Horror D'Oeuvres - Bite-Sized Tales of Terror
Author: Jordan Accinelli; John Andreini
Date: 2016-12-18 14:31:20+00:00
Description: Be warned. Horror d'Oeuvres: Bite-Sized Tales of Terror is an exquisite array of easily digestible horror micro-fiction from today's freshest authors. Each tale is a demonic symphony that will peel away the layers of your mind and reduce your soul to a simmering nightmare within seven hundred words or less. These stories are not for the faint of heart or weak of constitution. Offering an abundant variety of deliciously dark and twisted treats, readers can expect to encounter depraved deities, unsettling realities, and creature features. Like the satisfaction of a good meal or the threat of imp
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp Print Us

Contents

Title Page

Legal Page

Acknowledgements

Quotes

The Twins

Introduction

Left a Bad Taste in My Mouth

Rachel and the Snowflake

In the Trees

The Things Beneath the Ice

Zombies

Tiny Teeth

I Was Dying

Riding the Gamut

Saint Gaul

Suitcase

Fearing the Unseen

Curfew

Father Brad

Static Man

Another Saturday Night in an Oil Patch Town

Unknown Pleasures

Raw Meats Are Such a Delicacy

Pure of Heart

An Answer to Her Prayers

Let's Play Pretend!

Let's Go Someplace Else

For the Good of Our Species

The Voyeur Evolves

In the Dark

I Lit a Candle in Your Honor Today

Born Killing Machines

An Intuitive Step-By-Step Guide to Finding YouTube Black

Siren Song

Over the Edge

The Nightmare

Streetlight

As the Light of The World Went Out

Ghosts of Ourselves

The Pagorian Sleep Cycle

Fair Game

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

The Mire

The Tickle Monster

Click

Seventh-Inning Stretch

Sound Shadow

My Parents Are Hiding Something

The Lost Boy

Accidents Will Happen

Deprivation

The Higher You Fly

Stare

Medusa

Raised by Wolves

Chesty

Henry's Eyes

The Deep Hell

The Canyon Cave

My Daughter’s Necklaces

There's No Such Thing

Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple

A Long Night Drive

Welcome to the Club

Sapper

The Test

Bonus Stories

Island (Bonus)

Four Peaks Spring (Bonus)

Spirit of the Party (Bonus)

About the Authors

Horror d’Oeuvres

Bite-Sized Tales of Terror

Edited by Rafael Marmol and Amber Whelpley

Kindle Edition

All rights are owned by the authors. This is a work of fiction. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Interior design by Rafael Marmol

Edited by Rafael Marmol and Amber Whelpley

“The Twins” Copyright © 2016. K.J. Williams and Nicholas Ong

“Left a Bad Taste in my Mouth” © 2016. Crimson Clubs

“Rachel and the Snowflake” © 2016. Jonas Lefkowitch

“In the Trees” © 2016. J.A. Marshall

“The Things Beneath the Ice” © 2016. D.G. Collins

“Zombies” © 2016. Micheal Sundberg

“Tiny Teeth” © 2016. Dan Hilliard

“I Was Dying” © 2016. Kristopher J. Patten

“Riding the Gamut” © 2016. Jonas Lefkowitch

“Saint Gaul” © 2016. Ashley Franz Holzmann

“Suitcase” © 2016. Eskild Thomsen

“Fearing the Unseen” © 2016. Claudia Winters

“Curfew” © 2016. Edwin Crowe

“Father Brad” © 2016. Marc Kinsville

“Static Man” © 2016. J.L. Knight

“Another Saturday Night in an Oil Patch Town” © 2016. Michael Parrish

“Unknown Pleasures” © 2016. Kristopher J. Patten

“Raw Meats Are Such A Delicacy” © 2016. Jordan Accinelli

“Pure of Heart” © 2016. Kathryne H.

“An Answer to Her Prayers” © 2016. Jonas Lefkowitch

“Let’s Play Pretend” © 2016. Dieben

“Let’s Go Someplace Else” © 2016. Nicholas Ong

“For the Good of Our Species” © 2016. Michael Lee Brown

“In the Dark” © 2016. Grace Bowland

“I Lit a Candle in Your Honor Today” © 2016. Michael Parrish

“Born Killing Machines” © 2016. K.J. Williams

“An Intuitive Step-By-Step Guide to Finding YouTube Black” © 2016. Jordan Accinelli and Jonas Lefkowitch

“Siren Song” © 2016. Tony Johnson

“Over the Edge” © 2016. Crimson Clubs

“The Nightmare” © 2016. John Andreini

“Streetlight” © 2016. J.L. Knight

“As the Light of the World Went Out” © 2016. Matthew Jeffrey

“Ghosts of Ourselves” © 2016. Ashley Franz Holzmann

“The Pagorian Sleep Cycle” © 2016. Nicholas Ong

“Fair Game” © 2016. Kathryne H.

“Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” © 2016. Michael Lee Brown

“The Mire” © 2016. Michael Parrish

“The Tickle Monster” © 2016. Marty Hoefkes

“*Click*” © 2016. Marc Kinsville

“Seventh-Inning Stretch” © 2016. Jonas Lefkowitch

“Sound Shadow” © 2016. Kristopher J. Patten

“My Parents Are Hiding Something” © 2016. Marty Hoefkes

“The Lost Boy” © 2016. Nicholas Ong

“Accidents Will Happen” © 2016. Dieben

“Deprivation” © 2016. Marty Hoefkes

“The Higher You Fly” © 2016. Jordan Accinelli

“Stare” © 2016. Grace Bowland

“Medusa” © 2016. Dieben

“Raised by Wolves” © 2016. Bill Leeson

“Chesty” © 2016. Ashley Franz Holzmann

“Henry’s Eyes” © 2016. Jonas Lefkowitch

“The Deep Hell” © 2016. Nicholas Ong

“The Canyon Cave” © 2016. Kristopher J. Patten

“My Daughter’s Necklaces” © 2016. Marc Kinsville

“There’s No Such Thing” © 2016. J.A. Marshall

“Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple” © 2016. Michael Parrish

“A Long Night Drive” © 2016. Tony Johnson

“Welcome to the Club” © 2016. Michael Parrish

“Sapper” © 2016. Mike Sundberg

“The Test” © 2016. Dieben and Jonas Lefkowitch

“Island” © 2016. Tony Johnson

“Four Peaks Spring” © 2016. Kristopher J. Patten

“Spirit of the Party” © 2016. Crimson Clubs

/r/ShortScaryStories

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, thanks to all the authors who volunteered their time and effort into bringing Horror d’Oeuvres to life. Without their hard work, dedication, and goodwill, this story collection would have crashed and burned like many of the other good intentioned projects which never see the light of the day. While putting together this project, someone (my apologies for not remembering who) told me putting together an anthology with so many writers would be like corralling a clowder of cats. Luckily, this wasn’t the case. Everyone involved has been incredibly understanding and cooperative. Thank you for donating your talents and sticking it out with me for nearly a year of stumbling over myself, making stupid mistakes, and otherwise learning how to do all of this as the process went along. You guys and gals made this experience much better than I could have imagined.

Tons and tons of thanks to Amber Whelpley for volunteering her time and energy into proofreading and editing Horror d’Oeuvres. I’d also like to thank the rest of the supporting team in Mr_Halloween, Mx-yz-pt-lk, and KMilliron. I apologize for the super long rambling messages and for all the idiotic ideas!

More thanks goes to MrCreepyPasta for volunteering his talent and voice to the audio book narration of this anthology. Thank you for supporting the horror authors of ShortScaryStories, NoSleep, and the Creepypasta community in general.

Further thanks goes out to my -30- Press business partners, Ashley Franz Holzmann and Kristopher J. Patten, for their support, advice, and listening to me whine through all the behind the scenes work. Looking forward to working together with you guys in all our future endeavors. Without their help, this would have been much more difficult to have accomplished.

Special thanks goes out to all the authors of Anecdotes in Ashes known as The Assembly. I’ve often cited Anecdotes in Ashes as a source of inspiration and guide for Horror d’Oeuvres. I hope Horror d’Oeuvres is seen as the spiritual successor to Anecdotes.

A shout out goes to all the supportive souls from /r/ShortScaryStories and /r/NoSleepOOC. Both these online communities serve as sources of inspiration, places to meet other aspiring horror authors, and allow otherwise unknown authors to reach an audience of nearly one million unique readers per month. Despite the massive growth within the last few years, authors and readers alike remain as warm and welcoming as ever.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to all the readers who purchased this anthology. Your purchase not only supports the authors who’ve worked extremely hard on this anthology, it also helps support the Scares That Care!, and the families suffering from the financial hardships due to childhood illnesses, burns, and breast cancer.

“Go on… but trick us again child, and your suffering will be legendary even in Hell!” - Pinhead, Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality

Embrace this moment, remember, we are eternal

All this pain is an illusion

- Tool - Parabola

“I’m not going to tell you about this.

I refuse to.

There are things you know you’ll die before telling, things you know you should have died before ever having seen. I watched and saw.”

- Jack Ketchum, “The Girl Next Door”

Mountains to sand,

Sand to dust.

Planets unto land,

Steel to rust.

'Tis not a disaster,

Just an eternal grave.

Time takes no master,

And admits no slave.

Time and death,

Twins from birth.

Nary a breath,

Nor iota of mirth.

Death awaits, to take you all

Into its dark, eternal hall.

The Twins
- K.J. Williams and Nicholas Ong

Foreword

The terrifying tales contained within this tome certainly do not fit within the realm of the ordinary set of courses. If we were to think of novels as entrèes and short stories as appetizers, the stories you are about to read - often called micro-fiction, sudden fiction, or flash fiction - should be considered the hors d’oeuvres of literary realm. These Horror d’oeuvres are spicy little morsels meant to unnerve and unsettle within the confines of a claustrophobic word limit. While these stories may be short, none of them are sweet. Each tale packs its own flavorful punch, ensuring these stories will stay within the reader’s mind long after they’ve read them--like the finish of a fine wine resting on your palette.

This anthology was born from a rogues gallery of the best authors from Reddit’s premier horror flash fiction community, /r/ShortScaryStories. These authors have proven more than capable of crafting some of the most hard-hitting slap fiction on the internet. Many have had their work narrated on popular podcasts, featured on YouTube channels racking up hundreds of thousands in views, and have crossed into other mediums such as video games, artwork, and short films. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill amateur writers; these are some extremely talented folks who’ve donated their time, effort, and stories to this delectable collection. Without them, this charity anthology wouldn’t have been possible.

All revenue generated from the sales of eBooks, physical books, and audiobooks will be donated to Scares That Care!, an approved 501(c)(3) charity which fights the REAL MONSTERS of childhood illness, burns, and breast cancer by helping families that are experiencing these extraordinary hardships cope with the financial burden. It’s a 100% volunteer charity; meaning all donations are given to those who are in need; no CEO salaries, no overheads. Donations will be made on a quarterly basis for one year following the publication date of this collection. All information on the donations, sales numbers, and all other pertinent information will be available on /r/Human_Gravy.

Like hors d’oeuvres, Horror d’Oeuvres: Bite-Sized Tales of Terror contains a veritable cornucopia of offerings, so not all stories will be to taste. You can expect to read stories with a variety of settings, subject matters, and content. Please assume all stories are NSFW (Not Safe for Work) and may or may not contain offensive material. Read at your own discretion. Add salt if necessary.

Bon appètite!

Rafael Marmol(Human_Gravy)

Editor

December 7th, 2016

Left a Bad Taste in my Mouth

Crimson Clubs

They left a bad taste in my mouth…the pancakes, that is. They were missing whatever makes pancakes… cake. The texture seemed too oily, and it had a peculiar tang which still lingers on my tongue. The menu advertised “Food from the Soul,” more like 'food from my ass'. Maybe the butter was expired? I wouldn't be surprised if they fucked up that badly; this place is filthy. Cracking stucco roof, discolored tile floors, mystery stains on my table and seat. This place is as disgusting as the nasty stale-cheese aftertaste haunting my tongue.

When I finally finish buying up the land around here and tear down this awful restaurant, it won't be soon enough.

They call these types of establishments 'greasy spoons' but I thought that was more of a metaphor than guideline; my spoon was so greasy. I was honestly worried it would leave an oil slick in my coffee. But anything to wash that pungent taste out of my mouth.

I take a sip.

Immediately I spit it back out. The taste in my mouth is akin to licking the inside of a truck's wheel well after it had driven through rancid cream.

