The best scary horror stories are here. Are you ready to get scared?
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My phone vibrated in my pocket, startling me, and I almost dropped the blood-stained hacksaw. I cursed under my breath as I set the tool down carefully on the chest of my victim. I stepped away from my ‘operating’ table, pulled the rubber glove off my right hand, slid it under my smock and delved into the pocket of my jeans to retrieve my phone.
It was my boyfriend. I closed my eyes and sighed, disappointed with myself for forgetting. I hesitated for a few moments before answering, letting the bright LED lights in my basement glow through my eyelids. I accepted the call. “Hey cutie,” I cooed.
“Ugh,” Lucas grunted. “I hate it when you call me ‘cutie’.” I could tell from his tone that he was smiling. I was pretty sure he didn’t hate it. “You almost ready?”
“Uuhhh… I’m a little bit behind on that… sorry I lost track of time,” I told him. Technically, that wasn’t a lie.
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My dad was the best chef that I had ever known and up until a certain point in my life, he was also the best dad. He would always dedicate the time outside of his culinary profession to spending time with me and making sure that I was loved. When I went through my phases of what I wanted to be when I grew up , as every child did, he made sure to support me fully. When I wanted to be just like Steve Irwin , he would buy me the best books on animals and would take me to the zoo frequently. When I wanted to be just like Neil Armstrong, he bought a telescope so that during the night we could look at the stars and point out to each other the funny little shapes that they made. When I wanted to be just like Michael Jordan, we got a basketball hoop and played basketball every single day. It wasn’t until around my 13th birthday that I decided that I wanted to be just like him, and that we were really able to bond and grow closer than ever.
I remember from my childhood to my teenage years he would always talk about how it was his calling to be a chef and that to be one simply wasn’t enough, he wanted to be the best. Seeing his ambition and dedication to his work , along with how great of a dad he was, made me think of him as a hero. He was Batman and now I was his Robin. Taking me under his wing, he began to teach me everything he knew.
With his specialty being a rotisseur , a chef that deals with meat, he instructed me on how to season, cook, and serve the world’s finest meat. Whether it was Japanese Kobe Beef, American Wagyu Beef, or the Filet Mignon, he wanted to make me as good as him. There was nothing that he wouldn’t teach me, well... anything except for his perfect recipe.
As I mentioned earlier, my dad never wanted to be just a chef, he wanted to be the best, and to achieve that status he sought to create the perfect recipe.
“Ruben, this will be the world’s greatest dish. Mouths will water at the sight of it, and I will be known as the greatest chef to ever live. This family's name will go down in history.”
Now don’t be mistaken, it’s not as if his recipe was really a secret. He would constantly talk about it and it was obvious whenever he was working on it, however he refused to teach me it.
“Not yet, it hasn’t been perfected. Once there are no flaws, I promise kiddo, I will teach you all about it.”
This dish was something that outside of his work and teaching me, he would constantly work on. In fact, I’d say that at a certain point he even became obsessive over it.
When I was around fifteen, my dad decided to renovate the basement and create a professional kitchen so that he could have his own little environment to test out the recipe. The only thing that struck me odd at the time was that nobody for any reason whatsoever was allowed down there and to make sure of that, he installed four deadbolts , with one requiring a passcode, and two reinforced steel doors. To say that I became a little worried, would be an understatement.
Soon he started to spend more and more time down there in his kitchen so much that it became normal for him to go at around nighttime and come back up well into the morning. My mentoring time got shorter and shorter until it just stopped altogether, but at least he still went to work.
And poor mom. I haven’t really mentioned her yet, I guess I still can’t get over what my dad did. He used to be my idol, you know. Anyway, my mom was one of the best ones. Although my dad and I were closer, we still had a great bond. She would always notice if something was up and made the effort to make everything alright again. She read me bedtime stories when I was a kid, healed my bruises and scrapes, and as I got older gave me advice on my dating problems. Like how my dad used to be, she was always there for me. I could tell that my dad’s obsession began to take a toll on her. He barely paid attention to her anymore. It came to the point where days would go by before she would even be able to see him, yet when those happened he still didn’t seem to notice her.
As my dad became absent in my life, she was there to fill in the empty space, and became my rock. Unfortunately it got to the point where she couldn’t handle it anymore and she snapped.
I was sleeping over at a friends house when it happened. According to my dad at the time, she got into his kitchen and yelled at him saying how he was a horrible husband and how he became a shitty father then went upstairs to pack her bags and left.
My mom was missing for a week. I tried to call her and any family that she could’ve went to, but there was no news of her. So I went to the police, and they began to start an investigation.
During all of this, it was like mom’s outburst really got through to my dad. It was strange seeing him spend time outside of his personal kitchen. Hell, he actually even started to cook dinner again for the first time in years. Yeah tell me about it, I was shocked too when I walked into the kitchen and saw him being his old self again. Unfortunately, that didn’t last.
About three days into the investigation, they arrested my father on murder charges- I was eighteen at the time. I couldn’t believe that he murdered mom. I wouldn’t believe it, but then the police told me of a tape they acquired that was definite proof and I demanded to see it. I wish I hadn’t.
At the beginning of the video, there was just pitch darkness, but then suddenly the lights came on and it looked like a kitchen.
My dad walked into frame and up to the camera, filling in the space until all I could see was him.
“ For years, I have been trying to perfect the best meat dish. I’ve practiced on different animals over the years, but this whole time it was right in front of me and I didn’t even know it.”
There was something off about him. His eyes looked like he was holding on to the brink of sanity. A look I never thought I’d see on him.
Muffling was heard offscreen.
“SHUT IT YOU DAMN IDIOT.”
He got a plate, threw it to the left and it shattered. At this point my stomach started to churn and I could feel the anxiety rising.
“This will go down in history as the greatest dish ever, mark my words.”
He went off frame and wheeled in a person tied down to a dolly, with a hood over their head. I couldn’t believe it. All this time, while my dad worked on his secret recipe, he was torturing animals right under my feet and I didn’t even realize it.
“You’re in for a real treat.”
He plucked off the hood and I felt my heart plummet into my stomach. My mom... the one person who was still there for me was tied up on that dolly. Her eyes showed how frightened she was and her face was scrunched up as tears ran down them. He took the tape off of her legs and torso that kept her bound to the dolly, yet she wasn’t really free because there was still rope that had trapped her.
He carried her wriggling body to the center island and cuffed her to it.
“Now ladies and gentleman, or whoever will watch this, get ready to learn how to make the perfect recipe. And watch closely, I wouldn’t want you to mess up.”
He got out the biggest knife I’d ever seen and brang it down swiftly onto her neck, separating her head from her body, and carried it to the garbage. He used the knife to sharply separate each limb from the torso and cut off all of the hands and feet which he threw away. He got what looked like a huge potato peeler and excruciatingly peeled off all of the skin from what was left of my mom. He then used the knife to cut all of the meat into thin slices, separating it from the bones.
As I watched with tears running down my face, bile rising in my throat with each second, and the feelings of shock and despair in my body, I realized that I could point out in my head what he’d do next. Everything he taught me about preparing dishes, he was doing right there on that video. I couldn’t take it anymore and I began to empty out my stomach while violently sobbing in between.
He got out a meat tenderizer and pounded the meat. He seasoned it with his special blend of spices, yet oddly enough he didn’t cook it. He just put it in a container, cleaned everything up and carried it off frame.
The video cuts to him cooking in the actual kitchen upstairs. I recognized this as about a week ago. I see myself walk into the kitchen, stunned that my dad was cooking for the first time in years.
We have a little conversation as he finishes serving the food and sets a plate down in front of me.
“How does it taste, kiddo?” He asked me.
“Perfect.” I chirped back.
Slowly he lifted up his head and stared at the camera for the longest of time... then grinned shooting a quick wink.
I have been banned from calling 911. I don't know what to do.
I'm really at the end of my rope here. No, check that. I was at the end of my rope weeks ago. Now I'm sort of clinging to the side of the cliff by one bloody fingernail.
I didn't even know that you could get banned from calling 911. 31 calls over 36 nights later, and now I know the truth. They told me that unless they find an actual emergency situation the next time they respond, they'll arrest me on the spot and haul me off to jail.
And you know what? Honestly? That doesn't sound like a bad idea right now. Except for the part where I'd probably lose my children.
Like I said, this started 36 nights ago.
My ex-husband had the kids for the weekend, and I was looking forward to just relaxing by myself with some red wine and something dumb on Netflix. I was in the kitchen pouring out the wine when I looked out the window and thought I saw something there in my yard. A person.
It was dark out, so I rushed over to the light switch and flipped it up. The outside light turned on and flooded the yard. Nothing there.
I shrugged it off and sat down on my couch, scrolling through my Netflix options. Then the front door started rattling. That got my attention.
After a while, the rattling stopped, but I sat there frozen for several minutes. Then the doorbell rang, the sound like a dagger into the silence. I spilled some wine.
It's probably Alan. Probably just forgot something for the kids and forgot that I changed the lock.
I sighed and got up to check the door through the peephole. Somebody was there alright, but it wasn't Alan. At least I didn't think so. It was a man dressed all in black, including a black ski mask.
As I was watching him, he reached down and grabbed the doorknob and started rattling the door again.
That was when I made my first 911 call.
*
I have seen that man every night since. The only reason I've made 31 911 calls instead of 36 is that for 4 of those nights, the cops were parked right outside of where I was staying. When I saw him, I only needed to flick the lights four times, and that would signal the cops.
And while I saw that man for 36 nights in a row, the cops saw him zero times.
Not after I installed a camera pointing at my backyard. Not after I installed cameras all around the outside of the house. Not after I installed the cameras inside the house.
They never saw him. But I did. Every night, sometimes hiding in the shadows, sometimes standing inches away from me, breathing heavily.
*
I will tell you about one night, so you can understand how terrified I am.
This was definitely the worst night, in isolation. But the longer this goes on, the more every night becomes worse than the last.
This was a bit over a week into it. Maybe 10 days. I started off feeling some guarded relief. The cameras were all installed around the house, and the cops were parked outside. If and when this creep showed up, they'd get him… or if not, then at least the cameras would prove that he existed, and maybe offer up some clues to his identity.
I put the kids to bed, and let myself have a bit of wine… to help relieve that lingering terror. By the time I was ready for bed, I felt fairly relaxed and confident that I was safe for the first time since this thing started.
I was ready for a good night’s sleep, and I passed out pretty much as soon as I settled into bed.
Sometime in the night, I was awakened by the creak of the floorboards by the foot of my bed. For half a second, I was confused with half a hangover haze. Then I understood. Somebody was in the room with me.
I had a gun in the room, but I kept it in a lock box at the top of my closet where the kids couldn't reach it. It was useless to me just then.
How the hell did he get past the cops?! I wondered, as another foot landed on the floor with a soft thud.
“Mommy?”
My heart almost exploded with relief. It was my 4-year-old kid, Alex.
“Come on,” I said, sitting up and patting the bed. On most nights, he still ended up in there with me.
“Mommy, there’s a man in my room and he wants to see you.”
I bolted out of bed. “Stay here,” I said, running to the closet for the gun.
“He’s nice,” said Alex. “He gave us candy.”
Oh God… Shane is still in there.
My hand gripped the gun in the box, wavering. Did I want to bring a loaded gun into a room with my 6-year-old kid? I didn’t know the answer, but I pulled the gun out anway and ran down the hall, after closing Alex in my room.
When I got there, the man was sitting on the bed with Shane. Shane was eating a candy bar, smiling.
“Mom!” he said. “Mr. Night is awesome! How come you never told us about him?”
The man was holding a knife up behind Shane’s back. I kept the gun behind my own back.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Then I heard the man speak for the first time. He kept changing his voice, modulating it in an exaggerated way so that it was really high-pitched, then really low, now fast and smooth, now slow and stuttering.
“I want what any man wants,” he said. “I want your devotion. And your gun. Hand it over, or, you know, the boy goes night night for a long long time.”
The hand holding the gun was slick with sweat, and my stomach was in knots as my heart pounded away in primal terror.
“You have a gun, Mom?” asked Shane.
“And if I do give it to you, then what?” I asked the man.
“Then I’ll leave. For now. No sense causing a ruckus with those officers down there if I don’t have to.” He lifted the knife an inch higher. “And no sense you causing a ruckus either, is there?”
I handed him the gun.
“Good call,” he said. He lowered the knife then turned to Shane. “Hey bud, Mr. Night has to get going now. Lots of other kids to give candy to. You be a good boy and we’ll meet again soon, yeah?”
“I’ll be good!” said Shane.
The man stood up and walked over to the open window. I know that I locked that. He stepped out onto the garage roof as I grabbed Shane and yanked him back into my room.
I flicked my lights on and off four times.
By the time the cops got inside and upstairs, the man was long gone.
*
That was the last night that I spent with my kids. I see them during the day, but never at night. The man does not seem interested in them. Only in me.
I can’t for the life of me think of who the man might be. Somebody I know? I’ll admit, I did turn my thoughts towards Alan, my ex-husband. We had had some nasty fights before and after the divorce… but would he really hold a knife above his own child’s back?
I didn’t think so, but I tested it one night. The kids stayed with my mother, and Alan stayed with me, in the kids’ room. I knew it wasn’t him, because at 1 AM, I woke up to the man throwing acorns at my window. He was there in the driveway, somehow always just out of the camera’s view.
