CREEPYPASTA.COM – Scary Paranormal Stories & Short Horror Microfiction

Dr. Ellen Kennedy was just locking up her office for the evening when her phone began to ring. She paused at the door. It had been a long and grueling day and a ringing phone this late did not bode well. She sighed. While it didn’t bode well, it meant that it was probably important. Swinging her door back open, she walked over to the still ringing phone.

“You’ve reached the office of Dr. Ellen Kennedy. This is she speaking,” she said, holding the phone in one hand and her briefcase in the other.

“Hello, Dr. Kennedy, glad I’ve caught you,” a male voice on the other end. “My name is Detective Carl Rourke.”

Ellen put her briefcase down on the floor and circled back around to her chair. She had better make herself comfortable. If there was a detective on the phone she was probably going to be here for a while. “Yes, Detective, how can I help you?” She had been through this a few times before. Officers wanting her to disclose patient information followed by her refusing to give it. She had even been summoned to court once over it. Already she was preparing her speech mentally in her head as the Detective continued.

“I am calling in regards to one Connor Russell. He was found dead outside his apartment building tonight.”

And just like that Ellen’s speech scattered to the wind. Connor was one of her patients. He had gone through a long and harrowing ten years of therapy after the horrific murder of his best friend and had finally pulled himself back together. Just this afternoon he had been in her office, signing his newly published book for her. “Dead?” she said as she tried to re-marshal her thoughts. “What happened?”

“From what we can tell so far, a fire broke out on his floor. He was trapped in his apartment and could not make it to the fire escape. Witnesses say he jumped from his window.”

Ellen put a hand on her desk. Something moved under it. Looking down she saw it was a book, “By the Fire’s Light”. Connor’s book. She put her hand on her head and took a slow and steadying breath. “You want my opinion on the state of his mental health.” It wasn’t a question.

She could almost see the Detective nodding as he answered. “Yes.”

Ellen sat up straight in her chair, pulling on her mask of professionalism. Her emotions could wait. “I would say in no way shape or form was Connor Russell suicidal. He had just had a book published and it was selling well. He was getting ready to pursue a PhD in English Literature with an emphasis in folklore. He showed no signs of mental instability that would lead me to conclude that he would wish to take his own life.”

“I see,” the Detective said. He sighed. “In that case, is there anyone who might bear a grudge against Connor?”

Ellen stared in front of her, dumbfounded. “Are you suggesting that the fire was arson? Or that Connor did not jump of his free will?”

“I am not suggesting anything,” the Detective said, no emotion in his voice. “Just trying to gather all the facts.”

“There is Jared Holloway. He murdered Connor’s best friend, Kurt, ten years ago. However, Jared is still in jail to my knowledge and plead guilty to the crime before the trial. Didn’t even try for a plea bargain.” Ellen paused thinking back to this afternoon. “I do know that Connor went to visit Jared today to talk with him and try to figure out why he killed his friend.”

“Interesting,” the Detective said on the other end of the line and she could hear scribbling.

“Detective, did Connor truly jump? Or why would you even want to know about possible enemies?”

The Detective sighed again. “Okay, this is entirely off the record. Connor pushed himself backwards out the window. Witnesses say it looked like he was yelling at someone before he fell.” He paused. “One witness says they thought they saw someone look out the window after Connor pushed himself out.”

Ellen felt her mouth drop. “Then why would you think it’s a plain suicide at all?”

The Detective gave a small laugh. “Because I’m not sure how much I can trust the witness’s testimony. She said the person who looked out the window had no face.”

***
Ellen sat at her desk long after she had hung up the phone. She had dutifully taken down the Detective’s number and had promised to call back if she thought of anything useful. She stared down at Connor’s book, fingers drumming on top of it. It was absurd. When Connor had first been brought to her office ten years ago he had ranted and raved about how a faceless man had killed his friend. Called him the Slender Man.

Ellen picked up the book and thumbed through it. It wasn’t true of course. Jared Holloway had murdered Connor’s friend, Kent. Quite violently too. The nature of the crime still gave her the shudders a decade later. Lacerations up and down Kurt’s body with a final deep blow in his chest. From the pictures she had seen he had been drenched in his own blood, making it unlikely he would have survived even without the final blow in his chest cavity. The nature of the crime had caused Connor’s mind to try and protect itself. Unwilling to believe a fellow man could be so callous he had invented this Slender Man to take the blame instead.

Well, invented wasn’t quite the right word. More like appropriated. From what Connor had told her over the years, especially when he had begun writing his book, she knew Slender Man had originated on the Something Awful forums originally created by one Victor Surge. Not much was know about Mr. Surge as he was reticent with personal information. Regardless, others had gotten their hands on him and he had grown into a full blown internet urban legend. With Connor’s books hitting the stands, it looked like he’d be just a plain old urban legend soon. If anything, Connor’s death would spur sales.

So it was truly absurd to think a fictional monster had come to life and killed Connor. She could not, would not, and did not believe it. She put the book down. Well, she had to admit, the book was selling well. Perhaps the witness owned a copy of the book and with the fire, and the fact that it was Connor, the writer of the story, plunging from the window, had convinced him or herself that they had seen this Slender Man. That had to be it.

She sighed, getting up again. She really needed to be getting home. She picked up the book and stuffed it in her briefcase. If she could talk to this witness herself it would help put her mind at ease. But she knew there was no way Detective Rourke would tell her what the witness’s name was, on or off the record.

As she drove down the road to her house she turned on the radio to her car. “Radio on,” she said as she drove. It turned itself to the preset satellite classical station that she had never bothered to change from the default. “Tune to Local Channel 3″ she said, eyes on the road. This was the local news radio station. The announcers droned on for a few minutes about sports, the weather, traffic, and a new tax increase to help the schools. Finally, one of them turned to the subject she had been waiting for.

“And in tragic news tonight,” the female announcer said, “up and coming local novelist Connor Russell died in a fire at his apartment complex. He apparently fell from his window trying to escape the blaze. Channel 3′s Angelica Logano is now reporting from the scene.”

There was silence for a few moments as the signal flipped to Angelica. While Ellen waited patiently for Angelica to begin, a loud blast of static burst from the speakers. “Ah, what the hell!” Ellen said. “Mute volume!” she shouted over the blare. The radio quieted obediently. What on earth had caused that? She looked up to see she was driving under a canopy of trees that lined the street leading into her neighborhood. She shook her head. She knew tall buildings and trees could mess with the line of sight that satellite radio needed, but she had always just lost the signal before. She sighed. It probably meant her radio was dying. When she turned the volume back up, the report was over and the announcers were back to talking about the local sports teams.

After pulling into her driveway, Ellen sighed and turned off the car. Well, it wasn’t a problem missing the report really. She was sure she’d be able to find something about Connor in a simple Google News search.

Twenty minutes and several articles later brought her no more information than she already knew though. She sighed setting aside her tablet on her bedside table. Even though she was off tomorrow, she still needed to get some sleep. But as she lay tossing and turning in the darkness, she knew sleep would not be coming anytime soon. Leaning over, she turned on the small lamp on her bedside table. She reached into the briefcase she had set next to her bed and pulled out “By the Fire’s Light”. Rummaging in the bag one more time for a pen and notepaper in case she needed to jot anything down, she settled back into her bed. Making herself comfortable, she began to read Connor’s book.

***
Prologue
He hates all he sees. Truly he is not properly a he. He does not think of himself as such. He has no name. He needs no name. He knows what he is. The others have left or gone too sleep. He was not powerful enough to follow those who left and he refuses to give in to sleep. This was his world and he will not surrender it.

But he is not powerful enough to take a form like others who were left behind. He is merely a fog of hatred. Those who encounter him feel an uneasiness, as if they know they are in the presence of something that should not be there. But he can do nothing more.

He wandered aimlessly for aeons or minutes he could not say. Time did not exist when this world was his and he does not readily understand it. All he knows is that one night in a forest somewhere lightning strikes in front of him. It is the middle of a hot and radiant summer, and all the wood is dry, waiting for the right match to strike. The lightning sparks a small fire, which quickly catches and grows. He watches, amazed, as the fire consumes all in its path, leaving nothing but blackened ash in its wake. If he could feel love, he would love the flickering of the flames he is now following across the forest.

As they weave and dance through the night, the flames cross the path of a young boy. He has been separated from his family and he is frightened. Instead of following the flight of the animals, the young boy has run in a circle, and how finds himself trapped by the fire. The nameless one draws close, eager to see what the fire will do to this intruder who has taken his world. The young boy senses him, senses his hatred. He thinks the nameless one is the fire or a being who controls it. And as this fear grips and consumes the young boy, the nameless one feels himself grow solid. He wonders at this as he feels feet touch the ground. He feels arms as long and flickering as the flames growing from what is now a back. He stands tall and black, as shadowy as the flame’s flickering light. His head flows and melts in the heat and he sees himself through the young boy’s eyes and realizes that he has none of his own.

But it does not matter for this makes him fearful to the young boy. He strikes with one of his flowing arms, casting the young boy into the fire. The young boy screams and pleads. He begs for mercy. The nameless one has none. The flames crackle up and down the young boy, taking first his outer covering and then melting flesh from bone. The young boy has long since stopped struggling, but the nameless one watches until all that is left is white bone. He feels himself growing looser again then and losing form. It doesn’t matter though. He knows what he wants to do now. He turns following the fire’s light before him.

***
Ellen felt herself growing tired and she did not fight the sleep that now came over her. She felt the book fall from her hands and onto her chest as she surrendered herself to the darkness. Her reading material, perhaps, influenced her dreams. Every which way she turned, she found herself surrounded by hot and high flames. In between the flames something dark and lanky darted always just outside of her vision.

Finally, just as she caught sight of the thing moving in the flames, she woke up. She opened her eyes and stared at her white ceiling for a moment, re-orienting herself with her surroundings. “Strange dream,” she muttered stretching and opening her hands. From her right hand fell a pen. She frowned.

“Odd,” she said, leaning over to pick it up. “I don’t remember actually taking any notes last night.” Connor’s book slid off the bed and onto the floor next to the pen. As it fell open, a stray mark of blue ink on the pages caught Ellen’s eye. She sighed. Had she accidentally marked the book in her sleep? Picking the book up, she placed it in her lap and looked at the pages.

What she saw was odder than finding the pen in her hand had been. There was a mark on the page, but it wasn’t a random stray mark. One of the words on the page was circled. “What,” she breathed, reading the word. “Why would I circle the word what?” She flipped through the book. As she did, every once in a while she would catch another page with another word circled. She felt a chill go down her spine. She definitely did not remember doing this last night.

Grabbing her notepad from her bedside desk, she started to methodically go through the book from start to finish. Every time she came to a circled word she would jot it down on the notepad. When she was finished, she held the notepad in front of her and read what she had written. “I am what you have made me. I like what I am,” she said. The word “like” had been circled several times, unlike the other words, so heavily indented the ink had almost seeped through the page.

She stared at the notepad for a moment and then tossed it away from her. It hit the wall on the other side of the room, but before it had dropped to the floor, Ellen was already up and in motion. She dug Connor’s file out of her briefcase. Flipping through it, she found the address to his apartment. Grabbing her tablet off her bedside table, she input Connor’s address into Google Maps. As it downloaded directions to his apartment, she hurriedly threw off her nightgown and dressed herself. Five minutes later found her out the door and on the road.

As she drove she briefly considered stopping for at least coffee to give herself a chance to calm down. A prickling fear she couldn’t dispel stopped her though. She needed to see Connor’s apartment for herself. Beyond that she wasn’t sure what she was doing.

Pulling into Connor’s complex, Ellen found a parking space a couple lots away from Connor’s apartment building. She didn’t want it to be too obvious what she was doing. She didn’t need management shooing her off the premises. Getting out of the car, she walked as casually as she could toward Connor’s apartment building.

It was obvious, even without directions, which one was his. The black and charred remains sat in between two other untouched apartment buildings. It almost looked like the other two buildings had ganged up on this one and given it a sound beating, large gaping holes looking like a fist had punch through them. Ellen glanced up to the fourth floor. Connor’s apartment had been somewhere up there. As she drew closer she saw a young woman standing in front of the building also looking up at the fourth floor. She wore ripped blue jeans and a pull over sweater who’s sleeves were too large for her. She looked up as Ellen drew close. “Came to see the wreckage?” she asked, a twisted smile on her lips.

“Yeah,” Ellen said quietly, grass crunching under her feet as drew even with the young woman. “Someone I knew died in the fire.”

“That Connor guy,” the young woman said.

“Yes. How did you know?” Ellen asked turning to her.

“He’s the only one who died in the fire,” she said, looking down. She brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Saw it happen,” she said quietly. She looked up at Ellen and offered a hand. “Name’s Cassandra.”

“Ellen,” Ellen said, shaking her hand. Ellen glanced at Cassandra out of the corner of her eye. “It’s such a shame about his death. What with Connor’s book just being published.”

“He had a book?” Cassandra asked, surprised. “Didn’t know we had an author in our building.”

Ellen just stared at her for a moment. Cassandra was telling the truth she could tell. The prickling fear ran up and down her spine again. Ellen took a calm centering breath. She didn’t know Cassandra was necessarily the witness Detective Rourke had told her about. Still… “I heard,” Ellen said slowly, “I heard that Connor wasn’t alone in his room when he died.”

Cassandra looked straight at Ellen for a moment, an expression torn between panic and relief flitting across her face. It was disconcerting. “Well, you heard right,” Cassandra said at last. “I saw someone look out the window after Connor fell.” She turned away and looked up at the fourth floor again. “I saw it again last night too,” she said her voice growing soft. “I dreamed I was still trapped in the fire. And I saw the thing in the flames. I don’t know how, but I could tell it was happy I was there.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m kinda glad I’m staying with friends right now. Don’t wanna be by myself.”

“You called it a thing,” Ellen said, taking an involuntary step closer to Cassandra, trying to control her shaking hands.

Cassandra gave a short, almost hysterical laugh. “Yeah, well, I didn’t see a face on the thing when it popped its head out the window. Cops think I’m loony.” She shrugged her eyes now defiant, turning back to Ellen.

Ellen shook her head slowly. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said quietly.

Cassandra gazed at her for a moment and then turned back to the apartment building. “Yeah, well that makes one of us,” she muttered.

Ellen went home soon afterwards. She left the radio off on her drive home, her own buzzing thoughts providing her with plenty of entertainment. As she shut and locked the door behind her, she shook her head. She was taking all this far too seriously. She dreamt about this Slender Man after reading a story about him and thinking about him for a good few hours before going to bed. That was not unusual. As for Cassandra, well, it wasn’t like it was easy to see people surrounded by flames and smoke. She probably just saw a person or person shaped object and suggestion had done the rest. That she should have a nightmare about a traumatic experience was not surprising either.