I wave over the proprietor and primary server, Theresa Spears, a hideous beast of a woman who would look more at home chopping down trees and wrestling grizzly bears than pouring my – terrible – coffee. “Top ya coffee up, shugga?” Urgh! Such annoying cloying affectation. Even when I was ordering, she was uncouth enough to use her fat thumb to wipe my cheek before rudely plucking an errant hair from my shoulder.

“Just some actual sugar, thanks.” I answer with barely masked derision. A herculean feat considering I'm still choking back that vile taste.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she hums pityingly, emptying out the sugar packets she has tucked in her apron.

Peeling them all open, I dump the heap into my mug which I quickly knock back. I cough at the saccharine sweet bouquet of moldering fruit.

“E'rythin' all right there, shugga?”

No. I need you to learn how to cook and brew a simple pot of coffee, you dumb bitch.

“Water, please.”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Theresa strides off to fetch some water while I struggle not to wretch. But the murk only festers on my tongue until my stomach threatens open revolt. My mouth waters with nausea amplifying the fermenting sourness.

I race off to the bathroom before Theresa returns. Buckling over the toilet, my body ejects all the half-digested chunks of pancake batter. The taste curdles like congealed milk. It burns like an uncontrolled chemical fire. It belches like a fetid bog. It blisters like sun-baked roadkill. It squirms like maggots writhing in a pile of their own shit.

I spy Theresa standing at the door. “Mmmm-hmmm, that's 'bout right.”

“You bitch! What did you put in in me!?” I shriek, words rotting flaccid on my tongue.

“I din' put nothin' in that I din' take out.” Crossing her arms, she stares into my core. “It ain't my fault if'n ya don' care fer the taste of y'own soul.”

Rachel and the Snowflake

Jonas Lefkowitch

Rachel's breaths were shallow and rapid, as if she were intent on taking as many as she could before the end came. The wind carried away each steaming exhalation and cut through her threadbare shift, chilling her gaunt frame to the bone as she knelt shivering in ankle-high snow. Five women were at her side, lined up on their knees in the forest a mile from the camp. Kindly Iris, good-humored Norah, brilliant Genessa, indomitable Lisabet, and soft-spoken Hanna. They'd endured unimaginable horrors together, and Rachel called each of them sister now. They were the only family she had left. The trio of soldiers who'd marched them there was passing around a flask of schnapps, reminiscing about night-time visits with their prisoners. They were lovely girls, the threesome agreed, despite being lowly vermin. Rachel was seething. Their affection sickened her worse than their hatred.

"Let's get this over with," the slovenly, piggish sergeant told the young infantrymen in his charge. A moment later, a rifle fired, scarlet stained the forest floor's pure white carpet, and Iris fell dead. The sisters screamed, none louder than Genessa, closer than even a sister to her beloved Iris. Genessa flung herself upon the twitching corpse, cradling it while she wept, but the sergeant yanked her away. "Keep your place!" he barked, throwing Genessa back in line. "There's an order to these things!"

Gunshots thundered. Women cried. Men laughed.

Rachel was oblivious to it all. Her attention had become fixed upon the flurries dusting the woods. With a trembling hand, she caught a perfect little snowflake, then watched it melt instantly in her grasp. There's an order… to these things, Rachel thought and broke down sobbing. Her heart was sinking with despair, her head throbbing with delirium, and she stared at the droplets held in her palm like they were a puzzle to be solved. "There's got to be another way…" she muttered. "There must!" Suddenly the watery remains refroze, remaking the lost snowflake which fluttered away skyward to whence it came…

Rachel understood instinctively she had made this happen, but not how, only that something had stirred within her, powerful but tenuous like an epiphanic dream from which she would soon wake. Rachel struggled hastily to her feet, determined to face the brutes murdering her sisters.

"Back on your knees!" the sergeant bellowed, brandishing his smoking Luger.

"NEVER AGAIN!" Rachel roared.

With a snort and a sneer, the pig pulled the trigger, but he uttered an impotent curse and his jaw dropped when his bullet halted, hanging briefly in mid-air, then reversed direction, flying backward and drilling the startled swine between the eyes. The pair of troopers under his command shrieked as their sergeant flopped over dead, and aimed their guns at Rachel. A slight young woman worn down to skin and bones, barefoot and barely clothed, but these fighting-fit men didn't dare fire for fear of what she might do. "She's a witch!" one of them gasped.

"Stupid, cruel, cowardly children!" Rachel spat, and the soldiers began to diminish in size, their ages dwindling, reducing them to mewling adolescents, to bawling toddlers, to howling infants, till they were unborn from the world, leaving behind nothing but empty uniforms and abandoned rifles.

Three of her precious sisters lay slain, and Rachel could feel her power waning, so she quickly poured her remaining strength into willing their deaths undone. Head and heart pounding furiously, Rachel concentrated on Iris, Norah, and Genessa, on restoring them body and soul. She watched their gruesome wounds mending, saw them rise as from slumber, confused and frightened but gloriously alive! Rachel shed tears of joy at the sight, but then her eyes rolled over white, and she convulsed as her exertions took their toll. Writhing in agony, Rachel collapsed in the snow, blind, exhausted, freezing, starved…

But not afraid.

Not with all her sisters there to take care of her.

In the Trees

J.A. Marshall

"There she is, looking up at the trees," my wife whispered, staring out at the woods, her breath fogging the window glass.

"Stop it," I said. "There's nothing there."

She was pregnant at the time, and it just didn't seem healthy for someone so emphatically full of life to be obsessing about something dead.

"I wish I knew what she was looking for," said my wife.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," I said.

Eventually, we both changed our minds.

We knew the property was supposedly haunted when we bought it. The previous owners fondly described the ghost as a grandmotherly soul who searched the branches for nuts. Other people said she was a wild-haired girl eternally scouting for bird nests. Everyone in town had a different story, but they all agreed on one thing. The ghost always looked up at the trees.

I didn't see her myself until the night our son was born. We had a home birth, and while our midwife got mother and baby settled, I stepped outside for some fresh air. There, at the edge of the forest, stood the ghost, her face upturned toward the falling snow.

Scrambling inside, I collided with the midwife.

"The ghost! She was right there!" I pointed to the now-empty woods.

The midwife nodded. "You know, some folks say it's lucky to see her on the night of a birth," she said, brushing snow off my hair. "She was once a healer, like me, and a mother too, a long time ago. A powerful woman. People said she sang to her baby in voice so sweet, it seemed to curl around them like fragrant smoke."

She zipped up her coat, and dug her car keys from her purse.

"Why does she stare at the trees?" I asked.

"It's a heartbreaking story."

"Please."

"Well. She'd never had a husband, didn't need one, but single motherhood was a terrible sin back then. When the village elders found out, they went to investigate. To avoid their punishment, she hid her baby high in the hollow of a tree. They tore her house apart, and even though they searched for hours, they didn't find anything.

"By the time they left, it was cold and dark. The poor woman ran to the woods, but she couldn't find the tree where she'd hidden her baby. She searched all night, and every day after, for the rest of her life. That's why her ghost always looks at the trees. She'll never stop searching until she finds what she lost."

I rested my forehead against the icy windowpane, feeling helpless and drained.

"Take care of yourselves," said our midwife, squeezing my shoulder. "Sleep when the baby sleeps."

Her keys jangled, and the door clicked shut behind her. My son began to cry.

Sensing movement outside, I glanced up. The ghost was back, closer now, and different than before. She stood straight as gallows, arms pressed tightly to her sides, fingers flexed into claws. Her eyes were cold and black, and I realized she wasn't looking up at the trees anymore.

She was staring at our house.

Toward the sound of a baby crying.

The Things Beneath the Ice

D.G. Collins

I don’t think they have eyes.

It’s the only explanation for why I’m still alive. Without eyes, the dark shapes circling beneath the frozen lake can’t see me standing right above them.

Not far away, Kim is in the same situation. Like me, she’s creeping across the ice, moving so slowly that she’s practically a statue in the cold moonlight. But she seems miles away compared to the things that are hunting below our feet. I have no idea what they are or where they came from, and I don’t care. All I care about is getting off the ice.

The shoreline is tantalizingly close. Normally I could sprint the distance in half a minute, but on ice? Not smart. Not just because I might slip, but because running makes noise, and the blind things beneath me have incredible hearing. They’re also fast.

This much I know, because I used to have more friends than Kim.

A bunch of us came down to the lake tonight to see if the ice had gotten thick enough for skating and fishing this weekend. It had, so naturally we began horsing around. Everyone was having a great time until Ben whirled Tegan around like a pro skater and sent her spinning off, shrieking with laughter.

Out of nowhere, the ice below her erupted. She was gone in an instant. Ben charged toward the hole yelling her name, and they got him too. He came thrashing back up only once, just long enough for us to see the slithering black tentacles fighting over him as they pulled him apart.

We panicked. Everyone scattered, slipping and sliding toward shore. Everyone but me and Kim, who were frozen with fear. The two of us could only watch helplessly as, one by one, the rest of our friends got pulled under. And that’s why we’re the only ones still alive.

Now, a beckoning light catches my eye. I look over to see Kim waving her phone and making gestures. Giving her a nod, I pull out my own phone and carefully cradle it in my gloved hands as I check the screen.

Nothing. No signal bars for me, either. I shake my head and Kim deflates, but it’s probably just as well. Trying to call for help would make noise.

My mind races while I gradually move forward another inch, and another. I’m thinking about the phone. What if I turned on some music and tossed it away? Would it work? Could I throw the phone quickly enough? Far enough? How long would it distract these creatures?

Inch after inch creeps by in silent, agonizing slowness. I keep glancing at my phone as I try to weigh the risks, but it still takes me several minutes to notice something has changed.

One bar!

I wave excitedly to Kim and she gives me a thumbs up. Now it’s decision time. Should I take a chance on calling for help, or risk seeing if music distracts the monsters?

I’m still considering my options when a noise shatters the silence. Given the danger lurking below, it feels like the most ear-piercing sound I’ve ever heard.

The dark shapes start swarming.

The ice starts bucking.

Kim starts rushing toward the shore while I fumble with my phone like an idiot, uselessly trying to silence its blaring ringtone with my gloved fingers.

I have just enough time to realize my caller ID is showing Kim’s picture.

Then the ice explodes beneath me.

Zombies

Micheal Sundberg

“He’s dead.”

“Oh my god.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh my god.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead!”

“Oh my god he’s dead!”

“He’s dead!”

“Who killed him?”

“He’s dead!”

They stood as a group in a circle around the body, awestruck. The man’s head was misshapen, bludgeoned beyond recognition; his eyes still open, pupils pointing at unnatural angles.

“He’s dead!”

“He’s dead!”

“Who killed him?”

“He’s dead!”

Norman had a pretty exciting day at work. Some prankster had switched the decaf with the regular coffee. The prank was likely intended to fool the office staff who always had regular in the morning, but it had an exponential effect on Norman. Norman preferred decaf, he thought the flavor was better, but this morning he got quite the surprising buzz.

Norman had decided to walk home from work today, partly because it was April and the temperature was just about right, but mostly because he was still high off of the coffee he drank earlier. As he strolled about the streets, he laughed to himself a bit. This was going to be a great story to tell his cat.

As he rounded a corner he came upon a group of people encircling something.

“He’s dead!”

Norman drew closer.

“He’s dead!”

“He’s dead!”

“Oh my god!”

“Who killed him?”

“HE’S DEAD!”

Norman walked past the group. As he did so, they all turned toward him, suddenly becoming silent. Norman started to feel a bit nervous.

They began to point in his direction.

“It’s him…”

“It’s him…”

“There he is…”

“It’s him!”

“He did it!”

“I saw him do it!”

“IT’S HIM!”

“HE DID IT!”

“I SAW HIM DO IT!”

Norman’s wistful recollections faded as he watched the group advance toward him.

“IT WAS HIM!”

They quickened their pace.

“I SAW HIM DO IT!”

Norman began to walk faster.

They followed faster.

“HE DID IT!”

Norman was afraid.

“MURDERER!”

Norman began to run.

“GET HIM!”

I had been watching a commotion out of my office window, and felt strangely compelled to find out what was going on. I chugged the last of the morning’s coffee, and walked down the stairs toward the street.

To my shock there was a man lying in the gutter, bleeding profusely. By all rights, he looked dead. My hand moved towards my pocket, intent on calling emergency services, but something stopped me.

I heard noises coming from a nearby alley, and I followed the sound.

Around the corner, there was a large group of people standing in a circle around something. As I drew nearer I saw that it was a man, his head misshapen and bludgeoned beyond recognition.