Alan was snoring away in Shane’s bed.
I’ve racked my brain trying to think of who it could be. It just doesn’t make sense. None of it does. It’s just a nightmare without reason.
How is he there every night and always gone without a trace by the time the cops get there? How is it possible?
It doesn’t matter where I am. At my house, at my mother’s house… at this hotel. He always finds me, he always lets me see him, and he always disappears back into the night.
Sometimes, I wonder if I really am imagining it. Shane and Alex both say they remember “Mr. Night,” but maybe I put that thought in their head?
That’s what the cops think. That’s why they’ve issued a written warning to me, about calling 911 again.
And it’s what Alan thinks. He’s starting to talk about taking full custody, at least until I “get better.”
Sometimes, the man leaves me notes. But they are always printed out, and the cops think that I’m the one who prints them out. They even found a word doc on my computer with one of the notes.
And now… now I’m holding the latest note, which he slipped under my hotel door as I was writing this. It says:
“Tonight’s the night.”
I don’t know what to do. If I call the cops and he’s not there, I’ll get arrested, and probably lose custody of my kids. And if I don’t call the cops and he is going to do something tonight….
Every man in my family drowns on his 33rd birthday. Tomorrow I turn 33...
I know, it's crazy right? The first time I heard that every man in my family drowns on his 33rd birthday, I was 5 years old and my grandmother was trying to scare me back to bed. She said the mermaid's would come for me early if I didn't do as I was told. Complete nonsense. At least, I thought it was. My dad was in the Navy, and drowned during a military training exercise that went tragically wrong, I never even knew him, my mum was was 6 months pregnant at the time. It's not easy raising a kid alone, I'm sure. But my grandmother and aunt Jane, both on my father's side, were always there to help us. I never really knew anyone else on my father's side of the family, grandad had died long before I was born and Jane never married or had kids.
After the first time Gran told me about the mermaids she'd use the trick for years to keep me in line. Telling me about their slimy tails, fangs and talon fingers. How my ancestor long ago had killed one of their kind only for a blood curse to be placed upon the men of each generation. The sins of the father and all that crap. I still can't believe I'm writing this, that any of this is happening. I hadn't thought about mermaids or the curse in decades. When I was nine mum caught Gran telling me about how I was going to die and forbade her from ever talking about that nonsense again. I remember that night perfectly, they'd screamed at each other by the end of it all. Gran insisted the curse was real and that it had taken her father-in-law, her husband and her son. That's when mum broke down into tears and Gran finally relented, she never spoke of it again, but I always felt like I could see it in her eyes, a grim certainty and sympathy of sorts.
Gran died in a car-crash a few years later and naturally I barely ever thought about her strange stories again. Except on every birthday. I try not to but damn it, when your own grandmother keeps insisting you're going to die on your 33rd birthday I dare you to not try thinking about it as the years tick closer. I mean I always brushed the thoughts off or I did until last year. My 32nd birthday, I couldn't help myself. I did one of those genealogy surveys and started digging into my family on dad's side. That's when shit got scary.
My dad's death checked out as expected, dying on his 33rd birthday. Then I looked at my grandfather's date of death. December 2nd, 1954, cause of death - drowning. I remember breathing in sharply at the cause of death. I shook it off and checked the date of birth: December 2nd, 1921; thirty-three years. That's when I jumped out of my chair in a panic. It's also about the last thing I remember from my 32nd birthday. I hit the liquor pretty hard after that. About a week later I hired a professional genealogist to dig through the family history. He came back to me a week later, incredulous. Every single paternal son in my family had died on their 33rd birthday, every single death he could account for was listed as drowning. He'd even traced the start of the phenomena back to a navy frigate that sank somewhere off the northern coast of Spain during the Napolenonic Wars in 1812, a ship called 'The Charon'.
I gotta be honest with you, my life's gone done the shitcan since I found all this crazy shit out. I've been drinking A LOT. Hell I got fired from my job after things went too far, that barely slowed me down. I mean I've never even been in the fucking sea, the idea always freaked me out given the way my dad died. I've been thinking about him a lot this past year. Did he know about all this too? How did he handle it? I hate the answers my mind gives back. Maybe I'm just weak. He carried on doing what he loved, right till the last moment. Me I've spent the 'supposed' final year of my life sinking into financial and emotional ruin.
I'd avoided telling Mum about any of this for the past year, in fact I hadn't seen her in nine months when I finally showed up on her front door drunk as a skunk, one night. She took me in, cleaned me up and listened to all of my craziness. At the end of it all she told me it was in my head. How could it possibly be true? Maybe we need to go see the doctors, there must be something wrong with me. We argued just like she and Gran had, then I left, angry. I never even said goodbye.
Three days ago I started having the same dream over and over again. Strobes of light as this oily mass of wet flesh and bone crawls towards me, climbing over my legs, my body lying there paralyzed immersed in dark, fetid waters. I can hear myself screaming in the dream, trying to make my arms fight it off but nothing happens. I can feel it's sharp fingers, talons even, ripping my skin as it grips harder and harder, crushing the bones buried beneath. Then it's above me and all I can see is a black void of horror staring back. I can't stop screaming.
That's how I wake up, pissing myself screaming. I just stripped my bed again and started writing this. I'm looking at the clock now. It's eleven forty-two. I turn thirty-three in eighteen minutes.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, startling me, and I almost dropped the blood-stained hacksaw. I cursed under my breath as I set the tool down carefully on the chest of my victim. I stepped away from my ‘operating’ table, pulled the rubber glove off my right hand, slid it under my smock and delved into the pocket of my jeans to retrieve my phone.
It was my boyfriend. I closed my eyes and sighed, disappointed with myself for forgetting. I hesitated for a few moments before answering, letting the bright LED lights in my basement glow through my eyelids. I accepted the call. “Hey cutie,” I cooed.
“Ugh,” Lucas grunted. “I hate it when you call me ‘cutie’.” I could tell from his tone that he was smiling. I was pretty sure he didn’t hate it. “You almost ready?”
“Uuhhh… I’m a little bit behind on that… sorry I lost track of time,” I told him. Technically, that wasn’t a lie.
Lucas snickered. “You watching that zombie show again?”
My eyes came to rest on the pool of blood forming around the dead man’s head, spilling from the gap in his neck I’d made with the hack saw. I turned around and faced the wall. Despite my best efforts, my voice wavered slightly. “Uhh… yeah.” Definitely a lie.
“It’s all right. I’ll go pick up stuff for dinner first then and come get you after. That alright?” he offered.
“Yeah, that’s perfect. That’ll give me plenty of time to get ready,” I agreed, hoping he couldn’t hear me swallow harshly.
“… Nyhm, is everything okay? Are you nervous?”
Ice went up my spine. “Nervous!? No! Why would I be nervous?”
“… Because you’re meeting my folks for the first time?” Lucas reminded me.
“… Right,” I sighed. “Right… I suppose I am.” I leaned backwards until my butt hit the edge of my operating table, the plastic cover crinkling softly. I went to rub my eyes with my still gloved left hand, but stopped before I smeared blood on my face. “Honestly Lucas, I’m really not that worried about meeting your parents. I-” A loud clang cut me off, and I leapt away from the table and spun. The hacksaw had slid off the body and clanged to the cold hard floor of my basement. Luckily the plastic sheet kept any crimson from staining the concrete. My heart beat slowly returned to normal.
“You okay? What was that?” came Lucas’ voice, concerned.
“Nothing, just being clumsy as usual. Anyways, your parents seem like really kind people from what you’ve told me. I’m looking forwards to it.” This was not a lie; I smiled.
“Alright. It’s okay if you’re nervous though, it’s only natural… but I should probably let you go. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
“Mhm! Love you!” I told him.
“Love you too, Nyhm,” he said back. The call ended.
I lowered the phone from my ear, staring at the dead body on my table. The middle aged man reminded me of a beached whale; not because he was fat (he wasn’t), but because he looked out of place, his colorful button down shirt and blue jeans a bright contrast to the whites and greys of my basement workshop. The dark blood that spilled from his body to the table and the brown rope that bound his arms and legs where a chromatic bridge between the land of vibrance and the land of shade; between life and death.
“Sorry,” I spoke to the work of art on my table. “I’ll have to leave you like this for a little while. Got dinner plans with my boyfriend. I’ll spend more time with you later.” I smirked at the irony of talking to a dead man, and then left to wash up.
I tugged at a lock of golden blonde hair that curled down in front of my face, feeling unsettled as I watched streetlights pass by my passenger side window. If Lucas had shown up without calling he might have discovered my… hobby.
I felt his hand set against my leg just above my knee. I turned to him, the seatbelt sliding against my bright red dress, and smiled, setting my hand on top of his. Lucas continued watching the road ahead. “You can talk about it if you want to,” he said. He glanced at me briefly, as much as he could while driving. “What’s bothering you, I mean.”
I would probably be on edge all night after earlier. It would be easier to admit I was apprehensive of my first dinner with his family. I exhaled. “It’s hard not be nervous about it, but I know it’ll be fine. I'm glad you’re here for me, but there’s not a whole lot to talk about.” I smiled warmly and squeezed his hand. He nodded understandingly and pet my knee comfortingly.
“I’m sure I’ll be nervous when I meet your parents, too,” Lucas commented.
I coughed, and then forced a slight laugh that turned it into more of a scoff. “Ha, yeah… they’re always off travelling the world for business or pleasure, so I have no idea when that will be,” I said, unable keep the antipathy out of my voice. It was more complicated than that, of course.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up,” said Lucas, his mouth drooping into a frown. His fingers started to lift away from my leg, but I tugged him back and held his hand there, a sort of physical way to say ‘no apology necessary.’ His smile returned. Then Lucas flicked his blinker on and began to slow down. “Here we are…” he announced.
The house was bigger than I had expected. Not a mansion per-say but if you had the money for a place like this… a mansion probably wasn’t too far off. They had a large, beautiful yard, and behind the house I could see an in-ground pool, and further on their property faded into a thick bushy tree line. “You never told me you were rich!?” I exclaimed, half joke-half question.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “The property’s been in the family for a long time. We could never afford a place like this if we hadn’t inherited it…” He shrugged. “I don’t like bringing people here ‘cause it always gives them the wrong idea.”
“I know, you’ve told me… it’s just more than I expected. You’re pretty lucky.” I relinquished his hand back to him as we pulled through a gate into his driveway, stopping behind a sedan. As he put the car in park, Lucas looked to me, our eyes meeting.
“I am lucky… but not because of the house.”
I felt a welcome warmth spread through me, coloring my face, and I leaned towards him. He met me in a kiss, and I basked in the moment, forgetting all my troubles for a few seconds before he pulled away and unhooked his seatbelt.
As we moved from the car to the front door, I saw him look over at the sedan with a furrow in his brow, and his eyes scanned up and down the rest of the driveway. I almost asked him about it, but my heartbeat distracted me; it was starting to pound again. I gulped, realizing I might actually be a little nervous about meeting his parents… or it really could have just been the dead body sitting untended in my basement like a half-cooked meal.
Lucas pulled a long skeleton key out of his pocket and fit it into the heavy door. He twisted it rigidly, unlocking the barrier with a loud clack and a groan of grinding metal. I managed a smirk. “Jeez. You must feel like you’re unhinging the gates of Hell every time you come home.”
My boyfriend’s shoulders tensed for a moment, but then he relaxed. “It is kind of ominous, isn’t it,” Lucas agreed with an uneasy laugh.
He often complained about how much he hated his old creaky home; it was my turn to apologize. “Sorry, I uh… shouldn’t joke like that.”
Lucas pushed the door open. “Come on, don’t feel bad about that. It’s just a stupid house. I joke about it all the time.” It was a true statement, but the smile he gave felt fake; not that I can judge. “Hello! Mom?” Lucas called.
“Come on in dear! Is she with you?” I heard a sweet voice answer from inside the house. Lucas’ smile became genuine, and he beckoned for me to follow him in.
Inside the house was a little more modern than I had expected, but just as extravagant as the exterior advertised. Smooth wood floors that almost sparkled in the foyer, and in the dining room to the right. I gawked at the pristine kitchen, like something you’d see on a television show, as we walked through it to the living room, which boasted a huge LED flat screen, a big sectional couch, a love seat, and an extravagant wine rack against the back wall. Flickering on a coffee table between the couches was a fat red candle. Colorful paintings with ornate frames and some priceless looking decorative artifacts adorned the walls. Even if Lucas and his family wasn’t rich, someone in their lineage definitely had been. Lucas’ Mom was sitting in the living room, and she stood as we entered, a grand smile spreading across her face. Her long black dress twisted gracefully as she turned to greet us, its deep abyssal color matching her dark hair perfectly.
“Mom, this is my Nyhm. Nyhm, this is my Mother,” Lucas introduced us, gesturing accordingly.
The woman approached, setting a half-full wine glass down on an end table as she swayed towards me. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Nyhm. I’m Mrs. Addington. You can call me Lily.”
Her voice was sweet like amber, and immediately made her feel warm and familiar. I held my hand out for her to shake, but rather than take it right away, the woman regarded it curiously. She smirked and then shook hands as if she was humoring a child. I squeezed her hand tighter than I normally would have, and felt confused on how to interpret my first impression of her. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Addington.” I released her hand.
“Dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Is he here?” Lucas inquired.
