Brooke L. Davis

Laila ambled down the dusty trail toward the river. In the distance, the Gallatin Range rose to meet her, ablaze in the morning light....

Molly and seven-month-old Ike watched the hills roll away as the train clacked through the verdant English countryside. When the train...

As Jake and Sarah drove east, she prayed they’d left soon enough. The earth still smelled of smoke, and ash coated the windshield. When...

Emily sat beneath the open weave cotton blanket on the beach and inhaled the scent of chocolate and cinnamon from her steaming cup of hot...

Carly discovered the tattered maps as she cleaned out her parents’ closet. Circles and X’s marked the towns, off the beaten path tourist...

Regan almost couldn’t bring herself to return to the beach where she’d lost Josh. The rescue team had never recovered his body, and she’d...

Kayla smiled as she sat in the passenger seat and stared at the Route 66 Christmas ornament that hung from the rearview mirror. This...

Gentle snow fell as Emma and Travis bundled into their red VW bus and set out for home. Emma shook the snow from her hat and grinned at...

In her dream, Madison fled up the forest game trail to escape her vindictive zombie boyfriend. When the chrome bumper and rusted hood of...

Jessica sat at the window and watched the snow fall in soft flakes onto the distant mountain. January in Vermont was a test; who could...

When Elizabeth discovered the yellowing, brittle diary in the dusty trunk stashed in her recently departed grandmother’s attic, she...

Erika sighed and purged yet another box. She and Tyler were moving for only the second time in twenty-five years of marriage, and they...

When the destructors descended – the fire, the robbers, – Annabelle had wept. She hated that house with the hill so close behind; the...

Ethan sat on the edge of the deck, strumming his guitar in the mist that blanketed the hayfield. He’d debated during Emily’s service...

Marvin Hemstead was getting out. Joe Cochran was a greedy idiot who’d almost ridden the gang into an ambush of deputies after the last...

Who knew John Keats could inspire deception? Susan couldn’t remember when she and Tom had purchased the poetry book, but Tom, a romantic,...

Carlie had noticed the mannequin in the department store window as she’d walked to work. Body-conscious after a recent painful breakup,...

Charlotte crept silently from her bed to the open window and gazed at the ocean glowing in the pale moonlight. When she’d said a ghost...

Three months after I turned forty, I awoke from a terrible dream gasping for air at the thought of my own corpse buried six feet under,...

The crows circle above your open grave, their disturbance a harsh unnatural sound emanating from the black blot that blocks out the sun...