She paced into the kitchen and grabbed a wine glass out of her cabinet. She poured herself a cup of red wine and sat down at her kitchen table. She watched her willow tree throw its branches in the wind in the backyard. As for the words circled in Connor’s book… She watched the branches dance and play for a few more moment before turning away with a shudder. She was sure there was an explanation for why she would circle those words, she was just too tired to think of it now. She finished her wine and decided she needed to treat herself to a nice long soak.

That night as she went to bed, Ellen briefly toyed with reading more of Connor’s book. She peeled off her tan pantyhose and lay them on the side of her bed. She shook her head. No, given the dream she had had last night, her imagination didn’t need anymore fuel for tonight. She turned out her lights and quickly fell into an uneasy sleep.

She dreamed of nothing for a while. Then, slowly, she found flames growing around her again. Something tall and slender weaved in and out amongst the flames. She backed away, trying to find a way out, but everywhere she turned, more fire met her gaze. Finally, the black thing emerged from the flames. She knew what it was. Just too tall to be a man, wearing a business suit with long trailing arms and a smooth blank space where its face should be. She began to shake. “You’re not real,” she whispered.

The thing merely moved towards her, slowly as if enjoying itself.

Ellen felt her back stiffen, even in her sleep. She was a psychiatrist for God’s sake. She knew how the mind could play tricks on you when you were stressed. And she knew what was real and what wasn’t. She faced the Slender Man squarely. He stopped “gazing” down at her and Ellen could almost swear his body language was hesitant. “You are not real,” she said fiercely. “This is just a dream. You are a figment of my overwrought and stressed imagination. And I will thank you very much to leave my dream!”

The Slender Man leapt towards her, tentacles bursting from its back and reaching for her. But even as it flung itself towards her, it seemed to lose cohesion. A puff of wind blew through Ellen and nothing more. The flames snuffed out under the wind’s influence and Ellen found herself surrounded by blackness.

Ellen woke with a start. Breathing heavily her hand reached for her bedside light. It flipped on and Ellen covered her eyes with one hand. Sitting up, she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her nightgown clung to her back and she shivered as her skin made contact with the night air. She put her hand down on the black pantyhose she had left on the side of her bed before going to sleep. Her body shuddered as she breathed in and out slowly. Well, it looked like she had figured out how to deal with her Slender problem. She laughed quietly to herself looking down at the black pantyhose in her left hand. The black… Her eyes widened as the black moved underneath her hand.

With a screech she jumped out of her bed. Looking into the corner of her room stood a man so tall his head brushed the ceiling. His “face” looked down at her smooth and blank. And the tendrils on his back began to whip around angrily, crashing into the walls next to him. He took a step forward.

Ellen felt her back stiffen again. “This may not be a dream,” she said, her voice shaking slightly, but steel underneath it. “But I still know you are not real. I do not give you my belief. And I will thank you kindly to leave my house!”

He hesitated for one moment and then lunged at her. Ellen realized with horror that he seemed to be solid enough this time though. With a strangled scream she leapt out of the way. Wrenching her bedroom door open she darted out of the room, running through her dark house. She heard him crashing behind her, but she wasn’t foolish enough to look back. Grabbing her car keys off the counter, she dashed out the front door, not bothering to close.

She hit the unlock button on the keys and the car chirped. Wrenching the passenger seat open, she threw herself inside, shutting and locking the doors behind her. Panting and struggling she crawled into the driver’s seat, jamming the key into the ignition. She turned and heard her car roar to life, headlight’s automatically coming on and illuminating her house. As she tried to throw it in reverse, something and black plunged straight down in front of her into the hood of the car. With a horrible metallic ripping sound, it passed through the hood making the whole car shake. Several other tendrils followed, straight into the engine. The car shuddered and died.

Ellen pressed herself back in her seat as the tendrils withdrew from the car. She reached for her the driver’s door. She had to run. But even as she did, she felt something hard impact the passenger’s side of the car. The whole car rocked and she lost her balance. Her head banged against the window and she cried out in pain. The car shuddered again and this time turned over, first onto its side and then onto the roof.

Ellen fell against the roof of her car in the darkness, disoriented and frightened. She tried to move for a door, any door, as she felt something pierce her car again. The sound of liquid running down the side of her car and the smell of gasoline caught her attention. She froze and looked out the passenger side of the car. She could see a trailed of gasoline running down the back window. And in the small amount of light given from the street lamp by her house, she saw a long black tendril flick on the ground by the liquid. It grew suddenly stiff and striked the ground. “Tinder and flint,” she whispered as a small flame erupted from its tip. The fire began to grow eagerly and she watched it trail up her car. She curled into a ball and cried to herself as the flames circled her car, cutting off all her exits.

***

Detective Carl Rourke was not having a good night. First he finds out his witness in the Connor Russell case, Cassandra Brighton, has died in a freak fire caused by faulty wiring at her friend’s house. And now here is, standing outside the house Dr. Ellen Kennedy, her car flipped and smoldering, her body, or what was left of it, just now being removed from the wreck.

“And nobody saw any other cars?” he asked the two beat cops who had arrived on the scene first.

They both shook their heads. One of them, Patrick he thinks, flips open his small notebook. “One of the neighbors thinks she saw a tall slender man walking away from the car as it burned. She looked outside after she heard what sounded like a car crash.”

Rourke grunted. “But nobody saw the actual crash,” he muttered. He shook his head. “Two people related to the Connor Russell case both perishing in fires on the same night? Don’t buy it.” He sighed. “At least the witness didn’t claim the guy has no face.”

Patrick coughed politely and Rourke turned to stare at him. “She didn’t did she?”

“Ah, no,” Patrick said trying to hide his amusement. “She did mention something about tentacles though.”

Rourke cursed under his breath and made his way to Ellen’s house. Maybe he could find some real tangible clues inside so he could find the real tangible man behind these killings. Slowly he walked through the house, careful not to touch or move anything. CSI would kill him. And those bozos would be able to clean up the evidence afterwards.

Eventually he found himself in Ellen’s bedroom. He raised his eyebrows. Slash marks on the walls, strewn books and papers. It looked like there had been a struggle. He crouched down to look at one of the books on the floor. “By the Fire’s Light,” he read. As he did, something black on the wall next to him caught his eye. He stood up abruptly, but there was nothing there but his own shadow. Grunting, he pulled out his smartphone. He quickly made note of the titles of the books on the floor so he could look them up later. And then, with a final sweep around the bedroom, he left to check the rest of the house.

Author’s Note: This is a sequel to “By the Fire’s Light” which may also be found on Creepypasta!

Credit To – Star Kindler

My wife is going to kill herself in 5 to 7 business days.

I’d found the order for a jug of Xanaphril while clearing the internet history of porn and was contemplating it now. I’d known my wife Cindy had been unhappy but I guess hadn’t registered how much yet. Was this a cry for help? Should I say something or just let it fade into the background noise like all of her other passive complaints?

“Are you ever coming to bed?” Her voice bridges on a shout, causing me to start and close the browser window from habit. A shout. Her deafness is still in full swing, I think to myself.

Cindy had been diagnosed with a rare form of Ménière’s disease shortly after we’d married two years back. What had started as uneasy moments of vertigo and mild hearing loss in her right ear had quickly erupted into extreme ranges of deafness that would come and go randomly; sometimes affecting her for weeks at a time. Worse still were her ‘falling attacks’. I’ll never forget the first time she’d experienced one.

We’d been waiting in line for hours outside the Aladdin theater, shivering and keeping close to ward off the first snowflakes of winter. I remember she’d been talking on her cell phone when just like that she collapsed into the street as if she’d tripped – but we hadn’t been moving. It scared the Christ out of me; I thought she’d suffered an aneurism or stroke or even been shot. Understandably, these periods of outrageous vertigo and difficulty hearing the words from her own mouth were deeply frustrating for her and I’d tried my best to be supportive. But it was taking its toll.

I turn to look at her sullen face. I feel guilty to admit it, but I can hardly stand seeing her when she’s like this. A wise man once said that sadness is a disease. I’d go one step further and say that it’s of the infectious variety. After years of putting up with her, I could go for a handful of those pills myself.

“Ya, just closing down now.” I shut our laptop and slip into bed next to her. She immediately turns on her side facing away from me. Guess no sex tonight either? Ha, and here I had my hopes up, I think bitterly. Just as well. Hadn’t I read somewhere that if a man goes without long enough, he’ll start having crazy kink-fest dreams? I could go for some of that. Bring on the Asian Schoolgirl…minus the tentacles.

But my subconscious wasn’t interested in playing house.

I used to be into exploring all shades of ‘mental awaking’; from failed attempts at telekinesis to lucid dreaming and what I’d liked to call “The God Ticket” – astral projection; the ability to travel anywhere at will. It’d been years since I’d given it any thought until the depressing reality of Cindy’s illness had become more and more apparent. I was never able to successfully ‘leave my body’ but controlling the storyline of my nightly encounters provided a welcome escape. That was, until they took a noticeably violent and uncontrollable turn.

It takes me a moment to realize where I am, and when I do, my stomach clenches horribly. I’m back at University. And those eyes looking into mine… Susan’s. My ex’s. As is common in dreams, I know there are other people around us – that we’re walking to class inside the L.R. Harrison building in fact – but I don’t see anyone else. I can feel them looking at us but it’s

just her and those accusing eyes.

And then the events flash forward. It’s raining and we’re standing under a tree together. I’m hugging her from behind and singing a song about what we’re doing. Her arms lovingly press mine to her chest and she looks up at me again with an expression of betrayal.

“You said we’d be together forever, right? That you love me ‘past the stars’.” Her words form a knot in my throat. I had said that after all; even meant it. But then Cindy had come along and oh how much better things had looked on that side of the wall. Now there was regret and the awful ‘if’.

I want to tell her I’m sorry – that I still love her, but I’m having trouble making coherent thought and it doesn’t matter anyway because

Susan’s hair is practically glowing in the light of the moon. She’s face down on the cement and dear god there’s so much blood. I look at the palm of my hand and find it’s bleeding from some deep slash. She cut me, I think indistinctly, but there is no pain. I feel my body kneel over hers, turning her over. Her face is untouched and as beautiful as ever if not for the oozing gash at the top of her hairline. She opens her eyes again and I can see it – the pain, the question, ‘why?’. I scream my lungs ragged, but not a sound escapes my lips. I want so desperately to call for help, to comfort her, but everything feels distant and I’m not allowed to stop my hands from closing around her throat.

She’s goes on struggling for a few moments, never leaving my gaze when I do the unthinkable. My body leans forward, my blonde hair cascading over her face and at first I think I’m going to kiss her forehead, when instead my lips close around her right eye. Confusion explodes into horror as I feel every muscle in my mouth contract. Pressure builds inside the seal of my mouth until I can feel something round and wet pass from her body into mine. This shouldn’t be possible! I want to vomit. I want to run away. I want to vanish in a torrent of sobs for my lost love.

Then I bite down hard and

I open my eyes. Sweat coats me in a glaze even though the ceiling fan is running at full cycle. Our room is dim with the first light of morning.

“Jesus Christ. Jesus Fucking Christ, what was that about?” Not daring to speak above a whisper.

It had felt so real, even now as the distinctly dream-like elements began to stick out like accusatory fingers. I still feel the high from a liter of adrenaline pouring through my veins and consider calling her just on the off chance that I’d strangled and subsequently sucked the vision out of half of her face.

This thought calms me when I realize how stupid I’m acting. Besides, what new kind of depression would Cindy be thrown into if she caught me thinking about my ex, let alone talking to her again? No, the relief wouldn’t be worth another crack in our marriage. I roll onto my side and caress my wife instead. Her skin is as cold as a frosted window. My eyes fly open and it’s her. Susan.

I immediately leap from the bed, taking most of the blankets with me. Dear God, it’s actually her. She’s naked, her body frozen from rigor mortis in the same pleading position I’d left her in. For a moment I stand there, unable to fully comprehend what I’m looking at -what have I done!? – when my eyes stop on her face and her missing eye.

“What have I done? What have I done?!” The words leave my chest in heaving barks.

I’ve done it. I’ve actually murdered someone. You’ve spent your whole life reading and watching movies about people doing this exact same thing…and now you’re the killer.

I rub my eyes – at tears that refuse to appear.

And what do I do now? The guilt comes in torrents, as if from the beats of some ghastly heart. I could hide her. I’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life…but I could hide her, for now. My Susan, I’m so sorry.

I cross to her side of the bed, taking in her beauty for the first time since the last time I’d seen her two years ago. If not for her awkward pose, the dark patches of skin where her body meets the bed and. . .and the empty, half-lidded socket of her eye I’d stolen, she’d pass for. . .a dead body. I wish I could say that she looked like she was sleeping, but that’d be cruel. There is no elegance in death.

Above all else, the unnaturalness of that sunken lid was making me sick (Did I really do that?) and re-covering her with the bed sheet was a welcome relief. The shudder that comes from beneath the white fabric seems to agree.

A second rush of adrenaline washes over my face. I can taste something metallic like blood and my skin breaks out in feverish bumps.

Bodies sometimes move after death, don’t they? I’ve read about that! Sometimes they move and that’s just what dead bodies do.

I took a step back but then another thought crossed my mind: What if she isn’t dead after all? She knows I tried to kill her, so do I have to finish the job now or drop her off at the hospital on the way to prison?

I’m shaking now, I can feel it, literally see it from the way my hand quivers as I raise it. This is the part of the horror movie where everyone is telling me stop, to run away! I’ve always hated the cheap ‘jump’ scares, and here I am about to experience one up close – with my own eyes so to speak. Thinking about eyes makes feel light headed and I push it from my mind.

Slowly, I grip the side of the linen, never removing my gaze from the amorphous shape of my dead ex-lover. My future – everything – hinges on what’s under this piece of fabric. Sucking in a mouthful of frosty air, I slid the sheet back down her body. Down their bodies. There, right before me like the world’s most depraved magic trick laid the bodies of every person I’d ever murdered in my nightmares. My family. My friends. My ex. Their pale bodies tangled; bloodless and naked. Each bearing the unique method of murder I’d put them down with – some missing limbs, others charred and burned. My brother blindly watches me, his face and teeth having been smashed flat with a garbage compactor.

This time I did not scream. Instead, I was overcome with the dizzying sense that I was now standing on the edge of a cliff. You know the feeling you get? Where you’re so terrified of falling that you suddenly become sure that that’s exactly what you’re going to do? That was the feeling. And that’s exactly what happened next – I fell face first into the necrotic pasta I’d created. I opened my mouth, either to scream or to breath, I don’t know, but instead found the waxy flesh of my mother’s leg in my jaws. Vomit rushed out to meet it. I could feel the dead things all around me begin to spasm and writhe. A hand clawed at my thigh; another at my back. I looked up in time to see that

Susan was staring at me, her back arching up into a near sitting position before flopping down onto her stomach. Slowly, painfully – it seemed – she dragged herself over the pile of moving corpses until our noses were almost touching. I wanted hysterically to push her away, to escape, but my arms felt weaker and somehow shorter; my body frozen in paralysis. In horror, I realized the lid of her removed eye was opening and closing like a gibbering mouth and that with each retraction I could see into the private gore of her skull. I desperately tried to look away, but stopped. She’s trying to tell me something.

