#relationship horror

[vinegarzines]

Happy five year anniversary to Vinegar Zines!

To celebrate, we've put together an anthology of relationship horror. Fourteen writers look at the bad, sad, and horrific side of love through stories, poetry, and comics. ❤️

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[creepyclothdoll]

The Tick

A vampire is a predator, I tell you. I am defying my nature to be with you. 

I am dangerous. But you tame me. You are the exception, I promise in the forest, under the tree where we first met. 

With my centuries of experience and a whole world of options for companionship, I choose you. 

For you, I will be gentle. I brush the hair from your shoulder. Even though it goes against all that I am.

I see a tick crawling through your dark hair. You watch me pull it out and crush it in my fingers with a smile. I will always protect you. 

From that day on, you are truly mine.

I love you unconditionally. Intensely. With the deep, all-consuming love you desire. 

I am an outsider. You are the only one who can understand me. 

My bite is like a kiss, but deeper. More primal. More sensual. The physical merges with the emotional, boundaries dissolve. It is an act of trust. You trust me. 

I may lose control of my predatory nature, I say. You should not trust me, I say. 

I show you my most vulnerable self– my heart has shuddered in the cold for centuries. You open the door and invite me in. With this sharing of blood, I relax in the knowledge that this is true, this is real, this is forever.

We duck away into an alcove one night as I spy the vampire-hunter scanning the party, the outline of an ash stake under his jacket. You fear for me then.

My kind is so maligned. Rightfully, I admit. What society would allow a rabid predator in its midst willingly? Something so dangerous, unchecked, bound to rampaging bloodlust? 

But you’re different, you remind me.

Yes. But they don’t understand that. Only you have ever accepted me without fear. 

Your presence feeds me. Being in every part of your life feeds me. Knowing where you are, knowing I am on your mind, knowing you are mine– that feeds me. 

I will leave you enough time to recover from my bite, my taking, barely. Then, I will come back and take more. 

You want me to let you rest for longer? I am doing you a favor, then. I don’t say this, but you feel it in my smile. I needed this, but I’ll give it up for you and your comfort. What a good vampire I am, understanding like this. I sacrifice my needs for you. It hurts me to wait. But I wait. Patiently, with a long-suffering smile. 

You hold my life in the palm of your hand. You have all the control here. To reject me now would kill me. I will give you whatever you need. Just tell me what you want. I will do it. 

It’s really your fault that you feel like this, because if you just told me what you want, I will give it to you. All I ask in return for this perfection is nearness. Eternally. 

You feel cold. 

You feel tired. You feel sick. I bring you the things you like most– I remember your favorite sweet things, your favorite books, your favorite blanket. 

I haven’t shared in your blood in weeks. I don’t need to, anymore. You invited me in, and that’s all I needed– I can live off of you. 

You are in my veins. I live through your life.

I only take a little– a conservative portion of the oxygen in your breath, a few beats of your heart each day, just some of the strength of your limbs, a touch of the heat from your body, a gentle scraping of your spirit and your mind. To me, this is everything. You don’t need these things, and you don’t notice them leaving you. And if you were to notice, wouldn’t you offer them freely? Would you be so cruel, so callous, to say no?

I feel like a bucket with a hole in the bottom, you say. Weak, pitiful, sad. 

I will take care of you, I promise. I will always protect you. And these things are true. 

I will leave you empty.

You want to leave for awhile? Of course, my dear. Why would I protest that? You’re not a prisoner. I trust you’ll come back to me, I say, showing my vulnerability, my earnest love.

But you’re gone so often, lately. And you leave me lonely. 

So I follow you one day. I see you have other friends. That’s alright, of course. You can have whatever you like, so long as I am your priority. Go out and raise your energy, so long as you bring it back to me. Make yourself healthy and hale. What’s good for you is good for us. 

But who are these friends? A flash of recognition. A seething hate.

No.

Don’t talk to those people. Anyone but them. 

Why would you let them fill your head with lies? I scream when you return to me. At least you returned to me. You look up at me with hollow, dark eyes, your face pale as the grave, your lips thin and blue. 

There is so much left of you, though. 

I think I need to go, you say. 

I grab my chest. You are killing me. You would kill me.

I need to do what’s best for me, you say. 

You promised me a share of your life. You’d rip that from me now? I cry. I sacrificed my nature for you, I say. It went against all that I am. You are the reason I am gentle. You tamed me.

I grab you as you step through the threshold backwards. Your chill skin leaches a great share of the last of your remaining heat into mine. You grow paler. I want what I can take, then. 

Every pulse of your heart. The whole of your spirit. The thin trickle of blood that still runs through your cold blue veins. The last thought in your addled, exhausted little head. 

There is a lightning-sharp stab of pain through my body. Fire blazes around my chest. Acid, poison, venom– the stake. From you? I look up pitifully. No. From the man in the jacket, standing behind me, who I see as I slump to the dirty carpet on the hallway floor. 

So helpless. Frozen in an instant. My fingers twitch.

You scream for me– you cry for me. The man pulls you away– bastard. There is a woman with him too now, and another man, and they uncork bottles, and I smell the stink of garlic, feel the repulsion of holy water. 

Wait, you cry. He can’t help it. He’s a predator by nature– he’s trying so hard to be good, you cry. Please, just reach out to me. My fingers twitch. And I reach up. 

To you.

I need you. I need you. I NEED you. I NEED YOU. 

They always say that, says the woman.

I NEED YOU. I NEED YOU. I NEED YOU. I NEED YOU. 

But… he’s fighting his nature for me, you persist. 

He’s never fought his nature. He’s been following it this whole time, the bastard says to you as he pulls you further from me. His colleagues pour their bottles over me and my body, my body starts to dissolve. 

The disgust in his eye– his stare is the same I gave that tick.

Vampires aren’t predators, he says.

They’re parasites.

And then you– you look at me the same.

[evilasteriskpodcast]

Season 2 Episode 8 of EVIL*ASTERISK PODCAST features Curry Barker's dark romance horror film, Obsession (2026) 💔

[evilasteriskpodcast]

Season 2 Episode 9 of EVIL*ASTERISK PODCAST features Osgood Perkins' folk horror film, Keeper (2025) 🥮

[defmachine]

"I hated him, not because who he was. It's because it was who i became when i was with him." - Brianne

[defmachine]

"There were moments when, in the company of a woman i was attracted to, brushed me aside to be with a much uglier guy. I was left mystified. Was my personality so banal I wasn't even worth a pity-fuck, or was I confoundingly hideous? I remedied the situation by never speaking to them again. It's not worth the hassle of becoming my own worst enemy over some fleeting passion." - anonymous K.