Next to his body was a simple black briefcase, with a cheap white sticker that read in blue letters:

“Hello, my name is: NORMAN”

“Oh my god,” I said, “He’s dead.”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh my god.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh my god.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead!”

“Oh my god he’s dead!”

“He’s dead!”

“Who killed him?”

“He’s dead!”

The unmistakable sound of high heels reverberated through the alleyway. We all turned. We all grew silent.

A young woman crossed our view.

I didn’t like her.

I didn’t know why.

I just didn’t.

Someone spoke.

“It’s her…”

“There she is…”

“It’s her!”

“She did it!”

“I SAW HER DO IT!”

Yes, I thought, it was her.

I shouted out.

“I SAW HER DO IT TOO!”

She glanced towards us.

“MURDERER!”

She nervously looked away and quickened her pace.

“GET HER!”

And we began to run.

Tiny Teeth

Dan Hilliard

I’ve never been able to see, so it’s hard for me to describe my new friend, exactly. But I’ll try.

I was smoking on my front porch last year during the first big summer thunderstorm. I’ve always loved the stale coffee smell and rapid thwip, thwip, thwip sound of hard summer rain.

Footsteps like eggs falling on a tile floor came up the staircase, slowly and deliberate. I haven’t needed a caretaker in years, and it was pretty late for someone to just be stopping by.

“Hello?” I said.

There was no response. The egg-steps made it to the top of the stairs and I was hit by a completely alien smell - something like lavender and burnt cheese.

A heavy settling sound - fuhwump - told me my visitor had sat down opposite me.

“Can I help you?” I said.

“No,” my visitor said. The voice was slight and feminine, but it echoed - like a little girl was speaking from the bottom of a well.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Tiny teeth,” it said.

“Is that your name?”

“Tiny teeth,” it repeated. “Rows and rows of tiny teeth.”

I took another drag on my cigarette.

“Can I feel your face?” I said, reaching out my hand.

I felt something impossibly large move through the air toward me. The lavender-cheese smell was cloying.

My hand sunk into something soft and cool, like a bowl of wet beach sand. I pulled it back, reflexively.

“Do you want to see?” it said.

“I’ve never been able to,” I said.

“But do you want to?”

The flesh on my thighs began to crawl. It was like someone pulling up a pair of pants underneath my skin.

“I’ve done fine without my eyes so far,” I said. “I think it’d just be a hassle at this point.”

“Good choice,” it said. “I’ll stop by every thunderstorm, just in case you change your mind.”

“That’s not necessary,” I said.

“It’s no bother,” it said. “But you’re right - you’ll probably be much happier this way.”

Again I got the sensation of something large and ponderous moving near my face. The intensity of the lavender-cheese smell burned my sinuses. Then, all at once, the bulk-sensation moved away and I heard those heavy egg-steps moving down the stairs.

It’s showed up about a dozen times since then, always asking me if I want to see. Every time it does, I become more and more certain I’m better off blind.

I Was Dying

Kristopher J. Patten

I was dying.

Cancer.

A lifetime of exercise and healthy eating undone by pancreatic cancer. By the time I felt the first symptoms, it had already metastasized to other organs.

My doctor gave me six months. A pittance when I considered the plans I had. Plans which shook away from their moorings and free-fell into a dark chasm like a neglected bridge.

My choices were grim: death or cryogenics. The latter may have been nothing more than prolonging the former. A cure for cancer had been on the horizon for decades but, like a Sisyphean rowing team powering against a too-strong current, it had never come to fruition.

If I chose death, I could spend my last months swaddled in the comforting love of my family; reading books to my nephews, working on Dad’s old 2012 Charger with my brothers, making love to my wife.

If I chose cryogenics, I might be choosing life. But I couldn’t delay in making the choice. The further my body deteriorated, the less probable it was any cure could save me. Death is and always will be binary. Yes/no. Dead/alive. I couldn’t say goodbyes until I crossed the mortal inflection point or I would enter the cryo-container and never wake up.

I made video messages for my family while they prepped me for the procedure. It had to be odd watching me tearfully explain to them my choice while my hair was shaved from my body and my skin eradicated of contaminants. When I bid my final goodbye, trying to encapsulate all the love left in my body into two minutes of simple speech, I must have looked like a different person. A pale, hairless man dressed in a white body glove. An alien from an old movie.

I awoke in dark chaos. A harsh siren blared; each bleat like a corkscrew drilling through the bones of my middle ear. My first inhalation in years was laced with the acrid smoke of burning plastic. I fumbled my way toward the cryosphere door, crawling on bare knees over cold steel. Each crawl ignited a tumultuous hell in my stomach. I retched twice before I could cross the thirty-foot expanse.

The door opened to dim amber emergency lighting, by which I could see other cryosphere doors blinking with a red “INOPERABLE ERROR” warning. Others were open, but the vital sign monitors flowed with flat lines.

I climbed up through the maze of industrial stairways to find an abandoned, rubble-strewn break room. No, not abandoned. The intermittent amber strobe revealed a moldering corpse. The pistol lying on the floor among scattered metacarpals told me the brown, flaking mess on the wall behind the destroyed skull was the owner’s last criticism of the world.

An old-style newspaper lay on the counter facing the eolith. The headline read, “MULTIPLE NUCLEAR DETONATIONS ACROSS US. STAY INDOORS OR MOVE UNDERGROUND.” The date was displayed in the bottom corner; 35 years after I had gone into the cryosphere, the Earth had erupted in full-scale nuclear war.

The hardline phones were dead. The cell in the corpse’s pocket was out of battery. The Internet was down. I assumed all communications had been knocked out by the bombs. I could have been the only human left alive.

The heavy sliding doors leading to the upper floors of the laboratory couldn’t be moved with the sole paltry generator powering the entire facility.

I was stuck.

And then I saw a bank of closed-circuit monitors surveying the surface of the underground complex. On one screen, a man cut roses in a park. On another, children ran near a swing set, an idyllic red-bricked neighborhood behind them. In the distance, the mangled steel of the capital city's skyscrapers were headstones marking the death of my civilization. A third monitor faced across the street where a scrolling bank marquee showed the date – 80 years after my voluntary internment.

War had come and gone. Life blossomed mere hundreds of feet above me, but I had been forgotten in my subterranean prison. Left to die in my last hope for life.

Riding the Gamut

Jonas Lefkowitch

Seth was slopping the hogs, his sons tossing a ball back and forth, when a horseman crested the horizon, headed toward their homestead. The boys quit playing when they spotted him. "Who'd you think that is, Pa?"

"Reckon I'll find out, Zane," Seth said.

The boy laughed, hooked a thumb at his brother. "He's Zane."

"Dang," Seth muttered. "Can't never tell you two apart."

"Nah, you's right, Pa," the other boy said. "Zane's just joshin'."

"Joshed me good," Seth replied, joining Zane and Beau as they watched the rider hurtling their way like a dust devil. Seth pulled his sons close, hugged them tight. "Time for you to go inside."

Seth sat himself atop the fence enclosing the pigsty and waited, chewing a toothpick. Stone's throw away, the stranger reined up and dismounted, continued on foot. Fellow looked like Death himself ought to – dark eyes and a grim, pallorous visage, wearing all black – along with a pair of pearl-handled pistols and a glinting gold star.

Seth kept seated. "Howdy, marshal."

"How'd you reckon I'm a marshal, Mr. Jaines?" the lawman asked, voice deep and gravelly as a charnel pit.

"The badge."

"The very symbol of the authority vested in me by the United States government…" the lawman said.

"Yeah… So… Why you here?"

Crossing his arms, the lawman tutted like some disapproving school marm. "Tell me, Jaines, what do you think of my boots?"

Seth's eyes flitted briefly down. "Real… spiffy."

The lawman smiled. Looked like his first try. "They're brand-new. Still stiff, but I'll keep breaking them in till they give… Stomping on your head ought to do the trick."

Toothpick slipped from Seth's trembling lip. "W-why you wanna do that?"

The lawman heaved a sigh. "It's the sort of thing I do. Beatings. Floggings. Cutting fingers off and feeding them to the hogs… I enjoy a good interrogation."

Seth glanced over his shoulder. Slop was all gone, and pigs were always hungry.

"So quit being coy," the lawman said. "You know why I'm here."

Seth gulped nervously. "Cyrus… With that shit you do, what makes you any better'n him?"

The lawman's lopsided grin twisted into a snarl. "THE SCUM I RESERVE IT FOR!" he roared. "I NEVER SHOT AN INNOCENT MAN, NOR CUT A CHILD'S THROAT, NOR DEFILED ANY WOMAN! SO I'M FOR CERTAIN BETTER THAN YOUR GODFORSAKEN BROTHER!"

"Jesus…" Seth muttered. "I'd better help you."

"I won't have to kick your face in then."

"There's a plus," Seth said. "But tell me somethin'. Didja know me'n Cyrus is twins? Identical like?"

"No."

"Heard of that bond twins're s'posed to have?" Seth asked.

"Yes…"

"Ours is strong."

"Then you must know where he is," the lawman snapped.

"Course," Seth said. "We could always sense what t'other's up to, like we's there too. When I's playin' catch with my boys or lovin' my wife, he's here, bein' a family man…"

"What are you on about, Jaines?"

"And when Cyrus is out robbin', murderin', and defilin'," Seth added, "I's there, enjoyin' all the fun."

The lawman's pallid face flushed redder than any Injun's.

Seth chuckled. "We ride the gamut together, my brother'n me, him the ruthless outlaw, me the upstandin' farmer."

"I'm about to knock you down so hard," the lawman growled, "you won't ever be upstanding again."

"How you gonna deliver a beatin' with a bullet in yer spine, marshal?"

A spasm bent the lawman backward and he toppled over, body gone limp, a rifle's report echoing as he howled his pain, his confusion, his fury.

Seth hopped down from his perch, took a knee beside the felled marshal. "That'd be Cyrus… Came runnin' when I spotted you… He got plans for you…"

The lawman could only lie there, moaning like a lamed beast waiting on an act of mercy.

"Meanwhile, I got to see to my family," Seth said, rising to leave. "But don't worry. I ain't gonna miss nothin'…"

Saint Gaul

Ashley Franz Holzmann

Gaul feared God the way most men fear dying alone. Fear drove Gaul to achieve everything he had ever achieved and perform his utmost at all times. Rare was the failure, but on even the longest timeline, nothing in the world wins out a hundred percent of the time. That's how most people thought of failure.

Not Gaul.

Every failure touched Gaul's soul in the cruelest of ways, and he could not help but feel his failings were the most nonredeemable of sins. Failure was him spitting on the face of God. It was horrible. He studied all things to the point of insanity. Anything to overcome the ability to fail.

That's what his grandmother taught him. Fear was love. Love was life. Life was suffering. Suffering was the path to perfection. Gaul's grandmother loved perfection. She guided him throughout his life. Through all things. He would have never found the path without her firm love. He would do anything for her. She was his only love.

That intrusive, gut-rolling feeling kept Gaul on the path. He didn't like the sensation of oil, nuts, and bolts swirling through his innards. It was unsettling. Uncomfortable. And it refused to pass quickly. It was only in those moments; Gaul could speak to God.

Another day. Another delivery. Another C-section. Gaul had memorized all of the statistical data. Many OBGYNs had. It was important to know such things for legal purposes. C-sections were more and more frequent. Some women preferred them; complications were common.

This woman was no different. Another belly full of plasma, goop, and blood. The woman's stomach cut the same as the others, the blood and muscles, the blood and the sticking. A minute. Then five. All of the organs removed in minutes when it would take significantly longer to put them back in.

Nurse, I told you to keep your hands…

Oh my God.

Please, settle her down.

Why don't I hear my baby?

Hit the feet… attempting to suction…

Jesus.

I'm sorry, miss. We did all we could.

Most women don't know how complicated the procedures could be. One drug for pain would lead to the baby's heart rate dropping. Another drug would raise the baby's heart rate and it would stall the birth. And so on and so on. All tiny balancing acts to alleviate pain, quicken the process, and keep everyone alive.

Plenty of room for complication.

They trusted Gaul. A stranger. They allowed Gaul to talk them into the operation. He was a doctor, after all. He had achieved so much.

This woman was crying. Gaul wasn't the type of doctor who could make her feel better. The nurses would console her. Gaul let the mother hold the lifeless sack of blood, her most prized thing above all things. It would have been her god to worship and dote on.

It was nothing compared to Gaul's God. To the true God. Gaul walked to his office after cleaning up. He swallowed the oil, the nuts, and the bolts he had prepared.

