2:47 AM. Ginny woke to her daughter's vice-like grip on her shoulders and powerful shake. A jar of peanut butter slipped from her hand and dropped on Diane's toe, yanking a howl from her. "Mom, you're sleepwalking again." Diane stutter stepped to the nearest stool and rubbed her sore toe. The next night Ginny got …
Tag: MTO horror
MTO Shawn Washburn
A suburban playground outside Columbus, 1983. Sunset, the time Shawn and his buddy were supposed to be home for supper. The sun had the audacity to set when the shuffleboard game was tied, so by mutual agreement the boys shrugged off curfew (and likely dinner) to play a tiebreaker frame. Bad idea. Everyone knows terrible …
MTO Heather
Heather was terrified. Her filbert brush was poised over the nepeta green. Then she hovered it over the fern/forest mixture she'd just prepared. Nepeta? Fern/forest? Nepeta? It was an excruciating decision: which green? What if she chose wrong? Sure, she could blend it away, but Heather was a little superstitious. The first colors to touch …
MTO Magarisa
With a bag of groceries in each arm, Magarisa managed to unlock her front door and push it open with her foot. As was his practice, Fury wended his way between Magarisa's feet, trying as hard as he could to be stepped on or to trip her. His excited meows morphed into purrs as he …
MTO Nitin Lalit
A taxi took Nitin as far as the banana grove. The next leg of his trip was fit only for bicycles and pedestrians and ended at the pale yellow house set into the island's highest peak. The dwelling was battered and filed by the elements and in a surprising state of overwhelm from an invasive …
MTO Philip Tanmay
I opened my lunch sack and smiled at the note Mom wrote on the plastic sandwich bag: I love you, Philip - Mom xoxo. She put smiley faces in the o's. And...hooray! Roast beef. There'd be horseradish and butter slathered on those thick, soft slices of Italian bread. My class was last to eat lunch, …
MTO Vickey Daley
Continued from Colleen Garibotti MTO... Pick-up was proud of his detective work. Now, watching nature-loving suburbanites wasn't just about teeth. It was about figuring out what made them tick. What their dreams were, their hurts, their fears. He had a few regulars he kept tabs on--which was why it was so strange his next adventure …
MTO Colleen Garibotti
The man in a rusty pick-up, a hoarder, parked in the same spot in the Metroparks, the little lot on the sharp curve beneath the railroad bridge. He backed in to view the walkers, joggers, and bicycle riders on the asphalt trail. He'd been coming every night to tally and fantasize. His beloved possessions piled …
MTO Becky Marr
Being a mom, it's been called "the most difficult job on the planet" by Oprah Winfrey and contradicted (hilariously) by Bill Burr, who maintains that bleeding-out soldiers, broiling roofers, and Appalachian coal miners just might have it a little harder than moms. Fine. Maybe it's not as hard as getting shot and killed, but momming …
MTO Gina Tabasso
Gina's baby was sick again. She hated to see any of them sick, but Prince Caspian--shortened to Princey--held a special place in her heart. He was her first, a white and grey Turkish Angora named after a character in one of her favorite books. The poor boy coughed and arched his back, trying to get …
KL Griffiths 