. No one knew if he was the villain in a viral clip… …
Part 1 — The Empty Screening “DON’T TURN IT OFF—SHE’LL DIE AGAIN!” the blind old man shouted from a theater sealed since the ’80s, while his limping dog barked in perfect rhythm to a movie that wasn’t even on the screen. I came to The Harbor Light Cinema to tag it unsafe and move on, …