Death, Dying, and Other Things

A story about a field of wildflowers. In “What Lives in the Wildflowers?” a teenage boy asks his little brother that exact question.

Two stories about things you weren’t supposed to hear. In the first, “The Desert Rose,” a traveler hears breathing in walls of his motel room. In the second “A Stab of Air,” a curse uttered in one town is heard in another.

Two stories about moving, moving through time, moving through space, and confronting the next stage of your life. In the first, “Staying the Night,” a cross country move takes a macabre turn. In the second “The Dirt in the Backyard,” an expecting mother, in a new home, starts a garden.

A single story about puberty. In “One Red, One Green, One Blue,” a teenager’s very reality starts changing, as he grows up.

A single story. In “On the H O R I Z O N,” massive creatures appear on the horizon and derail a life.

A single story. In “Unfathomable Depths” an experiment in a secret facility goes horribly wrong.

Two stories about bodies and bodies of water. In “It Spoke,” a corpse in a riverbed says a few words. In “The Watermen of Drag Lake,” a local legend is born.

A single story about creepy crawlies in the house. In “In the Walls,” a grieving man finds a creature that’s come out of a hole in the drywall.

Two stories of blood. In the first, “Bloodstain,” a couple contends with a mystery stain in their bedroom. In the second, “Bad Tastes,” there’s an interesting side effect of a man’s wisdom teeth removal.

A single story, told through 10 of a captain’s audio journals. In “A Small and Heavy Chamber,” an exploratory mission to the reaches of the solar system goes wrong.