In response, Lily pulled a smartphone out of her pocket and waved it slightly while she stepped back towards the couch. “He texted a minute ago; said he got caught at work but he’d be here soon.” Lucas nodded, and moved further into the room, sitting on the love seat across from the sectional. He motioned for me to follow, but I hesitated. I was pretty sure my dress was long enough to conceal the knife I kept sheathed in my right boot, but, just in case, I didn’t want to sit directly across from his Mother. I grasped at straws for a reason to stay standing, or to move somewhere else.
“… Uhm... oh, don’t we have groceries to bring in? You stopped at the store, right?” I asked, addressing Lucas.
He turned pale, and stared at me, his jaw flexing like he was looking for something to say. I furrowed my brow at him, utterly confused by his demeanor, but then saw Mrs. Addington cross her arms out of the corner of my eye. “Lucas,” she began sternly. “I thought I told you not to worry about bringing anything. I don’t want you spending your money on food while you live here. That’s our responsibility.”
Lucas went from pale to red, blushing, his mouth twisting at being chastised. “I know, I know, fine! I just thought I would help in case we needed anything,” he explained.
Now I really wanted to leave the room, as an odd tension filled the space like a fog. “… Why don’t I just go bring those in anyways. Don’t want anything to go bad sitting out there,” I offered.
Lucas waved his hand. “None of it was perishable. It can sit in the trunk. I’ll take care of it later. Come sit,” Lucas bid me with a smile, the tension fleeing from his face.
“Yes! And, oh!” his mother exclaimed. She stood up and started walking towards the far side of the room. I took the opportunity to sit beside Lucas and check the bottom of my dress while Lily’s back was turned. The hilt of my knife was perfectly concealed; I let out a breath I didn’t’ realize I’d been holding. When I breathed in again, I noticed the burning candle was giving off a subtle scent of cinnamon. It was pleasant.
“You okay?” Lucas asked as I sat up.
“Yup,” I reported happily. I scooched closer to him and took his hand.
“Nyhm, do you have a wine preference?” Lily asked as she turned from the wine rack with a bottle in her hands.
I laughed uneasily. “I think I’d have to try wine first.”
“Splendid! I’ve got quite the selection here… perhaps a sangria?” Lily suggested expectantly.
“I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll wait until I’m 21,” I said, trying to turn her down as politely as possible.
“Very well. I’m surprised, though,” Lily remarked as she replaced the bottle of wine. “Most kids jump at the offer.”
My eyes narrowed; I couldn’t help it. “… How many kids have you offered alcohol to?” I asked, hoping the hint of edge to my voice wasn’t discernable. Lucas' grip tightened.
Mrs. Addington spent a moment making sure the wine bottle was secure in the rack, and then turned back towards us. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that… I was just thinking of myself at your age. I wasn’t very well behaved as a child. Hm hm hm,” she giggled, remembering her youth fondly. She returned to her seat, retrieved her wine glass off the end table and settled into the cushions. “So…” she began, but she didn’t get a chance to finish. The room was illuminated brightly by headlights shining through the window, and the rumble of a car engine became audible for a moment before it abruptly stopped.
“Oh, Dad’s home,” Lucas observed. He squeezed my hand twice quickly, and then let go as he stood and began moving towards the front door. He passed through the kitchen and moved out of sight into the foyer. The lights outside shut off, and I heard a car door open and close. Moments later the front door grinded open, the sound echoing through the house as if it truly was the gate to Hell.
“Evening Lucas!” a voice greeted my boyfriend. It was a voice I’d heard before, one that sent ice through my veins. I didn’t place it at first, so I turned my head and strained my ears. “Is the lovely lady here?”
“… You mean Mom or my girlfriend?” Lucas asked awkwardly.
The man laughed as he began walking further into the house. “Both I suppose.”
I’d encountered that voice only once, in a dream; one of the dreams that told me who I had to kill. One of the dreams that chose my victims for me. My eyes widened in horror as he rounded the corner in his colorful button down shirt and blue jeans, the man who had been dead on the operating table in my basement. The man I had attacked, subdued, and murdered with a hacksaw. My eyes traveled up his body: no rope burn on his wrists, no blood on his shirt, no marks on his neck. And his eyes stared straight at mine. He grinned.
“Welcome home, Dear,” Lily greeted him.
“Sorry I’m late Honey. Just got a little tied up…”
r/TheCornerStories
(source) story by (/u/jpeezey) + Author`s Subreddit
My little sister went missing three days ago. This morning I found her diary.
Grandad was the one who told us.
He'd been out with Sally for one of their walks through the New Forest. Supposed to be gone until late afternoon, but he came back early. Sally didn't.
I was in the lounge when I heard the hammering on the front door. Loud, panicked. It was lunchtime and I was sat in front of the TV, watching Netflix. I paused the show and went to answer it.
It took me a moment to recognise grandad. Normally he's this calm, gentle giant. He combs what's left of his grey hair neatly to one side. Wears a suit, even around the house. Tie and everything. But today he looked different. His blazer was draped over one arm and his shirt was unbuttoned at the top. His tie was skewed. Sweat patches formed dark circles around his armpits. It was his eyes I noticed first, though. They were wide with an expression I'd never seen before on my grandad's face: fear. Fear and panic.
"Where's your mum and dad? Quick, Jack."
The smell of cherry bubble gum wafted from grandad's mouth as he spoke. He was chewing a piece almost frantically, his mouth working a mile a minute. My grandad always chews that stuff -- he has as long as I've known him -- and he always gave me and my sister pieces as a treat when mum wasn't looking. The smell usually has positive connotations for me. Now though, like my grandad's rumpled suit and panicked eyes, it just felt wrong. All of it did.
"What's the matter grandad? Where's Sally?"
"She's gone, Jack. Jesus Christ, she's--" Grandad paused and pulled in a shaky breath. Then he started sobbing. Never before in my life had I seen my grandad cry. I didn't know what to do. The sight felt totally unnatural to me. The thing is, grandad's always been the fun one. The one we'd joke around and play games with. Learning magic tricks; taking each other on in board games; playing dress up when we were little. Grandad is the kind of person who would tip us a wink even after we'd been told off by mum or dad, just to let us know he was still on our side. He's only lived with us for the past year, but he's been there my whole life. After mum, dad, and Sally, he's the person I love most in the world.
Seeing him like this -- his eyes red with tears and his grey hair dishevelled -- I felt dread in my stomach. It was worse than anything I'd ever felt before.
"What happened, grandad?" I said. "What is it?"
"I swear I only left her for two minutes." Grandad's eyes were large and desperate. "I just went into the bushes for a pee, and told her I'd be right back. But then she wasn't there. I looked all around and shouted and called her name. She's disappeared. It's like she's vanished off the face of the friggin' earth."
*
I only thought of Sally's diary this morning.
Three days had passed. Sally still hadn't shown up, and things were getting desperate. The police, and our entire village, were in full search mode. Investigators had interviewed each of us separately, and were now "following up several lines of enquiry". No one told me anything, of course. But I learned at lot from listening at closed doors. Apparently a group of travellers had been seen staying in an area not far from the spot my grandad and Sally were walking. Camping out illegally. I heard dad tell my mum that the police were talking to each of them separately. Seeing if they knew anything. And while that was going on we had volunteers combing the area where Sally had gone missing.
It was a big area, I overheard one of them say. Not many roads. Plenty of room for a little girl to get lost.
Sally's bedroom is separate to mine, and the police searched it the day she went missing. Took away her phone and a bunch of other stuff in clear plastic bags. Just like they do on TV. But there was one hiding place I didn't think they'd know about.
As I crept into Sally's room this morning, I kicked myself for not thinking of the diary sooner. The last few days had been such a nightmare it hadn't even crossed my mind. A blur of tears, questions, and hours of fruitless searching among the bracken. I'd felt useless, mainly. A spare part. Big brothers -- especially ones who are quite a bit older, like me -- are meant to protect. They're mean to watch out for their little sisters. What good was I if I couldn't even keep Sally safe?
Then I remembered the diary. I'd stumbled across it months ago, completely by accident. Or rather, I'd stumbled across Sally hiding it. I'd gone into her room one morning to find her cupboard door open. Sally was hunched over in the corner, half visible among the clothes. It was only as I walked closer that I saw what she was doing: stashing a pink book beneath a loose floorboard. I'd crept quietly out without saying anything. I didn't want to startle her, and I'd guessed straight away what the book was. As a 15-year-old I had no interest in reading my 8-year-old sister's diary, so I thought the best bet was just to stay quiet. Let her keep the secret to herself.
Now, walking across Sally's room towards her cupboard, I had a weird mixture of fear and hope in my stomach. It was a long shot, I knew that. But maybe there was at least a chance I'd find something. Maybe I could help.
I creaked the door open. Sally's cupboard was dark and messy. My shoes crunched across sweet wrappers on the floor. I pushed piles of clothes to one side. It didn't take me too long to find it. The floorboard in the far-left corner had a hole in it clogged with paper. I pulled it out and worked my finger in. Then I lifted the board up.
The pink book was the only thing in the space beneath. Crouching down in the darkness, I opened it up. Used the light on my phone as a torch. The latest entry was dated three days ago. The day Sally went missing. As I read the first line, I felt fear growing in my stomach like weeds.
Dear Diary,
The alien came to visit me again last night. I never told you about the alien before even though I wanted to, because it made me promise. But now I think I have to tell.
The alien is tall and it's got an ugly grey head and narrow black eyes. It visits me at least once a month. I wake up in the dark and it's in the corner of my room by the cupboard, watching me. It hardly ever speaks, but the one time it did it told me I'd been chosen for an experiment. A special and secret experiment that I could never tell anyone about.
Then I followed it through the cupboard door and there was all this white light on the other side, so bright I couldn't see, and the next thing I knew I was back in bed again and the alien was gone. I couldn't remember anything.
I'm scared to tell but lately I keep forgetting stuff during the day, and my head feels funny. So now I think I have to. I don't think I can tell mum or dad about it, though -- they'll be cross with me for keeping the alien a secret so long.
Sally x
I re-read that page several times in the cupboard. The fear in my stomach had blossomed into a full-grown sense of dread. I kept thinking about how Sally had just disappeared -- there one minute, gone the next. Like a hole had opened up in the sky and swallowed her.
After a few more minutes I got up to leave the cupboard. I kept the book in my hand -- there were other entries that I still needed to read, and even then I knew I'd have to show it to someone. My parents or grandad, maybe, or the police. As I went to leave the cupboard, my foot crunched down on another sweet wrapper. I paused. There was something in the back of my mind nagging me -- a sense I'd missed something obvious. I looked down at my feet. And as I did, the whole nightmare puzzle suddenly began slotting into place. Images flew through my mind like a film reel unravelling.
An image of the day I'd found out Sally was missing.
An image of us playing dress up when we were younger.
An image of a tall, shadowy creature, standing in the corner of my sister's room. A creature that told her not to tell anyone about it, and that took her into the cupboard to do experiments on her. Experiments she couldn't remember.
Mostly, though, I thought about the wrapper beneath my foot. The wrapper in my sister's cupboard, one of many, that wasn't a sweet wrapper after all. It was a bubble gum wrapper. Cherry flavoured.
The puzzle finished forming in my mind. I felt sick.
There was no alien. There never had been any alien.
I'm a nurse. There's something terribly wrong with my patient's X-ray.
“Jolene,” Dr. Anthony said, poking his head in. “Can I borrow you for a second?”
“Really? Now?”
I glanced longingly at the handsome man sitting on the bed. Henry Hildorf. It was the first time I’d ever had a patient that I knew. Henry was a high school classmate -- back then, a scrawny, nerdy guy who left cute notes in my locker. Now he’d bloomed into a green-eyed, black-haired, gorgeous specimen of a man.
“Go ahead,” Henry said, in that smooth, beautiful voice. “I’ll still be here.”
F you, Dr. Anthony. I hate you. “Okay. I'll just be a minute.”
“No worries, Jolene.”
My name. He said my name!
That's flirting, right?
I followed Dr. Anthony down the hall. “What’s so important that you need to pull me away from a patient?” I huffed, almost jogging to keep up with him.
“I need you to take a look at Henry's x-ray.” He made a sharp left and ducked into the x-ray room. For being a new hire, he sure knew his way around.
“I’m not even an imaging tech. I'm a nurse.”
He turned to me, a grim look on his face. “You don't have to be anything to see what's wrong here.”
He pulled out a black, translucent sheet from a pile. Then he snapped the image up onto the lighted panel. Henry's broad shoulder blades lit up, along with his spine, his neck --
I froze.
His neck.
It was snapped.
An inch gap -- or more -- right in the center of his neck. Surrounded by fractured vertebrae. His neck hung slightly, but horribly, askew.
“There is no way that man should be walking,” Dr. Anthony said, his eyes on me. “There's no way he should even be alive.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“The man in that room isn't Henry Hildorf. It may look like him, talk like him, carry his memories. But it isn't him.” He flicked the lighted panel off and walked towards me. “I need your help, Jolene.”
“My help?”
“I need you to lead him to the elevator. Tell him that, uh… you're taking him to my office.”
“Okay.”
“And don't let him know that you know.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Well, I didn't know, until you showed me!”
“I know, I know. Just… if you can get him into elevator, without him knowing, that'd be great. I'll take it from there.”
“You'll take it from there? What's that supposed to mean?”
“Just trust me, okay?”
“Fine.”