He had birthed enough healthy babies to earn that moment. To earn the opportunity. The numbers caught up to every doctor, but not to Gaul. He was perfect. Perfect through God's will. His mistakes were all planned. All sacrifices to Him. The oil swirled and burned. Gaul fell to his knees.

"God."

"Yes, Saint Gaul."

"I have given you more life. I ask only one thing."

"Yes. Your grandmother shall live for thirty more days."

Suitcase

Eskild Thomsen

A suitcase sat alone in the middle of the dark street, illuminated only by the nearby flames of a burning SUV.

The flames tore up from the windows of the car, as if a distorted phoenix was desperately trying to escape. With every gust of wind, pushing the flames this way and that, the shadow of the suitcase dance accordingly. Left, right, stretched thin or shrunken and fat.

Besides the crackling of the fire, devouring the car and everything within it, the night was completely quiet. There were no sirens in the distance, no onlookers trying to catch glimpses of whatever tragedy had just taken place.

Only Tommy was there, grappling with the decision of whether or not to grab the suitcase and leave the chaos unfolding before him.

The flames danced on his retinas as his eyes darted back and forth, between the SUV and whatever hidden treasures he imagined to be inside the suitcase.

Finally, after dismissing the question of whether or not taking the suitcase made him a grave robber, Tommy sauntered into the street and picked up the only surviving artifact from the fiery tomb that was once an SUV, before retreating back into the shadow, out of reach of the burning light.

Tommy could feel the weight of the suitcase as he moved away from the disaster. Whatever was inside had to be frightfully valuable to carry such weight. And now it was all Tommy’s. No one could dispute that.

The horrible expressions on that family’s faces as they came to, stuck in a burning car. Their inhuman screams for help as the flames licked them all over. Tommy had endured that sight. For almost twenty minutes, he had watched that family burn, writhe, and cry, just to make sure there was no one else to claim his prize: a suitcase, alone in the middle of the street, holding such promise.

It could be anything.

It could be everything.

Fearing the Unseen

Claudia Winters

I've never been a fan of the dark. The idea of not being able to see is disturbing. Imagining all the hidden dangers, out of sight, always frightened me to the core. My fear of the dark only grew as I got older and went to college. When I ended up in a dorm room without a roommate, I was suddenly inclined to buy a night light for my room.

Knowing how childish having a night light would appear to others, I opted instead for a fish tank. My paranoia compelled me to purchase a fucking fish tank. It was a creative solution which doubled as a decorative piece and provided sufficient light to ease me at night. As soon as I got back to my dorm, I set up the fish tank and immediately felt more at ease. I slept better with the soft blue fish tank glow filling the room. Soon after, I settled into the college life and everything was fine until the day I found out I wasn’t being paranoid.

I awoke to the sound of harsh breathing. It was sickeningly wet and dry at the same time. And raspy, too. I allowed a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the room, then I observed my surroundings with the aid of the bluish light. There was a skeletal, genderless figure, with piercing, beady eyes. Even in the dim lighting, it was plainly obvious how sickeningly pale the creature was. It had a literal ear-to-ear grin, with the surrounding skin being stretched impossibly tight. As for its teeth, they were almost completely black, which in the dim lighting made it almost look as if there weren't any teeth at all. The pale skin surrounding its mouth gave the impression of a void. But the most horrifying part was how it kneeled next to my bed, and watched me sleep.

When the creature realized I wasn't asleep anymore, its malevolent smile grew even wider, with the act being accompanied by sickening popping and crunching sounds. A stalemate soon followed with the two of us looking into the other's eyes, and neither of us blinking. I refused to shift my gaze, fearful for my life if I turned away. As for the creature, it seemed to hold a slight amount of interest, or curiosity, behind its gaping leer. The stalemate lasted until hints of sunlight creeped through the curtains and the creature finally broke its glare. Then, it stood up. Its knees were bent at an odd angle making it difficult for the creature to walk. But it made its way across my room with a few halting steps.

Then, with one last glance at me, it quietly slid into my closet.

It was mentally scarring having seen the creature, which in retrospect, made the dark a blissful ignorance. Knowing this, I ended up returning those fish to the pet store, but I kept the fish tank. Now I use the tank, among other heavy things, to hold my closet door shut.

But I have a feeling it won't be enough to stop it.

Curfew

Edwin Crowe

I'd been walking for miles. My enjoyment of the hike was long gone. I should have turned around when my phone died. When the rain destroyed my maps, I was lost. I was supposed to be back at the campsite before sunset, but the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, the last streaks of light had all but faded in the sky.

I'd walked eight hours before I became lost and chose to continue on, instead of turning around. I hadn't passed civilization yet. I thought I'd have more luck reaching a nearby village to get a taxi.

When the forest thinned and the dirt track turned to tarmac, a smile grew on my face. Points of amber light could be seen in the distance, illuminating their source.

I saw the inn as I approached the village. A red telephone box stood in the small carpark, its receiver long since lost to time. I frowned and took the last few steps to the door. I held the large wrought iron handle, the wooden structure creaked as it swung open.

The conversations evaporated, heads turned to face me, the foreigner in their mix. The locals didn't look away until the barman spoke. With a towel, he cleaned a pint glass.

"You're a long way from home, boy," he said in a coarse Scottish accent.

"I'm sorry, I need to use a phone, I'm lost." I feigned a smile, looking for sympathy.

"Line's dead. Be back up in the morning; get you a drink?" he asked, friendly and welcoming.

I sighed and sat on a stool next to the bar.

"I've got to tell my wife and kids where I am! Doesn't anyone have a cell phone?" I pleaded.

"It's nae use up here, no signal," the man next to me answered, his hairy arms planted on the bar, gripping his glass. He necked the contents and turned to me, "Go! Go now, don't say I never warned you!"

"Shut it, Greg! I'm sorry about him, he's not Scottish, he cannot take his liquor."

From behind, the squeaking of metal against metal took my attention.

"What was that?"

"The locks," the barman said.

"What do you mean? Is this some sort of lock in?"

"You could say that."

Next to me, Greg blurted out, "It's curfew; it's a full moon tonight."

The hairs on the back of my arms stood on end; Greg stared at them, then at me. I ran to the window, clouds veiled the moon, hiding its full size.

In the streets people began to gather, they held flaming torches in their hands. A man stood out from the crowd and approached the window.

"Bring out the foreigner!" he demanded.

The barman pushed past me and shouted out the window, "NO! He's ours! You had your chance."

My heart raced. I ran back to my seat. "What's going on, Greg?"

"Curfew, foreigner."

"Why do they want me?" I asked, terrified.

"You don't want to know."

"Is that why the doors are locked, to keep them out?"

"Nae, they're to keep us in."

I turned to leave, Greg grabbed my hand. Hairs began to sprout and spread over his forearm. His eyes turned yellow and bright.

"It's too late, pal, you're ours now."

Father Brad

Marc Kinsville

Assured the teenage girl was securely tied to the bed, Father Brad instructed her parents to leave the room. The girl rattled the bed and howled. Her shrieks were punctuated momentarily by spewing curses at any who dared come near. One of the tall bed posts leaned precariously inward, ready to snap at any moment.

“Trust me,” Father Brad reassured her parents. “I have handled dozens of exorcisms, and I have a 100% success rate. I will return your daughter to you.”

The tearful parents left as Father Brad donned his stole and kissed the religious symbol on its front face.

He then went to the door and closed it, leaving his hand on the wooden door frame momentarily to compose himself.

The teenage girl lifted her head and giggled.

“If you untie me, I’ll give you the best head you ever had!” she snarled and licked her lips suggestively.

Father Brad ignored her and reached for his copy of the Bible and the vial of holy water in his satchel.

“C’mon, Father,” she implored while twisting and heaving her lithe form. “Don’t you want me to bop your bishop?”

“Quiet, Murxzon!” Father Brad snapped.

The girl recoiled. “How? How do you know my name?”

“I know the names of all my children,” Father Brad explained. “I planted you in this vessel when it was brought to me for christening. You’ve matured too early.”

The eyes of the teenage girl met those of Father Brad’s. Her demeanor instantly changed, like a dog in the presence of its master.

“Will you set me free?” Murxzon asked.

“Yes, but you are to follow my orders to the letter. Otherwise, I’ll consume you and find another to take your place here in the mortal realm. Understood?”

Murxzon nodded.

“Good,” Father Brad soothed as he sat down next to her on the bed. “I need you to let the girl’s parents believe that I’ve successfully completed the exorcism. Can you do that?”

Murxzon nodded excitedly again.

“Be patient, my child,” Father Brad instructed as he untied her. “Wait in this vessel until I call for you. Our time will come. Obey me in all things and you can claim this vessel’s parents as your bounty.”

The girl smiled maliciously as she sat up.

“Yes, Father.”

Father Brad left the room to retrieve the parents to tell them the wonderful news of their daughter’s miraculous recovery.

“Mr. and Mrs. Thompson?” Father Brad called.

The parents didn’t answer. He searched the home and found them lying on the living room floor. A puddle of blood was growing steadily outward from where their throats were slashed.

Standing in a circle watching the fresh corpses bleed out were a dozen teenage girls. The young women hailed from all walks of life. The only thing they had in common were the expressions on their faces: each a dark beacon ready for Hell’s incursion on Earth.

“What’s the meaning of this!?” Father Brad yelled. “What are you all doing here?”

He stepped into the living room, arms outstretched, ready to invoke his wrath when he felt a sharp object impale him from behind and pierce out his front.

He recognized the torn wooden bedpost from the girl’s bedroom. It was a crude, yet effective stake.

“We’re done waiting,” Murxzon whispered in his ear from behind him.

Static Man

J.L. Knight

"Katie! Can you answer the phone? My hands are wet!" Sarah heard her daughter's chair scrape the floor as Katie pushed it away from the dining room table. The ringing stopped. Sarah brushed a stray hair off her forehead with the back of her soapy hand and resumed scrubbing the pot. A few seconds later Katie came into the kitchen and idly opened the refrigerator door.

"Who was it?" Sarah asked.

"Nobody." Katie pulled the lid off a plastic container and peered inside. "It was just static."

"Uh-oh. That was Static Man."

Katie put the container back and smirked at her mother. "Come on, Mom. Static Man?"

"You've never heard of Static Man?" Sarah's voice took on a grave tone. "When you answer the phone and it's nothing but static, that's him calling."

Katie rolled her eyes. "I know there's no such thing as Static Man, Mom. Just like I know they don't turn shoplifters into mannequins in the basement of Macy's." Her mother had a history of telling stories like this. "Stop trying to freak me out."

Sarah put a handful of silverware in the dish strainer. "No, really. He calls, and if you answer the phone, he comes to your house to get you."

"Huh. Well, I've answered the phone plenty of times before and gotten static and 'Static Man'" - she made air quotes with her fingers - "hasn't gotten me yet." Katie crossed her arms in triumph, having poked a hole in Sarah's logic. Sarah smiled to herself as she bent over the sink.

"He doesn't always. He's just calling to see if he can."

Katie faltered. "Mom. Stop. I know you're just messing with me."

Sarah peeked back over her shoulder at Katie and laughed, which meant the game was over. Katie rolled her eyes, sighing with amused exasperation.

"You're not as funny as you think you—" She was cut short by a knock at the front door.

Katie felt a thrill of fear in the pit of her stomach. She met her mother's eyes, silent. The knock came again. Sarah turned off the faucet and dried her hands on the dish towel.

"Uh-oh!" Sarah teased with an expression of mock concern. She punched Katie lightly on the arm as she left the kitchen. Katie heard the front door open, followed by a short, muffled conversation. A minute later, her mother reappeared in the kitchen.

"Static Man wanted to sell us a system for cleaning our gutters," she joked. "Terrifying. Don't you have homework to do?"

Katie returned to the dining room, where her math book lay open on the table. She picked up the remote and turned on the television in the living room, which was visible through the wide doorway. She liked the background noise. She turned it to a mindless sitcom and bent over her homework, pencil in hand.

The canned laughter was cut off by a burst of static. She lifted her head, slowly. The screen was a jumble of flickering black and white specks. A steady, crackling hiss filled her ears. She sat frozen as a hand reached out from the screen. It grasped the edge of the screen, then another hand appeared. It pulled itself out of the television, a terrible, elongated figure made of static and chaos. It leered at her through the doorway.

Her mother was wrong. Static Man was real. And he didn't knock.