I could see her mouth moving but I couldn’t hear as if we were miles apart. Furiously, I stared at her lips, trying to make out a word – anything. Around me, the blindly searching hands had found the downy comforter and were in the process of pulling it up over us now in heavy jerking motions. To my left, the closet door slammed open and an avalanche of people I didn’t recognize flooded out. I could feel the blood pulsing in my ears but I still couldn’t put Susan’s words together. “Sea”? “Pay the Sea?” The blanket was crawling over the top of her head now.

Distantly, I realized that the other cadavers were speaking as well – their rotting lips whispering, again too quietly for me to hear. No, I have to focus! In another second, I’m not going to see anything! And there it was. In the last moment, as the fabric fell over Susan’s face – and my head – I’d caught one word: “Cindy”.

They were warning me. My wife was next to die.

* * *

“You were laughing in your sleep again,” Cindy’s voice, just beside me, makes me jump and nearly flip off the bed.

Was. . .that a dream too? Again I find myself in our room; the ceiling fan silent and unmoving. I sit up and hold my face in my hands. How much more of this can I take? Did I kill her or didn’t I? Guilt is still hanging over me like a corpse and I’m not sure if this is yet another dream or not.

Cindy’s burying her face in her pillow looking like she’d just woken from a nightmare herself. It’s obvious she’s feeling sick and there’s the distinct twang of vomit leaping from her hair. But her hearing was back; the worst was behind her again – at least for now.

“Did I say anything?” I ask this, but I don’t listen to the answer. I know what she’s going to say because we’ve had this conversation before.

“Ya…you said Susan a few times”.

A jolt ripples through me, but I do my best to hide it from my face. Usually there’s only the laughing – more of a snicker, really – but this time. . . I’d said her name. In the distance I could hear sirens whip-whirling. Were they meant for me?

I leaned over and gave Cindy the best side-hug I could manage; kissing her forehead. “Oh right, that was Susan from work. Her father just died and I’ve been thinking about the funeral.” It’s a bad lie, but it’s better than the truth. “I’m going to get a drink, want anything?” She shook her head miserably and I headed for the kitchen.

For a good few moments I stared dumbly at the cell phone in my hand, building up the courage for what I wanted to do. I can call Andrew. He’d still have Susan’s number and I can call her and I can go back to sleep. This is so stupid! You know that, so why are you doing this?

If I had to face the possible unthinkable, I wasn’t about to do it alone. I got a tall glass from the cupboard, sloshed a helping hand of vodka into it and filled the rest with orange juice. Dolefully kicking back a mouthful, I turned back to the problem at hand:

I dialed his number.

One dial tone. Two dial tones. Come on, buddy, I know it’s the middle of the night, but you have to sense the urgency I’m sending through this phone, right?

It rang three more times and then went to voicemail. Frustrated, I called again, but still no answer. I stopped, hitching in a breath. Now that I think about it, when was the last time I talked to you, man? With dawning horror, I realized I hadn’t spoken to him in over a month. Not him, not my family either.

In a panic, I dialed the numbers of every person I cared about, everyone that I had dreamed about with mounting dread. Not a single person I knew answered the phone. Of the strangers that did, they claimed they didn’t know who I was talking about – that the number must have been changed. Others came back disconnected.

So I had done it then. Murdered everyone I’d ever cared about, but why? And surely there must have been police investigations! Someone must have found a connection between a massacred family and their only remaining son! But then why don’t I remember anyone contacting me? Am I really that sick of a fuck?

Shock overwhelms me and I crumple to the ground, taking my empty glass with me. Numbly, I try to sit up and realize that I can’t. It’s starting! This must be it! I’m losing control of my body. Lying back down, I roll my eyes in the direction of the phone. I have to call the police. I can’t hurt another person! But the cell phone looks like it’s miles away. I giggle to myself at the absurdity of this and reach for it anyway. My arm stretches like taffy and

There’s a noise from the hallway. Cindy! Oh god, I have to warn her! Whatever is happening to me is almost complete! She has to run! God I can’t stop this monster inside of me!

“Shind-y. . . run for. . .hel-puh,” the words form as the spittle on my lips- indistinct and bursting on the ‘p’s’.

I try to focus on the pink blur of her pajamas when, without warning, she falls to the ground in a fit of retching. No, not now! You can’t get sick now, I need you to run! The world feels tilted on its axis and my body is impossibly heavy. One moment everything seems frozen in place and the next

She’s on top of me. I can feel the heat of her breath; the sour taste of bile cloying in the air. In a heaving belch, she vomits a thick stream across my face, soaking into my shirt and coagulating in my curly red hair. I watch as it runs down my side and pools next to the glass. The glass! The date her pills would ship…I’d made a mistake…had that been the arrival date?

She must have known I was a killer. She’s doing the right thing. The world is growing dim and I feel like I’m floating in a cold river. Breathing is becoming less and less natural for me – less important. She’s looking at me now, her face completely devoid of expression. With my last breath I prepare to whisper, “Thank you”, but then I see it – a cut across her palm. It’s something so simple, so mundane but I can hear the click of understanding as realization falls into place.

The killings won’t stop. I’d spent years of my life trying to escape my body to travel across this world as freely as a gust of wind. It had never occurred to me that I’d actually succeeded, and more. I’d heard it was called dreamwalking – actually living inside another’s dream. But that would be the ultimate freedom. That would be

“The God Ticket,” I mutter, barely audible.

She stops, only for a moment and then leans forward, her blonde hair cascading over my face and at first I think she’s going to kiss my forehead, when instead her lips close around my right eye.

Credit To – ARScroggins

[The recording starts to play.]

“My name is Annabelle, and I am fourteen years old. It was about a month ago that I started acting “strangely”, according to my father. Of course, I don’t remember a bit of it.

“The first time it happened, I did something pretty weird. In the middle of the night, I apparently woke up and opened every single door and window in the entire house. All of them! The pantry door, the back door, the front door, the doors to the cabinets, dad’s room, the fridge and freezer door, and even the door to the cellar out back – which was locked. No one knows how I got the lock off, or even where the lock was. It just vanished. Needless to say, dad was livid. “Bells,” he said – that being what he calls me – “what the hell were you doing?” The freezer motor burned out, and the cellar was very wet from the rain. But my dad didn’t stay mad for long. Ever since mom died, he can’t stay mad at me for long. He keeps saying I’m all he’s got now… and I know what he means. He’s all I have too. I think he was just very worried about me, since he found me outside in my pajamas, soaking wet from the rain, not having a clue how I got out there. He doesn’t always express things the way he feels, but that’s okay. Boys are like that.”

[The recording starts skipping at this point. A hiss is heard in the background – but it could just be static. It smoothes out, and the girl starts speaking once again.]

“The second time, I did something pretty awful. When I woke up, I was covered in blood. The knife was still in my hand, and they found—“

[A crack almost like lightning interrupts the next few words.]

“—Sox was our cat, see.”

[The interviewer mutters an affirmation, and asks her to continue.]

“Dad was pretty scared for me then. He recently became involved with you guys—“

[The interviewer asks her to clarify for the sake of context in the recording.]

“Oh, sorry, he recently became involved with the Church of Repentant Sinners. I hadn’t been to church before, but after that my dad said he wanted me to go. No offense to you folks, but I don’t really believe in God—“

[The interviewer says something inaudible, something about not getting sidetracked. His tone suggests annoyance or impatience.]

“I’m sorry, I just can’t seem to focus very much these.. these… these…”

[The girl repeats this word for about two minutes. The interviewer is not heard saying anything or stopping her.]

“—days. Um. So that was the third weird thing that happened. I went into church that Sunday, but I felt this strange itch. It felt like it was under my skin, you know? I started scratching, and then I started tearing my skin, and soon people started noticing and whispering, and very soon I had long bloody nail marks down my arms and across my stomach and legs. Dad took me out of there, and I was glad, because it made the itching stop.”

[The interviewer asks her something that is only partially audible, as a slow whirring sound is heard. Fragments include “demon” and “escaping”.]

“Yeah, okay, I’m not sure you’re right, but if it helps me, let’s do it.”

[A tonal sound is heard at very high frequency, and is strangely pleasant to hear. Underneath can be heard the interviewer asking her to describe the fourth occurrence.]

“Okay. It was a couple weeks after the church thing happened. So I got this marker, one of those permanent markers, and I drew on everything. I mean everything. The entire house was covered in black marker. What did I draw? The same thing, over and over. It was a little “2”, with an arrow pointing to the right, pointing towards a little “1”. Then I took a knife—“

[A sound like a high wind starts to intersperse the recording. The girl’s voice is still audible.]

“—and I held it to my throat. I have no idea how long I was standing by dad’s bed, but when he woke up, he said I was staring at him with strange eyes. I didn’t speak. I just stared, a wild, crazy stare while he pleaded with me to drop the knife. Finally, I must’ve snapped out of it or something, because I woke up with the knife in my hand and my dad scared ghostly white and begging me not to do anything to myself. I dropped it and started crying.

“After that, and after seeing what I wrote, he said I must be possessed by a demon or something. And so here we are. This is my pre-exorcism interview.”

[The interviewer thanks her, and the recording ends – but not before a strange voice is heard whispering “soon”.]

[The video starts to play. It is instantly apparent that something has gone terribly wrong. The video has a very un-electronic distortion to it. Five marks score the video, are repeatedly replaced by a clear image, and then new marks start to form immediately in a descending stroke – almost as if someone were clawing at the image itself. This continues throughout the video.]

“No!” screams the girl. She is restrained to a bed in a small room with several men wearing black garments.

“In the name of—“ [The audio cuts out for a few seconds.]

“S-S-Something’s wrong guys, I can’t see anything!” screams the girl in a quavering voice.

“Depart!” says one of the men in robes. Then, “depart!” they all shout. This chant continues for around three minutes as the girl starts sobbing uncontrollably.
As the chanting starts to wind down, the girl cries out, “Dad! Make them stop! Please! … Please… I don’t want to go,” as her voice trails off. One of the men mutters something to another.

[At this point, both the video and the audio undergo very typical electronic distortion. Nothing can be seen or heard, at least in the video, for several seconds. Underneath the static is a single word: “Goodbye.” The video becomes clear, and no more scratching distortions are seen.]

The girl is no longer crying. She is, in fact, very still. A man in jeans and a flannel shirt runs into the room and unties her restraints. He embraces her, quite emotional and seeming to be relieved. Then she speaks.

“Hello, father.”

“Hi Bells. How do you—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Don’t call me Bells. I don’t like that name. Call me the name you picked out for me when I was born. Annabelle. It was beautiful. And I’m not going to be called the same name as that – thing.” She utters the last word with terrible vehemence.

The man is clearly confused, and looks pleadingly at the men in black. They start to whisper among themselves. Their concerned glances play off one another’s faces, and cold, harsh realization washes over each of them one by one.

One of the men approaches the man who still held the little girl. “Mr. Goodwin, I am sorry… I am truly sorry…”

[Another man quickly goes to the camera and shuts it off.]

I remember now. I remember everything. I just wanted to live again. Dad, I love you so much, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to take your daughter from you. I came to her while I – she – was still a baby. I didn’t think it was wrong. I didn’t think she would miss her life. I didn’t think she would come back. I didn’t even think she was there, since it was so easy to stay inside her. So easy I forgot everything about who I used to be – what I used to be.

I didn’t even know what was going on. I only remembered after I left my – her – body. It is so strange and cold here. Everything in the world is gray and misty. All I see are people fading in and out of the dark. No one sees me or speaks to me. I am so alone. There is no God, no Heaven, no Hell, no demons or angels. Just people ripped from their bodies, unable to feel anything but regret and loss for what was once theirs. We just rot, dad. I was rotting, and I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I had no choice. I’m so sorry. I hope you love her as much as you loved me, and I hope one day you can forgive me for what I did.

Credit To – RE Holden
Credit Link – annoyingryan@yahoo.com

The young girl made her way through the thick undergrowth. It was not yet dusk, but the sun would disappear quickly behind the densely-packed trees. There is a sort of amplified silence that resonates through woods. All outside noise is cut off so that the only remaining sound is the woods itself. That’s why the sudden crashing to the side of the girl startled her so much. Animals know the danger of making such noise; this was no animal. She spun around as a man emerged from the foliage. Surprise flashed across his face but was almost instantly replaced with a warm smile.
“Hello, little lady.”
The man’s hands were dirty. He was carrying a shovel. The girl wondered what he was doing out here.
He spoke again. “What’s your name?”
“Goldilocks.”
The man laughed at this. “Well, I guess that makes me Papa Bear.” He smiled widely. “What’s a girl as young as you doing out here all by yourself?”
“Looking for my friend Janie.”
“Well I can help you look for her.” He grabbed hold of her hand. “Where’s little Janie likely to be hiding?”
The girl looked sad. “She’s not hiding. She’s missing. Me and Janie used to play in the woods together. But last week she didn’t come back.”
“The woods can be a dangerous place for a little girl. Don’t worry, though. I’ll take good care of you.” Again he smiled that big smile of his.
The man began to lead the young girl further into the woods. Hand in hand, they walked on until the trees towering above them entirely blocked out the sky. The girl shivered.
“Poor little thing. You’ll catch your death.” They both stopped as the man lay down the shovel. He took off his jacket and helped the girl into it. He gave her shoulders a gentle rub. “Do you want to know a story about these woods? Bad things happen in here. That’s what I heard. There was once a little girl who was walking through here all alone. It had gotten so dark that she couldn’t find her way back home. Luckily for her, she found a nice man in the woods.”
“Lucky for her,” the girl said.
“Lucky for both of them. He was able to take her back to his house – his little gingerbread house – all alone in the woods.”
“That sounds nice,” the girl said, “what happened next?”
“Unfortunately, the girl was naughty. She wasn’t grateful to the man for saving her. She ran off, back into the woods. That night, the little girl died, all alone in the woods. No one ever saw her again.”
“How do you know she died if she was never found?” the girl asked.
The man leant down, drawing his face close to the girl’s. “Someone has to know, don’t they?”
The young girl smiled as she swung the shovel into the side of the man’s head. “Your stories are so good. I think you’ll make a great friend for Janie.”
The girl whistled to herself as she began to dig a hole.

Credit To – Ben H

Last winter I was walking through a park near my apartment when I came across five young boys attempting to smash an object with a hammer. Granted, Chicago children are probably more violent than most, but I am not used to seeing such things in my particular neighborhood. I jogged over to them mostly out of curiosity, but also to make sure they weren’t torturing some poor squirrel or a pigeon or something. If I had known the sort of thing I was about to come in contact with I would have probably went home and bolted the door.

