
The siren screamed through the quiet American afternoon, bouncing off brick storefronts and faded flags along Main Street, and for…

The kite hit the mansion’s window like a small, red meteor over a gray American suburb—and in the next few…

By the time the last light went out in downtown Houston, Diane was still awake, sitting cross-legged on the thin…

The heart monitor screamed first. A shrill, panicked beep-beep-beep sliced through the dimness of the ICU at St. Patrick’s Medical…

By the time Josh Reynolds kicked in the burning front door, he had already decided he didn’t care if the…

On the night my brother came back from the dead, the sky over our little American cul-de-sac was the color…

The night I found out what my family really thought of me, I was lying on my back in a…

At 36,000 feet above the Atlantic, somewhere between Madrid and New York, Marina decided nothing in her life could ever…

The first bird slammed into the glass so hard John thought it was a gunshot. His penthouse windows on the…

By the time the doorbell rang, the turkey was already fogging up the windows and the Detroit Lions were losing…

The night my father erased me from Thanksgiving, Minnesota was already pretending to be January. Snow drifted sideways across the…

The day Helen realized her children were trying to leave her in a cemetery, the Texas sun was shining so…

The flames burst out of the stage lights like a furious animal breaking its chain—orange, violent, hungry. At the Maple…

By the time the subway doors slam shut, it feels like I’m the only person in New York City not…

The first time my body gave up on me, it didn’t come with a warning. One second, I was staring…

The night Eric burned through his father’s money for the last time, the bass in the downtown Seattle club was…

The day a small-town judge in Virginia ordered a Medal of Honor recipient to take off his medal in open…

At seventeen, in a fluorescent-lit Georgia high school cafeteria that smelled like limp pizza and sour milk, Simone Johnson learned…

The scream of the kettle sliced through the quiet penthouse like a fire alarm, yanking Rick Foster out of a…

From high above the city, the glass towers of downtown glinted like shards of ice under the pale morning sun,…