I walked back out into the hallway, Dr. Anthony following close. I grabbed the doorknob of exam room 4.
I took a deep breath, put on my sweetest face. Then I pushed the door open.
For a half-second, I expected to see someone else sitting on the hospital table. A half-rotted zombie, wearing tattered clothes, groaning braaaiiiins. A red-eyed maniac, chanting in Latin, drawing pentagrams on the floor.
But it was just Henry. Sweet, sweet Henry.
“Henry, good news. Your x-rays are in for your, uh, neck pain.” I gave him a smile, avoiding his eyes, and busied myself organizing the tongue depressors.
“Thanks, Jolene.”
His voice was smooth and low behind me.
“Dr. Anthony wants to discuss the results with you in his office. I’ll lead you there.”
“Wait.”
I slowly turned around. “Yes?”
He just stared at me. For a full thirty seconds, he just stared. My blood ran cold. Does he know? Does he --
“I miss you,” he said.
Oh. Phew.
“You know, in high school, I always had a crush on you,” he said. His green eyes lingered on me, warm with a smile. “You were so sweet. And smart.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“You still are.”
“Th-thank you,” I said. “Now, we really need to go, Dr. Anthony is waiting --”
“Come on. You feel it too, don't you?” He stood up and walked towards me.
I nearly gagged.
He smelled terrible. Stale, rotten, like garbage and body odor all in one. And as he loomed closer, I noticed it. The bend in his neck, causing his head to hang ever-so-slightly to the left. It was almost imperceptible.
Almost.
“No!”
I ran out of the room. Slammed the door shut. Held it closed. Thump. Thump. “Jolene?” he called. “I just want to talk to you!” The door shook.
We REALLY need to install locks on these doors, I thought. Like, really.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. Get him to the elevator. Get him to the elevator. My heart pounded in my chest. I’d seen all the zombie movies. Brainless, evil things, looking to rip people apart. Things without reason. Without emotion. Without love.
Only the hunger.
I pulled the door open.
And ran as fast as I could down the hall.
Predictably, he shambled after me. “Jolene! Wait!” he called. “Please! I just want to talk to you!”
I skidded to a halt in front of the elevator. Jammed the button a dozen times. “Come on, come on,” I muttered. Come on....
Ding.
I ran into the elevator. Dr. Anthony waited inside. “What about not letting him know?!” he hissed.
“I'm getting him into the elevator, aren't I?” I shot back.
“This is not the way I would have done it.”
“Well, too bad.”
Thump, thump. Henry walked into the elevator, his face flushed red. “Jolene,” he said, breathless. “Thank goodness I caught up to you. Please, I just want to --”
I stepped out of the elevator.
“I’m sorry, Henry.” Even if he wasn’t really himself… I still felt a twinge of sadness. He’d always been a good guy. He didn’t deserve this.
“Thank you, Jolene,” Dr. Anthony said.
As the elevator doors slowly closed, Dr. Anthony broke into a smile.
Ding.
One of the other nurses ran up behind me. “Jolene! Are you okay? What was that all about?”
“Nothing,” I said, hurriedly. “Just helping Dr. Anthony with something.”
Maddie arrived at our door eight years ago with a shiny red bow around her throat and an instruction manual at the bottom of the box.
Feed it six times a day.
Keep it clean.
No refunds.
The box had no return address. The mailmen refused to take it back. I tried to throw it into the garbage, into the fireplace, into the lake behind the middle school. It always turned up again anyway, on the doorstep in the middle of the night, covered in grime or soot or water as if someone had just fished it out from wherever I had tried to banish it.
Her.
I should say her.
My husband played dumb for two weeks before I found out about the money. Six thousand dollars paid online, the money we were going to use for the funeral.
No refunds.
I threatened to leave him. He pleaded with me to open the box. Just look at her, he said, and you won’t be mad anymore. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t deal with one more sick joke. Just open it.
Please just open it.
I couldn’t open it because my daughter might have been inside. That’s what I told myself and my husband, at least. But maybe I was afraid of her not being inside, and what that would have done to me.
Please open the box. We’ll do it together.
No assembly required.
No refunds.
I guess he felt guilty. You know?
And I guess he was right. I did blame him for introducing that stupid game to her. They called it Flying Squirrel. She wore a blanket as a cape, clenching each end in tiny fists, screaming those two words as her only warning before leaping into the air.
It was supposed to only be played in the bedroom. He was supposed to tell her that. I told her that. I told both of them.
I guess I’ll always blame my husband.
“Don’t play by the stairs”
Not for killing her.
“Never play on the stairs.”
But for not catching her.
We opened the box after the third week. The most unnerving part was that it didn’t have any air holes, yet there she was, staring out with her limbs folded beneath her. Red bow and instructions in top condition.
“Mommy?”
It had her voice. Of course it did. And her eyes and her hair and every birthmark. It was Maddie. My Maddie.
My flying squirrel.
Keep away from small children and pets.
Administer shots twice a month.
My husband still won’t tell me where he ordered her from, but it doesn’t really matter. Our extended family compliments us constantly for taking the loss so well. I want to laugh in their faces and puke all at the same time. My husband just smiles, and accepts their condolences.
The shots came with the package, a seemingly endless supply. Just once, about a year in, I tried to see what would happen if I didn’t give them to her. They didn’t have labels or anything, just blue syrup in glass tubes. We’d assumed they were vitamins of some kind.
“Mommy!” The first change was the voice. It became noticeably deeper, flatter, almost mechanical. Then her pretty blonde hair started to turn grey. Her features almost seemed to...move? Morph?
I don’t know how to phrase it exactly, but it was almost like she was losing everything that made her Maddie and becoming a blurred imitation. A bad photocopy. Like one of those CGI video games where the characters are human, but not quite.
We never miss shot days anymore.
Wash with cold water only.
Store in cool temperatures.
The hardest thing to adapt to was the fact that Maddie doesn’t breathe, and her skin is always freezing. When she first came to us I wanted her to sleep in our bed, so I could feel her close to me and hold her head against my chest.
But Maddie doesn’t sleep either.
So that first night I lay there, shivering at her touch, feeling her eyes boring into my closed ones, the silence reminding me of what should have been there. Tears began to leak down my face and I felt her shuffle even closer, suddenly energized. Soft, icy lips pressed against my cheeks, chilling me to my core. I fought the urge to open my eyes, stifled a gasp. Her tongue slowly pushed out, swiping up my tear and retracting. The lips withdrew, came back down by my nose.
She made no noise. My shoulders shook so hard they ached. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I heard my husband’s soft snores, completely at peace. Finally I turned away from them both, breathing hard in the darkness. The room was almost silent. Her chest rested against my back, unmoving, like her ribcage was just an empty void, stuffed with straw. Maddie slept in her own room after that.
Expose to minimal sunlight.
Water daily.
Maddie doesn’t eat like we eat. We tried to force cereal down her throat when she was brand new, but she always bit the spoon in two. We found a collection of rodents and one stray cat under her bed, inside out with chunks missing.
So now we buy a lot more meat than we used to, and we never even have to cook it.
She also doesn’t move right sometimes. Sometimes I’ll catch her counting her fingers and toes like it’s the first time she’s seen them before, or walking with her shoulders pushed so far back that you can’t even see them head-on, like they’re...behind her. My husband says I’m being ungrateful, so I don’t push it.
But at night I lock our door anyway. And hers.
No refunds.
A little boy has gone missing in our neighborhood.
I’m scared to check under Maddie’s bed.
Highly fragile! Do not let fall or drop.
Keep away from stairs!
Sometimes I see her standing by the banister, looking down at the first floor. She’s too big to play Flying Squirrel now. But maybe I’ll ask her if she wants to, just once...
For old time’s sake.
(source) story by (/u/CatchWolfzie) + Author`s Tumblr
I love my nanna lots and lots. She's my second favourite person in the whole world, after mum. Lots of kids in my class say they love their dad the most, but I don't know mine that well. He left when I was very little and I haven't seen him since.
Nanna makes me feel better about things. She makes stuff okay. When I used to feel sad about dad not being here, or whenever I was scared because people were shouting on our street late at night, nanna would sit by my bed and comfort me.
She had the same song she'd always sing:
Hush now my darling
And never you fear.
For you won't know danger
As long as I'm near.
Whenever I'm frightened I think of nanna singing that song. I close my eyes and picture her leaning over me: her bright blue eyes shining with the light from my bedside lamp; her cheeks crinkling up as she smiles.
Lately nanna hasn't smiled so much. She hasn't been herself at all. She usually talks to me lots and lots -- tells me stories; asks me questions about infants school -- but lately she's been different. She hasn't said a word.
It all started when nanna got poorly. This was a couple of weeks ago. One day I got home from school and nanna was in her usual chair in the lounge; the next day she wasn't. When I asked mum where she was she told me nanna was sick. She was resting in bed, like I did when I had the flu last summer.
Only when I had the flu I got better. I had an achy tum and a bad head for two days, and then I was okay again. It wasn't like that with nanna. I kept asking mum if I could see her, and she kept saying no. She kept telling me I couldn't go into nanna's room. I thought mum might be sick too, because she wasn't wearing makeup like she normally does. Her skin was pale and her eyes were all red. She wouldn't talk to me much either because she was always in the room with nanna.
Without nanna in my room at night, I started feeling scared again. I found it hard to sleep. I tried to imagine her singing to me, but it wasn't the same. I could hear grownups shouting on the road outside our house, their voices loud and angry, and all I wanted was for someone to come and make me safe again.
Then, about a week later, I got my wish.
*
The first night I saw nanna again was a bad one. I'd been lying in bed for hours, struggling to sleep. There were too many sounds outside the house: men calling to each other on the street; a woman laughing; big buses rumbling by. My best friend at school, Tom, says the road I live on is dodgy. I didn't know what that meant, and when I asked Tom he said he didn't know either. He told me it was just something he'd overheard his dad tell his mum. Said it was why his parents didn't like him coming over my house to play.
I think dodgy must mean when stuff's really loud all the time. Like when it's so noisy you can't sleep. The night nanna came back to see me I remember checking the Scooby Doo clock that sits on my bedside table. Watching the time as it got later and later. 9:36pm. 10:18pm. 11:45pm. The sounds outside didn't stop. First there were all the people laughing and shouting, and then later there was something that sounded like a big van right below my window. The engine rumbled on and on like a snoring giant.
There were other noises, too. Inside the house. Sounds from upstairs that I couldn't quite place. I thought I heard mum speaking at one point, like she was on the phone. Then later I thought I heard her crying. The outside sounds made it hard for me to hear clearly, though. The next time I looked at my Scooby clock it was after midnight.
I must have gone to sleep for a bit then. I remember I had a bad dream. In the dream I was lying in bed, and I could hear footsteps coming up the staircase in our house. Creak, creak, creak. I tried calling for mum, but my voice didn't work. I couldn't make a sound. Creak, creak, creak. The footsteps grew louder. Soon they sounded as though they were right outside my room. I tried screaming, tried to climb out of bed, but my body wasn't working. I couldn't move or speak.
It was as my door was being pushed open that I woke up. Darkness surrounded me. I pulled in a deep breath. My heart was hammering in my chest and my room was almost pitch black. A faint crack of light crept in under the door, but that was it. I knew it must be much later now, because for once the road outside was quiet. Everything was silent.
Well, not completely silent.
Somewhere in the darkness of my room I could hear a faint rustling -- a soft whooshing sound -- like the noise curtains make when it's windy. I checked the time on Scooby. 02:48am.
I yawned, still half asleep, and went to turn over. That's when I saw nanna. She was standing in the shadows at the far end of my bed. I could just see her silhouette in the light from under my door. Nanna stood completely still. Not moving a muscle. Watching me. It was too dark for me to see her face, but I could tell that she was looking in my direction. She wore the same dress she'd been wearing the last time I saw her -- her favourite one that's covered in blue flowers -- and as I stared I could see it swishing slightly. Like there was a breeze in the room. Only I couldn't feel one.
"Nanna?" My voice was dry from sleep and it came out all croaky. "Nanna, what you doing?"
She didn't say anything. I reached a hand up to my face to rub the sleep from my eyes.
When I opened them again, nanna was gone.
*
The next morning mum told me nanna had left. That she'd gone away in the night.
Mum's eyes were red again and there were bags under them. Her voice kept breaking up when she spoke. I asked her where nanna had gone.
"Someplace better," she replied.
"Was that why she was in my room last night?" I asked. "To say goodbye to me?"
Mum looked at me for a long time without saying anything. There was a frown on her face. Eventually she asked if I'd dreamed about nanna.
"It wasn't a dream," I said. "I was having a dream, but nanna woke me up. She was in my room, watching me. She didn't say goodbye, though."
Mum turned away from me so I couldn't see her face. This time she was silent for even longer. When she finally spoke her voice sounded funny again.
"She'll always be watching over you, sweetheart." Mum gave my leg a squeeze. "Your nanna loves you. You know that, right?"
I wanted to ask why nanna had gone away if she loved me. But mum got up and left the room before I could.
It didn't matter in the end, though. Because the next night, nanna came back.
*
Every night for a week, the same thing.
Noises on the street outside. Checking my Scooby clock. Laughter. Shouting. The same loud van, rumbling away below my bedroom window. Finally falling asleep.
And then, nanna.
Nanna, standing at the foot of my bed. Not talking, or saying anything when I spoke to her. Only watching.