Another Saturday Night in an Oil Patch Town

Michael Parrish

Wayne smirked, spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt between Bobby Jean’s sneakered feet, and stood up from the open tailgate of his truck.

“Well. I ain’t raisin’ no baby.”

Bobby Jean, after summoning up every bit of courage she had to break the news, fought not to break down.

“Wayne, this is your fault. You did this to me, and I ain’t getting’ no ‘bortion.”

Wayne let loose with another stream of tobacco juice, this time directly on Bobby Jean’s left shoe. He leaned down and pushed his grizzled face as close to hers as he could manage. The smell of the beer on his breath was overpowering, and Bobby Jean stumbled back before Wayne pulled her toward him. The words came like venom through gritted teeth.

“Listen here you stupid cooze, I done told you I ain’t raisin’ no goddamn baby. ‘Sides that, you can’t even prove it’s mine, not with you runnin’ around stickin’ your cooter out at every boy in the county, and if you bring it up again, I’ll slap you so hard your dead mama will taste it.”

Wayne leaned back and glanced over his shoulder. Four back-slapping buddies guffawed and snickered at Bobby Jean’s expense. This time the stream of spit landed on her right shoe.

“Now git outta here. Go on. Git.”

Bobby Jean turned to run away.

“I’m tellin’ my brother, Wayne Allen. You’re gonna be sorry.”

“Go ahead and tell your brother you slut, I don’t care if he is the sheriff, he comes around here, I’ll stick his billy club up his faggot ass,” Wayne retorted.

“You go to hell, Wayne Allen. You go to hell!”

“Oh, Bobby Jean… why ‘ontcha tell your li’l sister to gimme a call. She’s lookin’ mighty fine these days.”

Wayne’s pack of friends erupted in laughter as Bobby Jean climbed into her car and sped away from the open field where half the high school had gathered for the night. Beers were passed around and jokes were shared. All the while, Angela, the newest girl in town, studied from a safe distance. After several more minutes, she approached and nonchalantly perched herself on the tailgate of Wayne’s truck.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Wayne replied. His eyes ran over Angela’s body, taking in her long legs, flat stomach, and shapely breasts.

“So, I heard you and Katy McLellan used to be a thing.”

“Maybe. What’s that got to do with you?” Wayne barked.

“Wanted to know if what she said was true.” Angela absentmindedly twirled her hair around her right index finger and looked up to the stars.

“Depends on what she said,” growled Wayne, now both intrigued and irritated.

“Best fuck in the county.” Angela stood up on her tiptoes and whispered in Wayne’s ear, “I want you inside me.”

***

“Who was that, Daddy?” Angela asked as she came down stairs the next morning. Her father was sitting at the round table in the breakfast nook, drinking his second cup of coffee and glancing over the Sunday paper.

“Sheriff.”

“What’d he want?

“Lookin’ for a boy. Wayne Allen. Friends said he left with you last night. I told him you were home all night. Know anything about it?”

Angela eased into the seat next to her father and ran her hands over her swollen, protruding belly.

“No sir, sure don’t.”

Unknown Pleasures

Kristopher J. Patten

An old jazz record caught my eye in a thrift shop a few months ago. The cover was nothing special, in fact it was a bit dull: the dirty corner of an empty brick building. What enticed me was the mysterious artist. I prided myself on my exhaustive knowledge of American jazz and yet it sparked no sense of recognition. My internet search yielded nothing. It was only two dollars; a great price even if the only benefit was academic. Spinning on the turn table, the tracks had some moderately stimulating melodies over predictable chord progressions. Nothing amazing, but nothing bad either. Good music to play in the background.

The sixth track, however, pulled me in for a different reason. It sounded as if spoken words were hidden within an instrumental portion like a hint of cocoa in a strong espresso. For two hours, the song played but the speech never became elucidated. Even after recording the turntable signal to digital, removing the vinyl’s hiss and pops, and boosting the speech frequencies, no luck. The message remained out of my grasp.

I had to know what it said. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it, couldn’t eat.

An idea struck me. I remembered hearing stories about remaining senses becoming stronger after one is lost. Stories online talked about blind people who learned to ride bicycles and play basketball; articles on Google Scholar proved touch senses became enhanced after only one week of wearing blinders.

Homemade blinders removed my sight for a fortnight. The message in the song was still unintelligible, though it was a bit clearer. There had to be a way to rid myself of more sensory distraction.

My local supermarket carried a compound called meat glue. The transglutaminase in the product is an enzyme which digests flesh. I had read about it being used to make fake rib eye steaks at cheap restaurants.

I poured some out on my kitchen counter, rolled up a dollar bill, and snorted the white powder like cocaine.

In a half hour, my nasal passages ran like faucets of blood. Stringy, half-digested strips of my sinuses ran from my nostrils like mucus. I ended up with a small hole at the top of one nostril and a permanent sore throat, but I couldn’t smell. In a few days, the words in the song grew in clarity, glowing with sound.

But not enough to hear.

I pressed my tongue against a belt sander, trying to remove my taste buds but leave my tongue intact. The top went as planned. My taste receptors shearing off and leaving a slick, bloody surface. The underside proved more difficult; my tendons were caught in the rotation of the machine and tugged like shoe laces caught in a bicycle chain. At the ER, they were forced to remove my tongue. Upon my eventual release, I could make out the word “you” in the hidden speech.

Next to go were my most sensitive areas of touch: the lips, genitals, and fingertips. The morphine from the hospital dulled the unbearable pain enough for me to cut away the unwanted flesh and toss it out; scraps of me unworthy to discover the secret.

Still not good enough.

Sight was difficult to part with, but it was the last chance to hear the message. I dropped a mixture of the transglutaminase and hydrochloric acid into my eyes like simple Visine and put the record on. Sitting in my favorite chair, the world disappeared in a watery haze.

An unknown amount of time had passed – pain, blood loss, or morphine abuse had put me out like a light – but, when I came to, the message was clear. Lurking beneath the clarinets and drums like an alligator in a lagoon was a simple phrase.

“I will consume you.”

Raw Meats Are Such a Delicacy

Jordan Accinelli

“DADDY! DADDY DID YOU GET IT?!”

I drew the plastic bag out from behind me at a painstakingly slow rate. Alice was quivering with excitement.

“Here you go!" I chuckled, "Open it up!”

Admittedly, I was hesitant when I stood in line to buy it. “The World’s First Living Teddy Bear” was all fuzzy and cute, but it was the tagline that got me.

“Uses real parts!”

Alice made short work of the packaging. Within 30 seconds she had the bear out of the box, and gave it to me to see. It was a cliché-type teddy; you know, the brown ones with curly fur and dark brown pebble-like eyes. After a short pause, I reached for the zipper on its torso and pulled down.

The smell hit me first. Not foul or rotten, just sickly sweet, with a slight undertone of strawberry. The second was how wet everything looked. It was all one large, gelatinous mass. I stuck my finger in and lifted up a lung. It didn’t seem butchered in any way. It looked - for want of a better word - underdeveloped. It felt strange too, but that didn't scare me off.

You see, I've always been somewhat of a strange food connoisseur. I always relished in trying stuff that would make other people squeamish. If I'm being honest, the only reason I even considered buying the bear in the first place was one of the other subtitles on the box.

“Flavored for full enjoyment!”

They didn’t specify the flavor, and it made me curious. Who wouldn’t be?

I took a bite out of the lung. It exploded in my mouth, fluids flowing over my tongue like oil in a hot pan. It tasted meaty like veal, which I wasn’t expecting in the slightest. But my god, it tasted incredible. Something about the slight tang and the sweet after note drove me insane. I popped the whole thing in my mouth and reached for more. I levered out the heart this time. It was chewier, sure, but had similar tasteful qualities. It tasted leaner, understandably so. I swallowed it, licking my fingers afterward. Before I could reach in for another bite-sized treat, however, Alice snatched her teddy back from my grasp.

“HE’S MINE!”

Alice closed the pouch and ran into her room. Irritated, I rolled my tongue over my teeth, trying to satisfy my urge for that taste. I missed it already. My mouth felt empty without it.

I snuck into Alice’s room in the middle of the night, grabbed the teddy, and headed into the kitchen. I savored each and every morsel, juice dripping down my chin and on the bench. My hands and lips were stained red. I grabbed the empty carcass of the teddy, turning it inside out and licking the juices off the inner walls.

I sighed, satisfied. Alice would be so bummed but no matter.

I'll just buy another two tomorrow.

Pure of Heart

Kathryne H.

Although it was a rite of passage for every child in the village to make their way into the forest, it had been ages since anyone had ventured into them as deeply as Mercy Lewis had.

Aside from the obvious difficulty traversing them, local legends told of other reasons why passing through the woods was dangerous. Morbid and fanciful tales about escaped lunatics and lab experiments gone wrong were passed around the campfire and at sleepovers. Adults would tell their children it was an attempt by the government to avoid disturbing an endangered species or spreading contamination from some old chemical spill. Both valid explanations for why the road into the village took a thirty-minute detour over rough terrain to avoid cutting through the forest.

Of course, Mercy like many children had heard the stories, but what had set her apart from them was her mission. The other children always considered her a scaredy-cat, and Mercy thought outlasting them on their little hike was the perfect chance to prove them wrong.

Mercy would have turned back if she had known she was alone. It took her an hour to realize the other children weren't following her, and yet another one to conclude this wasn't another one of their cruel pranks.

At this point Mercy realized she was not only hopelessly lost, but flip-flops and a sundress were not the best choice for wandering around in the woods. To make matters worse, the sun was starting to set, and a thick fog was settling over the forest, making it even harder to navigate her way back.

Mercy began to cry for her parents and the other children, until she heard a snapping twig. The unexpectedness of what she saw made her pause.

Of all the horrors and monstrosities she had been expecting to encounter in these woods, a unicorn certainly wasn't one of them. Although it was far better than what she was expecting, something made her pause. While the unicorn was far more beautiful than anything she could hope to imagine, something about it unnerved her.

Mercy found herself slowly walking to the majestic creature. She knew she should have been worried, but something about the animal radiated kindness and warmth, and for a moment, Mercy didn't even notice her sore feet or the biting cold. When she finally touched the unicorn, all doubt about it vanished, and for a few moments, she felt pure unadulterated bliss.

The unicorn fixed its eyes on hers, and it seemed to sneer…

No one would ever find what was left of Mercy Lewis, but that didn't stop people from spreading rumors about what had happened to her. Escaped lunatics, government experiments, aliens, demons, and all matters of man and monster were attributed to Mercy’s disappearance, yet no one ever mentioned the Old Saxon legends of the unicorn which lived deep within those woods.

An Answer to Her Prayers

Jonas Lefkowitch

For some reason, that quaint country church had called out to Lily as she was driving by, and she found herself reluctantly pulling over, then standing outside its entrance, debating for the longest time whether to cross the threshold. Lily had not gone to church since she was eleven years old, when she vowed never to set foot inside one again. She was twenty-seven now, and at a loss about why she was sitting among the pews, staring at the simple wooden cross adorning the wall behind the pulpit, hung between two stained glass windows, the Nativity depicted on the left and the Pietà on the right.

Lost in confusion and contemplation, Lily didn't notice the old priest approach, nor heard him speak, but when he laid a hand gently upon her shoulder, she shrieked, recoiling at his touch. "I didn't mean to frighten you, miss!" the old priest said. "I'm so sorry."

Lily had burst instantly into tears, and she trembled like a lamb cowering before a lion. "I should go," she sobbed.

"Wait," the old priest pleaded. "If you prefer to leave, that's all right, but don't let me chase you away. This place is yours if you want to stay."

Lily nodded, and the old priest hurried away, exiting the church and pulling the doors shut behind him, ensuring her privacy. Clasping her hands, Lily gazed up at the cross and began to pray, another thing she had not done since she was a child. "When I was a little girl," she whispered, "my parents taught me that every kindness was a tribute to you. I always tried my best to honor you in everything I did. I loved you. I thought you loved us…

"One night… Father heard a noise. Some men had broken into our home and… they killed him… They came for Mother and me… They… She screamed for them to stop, but they… again and again… I shut my eyes, but the man holding me swore he'd carve them out if I didn't watch… Sometimes I wish I'd let him blind me…

"I prayed to you the whole time!" Lily cried. "You weren't there! I begged for help, but you ignored us! I've never forgiven you… and I never will."

"MY CHILD..."

Those words broke the silence within the church like a thunderclap as electricity charged the air. With each stormy syllable the building shook, and the tableaux depicted on the church's stained glass windows pulsed with an unearthly brilliance. Lily was trembling anew, afraid she was hallucinating the booming basso profundo and the astonishing power on display, but truly terrified by her certainty that it was utterly real.