One of the boys was clutching some sort of dark wooden board covered with black paint, and holding it at arms length with his face turned away and his eyes closed. A second boy (I remember one of his friends calling him either Peter or Paul) was aggressively prying the hammer out of the hands of the boy who had been swinging at the wooden board moments earlier while the other two kids watched without saying a word. In spite of all the hammering and arguing, the surface of the board looked perfectly smooth and intact from the angle I was approaching. I put on my toughest adult voice and got the kids to quit yelling and fighting over the hammer just long enough to ask them what in the hell they were trying to do.

The boy holding the hammer (Peter or Paul) looked me straight in the face and said, “we’re gonna break the devil into six pieces and bury him in the woods.”

I was stunned but also amused. I figured he had seen something like this on television and sort of laughed it off as I asked, “so you kids thing this plank is the devil?”

Peter or Paul was clearly not pleased by this question and said something along the lines of “Are you stupid or what? That thing aint a plank!”
As I took my first look at the wooden board up close I was surprised to see that the entire surface had not been painted with black paint as I had at first thought. It was actually hand painted to the point that it was nearly covered with a language I wasn’t familiar with. It looked vaguely Asian or middle-eastern. It was entirely alien to me aside from the upper left and right corners, which displayed very detailed paintings of the sun and moon. In the center of both the sun and moon were unnerving faces with blank expressions. As I thought about this last detail it became clear to me that this board was some sort of antique hand-made Ouija.

Peter or Paul explained to me that his grandfather owned an antique store and was on his deathbed. He had requested that the boy’s mother take this board from his store safe and break it into six pieces and dispose of it immediately, burying each piece in the woods not less than a mile apart from each other. He would not say why this had to be done, but continuously referred to the board as “that wooden devil.” When the boy’s mother had refused, thinking it ludicrous as any rational person would, the grandfather had enlisted the boy and his friends, given them the store key, and told them the safe combination. I remember he kid telling me he was disappointed; he had always thought the safe held his grandfather’s stash of ancient pirate treasure.

Upon grabbing the wooden board from the safe, however, the boys had run into two problems. Firstly, the board was hard as stone and the best way to break the thing was turning into a point of argument now that the hammer had failed. The second issue was that woods in Chicago are scarce, and woods large enough for burying things miles apart from each other are even scarcer. Realizing it was most likely not the best idea to get in the way of a group of kids’ family issues when a hammer and a wooden slab are involved, I figured my best option was to break the thing myself to make sure the kids didn’t get themselves hurt, then be on my way.

This proved to be extremely difficult. I remember thinking that the board had to be reinforced with a steel plate or something. I was beating on the thing with the hammer for the hundredth time when I remembered that I had a hacksaw I had bought to remove a broken tree limb two years earlier, and had never touched it since. I told the kids to sit tight and jogged down the block to my apartment. By the time I got back it was snowing and the boys were picking up the snow and throwing it at each other in clumps rather than snowballs. It was an unusually mild winter for us last year and I think this may have been the beginning of the only snowstorm we had all year if I remember correctly. The five of them continued to play with the snow as I hacked into the board with my saw.

It took an unusually long time but it worked. When the first piece snapped off I picked it up and saw that the grain where it had been cut was unlike anything I had ever seen before, spiraling in a very distinct pattern that I can still picture in my head. The unstained wood was a deep reddish-brown.

When the board was in six pieces Peter or Paul grabbed the corner with the picture of the sun, then he and one of his friends ran a short distance into a wooded area on the edge of the park and buried it about a foot down. As this was going on the other boys explained to me that they were planning on spending the day riding the elevated train and taking the pieces to the various wooded areas they had come up with. They just needed one more place to bury the sixth piece and hadn’t come up with anything yet. As it happened to be a Sunday, if I recall, I offered to do it on the way to work the next day and they agreed that it was a good plan. As the five of them walked away toward the north I saw them enter a station for the Blue Line train and I never saw them again.

Later that night as the snowstorm started to get really bad I remember thinking that I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake by letting them go off on their own, but a strange adult hanging around with five neighborhood kids tends to give people the wrong idea, regardless of whether he’s looking out for their safety. I hoped they had gotten their task finished before the storm had really hit.

The corner of the board I had wound up with was the corner with the painting of the moon with the blank expression. I had really planned to bury it, I swear I did, but we all wound up snowed in the following morning and it ended up in the drawer of an end table. I don’t know if you’ve ever been snowed in during a Chicago winter, but when this happens they tend to send out these huge monolithic snow plows that push all of the snow into mountains on top of all the parked cars, none of which will be capable of moving an inch for at least two days.

The day was rather uneventful, but as nightfall approached I was taken by the eerie notion that someone was watching me through my living room window. I kept glancing toward it expecting to see someone peering in at me, despite the fact that I live on the third floor and my living room window faces the street. After a while I shook off the notion, and I believe I went to sleep around eleven.

Around one a.m. I was awoken by what sounded like a mechanical device humming loudly and assumed it to be my heater, possibly being overworked due to the snowstorm. I stood up and put my ear next to the vent, but the sound wasn’t coming from there. I walked into the living room to check the settings on my thermostat, and immediately every hair on my body stood at full attention. The sound was coming from the direction of my living room window, and as I turned to look I caught the ghastly image of a solid white face with a wide mouth and dark eye sockets on the other side of the glass. I quickly turned on a light and the face disappeared. The mechanical droning noise seemed to recede.

Had it all been my imagination I wondered? When I was younger I once had an episode of sleep paralysis where I witnessed a tree devouring my neighbor’s dog through a bedroom window, but when I came out of it the tree was back to normal and the dog was perfectly fine. Had this been something similar? Nevertheless I hardly slept the rest of the night. I kept thinking I was hearing that deep mechanical drone somewhere in the distance.

By the next night I had regained my wits and fell asleep in my bed some time around midnight. I awoke once again, terrified, to the sound of the same mechanical drone as the previous night, but this time much louder. As I sat up in bed I saw the ghastly white face with sunken eyes on the other side of the window near the foot of my bed, no more than three feet from where I lay sleeping. It had no neck, arms, torso, nothing. It seemed to just float there above the streetlights below, emanating that horrible humming sound. I instinctively grabbed the drapes and pulled them closed, but the sound continued. Remembering what had happened the night before, I ran to the lights and flipped the switch. The noise slowly faded but I was too afraid to open the drapes for the rest of the night.

The next morning I was still unable to get to work due to my car being frozen beneath a seven-foot pile of ice, but I absolutely had to get out of that apartment. I thought that if the face was going to come back that I would have to be ready for it somehow. I went to a sporting goods store in the neighborhood and purchased a box of ammo for the .22 range pistol I hadn’t used in years. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. I also bought some caffeine tablets and a bag of coffee.

Before nightfall I set up camp in my living room with the pistol and a coffee pot, took one of the caffeine tablets, and rigged up a portable audio recorder that I sometimes use for work. I don’t own a camera and my cell phone’s video function had not been working for months, so the best I could do was attempt to snap some photos in the dark with the cell if the face appeared again.

It showed itself around three in the morning. I was beginning to crash from all of the caffeine when I began to hear the droning sound approaching from the distance. I readied my gun in one hand and my cell phone in the other but the face didn’t appear at the window. I began to wonder if perhaps the face was outside my bedroom window, and as I snuck through the dark toward the door the sound seemed to get louder. However, as I entered the room, the door slammed and locked behind me and I heard glass shattering in the living room. Suddenly the apartment was filled with the noises of things being smashed, thrown, and torn to pieces. The droning noise was deafeningly loud and I covered one ear and turned my head away as I clawed at the doorknob with my other hand, but it simply would not open. It was as if the lock had been welded shut. After about thirty seconds of this I raised my foot and smashed the door open with two kicks. Immediately the crashing in the living room stopped, but the room itself had been completely torn to pieces . And as I looked up above the debris at the shattered window I saw the face one last time staring at me from the other side of my demolished venetian blinds. It opened its mouth exposing a wide dark cavern the likes of which I hope to never see again, and the horrible sound got louder and louder as I snapped a single photograph with my camera and the flash went off.

Then in an instant the face was gone. All I have to prove my story is a single blurry photograph and the audio taken by my portable recorder in those last few minutes. But the thing about it that disturbed me the most is the corner of the wooden board with the painting of the moon was sitting atop the debris in the exact center of the room, and the face had been altered so that the expression was identical to what I had just seen in the windowpane with the wide, gaping, cavernous mouth.

I buried it in the woods the following morning.

Credit To – Nick Ledesma

The murky fog made it difficult to see where the forest ends and the road starts. It was late dusk but the tree lined road had trees whose branches sheltered the road from any sunlight. Twilight was soon approaching so the walk became darker and darker. To the left of me was a forest and to the right was even more forest, the trees were so close together you couldn’t see anything only black shadows. As I walked along that long and lonesome road, I kept my mind blank and tried not to creep myself out. I looked up at the canopy above me, and to the left and the right of me, I really am surrounded by trees, I thought. That one narrow road in the centre of an intimidating forest was probably used by travellers, strolling players and traders wondering from one market or village to another. Or maybe the road was used by cunning highwaymen gunning down their victim to either take their money and goods or their lives.

I tried to keep my mind blank to drown out the whispers of the trees enclosed on me. Imagine all the secrets those trees new, every secret about every person who strolled down that road. If trees could talk would they tell us everything or remain quiet as they did now? Would they tell us about all the events that happened there that they have witnessed? The mercenaries, highwaymen and robbers who murdered all of the travellers, strolling players and tradesmen were forever watched by the surrounding eyes of the tightly packed trees. There were murders on this road, I thought, in this very spot where I’m walking. Oh stop it. I was starting to scare myself.

I listened around. There was no wind. No birds. No crickets. Why is it so quiet? No noise. It was just me, the surrounding forest and my thoughts. I had forgotten about the murky fog I was in. It had become even denser. Quickly it became almost too thick to see through. I couldn’t feel any wind but the bushes and branches behind me were rustling. I quickened my pace. The forest seemed to go on forever. Every tree was identical and the rustling followed me like a creature running through the bushes. I couldn’t understand how the bushes would rustle without the wind. Is something following me? Or someone?

I flinched as a huge branch suddenly snapped and echoed through the forest. It rang in my ears and I immediately stopped in my tracks. I stood there frozen to the spot. I did not move a muscle and I could feel my heart pounding so loudly. I strained my ears to listen for any movement behind me. I sensed the presence behind me. Someone was following me. I started walking subconsciously. I pressed on in a straight line and quickened my pace. They quickened. I slowed down to hear their footsteps but they sped up. I panicked. I ran down the pitch dark road. I ran between the forests either side of me. I ran over the cobbles of the road, which hurt my feet as I sprinted without thinking. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to turn around. I knew I would freeze if I saw somebody behind me. I was exhausted and couldn’t even tell where my feet were going. I slowed down slightly but tripped on a loose cobble lying upright on the road. I fell to the ground and smashed my right elbow on the cobbled ground. I cursed my clumsiness. The road was damp from the fog and cold to the touch. I sat up and examined my elbow as much as I could. It was dark so I tried to make my eyes see more clearly but failed. My elbow was throbbing with pain and for a few moments I forgot about the follower. As I stood up I searched for any figures. There was no one here. I either out ran them or I imagined it.

I took two steps back and bumped into what looked like a sign post made of extremely old rotten wood. I couldn’t make out what some of it said at first but what I could make out said ‘The Old Mill’. A mill. Excellent. Human beings. Or at least a safe place to be. I could just stay there till dawn; surely it wasn’t a long way off, I thought. I had walked down that road for hours. I looked up at the sign, it pointed diagonally through the forest. At first I thought somebody may have bumped it to point away from the road but then as I followed where it was pointing I saw there was a path buried and entrapped by thorns, nettles and bushes. It must have been a shortcut, or a walker’s trail. I didn’t know whether to follow the road onwards or risk getting hurt by thorns and nettles and follow the trail to the safety of a mill. I thought it over for a minute, still facing the horizon of the road. I was about to leave and follow the cobbled road onwards when a dark shadow loomed over me. I saw it appear on the floor in front of me. I could sense that someone was behind me. No. It didn’t feel like someone, I thought. It didn’t feel human. I just stood there, frozen, staring at the shadow that did not belong to me.

A fog-like smoke floated around my feet clearly visible through the previous fog. In only a short amount of time did it completely cover my feet and the strange shadow. I could still sense that something was behind me. If it wanted to kill me wouldn’t it have done so already? I thought. So I inhaled a big breath and swung around sharply to see what was behind me. There was nothing here. No person. No killer. No inhuman monster out to get me. My eyes searched my surroundings looking for anything, anything at all. I felt so happy. I smiled. I turned and looked at the trees next to the sign post. I was trying to see through the trees as far as I could but it was just darkness.

A sudden chill flew through the air which wiped the grin off my face as fast as a pendulum swung. I was still staring through the darkness between the trees when, I don't know what, but a shadowy, smoky demonic face came hurtling towards me. The face felt as if it literally went through me and I screamed as I saw my fears before my eyes. The impact threw me onto the floor. I sat there dazed and petrified as I pulled myself together, struggled and scurried to get up and ran as fast as I could through the thorn entrapped trail heading towards the mill. I have never run so fast in my life. I just kept running. The fears and the face were still burned into my mind. My legs were being scratched and my trousers were ripped in many places. I was bleeding everywhere. As I ran through the forest following the trail, I ran up and over a small hill. As my eyes adjusted to light there it was; the old mill. I’m nearly there, I thought. Come on. The nettles and thorns disappeared and the forest floor turned into soft grass. I was in open air. No forest just an old mill. I still pictured that demonic face. I was still petrified. I could still hear rustling in the forest. Maybe that face was following me again, I thought. No. Not again.

I finally reached the mill. I stammered to open the huge barn doors. I pulled up the heavy wooden bolt. Opened the door and raced in. I walked away from the door, backwards. Nothing is going to hurt me here, I thought. I’m safe. My heart was pounding so loudly I thought it would explode. I heard a low rumbling behind me. I slowly and hesitantly turned around. A huge strange shadow emerged from under the door. It glided slowly towards me. I stepped backwards against the wall. There was nowhere to go. It came closer. And closer. And closer. It was like nothing I ever saw. I was cornered, trapped. The shadow was at my feet now. It sucked itself up through my legs. It froze me to the spot. Tears were running down my face as it made its way up through my body. It felt like it was sucking everything out of me. The pain was excruciating, unbearable. I could feel the shadow flowing through my veins but felt like sharp knives instead of an untouchable shadow. The monster flowed up through my bloodstained legs. Through my hips. Through my torso. My heart stopped. No heart beat. It made its way up my neck and into my skull. As it hit my brain it felt like it was sucking all the life out of me. It floated out of the top of my head and as the last inch of the shadow left my body I fell to the ground. Nothing. No heart beat. No life. No warmth. No soul.

That’s what it does. The Wraith. It takes multiple forms to manipulate its victims but it’s commonly seen in its shadow form. Either as a stalking shadow upon the ground or a rotting corpse in the guise of a shadow. The Wraith does not know the meaning of mercy, by causing unbearable pain, it sucks the soul out of your body and your body disappears into the ground. The Wraith takes your body to feast on in the underworld. All that is left is your shadow imprinted into the ground. Permanently.

