Stay away from the tall grass beyond the car wash. It waves against the wind.

That gravel lot that my cousin talked about before he disappeared....there's a fence around it now.

That summer with all the missing cat posters that said "Do not find. Forgive Us"

Mr. Garcia, who sat by his trash cans all night till the proper authorities arrived.

No ice cream. No ice cream man. But I remember the music. Always in the distance.

The hamburgers at the diner down the block tasted like no others in the world. Later we would learn that was not a good thing.

He lifted his sleeve and I saw the burn scars up and down his arm. "Garage sale. '88." he said and then sat back in his chair and continued driving the bus.

One year our local weatherman didn't let winter happen. It wasn't a crime. The police could do nothing.

The local UHF station had a show where they would gather a bunch of teens in a studio and play the pop hits of the day and the teens, well, the teens would cry

That was the last game of tag we ever played. No matter how many times we let Jeremy tag us, we knew we weren't "it" and that whatever "it" was, "it" had chosen Jeremy.

One day the Dog Catcher appeared on our street wearing a bulletproof vest and proclaimed that from now on he would fight alongside the dogs

We would go to the video store every Friday. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones! Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly! It all felt so right at the time.

We found the baby dinosaur in a field at the outskirts of the new subdivision. We named him Stompers and took him back to our clubhouse to take care of him. Stompers...didn't last long. We were children. We were in no way qualified to be doing what we were doing.

The house across the way was empty but the laughter coming from inside was infectious

We never really knew where the new neighbors had moved from but they called coke "pop", dinner "supper", and death "The Becoming"

It wasn't until much later in life that I learned that piñatas were not supposed to bleed

"I have a plan." Eddie announced from the top of the half-pipe. He dropped down and when he launched off the other side, he didn't stop. Up and up, straight into the sky. We lost him forever as he passed in front of the sun and when we looked down, the half-pipe was gone.

Watching old home movies. A trip to the park. There a more crows than I remember. A lot of crows. A lot of clearly organized crows.

The heat haze coming off the asphalt of the Douglas street cul-de-sac. It showed us such beautiful things. That was the first time my father called a weather phenomenon a liar. It wouldn't be the last.

A kid at my school walked up to me and said "This is the first time we have ever spoken. It will also be the last. This is how I feel about you." then he handed me a ninja turtle with all it's limbs missing and the head replaced with an exact replica of my own.

Our barber, Mr. Anthem, would call hair "Skull Pasta" and told me that mine tasted the best.

I remember when the Popeyes opened. I remember when the Popeyes burned down. I remember when the Popeyes had it's revenge.

Every morning at school we pledged allegiance to the U.S. flag and then to the Texas flag. Then there was...The Third Pledge

One day we woke up and the gazebo had disappeared from the town square. Those of us who knew the gazebo best were sad, yes, but also proud that she had left to pursue her dreams.

That summer the JC Penney's put up mannequins that were flashing gang signs which did not help ease tensions in the slightest.

All of the other kids would make fun of Jason Human because of his grey skin, black eyes, bulbous head, powers of telepathy, and hidden agenda, but he was my friend and I can never forgive the government

Shoes on the wires were a code: The Electricity is hungry again

The mayor had the body of a deer and the head of a deer. But his mind? Very much that of a deer. A mistake had been made but no one wanted to admit it.

Everyday we would go down to the tracks to wave at the train as it passed. The train was always filled with filthy, shirtless old men. They seemed to be biting each other.

Two houses down was 322. Next door was 320. We were 316. "What happened to 318?" I asked my father. He began to weep and went down into the basement for 5 hours.

All the girls loved Kevin. Who could blame them? His hair was rad and his stigmata never stopped bleeding.

In all, we found 13 big toes in the creek that weekend and science would later determine that they all belonged to the same person.

One day when we were out playing we saw a missing child poster on a wall. We gathered around to look at it. It was Mike. We all turned to look at Mike. "Oh....right." Mike said, and simply faded away.