The one thing that changed -- the only way I could tell the difference between one night and the next -- was that nanna kept getting closer. Steadily closer. Each time I saw her she'd be a little bit nearer my bed. She didn't move when I was awake; it wasn't like that. Even when I asked her questions, she stayed perfectly still. But then the next night, when I woke up, she'd be that little bit nearer. It was like she was playing the statues game me and my friends sometimes play at school -- the one where you have to creep towards someone without being spotted.
After a few nights, nanna got close enough for me to see her face. That's when I started getting scared. Up until then I'd looked forward to seeing her. Having her in my room made me feel better. But once she was close enough that the shadows no longer hid her, I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.
Her face had changed. Not in the way it looked or anything, but the difference was still obvious: she didn't smile.
Nanna had always been happy to see me. Her blue eyes were always bright and her cheeks would crinkle when she looked at me.
But when I saw her at night, they didn't. Her mouth was a straight line, and her eyes just stared without blinking.
*
The last time I saw nanna was a few days ago. It makes me feel bad to think about it, but by then I almost didn't want to see her anymore. She scared me. I kept picturing her silent, unsmiling face, and every time I did my skin would prickle up. She kept getting closer, too. The night before she'd been near enough that I could have reached out and touched her if I wanted to.
I didn't want to. I wanted the old nanna back. The nanna that used to sit by my bed, talking to me and singing the same song whenever it was time for me to sleep. Not this new nanna who only stood and stared. It wasn't as if I could talk to mum about it, either. I'd tried a couple of times but it didn't work. She only told me I was having nightmares. Then she said she'd talk to me "properly" about nanna "when the time was right". I didn't understand what she meant.
There's a part of my brain that wonders if mum's right. If maybe I was just having nightmares. Bad dreams caused by me struggling to sleep, and worrying about nanna being poorly. Even now, I wonder if that might be it. If maybe the whole thing was just a nightmare.
Because if it wasn't, I don't know how to explain what happened the last time nanna came into my room.
*
The night started normally enough. I was lying awake in bed, listening to people yelling on the road outside. Watching the clock. The same as always.
The first difference was the van. Each night I'd heard it rumbling below my window for at least an hour -- it was one of the noises that made it really hard for me to get sleepy -- but that night it wasn't there. There was no sign of it at all.
This must have made me drift off a bit earlier, because the last time I looked at my clock it was only 10:26pm.
A sound woke me up. A soft smash, like glass breaking in the distance. Then a dull click and a muffled crunch.
As I came fully awake I realised there was a hand over my mouth.
My eyes snapped open. Nanna. She was standing by the head of the bed, her blue eyes staring down at me. Her left hand was clasped over the lower half of my face. It felt cold. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Nanna raised her other hand and pressed a single finger to her lips. I looked back at her in terror. My heart was beating so hard it felt like a fist in my chest.
As I stared at nanna, she shook her head from side to side. Slowly. Then she removed the finger from her mouth. Far off in the house, I heard more noises. Soft thuds. They sounded like muffled footsteps.
Keeping her freezing hand on my face, nanna leaned down so that her mouth was right beside my ear. I lay completely still. The terror was so bad I couldn't move.
And then, after a second, I heard it.
Hush now my darling
And never you fear.
It didn't feel like nanna was singing the words to me. Not exactly. I know this sounds strange, but I could just sort of hear them. In my mind. Like the song was playing in my head. The sound of it was gentle and soothing, and I immediately felt a little less frightened.
For you won't know danger
As long as I'm near.
The words played in my head, over and over. I felt my eyes drift shut. The lids suddenly felt heavy, like they were being weighed down. Far off in the house, the noises continued. Creaks and thumps. They were getting closer. The soft pad of footsteps moving up the stairs. But the funny thing was, even though the sounds were drawing nearer, they were also getting fainter. It was like the volume was being turned down. My head was filled with nanna's song, and the words covered everything. They stopped me feeling scared; only sleepy. Like that feeling you get when you lower yourself into a warm bath. Safe.
I only opened my eyes once more after that. Just once. Only a crack. Because even though the volume had been lowered on the house sounds, I still heard it when my bedroom door was opened. The sound was so close not even nanna's song could cover it. My eyes drifted open, expecting to see mum. But it wasn't her. The person standing in the doorway was a large man in a black t-shirt. He had a wide, pudgy face and small eyes. In his right hand he held something long and shiny.
The man's eyes looked around the room and fell on me. And then they moved to nanna. His face changed. He'd been smiling before -- sort of grinning -- but now his eyes were wide with terror. His mouth hung open. I followed his gaze and looked up at nanna. And I saw why the man was so scared.
Nanna was screaming at him. At least, she looked like she was screaming. Her mouth was wide open, but I couldn't hear any sound coming from it. Her grey hair streamed out behind her head. Her blue eyes blazed. Up until then I'd never seen my nanna angry about anything. It's something I hope I'll never have to see again.
In my head, nanna's song played on. The words washed over me like warm water. I felt sleepier than I had in a long, long time.
My eyes flicked back to the strange man once more. The last thing I saw before my eyes drifted shut was that he'd fallen to his knees, and he was covering his ears with both hands.
*
I haven't seen nanna since that night. Not once. I've woken up a few times at around 2am, and every time I do I stare hard at the shadows in my room. But she's not there any more.
Mum still hasn't spoken to me about her, either. She hasn't told me where nanna's gone.
I keep trying to ask her, but over the last few days she's been very busy. The day after the strange man came into my room, there were lots of other people that came to our house. Way more than normally visit.
Some of them were policemen. They had uniforms on, and they smiled and asked me lots of questions. I told them all about what happened in the night. They didn't seem too interested in the stuff about nanna, but they wanted to know lots about the strange man. They kept asking me to tell them what he looked like. Describe his face again and again.
After the police had gone, a man came round to fix one of our downstairs windows, which had got smashed in the night. And after that lots of mum's friends came over to visit.
At one point, when mum was busy chatting in the lounge, I snuck off to nanna's room. I hadn't been in there for a long time. I don't know what I expected, but I was still a bit sad when I saw nanna's bed was empty. She really had gone away, after all.
The room still smelled of her, though. Of the perfume she always wore. And when I shut my eyes and breathed the smell in, I could still remember the sound of her song. I could hear it in my mind.
I think about that song a lot now. Whenever I'm struggling to sleep, and whenever I wake up in the night, I think about it.
It helps. I used to need nanna to sing it to me, but now the words are enough to make a difference. I sing them in my head.
I close my eyes and the sounds wash over me like warm water, again and again, and I can almost imagine nanna is right there beside me.
I Became an Atheist Because I've Conversed with God
I’ve been a writer for a while now; I’ve written a bunch of stories and articles I published in various small-time magazines and outlets. So, you’ve probably never heard of my works. Writing was a hobby more than anything and whatever profit I could make of it was just a bonus for my full-time job. One key theme in my writing was my faith, my religion, my relationship with God. As weird as it may sound, that was one reason my stories attracted people. I think there’s too much cynicism in the world right now; that led people to seek something less harsh and critical and some found it in my stories.
I wish I could say I’m the same pure-hearted person still, but the sad truth is that I am not. The less you know the better you sleep is the truest statement of them all. What I’m about to say will come off extremely ironic; I became an Atheist because I've conversed with God.
I’m pretty sure people will say that I’ve had a near death experience and that these are just a dream-like state that the world creates to maintain calm in the final moments of life in the absence of oxygen. That does not apply to me; I was never brain-dead. Admittedly, I was involved in an accident. A tired SUV driver hit me with his vehicle, and I vividly remember the sight of his front lights blinding me before I felt a sharp pain in my back, one I could only describe as being hit in the back with a huge weight followed by a feeling of a hot knife being lodged and twisted into the middle of my lumbar region. Everything went black for a moment, and I came to shortly after, I found myself surrounded by medical staff and the tired driver was standing by my side begging for me to be all right and wholeheartedly apologizing for what he had done.
Now I would have no reason to write this down if I just had blacked out and came to, in these few minutes that I was out of it a hell-of-a-lot happened somewhere. Definitely not in my head. It wasn’t a dream for sure.
The doctors told me I was lucky to come out of the whole ordeal with a few herniated discs in my spine; supposedly the way they found me is usually how they find people with fully severed spinal canals. So, there was definitely more than luck involved in there.
After everything went black, after the initial impact. I found myself laying on some plastic like surface surrounded by complete and utter darkness. I was confused about what was happening, so I tried getting up to my feet. Couldn’t feel my legs, however, so I called out, I guess on impulse, “Uhh, hello?”
A thumping sound echoed in the distance and suddenly the whole place was illuminated from above.
“Help me… I can’t feel my legs.” I called out again, confused and panicking.
I looked around me, and I couldn’t see anything, there was nothing but an endless whitely illuminated room. Completely nothing.
“Help! Help me! Help me; I need help!” I screamed out, hoping someone might hear me where ever I was.
That’s when a loud booming voice that sounded like a chorus of people called out from above, “Stand up.”
The sudden appearance of the voice shook me. Thoughts swirled in my head like a tornado. I was beginning to think I might have died and passed on to the next world. Despite being what I’d consider a genuinely good Christian; I was afraid of divine judgments.
“I-I can’t…” I mumbled, “I can’t… feel my legs…”
“Stand up,” the booming choir called out again and a wave of relief washed all over me.
I’ve regained feeling in my legs, and I got up to my feet.
“Walk towards the gates.” The booming voice echoed from behind me.
“What Gat…” I tried saying as I turned around to try to identify the source of the speech.
Big mistake.
A brightly luminescent thing floated behind me. The moment I laid eyes on this thing, I felt as if something was squeezing my head with a vise-like grip. I felt the whole place spinning around me, and I began having what I can describe as an out-of-body experience, almost. The pain was so unbearable I felt as if it was the only thing in existence for me. It took over everything. Like someone had stabbed all of my pain receptors with burning needles. I felt myself screaming in pain, but like I was looking at myself screaming more than anything.
Suddenly the pain became so bad I was feeling myself blacking out, but before everything went dark again. I managed to make out the details of this thing before it. It looked like some human-faced winged lion engulfed in a fire with eyes covering the entirety of its wings.
When I came to, I was lying in the same white room and I could hear someone else talking this new speaker; it sounded far more human than the previous.
“You should’ve warned him not to look at you. These humans are so fragile, Laviel. You know that all too well. You’ve to be careful with them. Good thing I fixed him before it was too late. It’s not his time yet.”
The booming-voiced beast thing remained silent throughout the whole time. Moreover, the conversation reinforced my idea of me being dead. It was confusing but the last part was confusing even more than the rest. Considering I thought myself dead, it appeared ridiculous to say that this being would say that “it’s not my time yet”. Fearful of damnation I decided to turn to where I thought the second voice was coming from and ask what it meant.
I wanted answers so bad I didn’t think straight, that and probably having my brains roasted for a moment.
Turning was an even bigger mistake.
I saw this ball of color changing lights. It was like a disco ball in the middle of a crazy rave. The second I laid my eyes on that; I felt my body going hot. It started off as a warm fuzzy feeling and it gradually increased to the point where it became painful. I screamed in pain and rolling around, I think at least, that I was rolling around. With each passing moment, the heat became more and more painful. I could feel my skin peeling off my muscles and my muscles molting away into a gooey liquid. My eyes burned so bad I couldn’t see straight but I’m sure I caught a glimpse of my arm actually melting, but I’m not really sure.
It had gotten so bad I could feel each and every bone in my body crackling because of the heat. Like I felt my bones breaking from within me. That’s when everything came to an abrupt end.
It was all just black.
Sometime later that, I woke up on a comfortable leather couch. “Uhh, what’s going on,” I groaned as I opened my eyes to find myself laying in this beautiful library. There were bookshelves staffed with literature as far as my eyes could see.
My head felt heavy and my ears were ringing as I shifted my body to a sitting position.
Then that human voice from before spoke again, “Oh, you’re finally up… Sorry about that… I sometimes forget my own rules… Sorry about Laviel too, angels can be dense sometimes”
“Uhh what? Angels? What are you talking about?” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“You know, the whole you cannot see my face, for no one can see my face and live thing,” the voice said.
“What?” I asked, confused.
It chuckled.
I looked up, the ringing in my ears and the heaviness faded from my head, and I saw some sort droopy looking humanoid lizard thing sitting in front of me. Dressed in a shower robe and smoking a pipe.
“What the hell?” I groaned.
“Thought I might make this entertaining to keep the situation light around you” the lizard spoke.
“Uhh what, who are you? Where am I?” I asked.
“Stay seated. I might knock you off your feet.” He creature boasted.
“Uhh okay…”
“I’m God, but you can call me Rob… Yeah, let’s go with Rob!” the thing said.
Its words hit me like a truck, I felt myself straighten up as my muscles tensed, “No way… This is nuts…”
The thing waved its hand in the air and suddenly a hologram-like thing appeared before me. It was this dark little sphere with nothing inside.
“What’s this?” I enquired.
“Just watch…” the thing said as its body was shifting its shape like some sort of video game chameleon-like character.
An explosion occurred inside of the hologram, in a moment’s notice that there was a sea of lights and after that. Things were beginning to shape out of that sea of lights. It was the beginning of the universe, my universe.
“Is that…”
He cut me short, “Yes, that’s the beginning of your universe.” The creature spoke, now looking like a gigantic octopus-like thing whose limbs were flailing about.