Credit To – Gina Hollaway

I met Alex in middle school.  He was always really shy.  He usually sat by himself, at least a seat away from anyone else.  After a few days of class I decided to sit by him.  He looked discouraged, it seemed he had forgotten his book for that class.  I proceeded to hand him mine.  “Here,” I said, “I don’t need it anyway.”  Alex looked at the book for a moment, hesitated, and then reached out, like a cautious animal and took the book slowly.

 “Thanks.” he said dully.

“I’m Daniel.” I said, extending my hand.

“Alex.” He replied.  Looking at my hand like it was diseased or something.  I sat down, feeling a bit defeated, but that didn’t stop me.  Something about this kid was different, but he seemed alright, there was something, something good in him.  Now I know the cause of it, as will be explained later in the story.  His energy was good, that’ll explain it well enough for now.

I kept talking to him as days went by.  I always sat beside him. I would just talk small talk, random things usually found interesting by middle school boys.  Things like girls I liked, video games I had played, or movies I had seen. He would mostly just listen at first, occasionally giving small, usually single syllable answers or comments, but as time went by he loosened up a bit and began talking.  We found that we had a lot in common and quickly became great friends.

This was a big deal for me.  I had moved around a lot in elementary school.  I was always the new kid, and never had many friends, in fact, being small and kind of geeky, I was often picked on.  This didn’t change in middle school, except, we had lived in that town long enough that the bullies actually knew my name instead of just calling me “new kid.”  Alex was a bigger kid, not big as in chubby, but big as in strong.

I was telling him about this one day when he said to my surprise, “I have the same problem.”  I asked him what he meant.  “My brother, he bullies me a lot.  He’s a lot older than I am.  He does things that I don’t really like, and when I tell him so he beats me up.” he explained.  He made a kind of confused face, then sighed.  “But he’s always there for me.  He’s alright, I guess.”

We walked outside for the end of the school day, when one of my usual bullies approached us.  “What’s up Danny boy?” the bully jeered.  He looked over to Alex and made a face of mocking surprise.  “Oh, and the silent kid!  Knew you’d end up hangin’ out with a dork like Danny.”  The bully, named Kevin, laughed loudly.  I looked to Alex, who was looking up above Kevin’s head.  I looked to see what he was looking at, and that was the first time I saw Alex’s brother, Jacob.

Jacob was a full head taller than Kevin.  His eyes full of anger.  Kevin saw us looking behind him and smiled.  “Let me guess, you’re trying to trick me into thinking there’s a teacher or something behind me, aren’t you losers?” he said.  We both shook our heads slowly, still looking up at Jacob.  I was honestly scared.  The look on Jacob’s face was truly terrifying, and Kevin finally turned around to see him and scoffed.

“Who the hell are you?” Kevin said,  looking at Jacob like a piece of rotten food.  Jacob reached down and grabbed the front of Kevin’s shirt with one hand and lifted him into the air.  Kevin was then silent as he stared into Jacob’s hateful eyes.

“Jacob!” Alex yelled, and Jacob blinked, dropping Kevin hard onto the ground.  Kevin crab walked away quickly then got himself up and began to run away.  Jacob looked at Alex, still angry.  He tilted his head to me.  “Who’s this?” he asked.  His voice was low, and emotionless.

“He’s my friend Jacob.  Leave him be.” Alex explained.  “We need to go.” Jacob said, as he looked at me, turned, and began walking away.  Alex looked to me before following him.  “Here, you should come over and hang out, I have some things I want to show you.” he said and handed me a slip of paper with his address on it.  I nodded and he followed Jacob.

I stood there for a moment.  Before they had left, Jacob had looked at me, looked me straight in the eyes.  I felt as if I couldn’t look away, and I felt all of Jacob’s hatred burning within me.  I finally shook the feeling and went home.

Alex and Jacob had lived on their own since a year before I met him.  Their parents had died when they were very young and they ended up moving from foster family to foster family over and over again, until Jacob was old enough to take care of Alex and become his guardian.  They lived in a small house in an old part of town.  It stood only one story up, but they had a basement, which I was never allowed to go down to.

I went to Alex’s house later that day.  I entered and we went into the kitchen, which held the door into the basement.  As Alex and I stood in there and talked, Jacob came up from the basement.  He looked at me once again with that look as he closed the door.  I could swear I saw his eyes begin to get lighter when Alex said firmly, “No, Jacob.”  Jacob smirked and walked down a hallway and into what I assumed was his bedroom.

Alex then led me to his bedroom.  It was small, the only furniture he had was his bed.  He had many other things, like CDs and books, but they all sat on the floor in little neat piles.  Alex sat on his bed and I sat on his floor, looking through all of his books and CDs  as we talked about school and the different music artists that we both liked that I found as I looked through the piles.

“I want to teach you something.” he suddenly said, breaking the current conversation about one of those artists.  He hopped down from his bed and sat in front of me.

“Alright.” I said.  I felt a little strange.  I had no idea what he was about to teach me.

“Have you ever heard about Energies?” he asked.  Now, I had never been, and still am not, a spiritual person.  He was talking about the kind of thing you hear about in Yoga classes, things like Chakras and Reiki, now I view it as more of a science than anything, after seeing it in action, but more on that later.  I promptly told him that I hadn’t and he held his hand flat out to me, palm down.

“Put your hand as close as you can to mine, without touching it.” he said.  I hesitated, and looked at his hand like are you serious?  He nodded towards his hand and raised it a little.  I rolled my eyes and complied.  Then my hand became warm, and I felt my nerves in my hand start to tingle, almost like I could feel his hand on mine, though our hands weren’t touching.
“Feel that?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah.” I said. Amazed at what I was feeling.
“That’s Energy,” he explained, “it’s a combination of your spirit, your body, and your minds energy.  It’s almost like an electrical impulse, and, just like electrical impulses, it can be controlled.”

I nodded, still able to feel the Energy between our hands.  Then I got really tired, and I felt a pull from his hands, I pulled my hand away and looked at Alex with a confused face.

“See?  I can control it, and take energy from you, but there are ways you can block that from happening.  Here.”  He then put his hand on my shoulder, and that feeling of being tired went away.  “Now, to block someone from draining you, all you really have to do is avoid direct Energy contact of any kind.  That includes looking into someone’s eyes, especially looking into someone’s eyes.”  I quickly looked away from him and he laughed.  “Don’t worry, I wont drain you again, I just wanted you to know what it feels like.”

“When someone is trying to drain you, or attack you with their Energy, all you have to do is turn away from them, and not look them in the eyes, that’s very important.  Especially Jacob.  You felt it earlier, didn’t you?”

Suddenly it made sense, so now I wouldn’t feel the way I had when Jacob had looked at me that way.  I still didn’t completely believe him, but hey, it was worth a try.  So I remembered what he said, and I never did look Jacob in the eyes again, and that weird feeling never happened again when he was around.

-

I remained friends with Alex all through high school, and even into college.  Living in a college town, we both ended up at the local college and we even had some classes together.  As soon as Alex was old enough to take care of himself, Jacob moved out of their house, and I moved in. It was our sophomore year in college when things got a little strange and when the events happened that changed my life, probably for the rest of my life.
Another person also remained in town, and that was Kevin.  Throughout the years he still would mess with Alex and I.  Though, as we got older, it didn’t bother us nearly as much, not until one night in late November of this past year.  Kevin drove up one night, drunk as he could possibly be and still have the ability to walk, with a bunch of his, also drunk, football buddies.  We don’t know how he figured you where we were living, but he found out somehow.  They all got out of the car and Kevin started banging at the door.

It was four in the morning so Alex and I were both asleep, but the banging kept going on and eventually woke us both up.  I walked out of my room, the room that was previously Alex’s, just as Alex was walking out of Jacob’s old room, now his.

“Who the hell is knocking at our door at this time of night?” Alex asked me.  I hadn’t quite woken up yet and my throat was sore, so I just shrugged and we went to the front door, with Kevin still knocking loudly.

As we approached the door a long string of knocking stopped and we heard “Come on geeks!  Open the door!” from Kevin on the other side, followed by scattered laughter by his buddies.  Alex and I both sighed loudly and looked at each other.  Then Alex rolled his eyes and opened the door.
“What do you want Kevin?” Alex asked in an irritated tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  Did I interrupt the married couples alone nighttime?” he asked.  His friend made some lewd gestures behind him and proceeded to laugh again.  I could tell that Alex wasn’t in the mood to deal with this kind of thing at that moment.  I could almost sense him getting angry.

“Go away asshole.” Alex said and began to shut the door.  Kevin stopped the door from closing and forced it open, “No no no,” he said, “I wanna see you gay lover’s little love-shack.” He snickered and there was a struggle between the two with the door.

“You want to come in?  Alright then.” Alex said and he let go of the door quickly, sending Kevin straight to the floor.  Alex and I snickered, even Kevin’s friends were laughing at him.  He got up as quickly as he could, being so drunk.

“You’re gonna pay for that geek.” he said and sloppily punched Alex in the nose.  Alex’s head was turned slightly from the punch, but he kept his footing.  He turned his head slowly back to Kevin, his eyes burning with anger and hate, the same look that Jacob always seemed to have.

“Okay, that’s it.” he said, his voice had become lower, almost layered, like those Hollywood double-voices you hear in movies, but it was subtle.  Kevin saw the look on his face, recognized it, and began to back away, but stopped, almost as if he couldn’t move, couldn’t turn away.  His friends saw the look and started to back away.  Suddenly, Kevin’s body was pulled into the house by some invisible force, and the door was slammed shut, without Alex or I touching it.  I could hear Kevin’s friends on the other side of the door, saying things like, “Let’s get outta here!” and “Leave him, this is some ghost shit!” and soon after the car had driven off.

Kevin’s body stood there, suspended into the air, unable to move, Alex just looking at him with that infuriated look.  I had taken a couple of steps back, unable to speak.  Then Alex started to walk with Kevin’s body always right in front of him, floating there.  Kevin’s face was locked in a look of uncontrollable horror.  He looked like he was trying to open his mouth to scream, but couldn’t.  Alex started walking to the basement.

I followed behind him as if in a trance, I couldn’t believe what was going on in front of me, and I couldn’t say anything to stop it.  We went down to the basement, and I stayed in the corner right by the stairs, but Alex led Kevin to the middle of the square old basement room, and just stared at him.  Alex had his back to me, but I could see Kevin hanging there.  Kevin’s whole body began to tense up and shake, almost like he was having a seizure of some kind.  I slumped back into the corner, and sat on the cold hard floor.  Kevin’s body continued to shake as a blue light emanated from Alex’s body and seemingly reached out to Kevin.  It was at this point that I realized that Kevin’s body wasn’t seizing, he was trying to get away, but couldn’t.  He began to shake harder as the blue light came near him.  It finally reached him and his body stopped moving.  Then it pulled back and a form of Kevin came with it, made of the same blue light.  Kevin’s physical body slumped down to the floor as his very soul was pulled from his body.  At this point I finally screamed, but I couldn’t look away.  Kevin’s physical body shriveled up and became a half decayed corpse right then and there.  His spirit floated and flailed in front of Alex.  Then it began to compress, as if someone was crumpling it like a piece of paper.  Ghost-like blood began to pour from every orifice of Kevin’s spirit and “evaporated,” for lack of a better word, almost instantly as it hit the ground, until it was as shrunken and decrepit  as his physical body.  It kept compressing down until it was just a crumpled ball of blue light, which floated back to Alex.  I heard the clicking sound of teeth and saw a large flash as the blue light disappeared.

I began to cry and hid my face in my hands.  Alex was just standing there, when I looked back I screamed and then passed out.  What I had seen was Alex, but it wasn’t him.  His face was shrunken like the corpse before him, but still had color.  His teeth were long and pointed, and stuck out from his lips.  Then there were his eyes, oh god his eyes!  They were all white, and glowing in the darkness, and blood ran like tears from them all the way down his face.

I woke up with a start.  I was in my own bed.  Alex was sitting in a chair next to my bed, his back to me.  When I woke up he turned to me.  I half expected to see the horrible face I had seen before, but it was his real face, and he looked as if he had been crying.  I backed away from him on my bed.  He nodded.

“You should be scared of me.” he said.  “I’m a monster.”  Another tear fell from his face.  I relaxed a bit at that moment, and moved back towards him.
“What…I mean…What did you?…” I started to ask, but I couldn’t form any sentences.

“Last night?  What happened last night?  I killed him!  That’s what happened!  I took his soul and I destroyed it.” he became frantic at this point.  Looking up towards the door to my room.  “We have to leave, it’s not safe here anymore.”  He stood up and put his hand out to me.  I flinched away from him.  “I wont hurt you.” he said.  “You have to trust me, we need to go, I’m still me.”

It took me a second, but I got up and followed him.  He led me outside and stopped right outside the door.  Our car was parked right on the street right out in front of the house, but there were three figures before us.  One was leaning up against the car and the other two were standing straight up.  They were all in long black coats with hoods.  The one who was leaning on the car stood up and removed his hood.

It was Jacob.  “Brother, you know what has to happen now.”  he said and looked to me.  Instinctively I turned away from him, not letting his eyes meet mine, knowing what it would do.

Alex put his arm out to his side in front of me protectively.  “No.” was all he said.

“He obviously knows too much.” said one of the figures to the side, a man.

“He gives it away with his mind.” said the other, a woman.

Alex screamed and threw both of his arms out at this point, a wall of blue light going to either side.   He the brought his hands together and the walls met and an explosion of light hit in the center, sending the three others flying outward and to the ground.  I felt my body lift up as Alex carried me with unseen force to the car.  As he led me there he said, “You have to get out of here, just keep going until you can’t go any farther.  Wait for me to contact you and tell you where to go next.  I’ll see you again, I promise.”  His voice was now prominently that double voice.

The car door opened by itself and the car started.  I was sent into the car.  I looked out to see Alex for what I thought was the last time, his face was that horrible voice of the Ojos Blancos, as he later told me they were called.  His eyes were crying so much blood, and they were sad and pleading, not angry like the night before.

“GOOO!” he yelled in that double voice as he put his arms out again to form a shining blue shield around the car, and I sped away.

I’m sitting in my fifth hotel room now, typing this out for you, to warn you all.  I’ve seen Alex twice since that day.   He has explained all about the Ojos Blancos.  They spend their days hunting, and preying on humans.  They devour souls in order to stay young.  They live among us everywhere, they could be anywhere.  I wont look people in the eyes anymore, and I suggest you do the same.  Alex had been one of the few that had been born with pity for humanity, and refused to eat their souls, at least, until that night.  They protect me now, but I’m always on the run, always watching my back.

 I’ll be leaving here soon.  Just, watch out for them, and don’t look into anyone’s eyes, or you may never look away.

