Our lives are made of stories. Some of those tales get pretty damn dark. In the following "13 stories and an Oops," award-winning dark fantasist Satyros Phil Brucato ( Red Shoes , Mage , Valhalla with a Twist of Lethe ) explores shadows, cries, and silence. Careless haunters, elite collectors, secretive enforcers, lip-synching goths, hapless custodians, strange children, subterranean exiles, tortured fiends, harried jesters, haggard coulrophobes, ragged batterers, joyous hikers, carnal mystics, and exploding cosmos tell their tales as sardonic darkness swallows all. If mortal dread is the Devil's bread, then we're all welcome at the feast.