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Informationen zum Autor Jimmy Juliano is a writer and high school educator. Several of his stories have gone viral on the Reddit “NoSleep” forum, and his debut novel, Dead Eleven, is currently in development at A+E Studios. He lives outside Chicago with his wife, daughter, and miniature Goldendoodle. Klappentext "On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son's death-but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules..."-- Leseprobe 1 The Old Woman and the Corpse Esther and Gloria had a routine. Every day at 1:12 p.m., the elderly neighbors would shuffle to their mailboxes-Esther on one side of the gravel road, Gloria on the other-and they'd wave to each other. The widows owned the only two houses on a rural, one-mile stretch of road on Clifford Island. Their properties had been cut into the forest a half century ago, their homes engulfed by pine trees, with hidden driveways peeking through thin gaps in the sweet and earthy-smelling woods. Not many cars went that way; some days it was only the mail truck. The fog was a bit heavier at this particular spot, and despite the lack of island traffic, more deer seemed to dart out and get obliterated there than any other place on the island. The stench of rotting flesh lingered for days. Something to remind the women that death could sneak up at any moment. They were a superstitious pair, after all. The women's routine went like this: Esther walked down her driveway wearing blue slippers, gray cotton pants, and a red cardigan. She reached her mailbox and raised her right hand to Gloria, who would be wearing a faded white nightgown. Gloria waved back. The women checked for mail and then doddered back up their driveways. It went like that every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow, for twenty-five years. Many days there was no mail delivered. Christmas, the Fourth of July, Sundays, of course. But sometimes there was just no mail. No letters, no bills, no JCPenney catalog. The mail truck drove right by, or simply didn't come at all. The women checked their mailboxes anyway, always at 1:12 p.m. If it was colder outside-and it certainly got very cold this far north, especially in the clutches of a Wisconsin winter-Esther and Gloria bundled up in jackets and mittens. But Esther always wore the gray pants and cardigan underneath, and Gloria always wore the nightgown. It was tradition. The two women lived alone for decades, but they were far from bored. Esther played cribbage at the small community center on Thursday nights. Both women sang in the church choir on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Gloria enjoyed tending to her garden; Esther had a chicken coop. They often exchanged pleasantries at the café downtown, usually commiserating about the runny eggs and burnt coffee. Esther and Gloria were friendly, but they weren't friends. Some islanders wondered why they weren't friends, as if being old and alone meant you had to be friends with your neighbor, who was also old and alone. They'd even get asked that question from time to time. Why don't you drive together to church? You live across the street. But both women felt that they couldn't be friends. They knew their bond ran deeper than friendship. The 1:12 ceremony was their purpose. It started one afternoon, and then they found that they needed to do it every day. The routine was all they needed and all they wanted from each other, and both women would be damned if they'd be the one to break the streak. It gave a sense of structure to their lives, a sense of balance to their little corner of the universe. It made Esther and Gloria feel that the things they did mattered, that someone else depended on them. No one else had depended on them for a really long time. Check...