The realization sunk in; I was in the presence of God. I fell to my knees and begged for forgiveness over my disrespect.
“Oh, come on! It’s all right, I would’ve done the same. Questioning things is always good. I was never the type for this groveling. It’s weird. Sometimes you humans get really disturbing with this, throwing yourself at my feet and what not. Eugh.”
I got back up to my feet; I was shaking with fear at this point, I don’t even know why. God seemed pretty calm and hospitable towards me; I guess it’s the presence of the creator of everything that drove me to fear, that was, after all what the church instilled in me, to fear God.
“Relax,” he said changing his appearance to that of a gelatinous thing with a head.
I tried to recollect myself, but it was too nerve-wracking, I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Well then, now that we have established this, how are you feeling?” God asked me.
“Sca… scared… confu…sed… I don’t know… I don’t know what to…” I slurred.
“Don’t be, it’s fine.”
“All of this is so… I don’t know… weird… Am I dead?” I questioned, swallowing my saliva as I expected the harsh truth to smack me right across the face like a sledgehammer.
“No. You are not, not even close, you’re pretty alive. Just knocked out.”
In a moment of both relief and confusion, I felt a smile form on my face, but the tension only got worse. Thoughts were spinning once more like a tornado. Why would God seek my audience? I wasn’t a man of any importance.
“Then why…”
He cut me off again, “Why are you here? You’re a writer. I’m a writer and It’s been about fourteen hundred years since I’ve spoken to one of you directly.”
“A writer?” This was getting more and more confusing with each passing moment.
“Yeah, I consider myself a playwright if I’m being honest… Everything I’ve created is part of my grand spectacle called ‘The Epic of the Multiverse,’” he called out raising his wings into the air.
I need to mention that he kept on changing his shape every few moments, some of them I can’t even put into words.
“Multiverse?”
“Yeah… You didn’t think Quantum Mechanics would allow more than one universe? I mean… that would be dull…” he responded.
“Boring?”
“Yeah… boring… simple as that.” He retorted, with a weirdly alarming calmness in his tone.
“I don’t get it, God…”
“Rob, call me Rob.” He cut me off.
“Alright, Rob, I don’t get it, what does it have to do with boredom?” I asked, albeit somewhat fearfully.
“Oh, yeah, there’s isn’t much of a purpose to all of this.” He said as if it was an off-handed remark.
“Really? That’s…”
“What, shocking?”
“Yeah… unexpected doesn’t even cut it…”
But it all started making sense then, I mean, it’s not that hard to see that God was a lonely, borderline psychotic super being that just wanted to ease his mental anguish. I think that’s something religions don’t account for. If we need stimulation with our massive brains, imagine what God’s supercomputer of an all-capable “brain” would go through without having something to wrap itself around.
“Well yeah, religions don’t quite get it right. I think that’s why I like you the most, your reality that is. It’s so chaotic, it’s so full of possibilities… It’s all so colorful. I really like how you can be the most productive little things ever one moment and then try to end the lives of one another over a bottle of milk! That is just rich… that is thrilling. Life in your universe is like the greatest play ever!”
These words hit me really hard.
God kept on going, “And don’t you think you’re the only ones out there or the only ones as exciting as you are. Some species, they’ve wiped out whole planets.”
I could see he was almost salivating himself at the prospect of seeing holocausts unfold.
“So, what’s the deal then, we just live and die and then what?” I asked as I was beginning to doubt if I wanted to know the answer.
“And then nothing, there’s no heaven or hell or whatever… You have one shot at life and that’s it.” He said, “I hope I’m not disappointing you too much.”
He didn’t disappoint me, no. Much to my surprise, it somewhat relieved me knowing that there is no afterlife at this point. Five minutes with God and Christianity sounds like a really silly set of ideas.
“You know, I don’t really care what you do as long as you don’t become boring and still with your lives.” He continued.
Now that; that pissed me off… I felt like I was a toy and for someone who was part of a religion whose members considered themselves to be the pawns of God, the literal feeling of being used my whole life. That set me off.
“So, what are we, just toys to be used and discarded?” I barked.
I guess it took him by surprise that I had raised my voice; he cocked back, now donning a human form.
“No, not you humans, you… you are special… You bring me so much joy…” he began saying before I cut him off.
“By being what? By being stage actors in a tiny part of a cosmic play. We live for you; we die for you. People die for you. Endlessly. Do you even know how much blood people shed in your name and everything for what? The sake of your entertainment?” I rose from the couch screaming at him.
“Do you know how hard it is to be consumed by nothingness, you hairless ape? Do you? You cannot even begin to fathom the pain I had to endure before creation” God yelled back at me making the whole place around us shake as if there was an earthquake.
I felt my heart sink to my heels, but I couldn’t back down.
“So, does this mean you can just let people die?” I screamed back, this time more out of fear than anger.
God outstretched his neck to me, pushing me back to my seat by covering the distance between us. His head stopped mere inches from mine, and he whispered. “Do not overstep your boundaries.”
Something about him whispering sounded even more terrifying than his ground-shaking screaming so I sank into the couch. He pulled his head back and forced a smile.
“And besides, I also enjoy all the good that’s been done in your universe. I mean, your architecture is great but there’s this one planet called Qoongekrl, where they make these things what I would consider heavenly. Absolutely stunning.” He said calmly.
I turned my head from side to side in disgust and God just sat there, staring at me. His eyes, they weren’t piercing or anything. If I had to describe his gaze, it appeared to be off… Like he was wondering to other places inside his own head.
That’s when I realized he had the eyes of a madman.
I set there in silence for a few moments considering my options; I don’t know why but I just decided to ask him to return me to my life.
“I want to go back,” I demanded sternly.
His gaze focused on me, for the first time in the whole conversation, “so soon?”
“Yeah… You’ve nothing of note to tell me, not to mention that you probably have already planned my horrible death following this...” saying this I got back to my feet.
“No… I didn’t.”
The next thing he said rattled me to the core; it was probably the worst thing he could tell me; “I do know how each possible life route ends for you. Some of them end really bad… Along the lines of being dumped in a ditch to have your corpse torn apart by animals after mind shattering torture.”
I thought about flipping him off, but I reconsidered, not wanting to piss every last ounce of him. So instead, I smiled and said, “You’d love that!”
“Haha! Now you’re getting it! I love it all the peace and the joy, along with the gore and the screams! Good Good!”
“Hah” is all I could react with before I found myself laying on the side of the road.
Now, that encounter with God made me lose all faith in him. I know he exists but I don’t believe in him. In the past I thought to live all alone as an intelligent species would be terrifying, now I know that living in a reality controlled by a mad puppet master is what should fuel our nightmares.
We sat on the concrete wall above the sea, Lia and I. Waves crashed down below, and I leaned in close to her. Our bodies connected, fit together like puzzle pieces. My arms around her waist, head on her shoulder; her head resting on top of mine, arms draped over me. "Promise me," she whispered. I kissed her neck, then her lips. "I promise."
Lia and I had known each other our whole lives. We met in kindergarten and immediately decided we were going to become best friends. And we did. We did everything together - went to after school clubs, shopped at the mall, watched movies, went to the beach. Everything. We were inseparable.
And as we got older, our feelings changed into things we didn't, at first, understand. When we realized what the feelings meant, our friendship flourished into a beautiful relationship. The kind that is so pure, so natural, so beautiful that it makes you want to gag.
But I'm just being honest. She was everything to me. God, things were so easy back then.
We grew together, learned together. And when Lia became ill, we cried together.
She began hearing voices in her head. Telling her to kill herself. To crash her car, or take all of her Valium, or slit her throat, or jump off a bridge. She told me that she felt an urge, an itch, to give in to these voices. Not because she thought they were right, but because she wanted them to stop. She said that the voices weren't her own. She said that she felt like she was possessed.
I told her that she was not possessed, she just needed help. "I don't want to be sent away somewhere where they'll lock me up and ask me questions and write on a stupid little notepad while I talk," she said.
"You're a danger to yourself," I argued. "Please, Lia, just go for a little while. It won't be forever. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
She glared at me. "You don't know that, Ava. You don't know how long they'd keep me," she huffed. "And I'm not a danger. The voices are dangerous, but the voices aren't mine. They don't sound like mine." She turned her head, nervously fidgeting with the engagement ring I'd gotten her three months prior. "What do they sound like?," I asked.
"Well," she said slowly, "Some sound like children. Some sound like old people, or younger adults. Others are strange and high pitched... And some..." She bit her lip, staring off into space with sad, glazed-over eyes.
I took her hand. "You know you can tell me anything," I said. She sighed. "You're really going to send me away for this one," she said, her bottom lip quivering. I squeezed her hand, trying to offer some sort of comfort. "Some of them are deep, deep voices. And they tell me to do things that are unspeakable." She paused, waiting for my reaction.
I stayed reserved, not knowing quite how to react. "What do they tell you to do?" A few tears fell down her cheek, and she quickly wiped them away with her sleeve. "They tell me to hurt people. Prey on them, kidnap them, hold them hostage, and torture them. They never tell me to kill them. They only want me to torture them. Put them through pain and never let them go."
I remembered that time at the sea. "Never let me go, okay?"
"I know you'd never hurt someone," I said. "No, no. Of course I wouldn't." She didn't sound very confident, and her eyes flicked over to the window. My Lia wouldn't hurt a fly. But things were happening to my Lia, things that couldn't be explained. Not without a professional. And yet, she refused to get help.
Her condition worsened. First, she stopped leaving the house, other than to go to work. Then she quit her job.
She stopped leaving the house altogether. She'd spend all day and night lying in bed, whispering to herself, or to things I couldn't see or hear. She'd snap out of it when I walked into the room, and would pretend she was reading or sleeping.
One day, she stopped responding to me completely.
Whatever I said to her, it must've been mundane, because I don't even remember what it was. All I remember is her not responding, then me saying her name repeatedly, then tapping her, then shaking her. Nothing I did got her attention. All she did was whisper things that didn't make sense. That I didn't understand.
I called the local hospital and had her admitted to an adult psychiatric ward, hoping they could find a way to help her. I hated myself for not pushing her to go the day she mentioned the voices, but she was of semi-sound mind back then, and we are adults. I couldn't force her.
I went home that night and got straight into bed, lying awake in the dark and staring at the swirly pattern on the ceiling of my bedroom. Somewhere around two in the morning, I finally closed my eyes. "Die." A harsh, raspy whisper seemed to fill the entire room, echoing off of the gray walls and melting into the fabrics. My eyes snapped open, heart beating wildly. What was that? I looked around, afraid to move. Just a dream, I thought nervously.
"KILL YOURSELF." I jumped and slapped my hands over my ears. What the fuck is happening? I shut my eyes tight and curled into a ball. Oh please, please don't lose your mind, I thought. I needed to be there for Lia. "Die, die, die, die." "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up," I whispered in return.
Eventually, I fell asleep. I woke up with a slamming headache, the kind of headache you get in the morning after drinking a bottle of wine the night before. When I stood up, it felt as if the house was trembling, and I flinched each time I turned a corner, feeling the presence of something evil. "Kill, kill, kill." I ignored the voice.
I called the hospital, asked if I could come and visit Lia. I was shocked when I was told that she was speaking coherently again. Half an hour later, I was at the hospital, talking with her face to face. It felt like a miracle.
"You're not going to believe this," she said, "But I haven't heard a voice since I came here." For the first time in God knows how long, she smiled. A genuine smile, lighting up her face. The smile I fell in love with.
I couldn't bear to see that smile falter. So I sat there, talked to her about her treatment, about how well she was doing. I told her that I was so proud of her. That I knew she would get better, that she was so strong.
It is so easy to think that someone else is strong, no matter what their condition is, when you feel so weak.
And, don't get me wrong; I do think Lia is strong. I know she is strong. But still, I couldn't tell her that I was hearing the same things she had been hearing. I didn't want to get in the way of her recovery.
So I kept my mouth shut. Told her I loved her. Told her to stay a few weeks more.
"What?! But I'm getting better. I am better," she insisted. "They told me I could leave in one week. I don't want to stay any longer. Ava, I swear, I'm fine."
"I know," I told her, "but I need to make some arrangements."
She agreed to stay until I found a new place for us to live.
Remember, like I said, Lia would never hurt a fly.
That doesn't mean that I wouldn't hurt someone. Or that I haven't.
I went straight home that night and washed the blood stains from the basement floor. I burned the bones and bodies of the lives I'd taken throughout the years, and the few bodies that thrived, though I'd broken and bruised them.
It had been a fun game for me, up until they decided to fight back. The dead and the undead, united, getting their revenge.
Lia never told anyone. She let me do my thing. She knew I loved to hurt. And she knew I'd never hurt her.
That's why she let it happen. She let me take children from their mothers, or mothers from their children. Let me play with them, make modifications on them. Experiment on them. Hurt them for fun.
I never thought they could hurt us back. I had so much power over them, that I forgot all about karma. Karma's a bitch. Everyone knows that.
So I got rid of everything.
I don't hurt anyone these days. I care too much about my wife to give in to my urges. My hobbies. I gave it all up. I let them go.
Listen, if you've ever combed the internet for silly little scary "games", such as Cat-Scratch and Bloody Mary, I hope you don't come across the "Elevator Game" and attempt to play.
Ever since I was a child, I had always been fixated with Elevators. They were a fun contraption on jump around in, and I always was excited to take a ride in one of these mysterious stainless-steel contraptions.
