Cade Holter

“The Dark, The Dark, The Dark” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #274

I’ve always felt it when the lights were off.  Not physically, I mean, not like a hand on my shoulder or fingers curling in my hair. I’ve felt it the way you feel someone standing behind you in line at the grocery store or at an ATM, the filling of a space you aren’t looking at, don’t want to look at, looking at it is redundant because you can feel it like it’s breathing on your neck. It’s not though, just like it’s not jabbing long, sharp nails into the small portion of your back when you pass by the light switch. You don’t feel it as ...

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“Did You Hear That?” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #272

"Did you hear that?"Hank lifted his head from his phone and looked over at Felix. "Hear what?"Felix didn't bother to look up from his own phone. He always did that, Hank thought. Never paid attention when he was spoken too."Felix!""What?" He still didn't look up."You said you heard something?"This time Felix did bother to look at him, squinting like he was looking at the dumbest man on earth."Uh, I didn't?""What do you mean you didn't?" Hank asked, gesturing around at their apartment, at the grey walled living room full of nothing but a ratt...

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“Night Walk” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #252

Eyes on me. That's the sensation I was feeling at that moment. Eyes from somewhere else following my every step through the neighborhood. It was the one up near the primary school, the one by the suburbs off the side of where the highway feeds into my town. They're big houses there, all of them packed together just far enough away to have an actual property line. Not one of them had a single car garage. It would look fine during the day, as I knew from experience, and, depending on whether you went through there during a school day or not, i...

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“Eyes in the Dark” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #245

The old, grated elevator was broken, so he took the stairs. He'd slept in too late and that left him making the three story ascent alone, listening to the way the bottoms of his sneakers clacked against the grey, concrete steps. Listening to how the sound bounced off the walls, which themselves were draped in shadows cast by the old, fluorescent lights, stained orange and growing duller as time passed. He wasn't inclined to waste his time in the stairwell, however, that's why he was hustling up, only refraining from doing two steps at a time...

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“Good Dog” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #244

I didn't notice the photo until I was already home. I hadn't noticed it at the park because there was a fight going on over a kid's soccer match between two grown men. I wasn't paying attention to the why of it because I was busy recording it, and that was on top of making sure my dog, Murphy, didn't run off after all the little things that caught his interest. He's just a little thing himself, I didn't want him getting hit by a car or something.Regardless, I only noticed the picture on my camera roll because I have a habit of going into the...

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“Tyrant King” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #242

The skeleton of the Albertosaurus was displayed such that it loomed over the smaller dinosaur beside it. It wasn’t quite a T-Rex, as the client had desired, but Rick wasn’t sure of what difference it would make. He couldn’t see a single difference between them. Truthfully, he’d never even seen a T-Rex skeleton before today outside of movies, and he’d Curtis not never been inside the Royal Ontario Museum— The ROM— before.Not that it made any difference to him whichever way, he was just here for scouting. It’d be a tight fit, but they’d have t...

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“Hallelujah!” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #239

The screaming was the first thing we noticed. It was one of those grey days that me and my brother Mike used to like. The kind where the sky is dark with angry looking clouds and the wind is high enough that it makes your shirt cling to your skin. It wasn't wet though. Those days only got wet when we went in. Mike and I were out with a set of little plastic golf clubs, ignoring Ma as she hollered at us to knock off our mock sword fight, and it was only her cuz Dad was at work. It was at this point that we heard the screaming. At first, none ...

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“The Naughties” by Cade Holter

The Naughties were called so for the simple fact that they were not The Ninties. The Not-ies. I don't care about the ninties. I never knew them like I did the two thousands that came after, and, even then, that knowledge is hampered still for me being born in two thousand and one, a couple months before that big, awful thing happened in Manhattan, and The States took it upon themselves to turn a bunch of middle eastern into smoking craters. That's not why I hate them either. I'm Canadian, Ontario born and bred. Raised in some fancy suburb ou...

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“Teenyboppers Delight” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #234

The sun was gone, and they still had no clue where the hell they were. Tamara was about fed up with it. Ben tells her they're going on this wonderful road trip to a national park, tells her it would only take about three hours of driving. They started at noon today, and they were still going six hours later. Asking him if he knew where he was going was fruitless, even to make herself feel more active in the situation, because it had become abundantly clear that he really didn't. That asking it just one more goddamn time would net her little...

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“The Man with Long Arms” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #231

“I’m telling you man, there’s something wrong with that guy.” Maurice did not want to hear this again today. He came over to Cameron’s apartment to do exactly one thing: nothing. Now he was being made to listen to this shit again. “Cam, I don’t know what this guy did to you, but you should just drop it. He hasn’t even done anything to you.” “Not yet.” “Not yet he says. What do you think he’s even going to do?” Cameron, of course, has no reply to that. It’s the same routine every damn time, Maurice notes bitterly. Maurice comes over. Cam ...

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“The Night is Dark” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #232

The world outside the cabin remained dull. Lit up only vaguely by a faint, dark blue tinge of night light, the sky is a solid blanket above him. Not even the moon is visible. The snow supersedes it all as it falls, but that’s not why he is staring out of the window. The screams are saying his name. Hamish. That’s what they call. Out in the thick pines, branches dipping with the snow they’ve caught and collected, holding to it with bald faced greed much as he holds his rifle, his repeater. Hamish. He steps back from the window, letting the cu...

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“Squeaking Shoes” by Cade Holter

“Where’d Paul go?” Tina looked at Sam, who himself was looking away, turning in a circle, his shoes skidding audibly against the polished floor. Paul was a hard man to miss, being as tall as he was wide and just as prone to loud exclamations. He still wasn’t there. Tina looked around behind herself, turning in a circle herself, finding nothing but herself in the mirrors next to her and ahead of her. No Paul. “Paul!.” She called out. “Where are you?” No answer. When Tina looks at Sam, he’s got that look on his face, the one she hates. The one...

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“Secret Santa” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #225

Bill Turner woke to his alarm and quickly shot a hand out to silence it. This was not the time to wake his boy. Not when the sun was away and the snow outside fluttered down in barley illuminated spirals. Bill Turner had one thought as he heaved himself onto the edge of his bed, and it was not of the fatigue he felt waking at an ungodly hour like this. “Make this one special.” He muttered to himself. Christmas was a lonely time. Not for one or the other but for both, which Bill felt was worse than if it were just the one of them feeli...

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“Bump in the Night” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #224

The noise downstairs stirs me awake. Looking at the digital clock, I can see the time in red electric letters. 2:35 am, so I’m already upset even before I fully register the noise. My bedroom is pitch black, so I fumble around for a moment before finding the bedside lamp. Switching it on bathes me in a pale orange glow, and I can see, outside of its immediate brightness, outlines of the room around me. Nothing is out of place. There are no silhouettes looming over me or fingers tapping at my window -the blinds are drawn anyway- so I think, m...

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“Collateral Employee” by Cade Holter

Submitted to Contest #221

My name was lost to me well before my death. It had been the case for he one before me, and the one after me, who I now observe. I don’t know if he had ever had a name. If he might have been a desperate vagrant or some other such person rejected for suffering a mental collapse. He might have been bred for this role, to be shackled with old, rust soaked chains in a man sized closet. Waiting. I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about how this line of work came about, just that I was here well before me, but I do know what is done to the ones l...

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