Credit To – Carsonomel

I was only nineteen years old – prime of my life I’ve been told – and I had just been thrust into the world of learning labeled college. All sorts of new experiences and new ideas, books and articles, beer and women. The typical undergraduate lifestyle had consumed me and I was enjoying every minute of it. Within the stacks of our library were thousands upon thousands of dusty stagnant books, many of which would have no problem clearing a college bouncer with their last checkout dates, and I adopted the odd habit of checking these decrement books out. Partly for the thrill of the unknown, but mostly I was enthralled by the idea of soaking my mind in the text of forgotten souls, people who at one time were as full of life as I currently was and I set out to bring them back to life.

On this particular day I had just completed perhaps my best theology midterm of all time, answering questions I knew and writing in the inspired way I credit to those dark hidden stacks. I had just completed Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea the day before and despite being inspired to read it again, decided on a short anonymous book in between. I flipped on the row light and the faded colors soaked in the old friend. Typically I just follow my intuition and start looking for an interesting title in what ever column it leads me to. Today was no different than any other and I began my search, scanning the tattooed spines for anything that caught my attention, and it didn’t take long. The Demon’s Apple written by Lucille Molow.

I fell asleep on page twenty, not an uncommon occurrence in light of my sleep patterns, and it didn’t take long for the rem sleep to rev up…

I found myself on a tropical beach populated by a tourist town located at the base of a peninsula a few minutes hike from me, and from this spot up past me and continuing along the shore were cabin houses that are found on the lake shores of Minnesota. Certainly the pine trees were out of place alongside the creamy white sand of the beach, but it was a dream after all. After some wallowing in the waves that washed a pleasant feeling upon my unconscious body I found myself peering out the window of a tree house. It was located on the same slope that I had witnessed from the beach, in the yard of the same cabin that I now accepted as my own. I could see not only the ocean and one side of my house, but also the neighbors yard carpeted with a thick bed of pine needles . At the fence closest to me stood a little blonde girl. She was wearing a pink sun dress with yellow flowers and wore matching bows in her hair. I understood she wanted to play, and I accepted her request.

Her unmenacing head popped up through the trapdoor, and we continued to play, what it was we were playing I cannot remember. I was filled a childish emotion, blissful and ignorant, a great feeling. Soon she was gone and I was left walking the streets of the same city on the same peninsula looking for a good beer.  I sit down and am approached by a nun wearing the full gown and hat, and she sits down opposite me at the table.

“You have been chosen.” The young sister said, her eyes staring gravely into my own. She had a sound of music feel about her, except one of the more solemn nuns in the movie who don’t sing from mountain tops.
“What do you mean?” I thought back to her, as you do in dreams.
“You’ve met a little girl today.” She said with an inquiring tone.
“Yes but what of it, we just played in my tree house.” I responded swigging my beer.
“I know that little girl and have been following her ever since she was my own child in the orphanage. Tell me, did she have on a pink dress with yellow flowers?”
“In fact she did, and matching bows.”
“She always does. Let me tell you what lurks within the body of that little girl. It is not a thing of the earth you know, rather it dwells beyond and under, in the realm of consciousness that humans only skip the top of when dreaming. Some might call it a demon, others may call it simply a bad spirit. Since the beginning of time it has lurked, an anti-angel spawned from the bosom of the universe, striving towards its own selfish domination of any and every. Now, the shell of the little girl has chosen you.” This is easily enough to raise the alertness of any mind, and I quickly deduced the situation for what it was, a nightmare. Whether or not this realization is common place among people I do not know, but for me it became so, and I had learned in my dreams to awaken myself from any situation I was not thoroughly enjoying (unfortunately this often led to premature extraction from dreams I was enjoying because I could not yet fully control the urge to wake up when I realized I was dreaming). Anyway, I awoke on the same couch I had fallen asleep on to the sound of footsteps on the porch outside. I was still extremely drowsy and had to force my legs onto the floor, and use both arms and all of my strength to drag myself to the door.

I could only see out of one eye clearly, and with this hindered aim I reach for the doorknob several times before acquiring it within my grasp. I swung open the door and a rush of familiar faces flooded through. Each enthusiastically greeting my and thanking me for throwing such a great party. It was still light outside and I could see the line of people extending to the street. Before long the door was shut and I had recovered from my rebooting period. I strolled to the kitchen to fill up my glass, admiring my own party throwing abilities as I squeezed past old friend after old friend. The horror struck me again with my first step into the kitchen.

“Hi I’m Molow,” said the most adorable blonde girl I had ever seen, especially in her pink sundress with yellow flowers. I fled, all the while straining to open my eyes. After what seemed like a lifetime of impending doom I awoke on the same couch again. I had the same drowsy feeling and thought to myself, “I need to write down this name Molow for research purpose when my laptop is charged.” Once again being unable to initially walk I just rolled off the couch and carved Molow into the floor. Being as exhausted as I was I allowed myself to fall back asleep, assuming that after being awake for long enough my dream had been reset to the beach again, and I longed for those pleasant waves to wash over my soul. I found myself inside of my cabin this time, gazing out the picture window overlooking the beach and the sea. Even for a long time in dream minutes I stood there watching the birds fly through the quartz air and diving to the rippled surface every now and then. The waves patted the fluffy white beach and I was joined by a little blonde girl standing by my side.

“Why hello,” I thought to her, “Beautiful spot. Your family is very lucky.” I had accepted her as the daughter of my parents friends, I had no reason to be alarmed because we had spent the whole weekend with our families together.

“Come play!” she cheerfully said, and I followed her outside onto the porch and eagerly onto the roof of my cabin for what was sure to be an exciting game. I stood on the peak overlooking the ocean, three floors down to a steep slope inhabited with rocks and pine needles blanketing the area that wasn’t tree trunks. Standing nest to one of these tree trunks, gravely leering at me on my pinnacle, was the nun. The horror hit me again and I looked behind me at the little girl, with a cheerful grin hanging by its corners from two burning eyes.

“Molow comes from an ancient universal word for trickery,” she told me, and I wholly believed her.
“It is only a dream,” I thought, desperately trying to wake up and recover in the safety of my physical couch in my physical world.
“If I jump will I fall?” I asked.

“You certainly would, but does it matter at all?” These words rang in my ears as the most eloquent poetry ever written. I turned to face the drop and decided that the only sure way to wake up was to jump. I had done it before in dreams, yes the impact of the ground is nerve rattling, but it is a sure bet to wrench open your eyes and send your heart racing. It’s because of experiences like these that I never believed the old wive’s tale that if you die in a dream you die in real life. I tell you no lie when I say I have died a plentiful number of times in dreams, between being stabbed in the face, getting ripped apart by a machine gun, and numerous falling instances I have become somewhat unafraid of it. Although the impact of the fatal blow is always bone splintering. Not in a painful sort of way, but more in a vibrating sort of way, like your brain is being shook so rapidly that a pressure builds up in a soda can.

I jumped, in full dread of my soda can finally bursting on this impact, but finally escaping the terror of her matching bows. I bounced off several tree limbs, and died on my impact with a rock. As usual my internal organs were squeezed to almost their limit, and for several seconds I hung in limbo not knowing if I would ever feel the comfort of breath again. To my relief I awoke, and after taking a few seconds to calm myself down I scanned my environment. This was certainly no dust-ridden couch in a scum-ridden college house, but rather the basement of a church with rows of desks all occupied by children, me included.

I got out of my chair, but my actions were not my own. I heard the nun teacher politely ask me to return to my desk and finish my theology midterm. I watched myself as I disobeyed her orders and diligently walked to the front of the room where she was standing.

“Molow, return to thou seat now or I will use thy ruler upon thee rump!”

I watched myself, matching bows and all, continue on my firm course, and slit the nun’s throat.

Credit To – Joe

Harold had never been what most would call a responsible or reliable man. He meant well, he just made bad decisions. Between whiskey and poor choices in women, he had burned the first thirty years of his life away. But it all probably seemed like a good idea at the time. After his thirtieth birthday came and went with the realization that he was going nowhere, Harold decided to take a fourth or fifth stab at getting his life together, and applied for an open position as a security guard. Security was something he had been doing off and on, interspersed with a smattering of menial temp jobs, ever since he failed to graduate from the local technical college. Harold was always a large man, with a torso the general size and shape of an oil drum. He also took orders well, had a high school diploma, was not visibly on drugs, and the company had uniforms that fit him in the back room; Securiqual Guard Services therefore immediately recognized him as exceeding all of their wildest dreams, and hired him on the spot.

Details on what exactly Harold would be guarding were scant, which was par for the course in the private security world. His manager shook his hand, wrote down the street address, and told him when to be there to receive his mandatory eight hours of training.

Finding the job site was tricky. The address was downtown, which was always a strange and confusing place for Harold, so he left twenty minutes ahead of how long it should have taken him to get there. Despite that, he was still almost five minutes late, because he forgot how difficult it is to find a parking spot downtown. Street spots all required quarters, of which he had none. And parking decks, to a sheltered suburbanite such as himself, seemed to be sprawling labyrinths full of wrong paths and too-narrow tunnels where the slightest misstep meant potential death-by-SUV. In the end he chose the least cyclopean horror of a parking deck he could find, and started walking toward what he believed to be roughly the direction of the building address.

At 9:04am, not quite five minutes late for his first day, he found the right place. There was a seven foot tall chain-link fence framing the building’s perimeter, with a sliding iron gate serving as its only point of entry or egress. The gate stood open, revealing two unremarkable wooden doors set into the center of a ruddy one-story brick building. The building seemed perhaps as old as he – neither antiquated nor modern, but nestled neatly between the two.

The doors led him into a lobby roughly the size of a doctor’s waiting area, and adorned similarly. There was a room with a few computers and video monitors jutting awkwardly out from the wall to his left, almost as if the room had been built as an afterthought. There were some tacky red and orange couches in the center of the lobby that looked like they could have been from the disco era, and a receptionist’s desk sitting just off to the side of a steel door. Other than four rather impressive brick columns which rose up to the ceiling at the compass points of the lobby, there was little else.

Except, of course, for the receptionist. When Harold saw the woman sitting behind the receptionist’s desk, he felt that strange lurching feeling in his chest which people usually refer to as their ‘heart skipping a beat’. He thought she was perhaps a few years his junior, were it possible to estimate the age of a goddess. Her auburn hair was tied back into a ponytail which had come forward to drape over the front of a shapely shoulder. He remembered a painting that he had to write an essay on for his Art Appreciation class, back in community college. The painting was of this beautiful woman, demurely censoring herself for the audience, standing in a giant clam shell surrounded by some floaty cherub-looking things. He didn’t mind writing the paper, because he thought the woman in that painting was absolutely gorgeous. The form and curvature of her body just seemed somehow so perfect, so undeniably right. Femininity personified. He had never seen any woman who resembled the one in that painting, until today. Botticelli’s Aphrodite was real, and she was filling out paperwork at a downtown lobby desk, ten feet in front of him.

Harold had moved past silent awe and progressed toward awkward fumbling for a conversation starter when she raised her almond-brown eyes up to his bewildered blue ones and cheerfully greeted him. “Good morning! You must be Harold. They told me you’d be coming. I’m Rebecca, but you can call me Becky.” She smiled brightly and jerked a thumb at the steel door beside her. “The night shift guy is inside doing his rounds, he should be back soon. Take a load off, hmm?” She gestured at the hideous but seemingly comfortable furniture, and then returned her attention to the papers on her desk.

Harold was extremely pleased about the suave grace with which he navigated that conversation. Smiling pleasantly and keeping your damn fool mouth shut, he reasoned, was an ingenious approach to wooing the ladies. He sat and waited for the arrival of the guard who would be training him, and occupied himself by trying not to stare too overtly at the angel in the powder blue angora sweater.

Harold stood upon hearing footsteps in the hallway beyond the steel door. A balding man who appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, wearing the same uniform Harold now wore, entered and hastily extended his hand with a pleasant grin. The two shook hands, and exchanged introductions.

“Name’s Matt Gordon, and it’s damn good to meetcha. Me and James, the afternoon guy, we been splittin’ twelves ever since that last fella quit. You get to be our age, sixty plus hour weeks in this stinkhole makes a body count the days until he can draw social security. Let’s go on now and show you the ropes, since they damn sure ain’t gonna pay for a nickel more than eight hours of training.”

Harold let his new co-worker lead him into the long hallway through the steel door, giving Rebecca – no, Becky – the most charming smile he could muster. Before she disappeared from sight, he caught her smiling back, but averting her eyes and biting her lower lip coquettishly while doing so. Damn, he thought happily, she’s good.

The hallway ended at another steel door approximately fifty feet down. “This is what they call the fire corridor;” Matt explained, “It’s where us and anyone else in the lobby would go if there’s a tornado, and what would keep the lobby area safe in case of a fire in the warehouse.” Matt shrugged. “Of course these days, there’s hardly any need for it, as you can see.”

Matt pushed open the door at the end of the hallway, revealing an open-area warehouse that stretched about fifty yards in all directions away from the door. The only sounds were some banal chatter and the faint hum of equipment running. The place was immaculate, and it quickly became apparent why: He looked around to see that there were merely a handful of employees throughout the entire facility. None of them paid Harold or Matt any attention, merely went about their various tasks at hand.

Matt gestured around him, and chuckled. “Hardly worth twenty-four hour guards on duty, but they pay us for it. Don’t look a Trojan horse in the mouth or whatever, y’know?” Harold considered correcting him, instead decided it didn’t matter and let the old man ramble. “Basically they want us to walk every inch of this place twice per shift, and log anything unusual on our reports. We’re keeping an eye out for anyone trying to take any of this junk metal they got laying around. Junk metal’s worth a few bucks, and the junkers don’t mind hopping the fence and sneaking back out without anyone noticing. But folks like that; they’re high as kites more often than not, and they’ll scatter if they see anyone with a tin badge comin’. We’re more concerned about scrappers who come to cut copper wire. That shit’s worth more than you might imagine, and the ones who come for that are usually sober enough to tell rental cops from the genuine article. And scrappers come armed. So if you see something like that, call the cops. Don’t be a hero. The people who own this heap are trying to sell it and everything left within, but that don’t mean we get paid extra to bleed for ‘em.”

Harold nodded assent, and let Matt continue in front of him – the world’s most cynical tour guide at the most boring tourist attraction in the history of mankind. Harold noticed that the few workers occupying the building were all women sitting at sewing machines, quietly going about their work. None of them appeared to be younger than sixty. He interrupted Matt while he was talking about what Harold thought was some stupid diatribe about a guy getting fired for stampeding cattle. He sounded mad, whatever it was. Honestly, Harold had completely tuned out long ago. Thoughts of the receptionist were distracting him, and they were far from unwelcome intruders.

“So what goes on here, anyway?”

Matt chuckled, didn’t mind being interrupted. He seemed like the kind of guy who enjoyed talking, regardless of the subject.