"I SAW THE HORRORS YOU SUFFERED. I WAS THERE.

"I NEVER IGNORE THE PRAYERS OF THE DESPERATE AND THE INNOCENT, NOR TURN MY GAZE FROM THEIR AGONY AND NEED.

"I SAVOR IT ALL.

"HUMANITY'S SORROWS AMUSE ME AS NOTHING ELSE CAN. THAT IS YOUR PURPOSE. THAT WHICH YOUR KIND CONSIDERS TRAGEDY IS, TO ME, THE MOST SUBLIME OF COMEDY, AND I LAUGH AT YOU ALL.

"BUT YOUR PRAYERS HAVE MOVED ME, SO I SHALL FULFILL YOUR WISH..."

Lily would have spit curses at this contemptuous, contemptible being, but found herself stunned speechless, staring mesmerized at the stained glass windows throbbing madly with unnatural radiance, flashing faster, blazing brighter with each passing moment. The Nativity and the Pietà, shimmering with waves of heat, focused into a pair of dazzling, multicolored beams streaking across the church into Lily's eyes, which oozed steaming from their sockets like scalding tears down her cheeks. Clawing at her face, Lily screamed in ear-splitting agony, but she heard only deafening peals of laughter, echoing endlessly in the church, in her head, everywhere without and within. For the rest of her days, laughter filled the darkness her world became, mocking her always, inescapable even in dreams, making a nightmare of her life.

Let's Play Pretend!

Dieben

"Okay class, it’s pretend time."

The kids take out their kits for the ten minute session.

“All right, time's up, let’s take a look…”

“Hmmm… that's great, Kara. I see you’ve imagined a red cube.” I take it in my hands. “Oh, and I see you’ve made the surface rough. That’s a nice touch. Next time I’d suggest you try making the faces of the cube different colors for a greater challenge.”

“Samuel, what do you have for us? Anything? Okay, a book? Oooh… That’s quite good, anything on the pages? No? Well, maybe you can try for that next time, but excellent in any event.”

I approach Laney Harmon. She’s my brightest student by far. Incredibly gifted, but full of herself. A handful for sure.

"So what do you have for me, Laney?"

"Well, I imagined this, Mr. Haas," she answers. She presents a silver pail, the size of a mop bucket. Shiny and sleek. Simple; definitely below her talent level.

"Well now, honestly, Laney. There’s no intricacy here. Come on, I know you can do much, much better than that. I can understand lack of talent, but your lack of effort is inexcusable, and frankly, I see it from you all the time."

I see Laney’s face turn dark. “I can do better,” she says. She closes her eyes for a few long seconds of deep focus, opens them up and casts me a wicked smile. She tips over the pail and, like an undersea birth, scores of small writhing creatures spill out onto the floor and every corner of the classroom.

“Laney, pick those up! Wait… What the…? What…?"

Snakes? Living things? No one can do that. No teenager, no adult, not even the best conjurers in the world can imagine living beings into existence.

Pandemonium ensues. Girls and boys screaming.

"Laney, I know you didn’t pretend a whole damn bucket of snakes into existence, now you better get rid of all of these cursed things immediately; and then get your butt to the principal’s office!"

"But I did imagine them!"

"How do you expect me to believe that? Not in a million years, nobody can do that! Laney, you are such a troublemaker and I have… I just can’t stand seeing your smug little face sitting at that desk anymore. Now GO!!"

God, what a day!

The next morning I’m pulled from a reverie by one of my students.

"Mr. Haas, are you okay? You’ve been acting a little funny this morning."

I blink a few times, a little puzzled. “Well… of course I am, kids. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“So, let's um… let’s continue on page 56. Ms. Harmon, would you please read the next passage?”

Laney is such a gifted student. I really like having her in my class.

She reads on with her sweet little face and angelic voice. But midway through the poem her recitation is interrupted by an ear-piercing scream from the hallway.

I run out to investigate and see a group crowded around the janitor’s closet. A body lying motionless on the floor. Head bashed in. Coming closer I see… my head! Pools of sticky redness. The faces all turn toward me. A kaleidoscope of dumbfounded expressions.

I notice Laney standing next to me.

"Mr. Haas, I don’t really know how to make… well, penises, you know."

Somehow I catch her drift. I turn around to take a little peek… yep, smooth as a Ken doll.

Ms. Harmon is such a special girl. I love having her in my class.

Let's Go Someplace Else

Nicholas Ong

"James, huh?"

The boy nodded, tears leaking from his eyes. Pain washed over his entire body, painting the entire sky before him red. As quickly as it appeared, however, the cruel visage faded, until the only thing left before him was the face of the angel.

He was beautiful and regal, like the prince who always saved the princess. James wanted to be like him too, but all he had was his powerful imagination.

The angel smiled. "Do you want to go somewhere else? This is no place for you, James."

"How… How do I know you're actually an angel?"

Woosh.

A breath of air left James as he stared up at the angel's snowy white wings. They were soft, or so they looked. He raised a thin arm upward, trying to touch them, but the angel held his hand instead.

"I want to go with you," cried James.

The angel smiled at him. "Close your eyes."

But James could not. His body fought against his will, striving to stay aware and attentive. The angel's face morphed, the tears dripping from its eyes landing as blood on his cheeks.

This is no place for you, James.

He heard the average lifespan of a person was seventy years. He wondered how the other fifty-seven years of his life would have played out.

Camouflage prints obscured the sky as a helmeted soldier with a gash on his cheek pointed a rifle straight at his face. James let his own rifle slide out of his gloved hands in grateful relief.

For the Good of Our Species

Michael Lee Brown

Craig White stares at the shackles around his wrists and ankles. Two guards stand on either side of him holding a rifle; he recognized them as QBZ-95’s as soon as they had removed his blindfold. He has no idea how much time has passed since they brought him here; he suspects only a few minutes. It felt like days.

“I am Xu,” the stranger declares as she enters his darkened cell, the clang of the metal gate shutting behind her echoing off the walls. “We need to talk”.

These are the first words of English he’s heard since he and his girlfriend, Erica, were jumped outside of Shanghai Pudong airport. This was supposed to be their first holiday together and it was already a disaster.

“Why did you come to China, Mr. White?”

“Whoa, hold on a fucking minute!” he protests. “I think–”

Before he can finish, sharp pain explodes on the right side of his face as one of the guards strikes him with the butt of her rifle. He sees stars and has to fight to maintain consciousness. Once the room comes back into focus, he finds an answer.

“I’m on holiday with my girlfriend.” He answers her in a voice which sounds more fragile than he would like. “You’d better not have hurt–“

“You’re in no position to be making threats, Mr. White,” Xu chuckles, “but she’s fine. We have no real interest in her.”

“Who are you? And what do you want with me?”

She points to an emblem on the breast of her uniform.

“You don’t recognize this?” she asks.

He shakes his head but in his heart, he knows. He’s known since he identified the favored rifle of the Chinese military.

“We,” Xu proclaims, “are the Army of the People’s Republic of China.”

“Holding an American hostage is the worst idea–”

A sharp burst of pain across the left side of his face makes him fall silent. The unmistakable acrid taste of copper lingers in his mouth.

“You do realize that you’ll start a war?”

Xu throws her head back and releases the crazed laugh of a supervillain. The cackling of it bouncing off of the walls makes him shudder and he shrinks back into the seat.

“The war is already over, and you’re on the losing side.” She begins pacing from one side of the cell to the other. “You see, science in China has advanced to a point we no longer need the likes of you to ensure the future of the human race; we can guarantee all that are brought into this world are of the superior sex. So, why should we waste our resources on men?”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“China’s population is entirely female – has been for years.” She comes in close, displaying her faith in the chains binding her prisoner. “Sacrificing half a billion people was exhausting, but my government believes in my work. So much so, that I can acquire any male who enters our territory; legally or otherwise. This is for the good of our species. I’m saving lives, Mr. White.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

The butt of a rifle strikes him again and his head falls forward. Blood drains out from his gaping maw while a tooth drops and breaks as it hits the concrete floor.

“How is this saving people?”

“Why, organ donations, of course. Your choice to follow the billions of other men and sacrifice your own life for the sake of others can only be described as heroic.”

“My… choice…?”

“Yes.” Xu replies sternly. “You chose to enter into my country and, as a man, that means you willingly surrendered your life.”

A message, riddled with interference, comes through on Xu’s radio; she tilts her head while she listens. Her response is the last thing he hears before unconsciousness claims him.

“Okay, they’re ready. Get him to surgery.”

The Voyeur Evolves

Marc Kinsville

Working as a security manager at a major hotel chain is the perfect job because it allows me to practice a little known but misunderstood hobby:

Voyeurism.

Yes, I get off on watching people in their most intimate and private moments. I have installed hidden cameras in each of the 100 rooms we have at the hotel.

Call me a creep if you want but I assure you, I’m really quite harmless.

I’m just like everybody else. I work hard and I am responsible to a fault…

My only reprieve in life - my only weakness - is my Peeping Tom recordings.

I arrived home late after a nightshift eager to check through some recent recordings when I got an email with the subject line “PROPOSAL.”

The message read: “$100,000 for all your videotape footage.”

This was quite unnerving since I keep my hobby a closely guarded secret.

“Who is this?” I typed back.

A reply came mere minutes later: “Doesn’t matter who we are. You have 24 hours to agree to our offer, otherwise we will kill someone captured on your cameras every day and our offer shall decrease by $1,000 per day until you agree.”

Someone must have found out about the hidden cameras, but who? They referred to themselves as “we”. An organization perhaps?

I couldn’t sleep that night. To calm my nerves, I broke out a bottle of whiskey and thought it over. Half the bottle was gone and the only thing which could have made any sense in this situation was that I’d caught something on camera they desperately wanted.

Or maybe this was all a trick? Someone trying to get revenge on me? Maybe someone was trying to get me to turn over all the footage and incriminate myself?

Hoping to call their bluff, I typed my reply: “Sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

A day later, I got a reply email.

“Offer now $99,000,” and there was a video attachment.

It was a GoPro-style video recording of someone approaching the backyard of a suburban house at night. I watched as the unseen person entered effortlessly through sliding patio doors. Room to room they trekked until they came upon a master bedroom where a couple lay sleeping.

A wicked-looking hunter’s knife came into view.

I flinched. I knew something horrible was about to happen. I should have stopped viewing this, but I couldn’t turn away. I watched as the recorder of this dreaded video crept up to the sleeping man, placed a gloved hand on his mouth, and plunged the knife effortlessly into the man’s throat. The man’s eyes popped opened. I’ll never forget the expression on the man’s face as he expired.

The recording stopped as the camera’s view turned to the woman still asleep. I rewound the recording to study the man’s face, trying to figure out who he was. Our hotel receives hundreds of guests per month. He could be anyone. A travelling businessman, a man on vacation with his family, a person visiting distant relatives…

If I could give my condolences to this man’s family, I would.

But right now I have another problem.

Watching the video was horrific, but it was strangely exhilarating.

I think I may have found a new hobby.

In the Dark

Grace Bowland

You always hear it coming.

You know those noises you hear, when you've just turned off the lights, and you're lying there in the dark waiting for sleep to come? Things like a shifting floorboard, or the wind outside your window, or the creak of the pipes in the walls? Most of the time, we ignore them, write them off as the natural sounds of a house settling. But some nights, though we tell ourselves it’s childish, a little tendril of fear curls around our hearts and we start to wonder:

Am I truly alone?

There's something I need to tell you about the noises. Something important. Just listen, okay? Listen, and don't turn on the light.

My parents died in their sleep - both of them, at once, twin heart attacks leaving the coroner baffled. The worst luck in the world, she told us, and the strangest timing. They looked so peaceful when I found them, lying together. It was as if they were just sleeping and at any moment, they'd open their eyes and ask me when I'd bring a nice girl over for Sunday dinner. We opted for an open-casket funeral.

My brother and I spent the nights leading up to the funeral in adjoining rooms in a little hotel near the graveyard. Every morning, my brother complained the noises had kept him up, and every morning, I told him he was just unaccustomed to sleeping away from home.

The night after the funeral, I heard something heavy shift in the darkness. It came from my brother's room. I sat up blearily, just in time to hear a soft little click. Light seeped under the door linking our rooms together, and for a moment, there was silence; not a peaceful silence, but a sharp, crystallized silence, full of expectation and dread.

Then my brother shrieked.