Coach Ambrose said all of his plays came from a voice in his head. It turned out that the "voice" was actually a tumor in his brain. When Coach Ambrose died, the tumor was hired to replace him. Six championships was all it took for everyone to look past Coach Tumor's many crimes.

The bells always rang out on Sunday and everyone knew to stay indoors and keep away from the windows until they stopped.

We looked forward to bulky-item pickup day to see what the house next door would throw out. One year it was 700 knives. Another year, it was the complete skeleton of a camel. But the year they managed to get the city to trash the concept of forgiveness would never be topped.

The most important lesson our parents taught us that summer was that if you ever saw your address on a garage sale poster then you should:

1. Run like Hell

2. Never Stop Running

3. Never answer to your birth name again even if spoken by those you love because it's not them

When I was very little, I had a lumpy teddy bear. I took it wherever I went. One day, Lumpy Bear got caught on a nail and was split open. That's when I saw that he was stuffed with hair. Human hair. The sweetest smelling human hair I have ever known.

The music of John Philip Sousa had been outlawed shortly after that 4th of July parade when the marching band snapped and took city hall by force.

We were with Colleen at the store that sold those magic eye pictures. We watched as she reached her hand into one and pulled out a full-sized, granular and multi-colored dolphin that fell and flopped on the floor. The police arrived with flamethrowers and we were escorted home.

I was warned never to look in the Upside Down Keyhole, but, being young, I couldn’t resist. When I finally woke up in the hospital a month later, my right eye had turned completely silver and I could play the oboe at an expert level.

Our local water park, The Wet Place, was the only one in the country where the water flowed up the slides and would later be shut down when it was discovered that the wave pool was 100% human tears.

We never worried about fires in our town because the chief of the fire department had a set of polaroids locked in a safe that, if released, would destroy fire's reputation in the world at large forever and fire knew this and behaved accordingly.

One day, Billy told us he'd discovered a new channel off the satellite dish. Channel Eternity: We Show You Everything. He saw all that was and will be. Infinity in a night. "I know how you all die." he said. "How do you die?" I asked. "I don't." and he never stopped crying.

Every elementary school had a kid like Grady. Grady liked to burn ants with a magnifying glass. Said it was funny. But the ants had the last laugh. They framed him for murder and used their connections and influence to send him to death row. The ant hills grow tall in my town.

My brother and I ran to the back yard bundled up and excited. We stuck our tongues out to catch the snowflakes. They tasted of blood and sulfur. It would be another 20 years before the government would tell us what really happened that day.

I decided to tell Father Ramirez about the possums playing with a Ouija board in the park. He told me not to worry. He knew what to do. Later that day he burned down the church. The two events weren't connected. He was simply a serial arsonist.

1, 2, 3, 4, I declared a thumb war

5, 6, 7, 8, We could not guess our fate

9, 10, 11, 12, that's how many lives were ruined that day

The Peach street bus stop was interesting for two reasons:

1. Our town had never had a bus service

2. The large wedding cake that perpetually sat on the bench was unaffected by rainstorms, snowfall, or the schemes of those who feared the cake.

One day, out by the creek, I came upon a group of four racoons. They were playing Russian roulette with an ivory handled pistol. The largest racoon motioned with his tiny hand for me to join them. To this day I regret not taking them up on their kind offer.

We were playing by the creek when Mitch came running up. "Do you guys want to see a dead body?" Mitch asked. We said yes and then Mitch took us to his mother's funeral.

Two big fads hit the town in the summer of '93:

1. Pogs

2. Cannibalism

In the end, pogs would claim the higher body count.

KTKA, the local radio station, broadcast a mix of classic rock and a list of everyone who would not survive the night.

So much of the town has changed over the years, but the pool of blood in the Dairy Queen parking lot is still there and will always remind me of endless summer days and the unblinking eyes that wait in the night.