“These days, not much of anything goes on, as you can see. But it used to be one of the largest textile manufacturing centers on the east coast. Two hundred or so workers, mostly women, would sew all sorts of things: Pillow cases, sheets, blankets, curtains. This place got a lot of women into the workforce, which back then wasn’t such a popular idea. These were good American jobs.” Matt snorted after that last part. “Guess you can figure for yourself what happened to that.” Harold was afraid that Matt was about to break into some long-winded patriotic chest-thumping speech – he seemed the type – but surprisingly he let the subject drop.

They were back at the steel door now, and Matt led him through it once more. Their footfalls echoed down the corridor and Harold felt his heart race and his breath get short at the thought of seeing Rebecca again. When they came through the door leading to the hallway, she was turned away, filing her nails. At the sound of the door opening, she slowly spun her chair around. Matt had already passed her and continued on toward the room set into the wall. Harold, however, had to stop. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just smiled and waved. She grinned and flicked her newly-manicured hand at him in a playful “shoo” gesture. Matt turned and sighed theatrically.

“C’mon kid, quit woolgathering and let me show you the brains of this whole operation.”

Harold complied, reluctantly. As it turned out, “the brains of the operation” was exactly what Harold imagined it would be: A drab, filthy room – the one jutting out from the lobby wall – about the size of a walk-in closet. There were black and white television monitors mounted to the tops of the walls around the room, showing the various cameras throughout the building. The monitors were angled downward for easy viewing while reclining in one hideous orange-upholstered chair. There was just enough room for either one small man to sit and one small man to stand, or one large man to sit and one large man to stick his head in from outside of the doorway. The latter, unfortunately for Harold, was their current situation. With the exception of one more building round, he spent the next seven and a half hours leaning into the control room from its door frame. That is, of course, when he wasn’t finding reasons to smile at Rebecca.

His feet hurt, the pay was a quarter above minimum wage, the drive was a pain in the ass, his uniform was itchy and too tight around the shoulders, and his co-workers were talkative idiots. This was the worst job he could ever imagine. He would be spending most of his day sitting ten feet away from the most beautiful woman in the world. This was the best job he could ever imagine.

The rest of the week was undeniably the happiest time of Harold’s life. Mostly it was just him and Rebecca in the lobby, and he would always hurry through his building rounds to get back to her. They talked about their lives, their hopes (mostly hers), their regrets (mostly his), anything and everything to get to know each other better. By the third day she was joining Harold on his building rounds, so they could keep their conversations going even then. The handful of warehouse workers minded their own business. If they disapproved of the guard and the receptionist patrolling together, no one complained. Harold was aware that it was unprofessional, but could not in his wildest dreams imagine a world in which he cared less about anything than that.

On their fourth day together, when they had made it approximately halfway through Harold’s first building round, Rebecca stopped and gently reached up to squeeze his left arm. It was the first intimate physical contact between them, and it sent an unexpected tingle shooting up from where her hand gripped him. He felt his heart race and his breath catch. He turned toward her with what he prayed was a casual smile, trying to pretend he was a young Burt Reynolds and all of this pleasant arm groping was just a regular Thursday for him. When Harold saw her face, he had to struggle even harder to maintain his composure. No woman had ever looked at him the way she was at this moment. It was a curious mixture of worry and longing; and for him, perhaps, but he tried not to get his hopes up. Rebecca leaned in and tilted her head towards his, not quite whispering but taking on a low, conspiratorial tone.

“Harold, would you like to… go out with me?”

Grinning like an idiot, he whispered, “Are you really asking me on a date?”

She laughed melodiously, warming Harold to his very core. Her hand left his arm and punched him playfully on the chest. “You know darn well what I mean, Harold. Us. We. Go out. Can we get out of here together, sometime?”

Harold loved his father, and tried his best to make him proud. His father was a man of many sayings, most of them clever guidelines by which to live along what he called ‘the straight and narrow’. Harold was never very good at following the straight and narrow, but there was one saying which had always stuck: “Don’t shit where you eat.”

Sorry dad, he thought, but I’m pretty sure this is fate. Harold reached out and took Rebecca’s hands in his, nodding eagerly.

“I would like that more than anything in the world,” he said.

“So… maybe we can go out later today?” She stepped closer, and he caught an intoxicating whiff of her perfume. He was hardly an expert on the subject, but it smelled like jasmine and vanilla.

“Absolutely, getting out of this place with you sounds lovely.”

She squealed eagerly at his reply, and hopped up and down, her sensible heels clacking on the warehouse floor when she returned to ground.

“Harold! You, sir, are the cat’s pajamas! I have to go tell all my girlfriends! They told me you would say yes.”

Rebecca reached up, gave him another playful punch to the chest, and issued that same laugh once again. Something of the melody in her laughter made his heart flutter. She darted off toward the lobby area; giggling and whispering to the old seamstresses as she passed. Harold was left flushed and bewildered, but far from complaining. He suddenly became self-aware, and jerked his head around to see if anyone had been watching their little exchange, but there was no one. Breathing a sigh of relief and tingling all over, he hurriedly set about finishing his round. He very much wanted to be back in that lobby, making small talk and making plans.

Rounding the corner of the building which marked his near return to the entrance, something flashed at the periphery of his vision, a yellowish-orange burst of light. Harold spun toward it, and saw one of the sewing machine operators about twenty feet from him. She was a heavyset lady of perhaps eighty years, wearing a white pantsuit. An outlet between her feet had been overloaded, and was sparking wildly in all directions. Around her ankles, the sparks were causing the hem of her pants began to sizzle and curl inward and upward with steadily accelerating rapidity. Harold breathed an obscenity as he watched the woman bend forward as far as she could and start flailing stupidly at her thighs, nowhere near low enough to beat at the flames – though he saw with mounting horror that this wouldn’t be the case for very long. He ran toward her and slid down to try to stop the fire from spreading any further upward, but could tell almost immediately that this had progressed to the point where he would need an extinguisher. Worst of all was that the old lady seemed to be going into shock; either that or she had some kind of dementia. She had ceased even the most feeble efforts to help him put out the fire, instead just stood there staring down at him. Harold scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher. He pulled the pin, aimed, and squeezed the handle.

A puff of carbon dioxide roughly the size of Harold’s head emerged, and promptly fizzled out after having traveled no more than a foot toward the elderly woman whose waistband was now being licked by orange and red flames. It was then he noticed they had gathered no onlookers. At first he assumed everyone was just paralyzed by the rapidly devolving situation, but after the fire extinguisher failed he desperately looked around and realized that everyone was merely going about their day. A surreal sense of his impotence in the face of doom sank in on him like a storm cloud as he watched their apathetic meanderings about the warehouse.

“Hey! Someone help us! Christ’s sake, she’s burning alive!” Harold yelled at the top of his lungs and far more shrilly than he intended, now running full-tilt to the next nearest extinguisher. The ladies nearby continued to sew, some making casual conversation with each other. He only then realized that something had begun to go horribly wrong, and that this was a trend likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This time he checked the pressure gauge before running back to the burning woman. The needle informed him that the extinguisher was, of course, completely empty. The noise he made at this discovery was a species of scream-grunt hybrid, and the dull clang of the extinguisher as he dropped it to the ground.

Harold spun back toward the woman he was increasingly sure would escape this incident with no less than third degree burns, and stood there slack-jawed and frozen at what had transpired in the ten seconds it took him to locate and inspect the second fire extinguisher: The woman was nowhere to be seen.

Not that she had vanished, just that locating her now seemed moot. She was doubtless trapped somewhere within the conflagration which had spread with such horrendous rapidity that it now enveloped the entire southern end of the warehouse. Harold felt his eyebrows and the tips of every exposed hair on his body begin to blacken and curl. His eyes, wide with disbelief, stung from the sudden and unexpected heat as he watched the dreadful scene unfold.

The fire was voracious in its hunger, mercilessly efficient in its task, and swept through the warehouse with a sort of chaotic precision. Its tendrils would whip and whirl in response to no discernible stimuli, only to unerringly land upon and subsequently consume its next target. Those workers who had not already become its kindling continued about their day, oblivious. Harold, having done what he felt was his duty and then some, turned and ran for the fire corridor.

Harold flung the door open, the flames now closing in near enough for the steel handle to burn his hands as he bolted through the threshold and down the hall. He barreled through the second steel door, slammed it shut behind him, and sucked in deep draughts of fresh air. His lungs felt like they had been cooked to at least medium-rare. He had done his best; now it was time to get Rebecca to call the fire department, and for them to get the hell out of that inferno before the flames could consume them. Hands on his knees and still gasping, he turned toward the receptionist’s desk.

No Rebecca.

Harold panicked for a moment, then realized that she had probably either seen the fire or heard him screaming about the fire and done what any sensible person would have done: Call the authorities and then run outside. He turned and ran toward the doors, grabbing hold of both handles and flinging them open simultaneously.

Harold screamed. And screamed. And when he screamed, he backed away. And when he backed away, she stepped forward. By whatever infernal mechanism this nightmare made manifest was powered, she stepped forward. And when she stepped forward, he fell backward against the door frame. She raised her visceral visage over and past Harold, toward the fire corridor, and she spoke. This affront to sanity summoned Rebecca’s voice and gleefully issued a guttural imperative.

“Out!”

From behind he heard the steel lobby door flung open against its frame, and the gibbering cacophony of a dozen shambling horrors. He could smell the sickly sour stench of charred, rotting flesh inexorably approaching from that direction. He did not turn to witness their approach, or attempt to rise to his feet. He merely stared straight ahead, gawking hopelessly at the putrid, charnel creature he could not allow himself to accept as his beloved Rebecca.

She descended upon him, placing her cadaverous hands upon his chest and arm.

She whispered her thanks, and pressed what the grave had preserved of her lips against his. His mouth was sealed by hers, so with his last breath he inhaled deeply through his nose. He died with a smile on his lips, for her scent was jasmine and vanilla.

—-

Lieutenant Hanes sat down on the charred remains of what had once been a hideous orange couch, scribbling notes while a few of his officers poked around some blackened brick columns and attempted to look busy while the county coroner bagged up the body behind them. Across from the Lieutenant sat a security guard, the first of several interviews he would have to conduct today.

“So, Mr. Gordon, please elaborate on what you told the dispatcher when you phoned this in.”

Matt shrugged. “Nothin’ much more to tell, really. Walked in, saw him sittin’ right there, leaning against the front door. I thought he might’ve fallen asleep, but part of me knew better. The kid had been doin’ a good job, by all accounts. My boss had me check the footage after his first day by himself. Y’know, to make sure he was doin’ the rounds and whatnot, not boozin’ it up or getting stoned or nothin’ like that.”

“And was he?”

“Booze or drugs, naw. Not sleepin’, neither. Doin’ the rounds? Oh hell yeah, like clockwork. Like I said, kid was doin’ a good job. Seemed to walk around talking to himself an awful lot, but eh. This job gets lonely, I get it.”

Lieutenant Hanes sighed and flipped his field journal shut. Much as he wanted to live up to the pomp and circumstance expected of him, this seemed like a fairly open and shut case. The county coroner suspected it had been a cardiac event, and there was no reason to believe otherwise. He stood.

“Just one more question, Mr. Gordon: Why the hell do they have you guys guarding the bones of an abandoned warehouse that burned down two years ago?”

Matt Gordon explained to Lieutenant Hanes about the junk metal and copper wire, the junkers and the scrappers, and the way things used to be before the fire. He went on to explain that while the fire that tore through the warehouse was blamed for killing a dozen of the women who worked there, including the most gorgeous secretary that Matt had ever laid eyes on, it wasn’t really the fire that was to blame. He’d been there, and seen the whole sad sight. Two hundred workers, stampeding like cattle, pushing down the defenseless old women in their way and trampling them on the way out the front door. Just like with Harold, Matt never did get to finish the story – Lieutenant Hanes had to cut him off. Dispatch was frantically calling out all available units to the third fatal house fire in the past two hours.

—

Three down and many more to go before the slate will be clean. And the smoke that fills their scorched lungs will smell of jasmine and vanilla.

Credit To – Dave Taylor

The cold was the first thing I felt.

Even before my eyes were open I felt a very deep chill in my core, a thousand spindles of ice sewn between my tissues. I blinked, my eyelids slowly bringing and stealing back the darkness, and with it the desire to keep them closed forever.

I was lying face down on the floor, the tiles speckled with browned blood. I moved my arms to push myself up, but my muscles were stiff, almost too stiff to bend without breaking. I feebly pushed myself up, forcing weight upon deadened legs. I began to wonder why I felt the way I did. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been laying there. There was the most peculiar feeling in my stomach, a sort of dissolution. Perhaps I had ingested something that knocked me out?

Wait. Where was I? I looked around the room I was in. It was a kitchen, mostly everything in order except for the few traces of a hurried exit. The back door was open, barely bolted to the top hinge. Cabinet doors were left open, and it seemed only the food readily edible was taken. A knife set was knocked over, with a few blades missing. There was blood splattered on the floor, in which I was laying. I could see a putrid stream of it running down my shirt, but after a quick search I couldn’t find, nor feel, any wound.

Each window I saw had the blinds drawn, and the lights turned off, as if the house’s occupants were hiding. I went into the living room, barely bending my brittle knees into an awkward walk. It was dark, but I could see outlines of furniture well enough. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except that the front door had been barricaded with a desk. There was a bedroom towards my right, the door closed, and then a hallway near the front door. The entire house was dark, and empty.

Except for me.

Where was I? Whose house was this? And then, then I realized I didn’t know who I was.

I thought and thought and thought upon it, trying to bring up some memory of a name, a friend, an activity, my face. I didn’t even have a vague image of my own face, and the feeling of facelessness was eerily disconcerting. Trying to access my convoluted memory banks, I realized I couldn’t remember anything other than the cold of waking up on that kitchen floor. I slowly became more and more sure that I had been poisoned, or perhaps had an allergic reaction. What makes one amnesic and unconscious? It had to be some sort of chemical.

What if I lived alone? I checked for a wallet in my pocket, but found none. I tried to call out, but something was wrong with my voice, as it felt and sounded like my vocal chords were shredded. The only thing to come out was some sort of strangled noise, mixed with a phlegmatic sputter. I spat out a gob of blackish-red blood caught in my throat. I couldn’t taste it, but it looked disgusting on whoever owned the couch in front of me.

Since no one had responded to my vocalization, I decided to leave. Going to the front door, I pulled the heavy desk aside. It was difficult, not because of the weight, but because of my limbs. My arms felt encumbered by hundreds of pounds, and the rest of my body had been struck by from sort of torpor, like it was being pulled towards a super-massive black hole in the opposite direction I tried escaping to. Trying to grip the hulking piece of furniture was difficult as my fingers wouldn’t cooperate, but the desk gave way easily, more easily than I thought it would.

I’m not sure how long I spent trying to open the door. Time seemed different. I couldn’t tell how long a moment was, as I was completely grounded in the present. Trying to recall waking up in the kitchen was slowly becoming more difficult. After what could have been hours of failing, I orchestrated all of my fingers together into a twisting motion and opened the door. The difficulty of something seemingly simple perplexed me, but I lost interest and soon forgot about it.

