Tag: Horror

A Gentle Sound

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Grace woke up, rolled over, and stretched her arm to pull Izzy closer. Her hand felt empty mattress, so she patted along for a few seconds before finally opening her eyes and seeing that Izzy wasn’t there. Even with the blinds pulled, she could tell it was deep in the night, as no light peaked out from the corners of the window. 

Grace yawned, “Izzy, honey, where are you?” She sat up and stared at the empty half of the bed.

Grace felt a tickle of breath across her ear – Izzy’s voice. “I’m on the roof. I want to show you something.” Grace, startled, looked around the room. She rubbed her eyes and blinked them open again, but still Izzy was not near. Shaking her head clear, she mentally prepared for leaving the warmth of the blankets and threw her legs over the side of the bed. It took her a second, and a great amount of energy to take that single small step to the cold hard wood floor, and then into her slippers.

Across the hall from her room was the guest room, the door and window open to the small veranda roof at the front of the house, pointing toward the street and the city below. As Grace forced herself through the thick unrelenting sludge of being half awake, she whispered to herself, “Thank God Mom’s not visiting.”

Grace dragged her feet forward and pushed aside the lightly fluttering curtain so she could poke her head through. Izzy was standing at the edge of the roof, the tips of her toes just past the gutter. The side of Izzy’s face was illuminated by the drag of her cigarette. Grace started to crawl out, hoping not to be too loud and startle Izzy. 

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A Landscape of Thorns

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Dear Alexia Ashgerd,

I hate to write to you like this, but it is of utmost importance that you read this letter fully. I need you to understand what you are doing, but I fear that what I say may fall on deaf ears. The whole idea seems absurd to any logical thinker.

I read of your recent discoveries in the Adirondacks. The stories are saying you followed clues in old oral traditions and found a series of a tunnels, caves and odd structures. It all reminded me of something that happened a few years ago.

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921: Part ???

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Edgar opened his eyes. He wanted to blink, but couldn’t. He took in the scene in front of him. He heard the sounds of a robin chirping outside, saw the sunlight filter in through the shades, and felt the smooth fabric of the couch beneath him. Likely mid morning, definitely the living room, but why he was there was coming a bit slowly. Orienting himself, the remaining furniture slid into place into his mental map, with the stove in the connected kitchen coming last. He wished he could smell. He missed smelling breakfast. Edgar tried to stand up and start his day, but found his legs unwilling to listen, so he sat there, confused.

Edgar felt a weight shift to the right of him, but found himself unable to turn his head to look. Then, a hand was placed on his shoulder. “Eddie, honey, we need to talk about something.” He recognized the voice. It was Tina, his wife. All fear melted from him, and if he could have released the tension in his shoulders, he would have.

Tina took her hand, gently placed her thumb and forefinger on his chin, and turned his neck so he was looking at her, unblinking. “Your eyes are open, so I’m going to assume you can hear me.” Tina’s makeup was slightly smudged and smeared, she clearly had been crying recently, with small streaks of her eyeliner under her eyes. She took a sip of her deep hickory-colored drink. 

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Incommon Haunts: Sepulchral Pact

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At 6:46am, Dom Greis rolled out of his bed, stood up, and scratched his ass. He stretched in his holey t-shirt and boxer briefs. The summer’s morning light filtered in, scattering its rays across both his bed and his alarm clock.

“Need to get heavier curtains.” He mumbled to himself. He grabbed his alarm clock and canceled his 7am alarm, then pulled the curtains fully open. 

He cradled the phone in his hands, blinking against its blue glow. His phone flashed a message from his mother, but he was more interested in checking for the weather.

“Sunny, 37. Damn, gonna be a bit of a scorcher, eh?” 

He checked his mom’s message, “Gonna be a bit of a scorcher today. Stay safe.”

He walked over to the door of his bedroom while checking his emails for the day. When he opened the door, he felt a chill waft over him.

“Ah, fucking hell. Today?”

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Dragonfly: Static

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Jenny flipped the switch to start the rotation of her dragonfly’s habitat module. The spinning allowed the structure to simulate light gravity, which, even if it was nothing compared to Earth’s, was much better than nothing. She removed her hair tie, let her hair fall to her shoulders, skipped over to the fabricator and popped out a warm meal. 

“Too tired to cook today. I’m sure you understand, Fab Fab.” She patted the fabricator right above a crudely drawn face she made on the front, above the screen. The machine did not respond.

Jenny glided across the habitat and sat herself into her chair, ready to set up a call with Sammi, her sister, still back in the states. “Did that girl change her lock yet or not?” Jenny said to herself while popping a bit of the breading into her mouth. 

After pressing the call button, Jenny sat back and waited, expecting the call to take a minute before being accepted. Instead, the call was immediately accepted, shocking Jenny forward and forcing her to drop her meaty pastry.

“Shit! Hold on a second, let me get my food.” Jenny got off her chair and crawled under her desk, quickly finding the pastry before crawling back to her chair. “Stay there, I’m almost back.”

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Duplicitous

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I think it’s important that you hear this from my perspective. It… it might not make sense and I don’t completely understand what happened either. I just don’t know what she would say about this, and that terrifies me.

Earlier today, I returned home from a business trip. There…there was a conference out in Chicago, and with the snow, I just couldn’t get out of the city. So I was a day late. She knew that could happen. She had to have seen the weather reports, right? She was always the kind of person to fret over these kinds of things so I can’t imagine she didn’t spend most of yesterday checking the weather every hour.

I tried to call. I really did. I called home and no one answered. It didn’t even ring. I thought I had the wrong number. So I called again. I think I called about 10 times, but nothing changed.

When I got back home, I was worried, really worried. So I ran inside. I banged the door into the wall, I think. There was a dent in the wall where the handle would have been. I didn’t think I opened it that hard, but there was the dent, like on the wall. This startled her, I thought at least. She turned around speechless and just stared at me. She was wearing a light blue dress that went down to her knees, and over that a white apron. 

I said, “Oh thank god! I tried to reach you!” 

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The Arrhenius Cask

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You know me. I’ve always been able to take a slight on the chin. I dealt with Felicity’s constant abuses and badgering for years, but after that insult…well even a saint can only take so much. So I had to resolve this in a way that both satisfied my need for resolution but also didn’t risk my name. To be clear, Felicity had no idea I was angry with her back then. That whole month leading up to my plan, I was kinder than I had ever been before. 

But Felicity had two weaknesses. Despite being quite charming, and rather manipulative, she was as much convinced of her genius as she was, in truth, an idiot. She considered herself an absolute expert on the whole freezing process, but hadn’t made a single breakthrough under her own merits. To be fair, she could recite the effects of any chemical, ingested or injected. In that sense we were similarly well-read. 

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Mother May I

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Molly entered the kitchen to see Michael already awake and cooking breakfast. “You’re late! Mother will be home soon.” He paused and changed his tone to something more pleading. “Please help.”

“I was still asleep.”

“I would love to sleep in too!” said Michael, losing the softer tone he had before. 

Molly’s eyes flickered to the patches on his skin and quickly walked into the room to help him. “What do you need from me?”

“Could you see if the milk is still good?”

Molly ran to the fridge and opened it. The hinges groaned open and a sweet smell filled the room. “I hate this thing.”

“She tried her best, now hurry up and help.” Michael continued to chop up a carrot, shaking the entire time.

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