But, a couple days ago, my friends and I were combing the internet, and came across a website that detailed a new game called "The Elevator Game". Immediately, my interest was piqued, and I began to read further as my friends became more enthralled, considering I have told my friends about my facisnation with elevators. Our dark dorm room was illuminated by the bright monitor's brilliant display.
"The Elevator Game? That's probably some shitty SnapChat challenge that some middle schoolers came up with." My friend Arthur was always a skeptic, but I understand, considering most of these challenges were dribble anyway.
"Well, you know I've always been fascinated by elevators." I retorted. " Maybe this challenge may have some merit to it."
"Well hurry up and see the rules! I want to see what you have to do, and if we can do it tonight. What else do you think we're gonna do tonight!? Drink and play Smash? I want to do something new for once!" The other voice came from the blue bean bag on the other side of the room. Of course Mike would be asleep on a Friday night.
"Well, nice of you to join us Mike! Pull up a chair, and we'll see the rules together." I said.
After he groggily moved his bean bag to my desk to my left, I began to scroll down and see the rules of this "Game".
The Display Listed the rules as follow:
Enter the Elevator of your choice, Alone.
"Alone? We can't do this challenge together?" Mike said, yawning.
I looked at him, "I guess. We'll just take turns then."
"I'm down. I'm sure this is a load of horseshit anyway." Arthur said in between swigs of beer.
"Fucking Buzzkill. " Mike muttered.
Once Inside, Ensure that the elevator is equipped with more than 13 Floors.
"Oooh! 13 So scary!" Arthur said, waving his arms Like Bela Lugosi's Dracula.
"Shut Up" I quickly snapped.
After Following 2, Press the Button for The 7th Floor.
After 3, press the button for the 4th Floor.
After 4, press the button for the 8th floor.
This went on for a while. A code that equaled to 74825169. Whatever that meant.
But once I got to the 9th Instruction, my blood ran cold.
When The Woman enters the Elevator, DO NOT talk to her.
"A woman? The fuck?" Mike was audibly unnerved, and his anxiety was quickly spreading to Arthur and me.
"It's just trying to be scary,but I gotta say, I'm intrigued." If this got Arthur's attention, then this challenge must be pretty damn interesting.
Once the doors open, you have entered the Other World.
"Oh Shit." that was all Mike could let out.
We were all silent for about 30 seconds then Arthur Spoke-"Lets do it. There's the Marriott down the street;thing's got like 30 floors."
"Isn't it like fucking midnight? You sure you want to go? We got class in like two days." I was pretty freaked out, and I was just trying to get out of this situation.
My mind began to wander as I thought about the "Other World" and the "Woman". What the hell was this? Was this just some kind of joke? It has to be! There cant just be another world that's only acessable through a fucking elevator!
Right?
We arrived at the Marriott, which is a chain hotel that happens to have one in my town. It was a towering building that pierced the thick nighttime clouds. Of course it had to look as scary as possible, but I pressed on with Arthur and Mike.
As we entered through the carousel into the lobby, I immediately had that gut feeling that something was not right. The lobby did not have a soul in it, save for us. The TV was playing some movie, but the concierge was no where to be found. Probably in the back, taking a break.
"OK, let's go to the side elevators, because we might actually get in trouble for doing this." Arthur rationalized.
We agreed and walked to the side where the gates parking guests are able to access the hotel. The hotel was completely silent other than the soft hum of a vending machine. We combed the hallway until we found a lone, stainless steel elevator. It was pretty nice, considering in every horror movie the Elevator is usually a decrepit, out of order hunk of junk.
"So who's going first?" I asked.
"You! You're the one that even found this elevator shit in the first place!" Mike said. He had a point. I was the elevator enthusiast. I should go first.
I walked up to the button, and pressed it, illuminating the little upwards arrow that was plastered across it. The elevator beeped, like it was waiting for me.
I walked in. " See you in hell, guys." I remarked to the guys as they nervously waved me goodbye.
As I enter, I see 35 Buttons. Perfect. Step one complete.
I reach into my pocket, and grab the paper that I wrote the code on.
I inputted 7. 4. 8. 2. 5. 1. 6. 8.
At the final button press, The Elevator began to move. My heart began to race, because it was working! The Elevator rang, and the display read 6. It stopped, and the doors opened. My heart dropped, because what I saw before me...
Was a woman.
She was dressed in pure white, with a red hat that only accentuated the brilliance of her outfit. I couldn't see her face, due to the veil around her face that almost seemed opaque. Her hair was jet-black, which was a contrast to her white outfit.
She slowly walked in, the only sound being the clacking of her heels as she entered. I was about to say hello out of instinct, but my mind flashed back to the rules of the game:
When The Woman enters the elevator, DO NOT talk to her.
My blood ran cold, and I looked away from her.
"Hey" her voice was as smooth as silk.
"Excuse me? I need your help." It was getting increasingly difficult to look away from her, and the fear I felt inside was damn near unbearable.
"Please? At least say something?" I looked at her, and didn't say a word.
"Help me." She said.
The Elevator stopped. The display read 8. That meant that the ride was complete, and I quickly exited the doors as they opened.
It was just another hallway, same as all others inside the Marriott. What Other World was the challenge talking about?
As I looked back at the Elevator, I saw the woman remove her veil, and I couldn't fathom what I saw.
She didn't have eyes.
Not like her eyes were caved out or anything like that, but there was just skin where her eyes should be.
I was paralyzed in fear as I saw the elevator doors closed, and I remembered the last instruction.
Once the doors open, you have entered the Other World.
I began to walk through the hallway, wondering what was so different about this new world that I have walked upon.
As I walked through the empty hallway, I had a realization that stopped me dead in my tracks.
I didn't have a way back.
I sprinted back to the elevator and frantically clicked on the button to go back down. The doors open as I got increasingly woozy. The nausa was becoming unbearable as I wasn't able to move. The doors opened, and I dragged myself in feeling increasingly weaker. I pressed the 1st floor button, and collapsed on the floor. The elevator opened, and I crawled out into the lobby. Mike and Arthur were there waiting for me.
"Hey! Where have you been!? Its been like 2 hours!" Mike said, but it didn't sound like him.
"You OK Mike? You dont sound yourself."
"I'm good!" His normally baritone voice sounded pitchshifted up, and it had an uncanny sound I couldn't shake.
The streets were completely empty as we drove back, and almost no lights were on save the street lights. It was pitch black outside, and we drove in silence.
As we arrived to the dorm, I couldn't shake the feeling that I didn't belong here.
I wasn't in my own world.
I'm not sure what to do, because there were no instructions to escape the Other World. How could I be so stupid!?
I knew this place would be good to put this as a warning sign and a call for help. Arthur and Mike have not been the same since I came back from the elevator. If anybody can help me with my own predicament, please.
I want to return to my own world, and I feel like my innards are being torn apart.
Hi. My name is Emily. Most days, I would rather eat hot coals than do something that would send my husband Dennis into one of his rages. Like using his laptop. But I’m doing it. My husband says I’m stupid. Maybe I am. But I figured out how to create an account on Reddit. Despite the terror making my fingers shake and my heart stutter… I’m determined to tell someone what happened, even if it’s an anonymous group of people on the Internet.
It’s rare that I’m alone. Dennis works from home. Computer stuff. I’m not sure exactly what he does. He tells me I wouldn’t understand. That I’m too dumb to have a regular conversation, much less one about his big, important job. See, I’m a housewife. I’ve never had a job. I don’t know what it’s like to work. Not that I didn’t want to get a job—I did. Dennis wouldn’t hear of it. We don’t have children, either. I would love to be a mom, but Dennis doesn’t want to be a father.
I’ve been with Dennis since I was fifteen and he was nineteen. He was handsome. Confident. Smart. I was so in love with him that I believed his lies. He said my friends were jealous of us. He said my parents were control freaks who stood in the way of our happiness. We only need each other, Emily. Run away with me. So I did. For the last eight years, I’ve spent every day regretting that decision.
Sorry. I didn’t get on here to whine about my life. Anyway. Here goes...
It started earlier this morning. Dennis woke up in a bad mood. He tripped me coming out of the bathroom. Yelled at me for being lazy because I took too long to get up. At breakfast, he took one bite of the scrambled eggs I made for him then he dumped all the contents onto the floor and screamed, “You’ve ruined my day, you dumb fucking cunt.”
I immediately started cleaning the mess. But I wasn’t fast enough. Dennis shot up from the dining room chair and kicked me in the ribs. I fell on my side, my cheek squishing into the scrambled eggs.
He kicked me again and yelled, “You’re fucking useless!” Hot agony struck my ribs and slammed into my lungs. My body buzzed with a strange, cold energy. My stomach heaved, and I rose onto my knees right before painfully sharp vomit pushed up my throat and burst out of my mouth.
On the beige carpet, scattered in Dennis’ eggs and my bile, were metal words.
His words.
You. Are. Fucking. Useless.
They were shiny and sharp. Word-shaped blades.
Dennis squatted down, his nose squishing at the noxious smell of vomit. He stared at the words then he turned his glare on me. “What the fuck, Emily?”
The moment he asked the snide question, I felt the uneasy roil of my stomach. Then it happened again. Sharp metallic things sliced up my throat, forcing me to puke them out.
What. The. Fuck. Emily. tumbled into the mushed eggs.
“How are you doing that?” he asked. Anger vibrated in his tone.
“I-I d-don’t know.”
“It’s a trick,” he accused. “You’re fucking with me. You’re doing this on purpose, you stupid cow.”
I groaned as my stomach squeezed and my entire body vibrated with that same weird chill. I vomited You. Stupid. Cow. The words plopped onto the carpet. Blood dribbled down my chin and added to the ugly mess.
Dennis stood up, and I did, too, because I didn’t want him to kick me again. I already felt like someone was stabbing a stick into my lungs. Probably a broken rib. I’ve had them before and I recognized that particular kind of agony.
“Whatever this is,” he said in a menacing voice, “you better knock it off.”
“Those are your words,” I managed to choke out. Blood pooled in my mouth and I forced myself to swallow it.
“Don’t you dare blame this bullshit on me!” His brows snapped together. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
The word-knives exploded out of me. Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth. jabbed into my husband’s chest. Blood spattered on his shirt and jeans.
He looked down at the words jutting out of his chest, his expression pure shock. Then he slowly raised his head to stare at me. I saw in his eyes an emotion I had only seen from my own gaze in the mirror.
Terror.
I’d never seen Dennis afraid. I’m ashamed to admit I liked that he was scared of me. There’s a hideous power in creating fear in others. In this horrifying moment, I didn’t feel dread and panic.
He did.
“Call me a name, Dennis,” I whispered. Talking was pure agony because my throat was cut to ribbons. I swallowed my own warm blood. It tasted like pennies. “Tell me I’m dumb. Tell me how lucky I am to have you because no one else would put up with me.”
“Fuck you.”
Fuck came out sideways and sliced open a corner of my mouth. But the jagged pain was worth it as Fuck. You. stabbed Dennis’ soft belly. He cried out and backed away, holding up his hands.
“Stay away from me, bitch!”
Bitch hurt coming out more than any of the other words I’d puked so far, but it hurt Dennis more when it lodged into his left eye. He screamed, grabbing at the word. The edges sliced his fingers, and he screamed again. He dropped his bleeding hands and left Bitch in his eye. He turned and stumbled down the hallway.
I followed him. “Say something else,” I whisper-yelled.
“Get away from me!”
“What’s wrong, honey?” My voice was barely audible. And I couldn’t breathe well. I felt liquid filling up my lungs, and realized that between the word-knives and Dennis’ hard kicks, I probably had internal bleeding.
But so did he. For once, Dennis was suffering the same as me.
He slipped in the hallway. He tried to use the wall to balance himself, but his hand was too slick with blood. He fell face-first onto the hardwood floor.
I got on my knees and rolled him over. All those words he’d screamed at me had embedded more deeply into his flesh. Blood seeped out of the wounds caused by Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth. Fuck. You. Bitch. Dennis’ one good eye zeroed in on me. “You cunt,” he gurgled.
Cunt lurched up my throat and spun out of my mouth, cutting my tongue and cheek as it exited. I watched as Cunt slammed into his neck, just above his clavicle. Cunt had the power and force of a machete, slicing through trachea, muscles, bone. Blood splattered everywhere as his head loosened from his spine and rolled to the side.
So. That's it.
Dennis died from being attacked by his own vile words. I’m paying the price, too. But I’m okay with that. I think… I think I died a long time ago, anyway. Just so you know, I called 911. I couldn’t talk very well, but the operator got the jist. Yeah. I hear the sirens now. God, I’m tired. I'm gonna lean back and close my eyes for a minute.
If you were to ask them, they'll tell you the story of Bobo
Bobo was a cruel man, born with a black and twisted soul. But Bobo was also gifted. He was gifted with the love of all who saw his handsome face or heard his gentle voice
When he was young, he would steal gifts from his friends. Later, sometimes that same day, he'd show the stolen item to them, surrounded by his friends . When the victim voiced his villainy, Bobo would refute.
"No. This is mine. You must be mistaken."
His friends would trust him faster than a heart beat and turn on the accuser . Poor old Bobo, constantly getting attacked, why couldn't they leave him alone?
This was Bobo's game in youth. As horrible as it was, as he got older, his games got messier. Bobo got bored.