I had heard of concoctions that paralyze, but were there some that caused memory loss as well? I knew of the Haitian zombies that forgot themselves entirely and served whatever voice they heard after they resurrected, but there was no voice to command me. My experience wasn’t quite as dramatic, but someone’s blood was in that kitchen. Maybe I survived an assassination? I had been subdued on purpose, and I could still feel the results in my rigid muscles. But if amnesia was an intended side effect, what would someone stand to gain from it?

I walked out the door, into a suburban neighborhood, trying to figure this conundrum out. The sky was overcast and gray, a constant threat of some sort of foulness to rain from the heavens. The wind was strong, blowing various trash and debris down the street. I could see black smoke on the horizon, rising up to coalesce with the dark clouds.

Step by step, I moved the dessicated-feeling body I was in down the drive way. I didn’t see a single person, just the signs of exodus. Front doors were broken down or left open, windows smashed, burnouts from tires throughout the street, and the strange feeling of not being alone. I could sense someone was around, I could hear their heartbeat, I could feel their warmth. I needed to find them, I needed to know what was going on. Someone would help me, I was sure.

A too-thick saliva began to form in my mouth, a very foreign saliva. I spit, a purple slime tinged with red hitting the ground, along with something white. The purging of a toxin?

So I began to walk. I made horrible progress, walking down the street on a pair of dead legs. I didn’t mind it, though. I was lost in a sort of mindlessness, not uncontent to just be wandering. The whole time, the possibility of other people probed my brain, insisting I find them.

Walking down a street through the eternal maze of neighborhood, I came across a dog. A big Doberman. At first, he caught my attention in an interested way. I looked at him, enthralled. But then he caught a glimpse of me, and started barking. The barking became louder and louder, and I began to grow irritated. The way the dog stared at me, fangs bared, caused my reservedness to subside. I could feel the fury cauterizing my body, crawling up my spine, making my hands shake. This animal was challenging me. My prey.

I strode over to him, oblivious to the deep growling. The dog readied himself to pounce, and the thought of this pathetic thing posing a challenge was amusing. He jumped forward, biting into my calf, hard, hard enough to cause a crunch to sound. But I was so full of rage, so full of hatred that my whole body was numb. I threw myself upon the dog, wrapping my hands around his neck tightly. I slowly began twisting my iron grip with as much power as I could muster, and nothing in the world would stop me from breaking his neck. He managed a whimper in such a saddening manner that if I could feel sorrow, it would’ve hurt me inside. So I made it excruciating for the dog, finally breaking his neck after his head was twisted a hundred and eighty degrees. Then I picked his corpse up, slammed it in to the street, and started punching in his ribcage, grinding his flesh and innards against the cement with my fists, until just the head and hind legs remained intact, connected together by a spine and fur matted with the dog’s bloody remains.

When I was done, I asked myself what I had just done. I now felt nothing, I was calm, I was collected. My mind analyzed the situation and it deduced my anger as a fair reaction, though I had a subconscious feeling that what I had just done was sickeningly wrong.

What if I had brain damage? I had heard a story of how a man had brain damage in a specific area, which caused him to fly into a blind fury at the smallest sleight. What if it happened to me? Enough oxygen deprivation can cause both brain damage and unconsciousness. Was I even mentally fit to be a human being anymore?

I needed to find someone quickly.

I continued on, eventually reaching the end of the neighborhood. Two cars were crashed into each other, and I walked up to them. One was empty, while the driver of the other car was resting his head on the steering wheel. I walked over, opening the door and lifting his head up by the hair. His forehead was caved in, pieces of skull broken off in his brain. He didn’t smell particularly good, so I picked him up and threw him into the street.

I sat in the car, looking at it. I was sure I’d driven cars many times before, but as I sat in that seat, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do. I grabbed the wheel, turned it. Nothing happened. There were a ton of buttons next to the wheel, and I began pressing them. One of them made a terrible noise come on, and after forgetting which one it was, I left.

I was on a main street. There were cars parked in the lots out front of derelict shopping centers, the occasional sign of violence streaked upon the pavement or wall in a bloody fashion. The lights of miscellaneous shops were still on, though I could see no one inside. Automated traffic lights went through their cycles, unaware that they did nothing to serve the people who weren’t there. The place was a ghost town, void of anything that might be alive.

Then I saw someone. I was in front of a grocery store, the entrance destroyed by a flipped car. The person I saw appeared to be a man. He limped, and it seemed like every time he put weight on his right leg it would almost snap out underneath him. He was making his way into the apartment complex from the other side of the street. I tried yelling out to him, but all I could make was a groan.

He continued on to the complex grounds, and I decided to follow him. When I passed the surrounding fence, however, I saw a group of people running up a flight of stairs into an apartment. One of them was holding a gun towards the man trying to follow, who seemed to beseech something of them by holding his arms out. From the look of it, he needed medical aid.

And then they shot him. I immediately took cover behind the fence, peeking around the corner. The last person to go in was a woman, who made the strangest feeling rise in my chest. I took a look at her as she stared at the corpse of the man her friend had just shot. She couldn’t see me, however, and went inside.

There was something peculiar about her. She contorted my chapped lips into a goofy semi-grin. I had a feeling like I knew her, like I needed to know her again. Perhaps she could help me sort this whole mess out. Maybe I could find out who I once was.

But I wasn’t going to be able to approach them if they were just shooting random people. I made my way towards the grocery store. My muscles began to grow flexible, and I could move a bit more smoothly now, though the calf the dog had bitten wasn’t as strong as my uninjured one. I began to hope that whatever chemical was in my system was starting to wear off, and that there might not be permanent effects after all.

I walked through the parking lot. The place was abandoned, though it didn’t seem voluntarily. Some of the car doors were open, some were painted red. One trunk was open, half filled with groceries and a carton of eggs smashed upon the concrete next to it. Dozens of carts were left astray. The car that had rolled over had smashed the glass doors leading into grocery store. It appeared the car was resting upon a few people, their blood and organs forced out of their bodies all over the cement. The wind blew. It was cold.

I got to the dumpster behind the store, and opened it up. I grabbed a piece of cardboard, and underneath was a small child, face gnawed until it was unrecognizable. I could see the bone of the nose, though the cartilage was gone. There was an ear spat out next to his head. The lips were eaten in a particularly vicious way, exposing smashed-in teeth and purple gums. The eyes had been slurped out, leaving this eight-year old child staring into the sky with a lifeless gaze. The skull was smashed in and the brain was served at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The body had pieces picked off of it in varying degrees, in some places to the muscle, in others to the bone. This was the work of something wild, something extremely voracious. The child was small enough to be an easy meal for a pack of starving dogs. There was even a news report about cases like this a few months ago. Wasn’t there? Or did it seem like something that would be on the news? Regardless.

I reached my hand into the emptied stomach, digging up past the remains in search of wet blood. After getting some, I wrote “I’m not an enemy, don’t attack!” on the cardboard. The body gave off a foul stench, and it wasn’t the sight so much as it was the scent that deterred me. It wasn’t decomposition, but there was something definitely wrong with the corpse.

So I left, utterly forgetting the small child. I arrived back at the opening of the apartment complex. The door the group had entered was shut tight. I waited, not sure how long it was, but completely content with passing the time doing nothing. Then I thought it would be better to see them coming before they could see me. So I took my sign and went to the cemetery across the street from the apartments, where I would be able to properly observe them.

Night came. Everything was quiet. Not a single car passed. No one walked along the sidewalk. There wasn’t a single person out picking up fast food, visiting the grocery store or renting a movie. Orange glows on the horizon kept me company.
Anything that a human being might once do was never to be done again.

I lay there, silently, watching, alone in a yard full of corpses. I had the same sensation I had in the neighborhood I woke up in, that there were people around. I knew I could feel the ones in that apartment. So I waited for them.

The only uncomfortable part was the cold. I couldn’t get warm at all. I wished my body would metabolize whatever was in me. I just wanted to feel alright again.

I was slowly beginning to forget what exactly I needed metabolized from my body. Was it something bad? It couldn’t be, as I felt perfectly fine. I had the vague feeling that I should wait for the people who went into the house, that maybe that woman I saw could tell me what I needed out of my system.

I spent the night next to the grave of Chris Redfield.

Then day came. It seemed slow, but I couldn’t be sure. My mind was only conjuring up blanks when I tried accessing the last few hour’s images. The clouds stayed, like a dark harbinger hiding whatever might be bright, whatever was left that could be warm, if there was anything that could make me warm again.

Finally, I saw them come out. A few, including the woman. I made as much haste as I could, holding up my sign, until I caught one of their eyes. It was a man, thin, gaunt, bones quite prominent, like an undead skeleton. He had a handgun, and as soon as I came into his vision he pulled it up, aiming it at me, yelling out a warning. The other two looked at me, and the woman I had seen gasped.

I got a better look at her. She was beautiful, even angelic. Blonde hair, of a very light color. Green eyes, the color I imagine Mother Nature herself might have. I could see an aura around her, of a bright white. I saw it shoot towards me, and I was instantly soothed. My leg felt alright, my spirit was healed, my being rejuvenated. I loved her, and I’m sure I loved her even more back before, when I knew who I was.

She looked at me, mouth agape, expression stunned. The skeleton covered in flesh took a step forward, but she stood in front of him. I held my sign out, and she read it. I could see a tear run down her face. They muttered a conversation to each other, but the man let me continue on.

“No, how can you trust him?” The man yelled as the woman I loved started walking towards me.

“We’re going back, right now, with or without you.” And the other two started running back up the stairs. They meant nothing to me, however, so I didn’t care.

I dropped the sign. This woman, a complete stranger to me, yet so familiar I felt that if I lost her now I would lose my entire life. She came closer, and stopped.

“Is that you?” She whispered.

“Yhhuss.” I managed to articulate with difficulty. For this woman I could remember nothing about, this woman that I loved, I would do anything.

She walked up to me. I extended my arms to embrace her, and when she fell into them I ripped her fucking throat out, the flesh in my mouth one second and swallowed in the next. She started choking on blood, trying to scream and failing, falling to the concrete. She was mute, the same way I was.

I got down to my knees, making a fist and smashing through her ribcage to get the best-tasting organs. I broke the skin, broke bones, gripped her heart, ripped it out and started savoring it. I had no idea why I was doing any of this, as I was now a mere victim of my instincts. This drive took over my hands and jaws, this inherent rage encoded within my existence. I know knew the purpose of my existence.

The only thing I loved right now was the way her flesh tasted, the first thing I had been able to taste in so long. It had the perfect texture, the right amount of chewiness, and the blood was a perfect compliment. I felt an elation, I felt an amazing high I had never known as I consumed her carcass. I felt a tooth get stuck in a particularly calloused piece of hand, but swallowed it anyway.

I would regret this later, if I could still regret. If I could still regret, I might regret that after I had my fill, this woman would get up, only to suffer the same bewilderment and estrangement from reality as I had. I might regret that I was purposely going to let her reanimate, so she could do infect others. I might regret the deaths of the others she would eat. I might regret letting the corpses of children be thrown into dumpsters after her victims did their part to spread this disease. If I could still regret. If I even cared to regret.

I might regret succumbing to the results of my twist of fate. I am now the plaguebearer, I am now the one I used to despise in horror movies.
I am the downfall of my former race.
I am the apocalypse.

And then I began to feast.

–
I walked down the stairs of the safe house, a volunteer to collect supplies. Ash and Leon accompanied me. We made it down the stairs and walked over to the car. All of a sudden I heard a yell from Ash, and turned. He was holding his gun up towards one of the dead–

It wasn’t just one of the dead. It was my husband.

The tumultuous storm of negative emotions I’d experienced these last two days had just ended. Ever since the genetic switch within humanity’s junk DNA was pulled magnetically, there was no place more like Hell than home. Each one of us were now another’s apocalypse.

One by one, countries fell. The Northern Hemisphere was hit, then America, then our state. It was one swift sweep, like God waving his hand across the world to clean up a mess he had let grow too big. I knew it was the end. The beginning of that end started when one of the undead broke into our home and bit my husband in the back of the neck. Life became meaningless.

Until this moment. Now he was back. Back from the dead, not completely, but close enough. My reason to stay alive was resurrected in the form of this corpse in front of me. I could see past the glaze in his eyes that he could remember me, that he had been searching for me. He stared at me, the way he used to stare before he would tell me he loved me.

Ash stepped forward, and I quickly stepped in front of him. I read the sign my husband had made, painted in some sort of red, which said, “i m n e me) doet atak”. His spelling was never very good anyways, but this meant that he was still cognitively functioning. And even though he was a shambling corpse with a shin bone piercing through his calf, I still loved him. I tried to stop myself from crying.

“What’re you doing?” Ash asked.

“That’s my husband.” I told him.

“That’s NOT your husband, he’s a corpse, a zombie hungering for your flesh. He probably walked in from the same cemetery as the other cadaver.”

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“No, how can you trust him?” But I had already started walking towards my husband.

“We’re going back now, with or without you.” I heard Ash yell, and then their footsteps up the stairs. I didn’t need them, though. The only person I needed was him. The man in front of me, the one with the dilated, newly-pigmented pupils that were as ghostly as the full moon, the one with the blanched, sickly pallor, whose jaw hung slightly slack and leaked a purple fluid. He was missing one of his front teeth, but with the bloody and rotting gums he had developed, it seemed like they’d all fall out soon anyhow. He was covered in dried blood, and smelled of decomposition. But death was the final barrier, and he had broken it. Now we could be together forever.

I stopped in front of him.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“Yhhuss.” He rasped, like his vocal chords had been cut with a scalpel and then sewn back in by a high school special ed student with a cleft hand.

I walked up, he opened his arms, and he embraced me.

–

The cold was the first thing I felt.

Such an overwhelming cold. I opened my eyes with difficulty. I was staring up at the sky. Massive clouds, dark and menacing, were sailing through the firmament. Lamps lit the area I was in with an orange glow, creating an eerie otherworldly sensation, as if I were in some reality that never existed until this moment.

With as much strength as I could muster, I tried moving. My muscles were stiff, and bending them was almost impossible. I finally got up, though. I took a look around. I was in the parking lot of what looked like an apartment complex. Where was this? Where was I?

Wait a second. Who was I? I began to try and recall something, anything from my memory. Nothing came up. I tried calling out, but the only noise I made was a strange gurgling, as if my throat were full of a liquid.

Then I looked down. There was a corpse next to me, laying face up. I had the strangest feeling that this man was important, that I had known him. He was missing a tooth, covered in blood, and obviously killed by a bullet to the head. He gave me a very peculiar feeling, and anyone who could feel sorrow would have been saddened by this man’s condition. So I started walking away. I had an instinctive feeling that there were people nearby, though where, I wasn’t sure. But I needed to find people. They would help me, I was sure.

Credit To – Lichtjunger