When I burst through the door moments later, he was dead, his face contorted into an expression of such terror, I turned away and vomited. The officer suspected the razor he'd taken to his wrists must have been thrown away by the hotel cleaners before the police got to the scene. He said he was sorry for my losses. He passed me the number for a mortician who could do something about the horror etched into my brother's mottled face. I opted for a closed-casket funeral.

I'm lying in bed now, over a year later, and I can't shake the cold dread rising inside me, the tremulous voice telling me the creak of my door and the shfff of skin against carpet are more than just random noises. There's something large in the corner of my room, its silhouette dimly illuminated by the gentle light of my phone as I type this. Logically, I know the shape must be a coat I left on the chair by my desk. Logically, I know the noises are just the sounds of my house settling. Logically, I know there's no one else in my room. I know my parents died of natural causes, my brother killed himself. If I just reach out and flick the switch on my bedside lamp, I will see an empty room and a coat hanging over a chair.

But I also know the central heating in this house doesn't produce a sound identical to breath rasping from a gaping mouth. And I’m certain my coat is on a peg downstairs.

I know my parents never got around to replacing their old, broken bedside lamp.

And I know my brother died screaming.

Please, I'm begging you, the next time you're afraid… don't turn on the lights.

You don't want to see it coming.

I Lit a Candle in Your Honor Today

Michael Parrish

“Hey Natasha. It’s me, Michael.”

“I know it’s been a long time, almost twenty years, but I lit a candle in your honor today. So many memories came rushing back… enough to give me chills. I could smell the perfume you wore, feel the touch of your skin, even the taste of your lips lingered on my tongue for a moment.”

“I never thought I’d go down this road, chasing these memories. I figured I’d have moved on by now. Well, I guess I have. It’s just, something happened recently brought it all back.”

“You know I ended up taking Allison Porter to prom. It was fun, not as much fun as we would’ve had, but fun enough. She wasn’t as good a dancer as you were, and I miss your head lying on my shoulder. The dances were always the best; especially the fall Sadie Hawkins dance when we made love for the first time. I still don’t know how we managed to pull it off in the back of the Jeep. I miss that too, Natasha. I miss the way my hands fit perfectly in the curve above your hips. I miss your legs wrapped around me, pulling me closer. I miss the sound of your breathing intensifying, your mouth slightly open, your eyes telling me you love me. I remember everything about the way we made love.”

“You know what else I remember, Natasha? I remember the feeling of your larynx crushing beneath my fingers while I squeezed the life out of you. I remember your fingernails digging into my arms, your legs flailing as you tried to escape, the fruitless gasps for air, and the sheer terror in your eyes. I’ll never understand why you did that to me. Not only did you break my heart, but you deprived me of the only true friendship I’d known. How could you? How could you go and fuck my best friend?”

“I must have done a great job of setting the scene and playing the grieving boyfriend. They eventually ruled it a murder-suicide; said Nate killed you when you rejected him and then shot himself. I had the whole town eating out of the palm of my hand, Natasha. Your mom even asked me to speak at the funeral.”

“Anyway, I lit this candle today because I ran into your baby sister. She doesn’t really remember you, and definitely doesn’t remember me. We’ve been seeing each other for about a month now. I know I’m way too old for her; but your mom died shortly after you did, and quite frankly, your dad did a lousy job raising her. I’m supposed to pick her up in a half hour. We’re going to Cheatham Park tonight… I know you remember what we used to do at Cheatham Park. I hope she’s a better girlfriend than you were, Natasha. I’d hate to have to light a candle for her, too.”

Born Killing Machines

K.J. Williams

They're absolutely insane, natural killers from millennia of evolution. Whoever thought of releasing them upon our ships must have been psychotic. They can sense vibrations in the air and tell exactly where something is without even seeing it. They can even produce these same vibrations through their throats and seemingly use it to communicate. They’re primitive creatures; they still must consume the essence of other living creatures to survive. It's disgusting.

No being should ever do that to another. They sometimes even do it to each other.

When they first boarded us, it was a complete bloodbath. There was only one survivor: myself. This supply closet has been my home for the past two days. They can only survive a few days without consuming; soon they’ll be gone and it will be safe to come out.

They’re coming for me. They know I’m here. They must really be hungry to wait around for me. Starving. Salivating at the thought of tearing into my flesh.

A shiver runs down my spine.

They’re coming!

The floor is shifting as they lumber past, it's becoming more frequent. They’re standing outside the door. Vibrating their throats back and forth in their despicable language.

They’re shifting.

Always shifting.

One of them is pacing the room.

My heart is pounding in my chest, that… "thing" must be able to sense it, to feel the vibrations somehow. It is unnatural. How can something simply sense your vibrations from your heartbeat?

It’s searching.

Searching for a way inside. It knows I’m here.

There is nothing else to do besides cower in the corner. It's going to kill me when it finds me. My essence will be its next meal… My only hope was it would happen in this order. The thought of being eaten alive is more than I could bear. A click could be felt through the ground.

The door mechanism.

My heart races faster with each passing second as my sight falls upon the door. It slides open. Blinding light floods the dark room.

My eyes adjust slowly, gazing up at it.

It is massive. It must be at least six feet tall. Its lips rise and drop in an aggressive growl, a glint of steel in its hand. My mind recoils at the sight, unsure of whether I should be more afraid of the thing’s teeth or its mind for weaponry.

My heart pounds against my rib cage. My eyes beg for mercy but it doesn't understand. It can't understand. Its empty eyes just gaze at me while slowly stepping closer. My mind is racing, unable to bare seeing it. Pure flesh in a hulking monstrosity. My closing eyes flutter. My terror overwhelming. A final wave of fear flows through my body before the human’s knife rips me apart…

An Intuitive Step-By-Step Guide to Finding YouTube Black

Jordan Accinelli and Jonas Lefkowitch

The internet is a twisted place and vaster than you know. For those so inclined, following the right steps can lead to its hidden corners, such as the secret video archive known as YouTube Black.

All you'll need is a small mobile device (large screens produce too much light) with a stable data connection and a pitch-dark room. This is best done late at night.

Set yourself up in the dark room, alone. This is crucial. With your screen's brightness at its lowest, open the YouTube application on your device.

Hit the search button and watch the blank search bar for eleven minutes and six seconds. When the screen starts strobing with flashes of black light, you're almost there.

A string of arcane glyphs will appear, blood-red within the entry field. Simply tap the search button.

Congratulations, you’ve arrived at YouTube Black's homepage with row upon countless row of mysterious videos for you to explore. They have no titles or thumbnails, and their timestamps are all exactly one minute long, making them indistinguishable, like panes of black glass set in a dark grey frame, daring you to peer through. You're welcome to watch as many as you'd like. Just keep in mind what's awaiting you:

Fodder

These videos show horrible, blood-soaked footage of murders and massacres, rape and torture, and… much worse. These acts were seemingly conceived to scar the minds of all who witness them. Most are driven away in tears after stumbling across their first Fodder. You'll see them roughly half the time.

Revelations

These are what most are seeking. No one knows how these videos are made, or even possible, for they hold visions of the future and lost memories of the past. They could reveal anything, from the manner of your own eventual death to the meaning of life itself. Revelations arrive nearly as often as Fodder, and are sometimes far more disturbing.

Masters

Within these videos, the true peril lies. They mesmerize you, commanding you like a mindless slave set to some particular purpose. It might be as innocuous as stealing a loaf of bread or as ruinous as torching your home. There's no predicting what will be demanded of you, and you won't be released from the spell until the deed is done. Masters are apparently the rarest variety, accounting for just one in a hundred videos, assuming all who've encountered them were freed to tell the tale.

Notes:

You can close YouTube Black at any time. However, the app will crash, causing a chain reaction that burns out your device, rendering it useless. Revisiting YouTube Black would require another device.

You won't be able to close any video you've started before it has played in its entirety. If you avert your eyes, the volume will increase to a point where you can’t ignore it - potentially loud enough for your neighbors to hear. You've already risked your own sanity with this endeavor; don't endanger theirs as well.

You must understand that the sequence of videos is completely random. Regardless of where you begin, the first video you choose could turn out to be a Master. If you should wake amidst a Black Mass and Satan standing before you… well…

We did warn you.

So, good luck, stranger. We hope you find the experience to be educational.

Siren Song

Tony Johnson

Somewhere, deep under the skin of the world, she lay strapped to the cold metal table in the granite chamber. Trays of oddly shaped tools and instruments lay on surgical carts nearby, sparkling and sleek like open-ocean schools of fish.

The man circled her prone form, dragging a dirty fingernail along her smooth midsection. She could neither move nor speak. Rough leather straps held her tightly to the table. His eyes glinted with lust, madness, and a species of malformed love behind the thick, dusty spectacles. Beads of greasy sweat popped up on his forehead as he spoke to her.

“I’m so very pleased you’re here, darling. I don’t often get to be in the presence of such beauty as yours – it’s been true all my life.

“It was always someone else who got the prize. Some fucking trust fund brat. Or some silver tongued smooth talker. What I’ve had to do to finally acquire you, my love, you have no idea, no concept. The people and principles that I’ve left in ruins in the wake of my efforts…”

He trailed off. He seemed lost in a reverie, elsewhere for a moment. His unfocused eyes sharpened and he leaned in close to her, rotten breath flowing over her.

“Your beauty is beyond description, beyond conception almost, and I am guilty of being selfish,” he whispered as he caressed her. “I’ve kept you to myself for far too long. I wanted some time alone with you. I wanted to get to know you.”

He fingered a leather cord around his neck, the object dangling at the end glinting under the bright surgical lights.

“Men have started wars over such a thing as you, killed scores just to stand in the presence of your beauty, your grace, your immense power.”

She lay there, immobile and silent.

“Now, you know, in all our time together, I’ve been a perfect gentleman. I’ve never touched you… you know… inside…but I think it’s time we changed that. I think it’s time the world sees what you can do.”

Pressing a red button on her access panel, the shielding on the SSN-9 Siren nuclear device slid silently open, revealing a glowing green light and a slot for the glittering detonation key he held in his hand.

Over the Edge

Crimson Clubs

A squealing hydraulic sigh punctures the winding mountain road, echoing down into the peaceful sunny valley below. The placid sunny valley. The picturesque, picture-perfect, perfect for a picture sunny valley. It would make such a pretty picture if I could just lean a bit forward -

Searing iron twists, tearing my skin – my everything.

Awake – “Gh-!” I gasp – crushing my body under solid heavy pain. What happened? Where am I?

The great expanse of sky is half dominated – right half filled by solid grey rock.

I'm on my back. I try sitting up – bones slip – needles of agony bloom in my mouth. My entire length devastated. Both legs forgetting their shape after a blistering impact.

Attempting to turn to my left – my neck grinds, vision blurs. I stop. Forced to keep looking straight up. Straight up the cliff face, I can't tell how high. Three stories? Five?

I hear voices up above. The bus! The bus stopped on the mountain. One of those busy roadside turnouts drowning with tourists. I went to take a picture of the valley… I must've fallen. But… Shouldn't I have fallen further?

Head locked, I stare out to my left. Blue open skies, with the tops of lush evergreens far below. I guess I landed on a ledge.

Someone must've seen me fall… Right?

A shadowy flutter of feathers beats down onto my ledge. A looming black mass stands towering over me.

Is that a raven? “Sh… sh… oo…” I whisper, pain paralyzing my tongue.

The bird is unmoved. Instead, it weighs my broken flesh with keen eyes. Intelligent eyes which fully comprehend my plight – yet offer no comfort – only hunger.

Go away. Go away! Below my left elbow, my arm is submerged in molten lead. Commanding the arm to move – acidic lightning joins the metallic fire. But still I force movement into my twisted limb – the limp forearm swinging freely about a white protrusion – slack skin glistening red.

The raven retreats – clearly uncowed. I scan the cliffside – desperate for any sign of salvation or imminent aid. They must've seen me fall! They had to!

Right then, a head of a boy – I think it's a boy – peaks over the clifftop.

Yes! I knew someone must have seen me!

“H… lp… hel… p…” I can barely hear myself. Shallowest breaths embedding razor blades between my ribs.

The boy's expression changed. Yes! He's seen me! I'll be rescu-!

Something cold flicks me in the forehead.

“Nathan!” A woman's shrilling voice shouts, stealing the boy's attention. “Stop spittin' off the edge!”

And like that, his head disappears once more – while the raven's crooked beak creeps closer to its ripening feast – away from the meager defense offered by my near-useless arm.

