The Living VS. The Dead: Chapter 1
By: Sandy Riedel

I grabbed Lisa’s hand and pulled her into the mansion, gasping for air, and slammed the door behind us. I looked back at her; a mixture of pool water and sweat dripped down her face. She was shivering and I wasn’t sure if it was from being cold or from being scared.

“What’s going on out there, Steph?!” she demanded, holding back tears. “What were those things?!”

*This is a fanfic set loosely in the Whateley Academy series. That series is great. I'll edit this to add the real disclaimer that's supposed to be here when my internet is faster. This is going to move slowly and there is cursing. You have been warned.*

Chapter 1: The more you ask, the more I say
I woke up to darkness. It was Saturday. Through the night I'd felt as though there was something going wrong but I couldn't place it, quite. My head felt funny, like it had expanded. The soft glow of my computer's monitor could still be seen over my immobile feet from my vantage point at the head of the bed. It was a Saturday. I was sleeping in: it was around ten o'clock, though I normally woke up much later, closer to 12 or 1. I wish I remembered more ... it's really a blur what happened next. I have a tendency to block out my emotions. There was a knock at the door. I was crying and I couldn't understand why. The knock was soft and quailing. Through my sobs I couldn't hear the other person crying, but I knew they were, somehow. They entered the door. It was my aunt Lily, who lived four states away and was the most caring and least rational person I knew in my family, simultaneously. She believed in Wicca, though my own blasphemous atheist thoughts were tolerated nicely. Dabbing at her eyes she seemed almost like she couldn't talk, and choked before letting go with a single sentence:
"Rick and Gloria are dead."

All In the Day of a Mother

by Maggie O'Malley

dedicated to Momma Shelly, all my sisters, and all my family. Special dedication to my big sister Steffi. Thanks for the ball game and the hotdog. I will never forget that day.

Steffi was sitting all alone on the swing in the backyard. Momma Shelly glanced out the kitchen window as she was preparing afternoon lunch, and saw her thirteen-year-old with her ball cap pulled down over her eyes. She watched the young teen sitting slumped and dragging her feet back and forth across the ground as the swing slowly rocked.

Chapter 43: Dave

Sarah finished my bath and carried me down to the nursery. She stood me up on the floor and started opening up a dresser drawer. "The only underwear I have for you to wear are those panties we got at Walmart," she said. While she was doing that I grabbed one of my diapers off the shelf of the changing table.

I was just standing there holding the diaper when she turned around. "You want to wear a diaper?" I nodded. "Are you sure, Steve is still sitting out there?" I nodded again. "OK, what ever you want."