In the village he lived, very occasionally, a child would go missing. The next night their parents would be invited to dine at his mansion.
They'd be served lavish meats, meticulously garnished and marinated. Midway through the meal, he'd tell them the truth. He'd tell them how they were eating their own children.
You see, his voice was so magical by now, he knew he had nothing to fear. When he asked them to continue eating, they would. The parents would laugh and joke at his jokes as they fed on their progeny.
Bobo played his games many times in the village. No one could stop him, or even bear a grudge against him. Who could hate his voice?
A drunk.
A drunk hated him.
He had been one of his victims, and lost his daughter. In sobriety, he loved him like all the rest. Only in his drunkenness, did his true feelings surfaced, and bubbled over into a drunken tirades for all to hear.
One day, his tale came to the ears of a Judge. The Red Judge of Paris.
"He must hanged till death."
Upon hearing this, the drunk sobered up and started sobbing and weeping, begging the judge for leniency for his daughter's murderer. Grabbing onto the Judge's leg, he hollered.
"Please! I swear my soul to you, spare him! "
"Fine. I promise. Bobo will not be arrested"
With the drunk fell to the ground in relieved stupor, leaving the Judge to think.
The old Judge knew arresting a man so charismatic would be impossible for him. That did not mean he'd forgotten, nor forgiven. Already, a plan for Bobo's punishment had formed.
The judge visited the house of an old woman. She had been a seamstress in her younger days, now she lived alone in her hut at the edge of the great forest.
The Judge gave her instructions for the punishment and in return, gave her a single copper coin.
"Take it as the soul of the drunkard. A sin coerced is a sin nonetheless. "
The woman swallowed the coin and gave the Judge a smile, with her blackened teeth and brown gums, like gravestones in a cemetary. The Judge did not return it.
That night, when Bobo was in his bed, the window to his bedroom flew open. In crawled the old woman, on all fours, moving like a thing that forgot how the human body functioned.
Bobo did not call for his guards, for he wasn't afraid. Instead, he begged with his beautiful voice and cried with his beautiful eyes for mercy.
His voice did not work, for the woman was deaf.
His looks did not work, for the woman was blind
His tears did not work, for the woman was a witch.
The woman carried out her work, deforming his face with her thread and needle. . She cut his tongue out with her scissors and finally, pressed her boiling hot iron against his scalp to leave him permanently bald.
When morning came, his guards found a pool of blood, and the window open wide. Bobo had run away, from shame and horror at his new reflection
He wanders the forests now, with his disfigured form, cursed by the witch to live forever eternally hungry. His face, so ugly, it scares even the dogs away.
This isn't his end.
If you see his hunched figure, and blacked face among the trees, approaching you, you must run
For Bobo's magic still hasn't left him.
His blue eyes are still charmed. If you let him get close enough to you, you will look into his eyes, and fall under his spell.
You'll reach your hand to him. He'll bow down, and kiss your hand, like you were royalty. And one by one, he'll eat the fingers off your hand.
For some reason, even when he can satisfy his hunger entirely, he never does. He'll just leave you, handicapped for the rest of your life.
I think it's because, even in death, he wants to laugh at us
I work as a security officer downtown in a big city. Most of my job is making sure people aren’t camped out in building entryways or in the parking garages that I patrol. Mostly I just drive around and stop if I need to remove someone from the property, but a few of my buildings require me to go inside and clear each floor, stairwell, and the parking garage (if they have one, most don’t) to make sure nobody snuck inside and set up shop for the night. Inside the buildings I have to patrol, we have little scan tags that we have to scan with our phones so our company can track that we’re actually doing our jobs, but it takes forever to scan them and most of them are broken anyways.
The people I deal with are mostly homeless, but I do get a few out-of-towners just trying to find a place to sleep in their cars for a while before getting back on the road. Regardless of who it is, I try to be polite and give directions to the nearest shelter, non-secure block that is “homeless friendly”, or a safe place that you can legally park and sleep for the night. Most people are pretty understanding and will get up and go without needing to be told twice, but some…some are a little more reluctant, and occasionally violent. The most common line I get after nicely asking someone to vacate the premises is “you’re not a cop” which is always a fun one, but sometimes they switch it up to “I’ll kill you” or “I’m going to wear your skin”.
It’s a boring job, with some excitement thrown in occasionally, but it pays the bills and it’s really not that bad most nights. I do get a little creeped out in a few of my buildings though. Two in particular. I just can’t shake that feeling that I’m being watched, or like something or someone dangerous is lurking just around the next corner or just on the next floor. It also doesn’t help that one of the creepy underground parking garages has zero cell signal, which is super great and not terrifying to think about at all.
Monday night, something happened in that parking garage that’s got my stomach in knots and is keeping me up at night. I haven’t told anyone, and I don’t think anyone close to me would actually believe me if I told them. Since I was a little girl, I’ve loved telling stories, particularly scary stories. I made (and still make) up stories to scare the crap out of my siblings, friends, fiancé, even my parents. Stories about ghosts in the house, strange noises and knocking, and whatever else my overactive imagination conjures up. And I know if I told them, it’d be brushed off, I know it would.
My last rounds on Monday at about 3AM I was finishing up my 5-floor tour of one of the creepy old buildings, and like usual there was nothing incredibly eventful, just a few lights out and a few doors that should be locked but weren’t. I made my way down to the east stairs to the first floor of the parking garage so I could scan the tag and get the hell out of there. The tag on this floor is located outside the P1 east stairway door, so I popped out, scanned the tag with only a little difficulty, and was about to go back through the door to head down to P2 when I heard what sounded like heavy, quick footsteps coming down the ramp. I paused and the noises faded, so I chalked it up to my mind playing tricks on me. Besides, the sliding door you need to open to enter the garage is closed and the only way to get it open is to hold the fob near the sensor. And the only people that have those are employees, not to mention they’d be driving, not walking.
I went back through the doors and continued down the steps to my next floor. As I made it to the bottom, I grabbed the handle to the door that would lead me back into the garage and heard the telltale sound of a door opening above me. I ripped open the door, opting not to scan the tag on this floor, and headed straight for the west stairwell. I find I’m far less concerned with what my boss may think about a missing scan point when I’m possibly about to die. I found myself thinking maybe the homeless man who wanted to wear my skin Is about to make good on his weird threat.
I made it down to P2 and kept going. There was only one floor between me and my car, and I was dead set on making it to the car before whoever was in here with me could catch up. The sound of the stairwell door opening from below me stopped me in my tracks. That’s impossible, I thought. He was just on P1, there’s no way he had time to make it all the way down stairs and make it to the stairwell door on the opposite side of the parking garage before I could even make it down one flight of stairs, there’s just no way. Now that it was clear whoever or whatever this was not going to let me make it to my car, I tore up the stairs. I could hear laughing, like 500 nails on 100 chalkboards, pierce through the air my entire way up to the lobby. I could see shadows below me bouncing off the walls. I yanked my phone out of my pocket, tripping over myself as I exited the stairwell into the lobby. I stared at the screen and willed for the X over the service bars to disappear. They finally did as I made my way out of the front doors.
I called 911, my voice shaking as I relayed my story to the operator. When the Police showed up, I let them in the building but refused to enter myself until they’d been through every floor. When the officers met me back on the street after about 20 minutes, they told me whoever it was must be gone now, but whoever was there had managed to get in my patrol car and toss my stuff around. They said it was probably just some kids trying to scare me. I still made one of the officers walk me down to my car before they left. When I got in, I locked my doors and sped to the exit ramp.
The sliding door seemed to take an extra-long time opening, but I finally made it out. I am required to wait outside the door in my car until the sliding door shuts all the way, so nobody gets in behind me, so I put the car in park and waited. Just as the door was about a third of the way shut, a man appeared in my rearview mirror, right behind the door. I screamed so loud I could see the windows shaking. He was unkempt and dirty and immediately filled me with a sense of dread. He just stood there smiling a little too wide while the door closed, lowering his head with the door to keep me in his line of sight. Just before the door was closed too far for me to see his face anymore, I saw him give a little wave and mouth the words "next time".
My god I’m hungry. I don’t ever remember being this hungry in my life. I’m kinda thirsty, but I really need to eat something. Fuck it’s bright out. The sun really hurts my eyes. I think I have something wrong. Maybe I have sinus pressure or something. I don’t know. I should find a hat.
“Where am I,” I wonder aloud. “South St. and Main. I know this place. There is a gas station right down the block. I’ll go there and buy a sandwich. Maybe I’ll get a coke. I am talking to myself.”
I head to toward the gas station. There is another guy walking next to me.
“Hey,” I say to him. He ignores me.
“What an asshole,” I mutter to myself. He doesn’t even look in my direction.
I make my way toward the store. It’s fucking hot out. I should take off this jacket. I am so hungry. This day sucks. Why won’t that guy answer me? I see Darian up ahead and he’s headed the same direction I am.
“Hey Darian,” I yell and try to wave, “Fuck.”
I scream in pain. My shoulder feels like it pulls out of socket. I look down at my arm and it looks fine. I’ve never felt pain like that. Why does my shoulder hurt like that when I move it? I must’ve fallen on it. Why am I still wearing this jacket? Where is that store?
Main St. fills with more people as I make my way along the street. I recognize some of the people around me. Jerry the barber comes out of his shop. He looks like shit. He’s yelling something that I can’t understand. That’s weird. Why can’t I understand him? I turn toward him to figure this out.
“I bet there is something to eat in his shop. He probably has something I could eat,” I say.
Much to my surprise, Jerry pulls out a shotgun and points it at a group of people approaching him. He opens fire. I stop and watch. At least I think I stop moving. This is a weird day. Fuck the sun hurts my eyes. Why do I still have this jacket on?
I move my arm to take it off and my shoulder screams in pain again. The pain shoots down my arm like hot needles. Jerry looks at me and raises his gun. I raise my arm to protect myself even though I know it’ll do nothing. It’s a reflex action. Jerry takes another look at me, shakes his head and takes off running. A trail of people follow him.
There must be food here somewhere. My stomach hurts. I wonder where Jerry went.
When I reach the door of his shop a group of people are there pounding on the door. I push my way through and see a couple people inside. I bet they have food. I try the door. It doesn’t turn like it should. It must be locked. I want to leave but the people around me have me pinned against the door, so I start to pound on it with them.
This becomes boring and I work my way out of the group. I see Darian in the middle of the street. He just stands there with his head leaning off to one side. He looks odd.
“Hey Darian,” I call. “What’s up man? Hot out isn’t it?”
Darian ignores me like everyone else. I begin to wonder if I’m going crazy, or if everyone else is. I don’t remember the weather report saying it was going to be this hot today. Why would I have a jacket on if it was?
I hear some screams up ahead and move toward the sound. Others move the same direction. The screams come from the corner store. There are a few people in front. They look like they want to get inside but they can’t. I bet they are hungry too. My pace increases as I near to the door. I can hear others behind me. There is food in there. I just know it. I hear glass break. Someone yells from inside. I can barely make out what they are saying. It’s like everything I hear is muffled.
“They are coming through,” someone yells.
“Get back,” screams another voice.
Gunfire rips through the air. I can’t tell what they are shooting at. Someone near the door moans. That I hear loud and clear. One of the people pounding on the door moans loudly. I can hear the guns too. It’s the voices I’m having trouble with.
One of the people at the door falls down. Others try to get into the store. They step on the fallen person. It’s my neighbor Bob. He flails on the ground. I never really liked Bob, but people shouldn’t step on him.
“Hey leave Bob alone,” I yell. No one pays attention to me.
Two guys come from my left with baseball bats. They club at the group in front of the door. I turn toward them and try to help. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with hunger.
“Aw shit here comes Mike,” one of the batsmen says as he looks at me. “Darian is right behind him.”
The other guy responds but I can’t understand what he says. He sounds like he’s 50 yards away and talking quietly. His face looks intense.
Finally, I recognize the guy in front of me, the one who calls me Mike. Wait that’s my name. I’m Mike. It’s Hunter, Jerry the barber’s son. He must’ve come out of the store. Hunter and I used to go fishing together until I went to college. He was going to run his dad’s business. Hunter liked it here in town.
“Go after Darian,” Hunter says. “I’ll take care of Mike here.”
Hunter steps toward me and I’m overwhelmed with hunger. He lifts his bat and I stumble. Saliva forms in my mouth. Hunter has something for me to eat. I just know it. I try to say hi, but he doesn’t respond I fall to the ground. The bat misses me. I hear a bat slam into Darian’s head behind me. I turn to try to get up. Hunter looks like he’s taking another swing. The bat falls onto my neck. I hear bones crack as it slams into my neck. It hurts, but not as much as I think it should. My shoulder hurts less now. I keep getting hungrier.
The man with Hunter screams and falls. Darian falls on top of him. I lunge for the man on the ground. Hunter slams his bat into Darian’s head. He doesn’t move. There is something in Hunter’s friends hand that looks tasty. I bite it. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s sinewy. It tears loose as I turn my head. I am happy. Hunter's friend screams.
“Sorry Mike,” Hunter says again, as he starts to bring his bat down on me.
“I’m just trying to eat,” I call out.
“I hate the moans,” Hunter says and slams his bat into my skull. I’m no longer able to move, but I can see Hunter’s friend. He’s staring at his hand. Fingers are missing. Hunter says something and brings the bat down on the man’s head.
