Detours are amazing creatures.

They can shortcut your existence or lead you down a forever long road that will linger far into the distant reaches of eternity. It is these unexpected tangents that people stumble across nearly every day that will haunt you in a frightenly familiar fashion.

Wander into a laundromat and find a kind of a time machine. Indulge yourself in a particularly nasty game of baseball. Hitch a ride on a frieght train with the piggyback man or entomb yourself in a trailer walled with books or take a ride on a bus that is going nowhere fast or just lean over an empty ocean and wait for the first mermaid you see.

Detour around an overturned trailer of chickens and find a chance to do it all over again. Take a taxi ride with a very hungry passenger or just walk in the park and watch a juggler balancing severed heads. Reality will take you only so far and after that there is nothing to rely on but faith and fear.

I offer you eighteen eerie tales that will take you to the edge of the map and then nudge you just a little bit further.