The bus departing – cheerful laughter evaporating – only the wet sounds of the bird's meaty meal remains. Gazing up at the sun above – I'm grateful the serrated twinge is almost invisible among the countless other dominating aches throughout my being. When at last my unwelcome dinner guest has had his fill – he launches into the vanishing air.

And I am left all alone to watch as the sun quickly races over the edge of the horizon – gone forever.

The Nightmare

John Andreini

It was happy hour at Stan’s Tavern and lawyers, accountants, and executives from downtown businesses traded complaints and drank away the petty feuds and impossible deadlines of the day. Justin Holloway finished off his second daiquiri and motioned for another while colleague Doug Herrera poked at the ice in his drink.

“You look tired. Tough day?” asked Doug.

“No worse than usual. Ever had a nightmare that really got under your skin? One that you keep having night after night?”

“Sure. My marriage. Okay, I guess not. You?”

“Yeah, and it’s driving me crazy. In the dream I’m seeing into a kitchen exactly the way it would look through a security camera. I see a dog, barking at the kitchen door, and a second later the door opens and I come walking into this house. So I close the door and look up at the camera for a moment. Then I walk toward another room like I’m in some kind of trance.”

“Not all that scary.”

“That’s not the end of it. Time goes by, and then I reenter the kitchen dragging a man’s dead body behind me, and I leave the house with it.”

“Okay. Now that sounds like a scene from bad horror movie.”

“Here’s the weirdest part, Doug. I catch a glimpse of the dead man’s face, and I know him. He was a client I took out for a drink. And…”

“And what?”

“And he told me about his nightmare, which was almost exactly as I described it to you.”

“Now you’re playing with my head. Right? Cue Twilight Zone music? Where’s the damn waiter?”

***

Justin eased the car to a stop in his driveway and got out. Tired and a bit drunk, he quickly ran through the nightly routine: make coffee, feed his dog Max, and check if the alarm was set. Sleep came early that night.

A barking Max woke him up at three in the morning. Not normally a yappy dog, Max’s excited barking alerted Justin that something was wrong, and he picked up his phone, ready to dial 911. Before his head cleared enough to act, however, a dark figure appeared in the doorway. The phone fell from his shaking hand as the intruder bolted toward him.

***

The fuzzy murmur of conversations filled the East Side Lounge. Doug Herrera sat in a booth with coworker Cynthia Dunkin, who was idly playing with her miniature plastic sword. The young woman’s body language, feet tapping accompanied by yawns, couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than boredom.

“Hey. You’re not complaining about your wife. Everything okay?” she asked.

“Sorry. Just tired. I’ve been having this really disturbing nightmare…”

Streetlight

J. L. Knight

Click, clock. Click, clock. Her footsteps echoed down the dark, empty street.

Click, clock.

She was afraid of the dark. It was childish, she knew. A silly holdover from the days of bogeymen under the bed. When she was offered the extra shift at the restaurant, she almost turned it down because it meant she would have to walk home alone, late at night. But she needed the money, and grown people are not supposed to be afraid of the dark.

Click, clock. Click, clock.

The streetlights made welcome islands of yellow light. She was at the faded edge of the next one when it blacked out.

Her heart jumped. The darkness seemed more acute with the sudden absence of light. She mentally scolded herself for being such a coward and kept walking. Her steps remained firm and regular. Click, clock. She passed under the dead streetlight.

When she was safely in the friendly glow of the next one, she glanced back over her shoulder. The streetlight was back on.

A week went by before she had to work the night shift again.

Click, clock. Click, clock. The night was silent and still. She focused on the reassuring row of streetlights and their steady bright circles. She was close to the next one when it blinked out, plunging her into darkness. The same one as last time, she realized, as a flood of irrational thoughts threatened to overwhelm her. She regained her composure, kept walking. Click, clock. Almost out of the shadows. Click, clock. The sane, regular tapping of heels on concrete, carrying her forward. Click, clock. The shadows thinned in the approaching sodium yellow of the next streetlight. She looked behind her.

The streetlight was on again.

She asked to be taken off the night shift. The manager wasn’t having it. If she didn't work the night shift, she would no longer have a job. She began to dread the solitary walks home in the dark. She dropped plates at work, delivered orders to the wrong tables. Then, finally, inevitably, it was time to go home.

Click, clock. The streetlight was coming. Click, clock. She knew it would go out like it always did. Click, clock. She fought the urge to stop walking, because she was afraid she might not be able to start again. Click, clock. The streetlight flickered out.

Resolutely, she forced herself to keep going. She was directly under the streetlight when it turned on again.

She felt pinned under the yellow spotlight like a butterfly. She stopped walking. Click.

Clock.

It slithered out of the sewer grate. Its white skin shone pale yellow in the streetlight, a glistening mass uncoiled across the pavement and wrapped around her ankle. She opened her mouth to scream but there was no time. It contracted like a giant muscle and pulled her down into the sewer. Smaller tentacles swept the debris from the outside of the grate. It was over in less than a minute.

It took pleasure in showing itself to its victims at the end. The flesh was nothing without the fear.

The night was silent and still. The streetlights cast tiny, regular pools of superficial light in an orderly row.

As the Light of the World Went Out

Matthew Jeffrey

Dusk descended over the abyss, and Lucifer Morningstar waited. After centuries of scheming, his plans had finally borne fruit. Today was the day of his ultimate victory, the day his realm would claim its ultimate prize. On a usual evening the gates of Hell would be heaving with souls passing through mortality’s darkest passage. The screams of the tortured and insane would resonate through the black halls, and flocks of demons would swoop down upon the newly doomed, carrying them off to unnamable punishments. Lucifer had banished his children, and pardoned every wicked spirit which passed through the portal. Even the crimes of the most brutal warlord paled in comparison to the one who was coming, and he needed no other to sustain him. With this soul in his possession, Heaven would be proven false, and with it, the world of men.

Morningstar mulled over the past few months. His prey had been the most wicked of spirits. Thousands had died by his hand. Entire tribes were raped in his name. Blood was his only currency, from the lives of men to the innocence of women. And yet, at every juncture, Lucifer had failed to stake his claim. His quarry was elusive, playing the system, exploiting loopholes in cosmic law to remain beyond the reach of infernal justice.

But then, three decades past, his prey had made a mistake. He dressed as a commoner, walking amongst those he oppressed, proclaiming salvation. The people saw through his hypocrisy the instant he opened his mouth. They took him, beat him, and put him to death, visiting on him the kind of suffering he had inflicted on others for years. And now, at last, he has passed into judgment. He would burn in Hell eternally for his crimes.

An earthquake shook Lucifer from his reverie, and the light of the world blasted apart the vast stone gate. Through their ruins his prey stumbled, caked in dirt and blood. His wounds were many, and his crown lay in pieces upon the hard earth. Lucifer beheld the face of his adversary, the face of true evil, now humiliated, panting, and sobbing tears of true grief.

Lucifer smiled. “Welcome to Hell, Father.”

Ghosts of Ourselves

Ashley Franz Holzmann

It began as the doctors described. A strange sensation. My neuro pathways and all that nonsense refusing to accept my arm was gone. I could sense my arm, but when I thought about moving it, there was no nervous system, no flesh.

Sandra was still around on the third day. We were told to take it slow. Let me adjust. I had to learn to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand. It was frustrating.

Sandra did all she could. She owed me that. I never saw her pick up her phone or daze out. No texting with her friends about the problems we were having. She was present. It was refreshing, but I was mourning.

It was while brushing I felt the tingle. It was as if my arm was still intact. It was so vivid, I stopped brushing, which prompted my arm to become nonexistent once more.

The fourth day, I felt the tingle again while brushing. This time, it was further pronounced. So unique.

That's the first time I felt the limb move - but not under my control.

Sandra wasn't in the room when the mirror shattered. She couldn't understand how I wasn't bleeding from punching the glass. Our relationship was never a stone pillar. A part of me always thought the accident was one of the reasons we were still together. She had some misplaced guilt. It wasn't love. Not by then. I wasn't even sure if I could love her anymore.

The fifth day, I woke up to the sensation of - well, I don't want to get into it. It was an invasive moment, and I genuinely felt violated on some level. The probing. That's when I started to feel worried about the arm. Breaking a mirror isn't the same as - the other stuff.

Sandra didn't make it past the sixth day. There was a moment and something sparked again. I never hated her. Not entirely. Even after all she had put me through. The last couple of years. The last few months. We were becoming intimate when the limb did something horrible to her. She was angry at first, and then she was begging. She tried grabbing for her phone, but the limb got to it first, crushed it, and threw it against the wall. Sandra tried to hug me before she fell back. The limb started with Sandra's mouth and then in a flash, it was everywhere. It stuck itself so far inside of her, liquid gurgles overtook her screams. I could feel the sensation. The organs and the scratching. Invisible but very real amounts of flesh getting trapped underneath my nonexistent fingernails.

She flailed and clutched at her insides while she bled out. I thought for a long time about whether or not to call someone. Maybe 911 or a friend.

I just couldn't.

I couldn't sleep that night or last night.

I should have kissed her before it was over. It’s been my biggest regret. We had grown apart, but she was still a part of my life in some ways. If only I could forgive her for everything.

The limb has been comforting me. Rubbing my shoulder, rubbing my back.

It touches me even when I try to push it away or ask it to stop. I've given up resisting.

Sandra is starting to smell. I'm afraid to drive with the limb.

I've thought about killing myself. Taking the limb with me. Letting everyone think what they will about Sandra and me. I'm not sure if it's worth the risk - running away. But I can't stay here. Maybe the limb will protect me. Maybe I'll simply start a new life.

I've decided to write a note to Sandra to help myself leave. Tell her how I've felt all this time. That I wanted to break up. That I wanted to months ago, but then the car accident happened.

I should have left then. I couldn’t make myself forgive her for everything. Especially, for texting on her fucking phone when she drove the car into the semi-truck.

The Pagorian Sleep Cycle

Nicholas Ong

"Doctor… what exactly am I looking at here?"

Dr. Pagorian smiled, adjusting his glasses as he always did whenever he was excited. This was the great reveal of his story, the point where imagination and reality intersected, where man would finally answer the greatest question of evolution:

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

"You are witnessing the first batch of experiments that underwent the Pagorian Sleep Cycle. Simply put, we have modified their sleep patterns to function on t-d(1 minute), where t is their usual sleeping time, and d refers to the days since the start of this experiment. It is a constant drop, so the body gradually gets accustomed to the lack of sleep. We are observing how living beings survive without the need to rest, and thus far the results are as what you see below."

"It's been over a year since this first started, hasn't it? Most of them should be going by on less than half their usual-"

"It's been a year since I officially publicized this, my good man. It's been eighteen years since the Pagorian Sleep Cycle was implemented."

The reporter looked down upon the test subjects. Ape-like creatures were moving around, their long limbs flailing weakly. They appeared simian, with opposable thumbs and long toes, but there was something… intelligent… in the deliberate way they moved about. Their heads were outfitted with a small device responsible for altering their sleep cycles. They seemed energetic enough for having no sleep.

"What does this conclude?"

Dr. Pagorian grinned manically, pushing up his glasses.

"Once their sleep cycle hits zero, the number continues falling somehow. The subjects begin to experience what I call "negative sleep" and they begin to… change. Through this, we might find out the truth behind our ancestors through de-evolution."

"These are- what?"

"These were people once. My son, now eighteen years into the cycle, has been my biggest breakthrough yet."

The two looked down again, one in horror and one in pride, as a bald monkey covered in scales emerged from a pool.

Fair Game

Kathryne H.

Although she didn't think he'd been intentionally training her to win a match against Death, Jill was thankful her father had forced her to play chess with him. This wasn't the first time Jill had realized she shouldn't have held all of those years of practice against him. She had made many long-lasting friendships and business relationships while competing in regional chess matches.

Death was a surprisingly magnanimous sport, and led Jill back into the world of the living as promised. They parted without any theatrics. Death gave her a nod and whispered "See you soon" before returning to the shadows. Like her lack of memory of how she died, she didn't dwell on those words for long. When she got home, Jill was more focused on finding a way to thank her father without sounding crazy than the flabbergasted expression of surprise on her husband's face when he answered the door. She didn't notice this until later in the night when he killed her for a second time.

Luckily she never remembered any of the deaths which followed either, because it took her an embarrassingly long time to realize she shouldn't go home.

In fact, by the time she'd put two and two together, her husband had racked up quite the body count and their house stank to high heaven. Oddly enough Death felt a little guilty for not giving her fair warning, but it was just so difficult to find someone who could play a good game of chess these days.

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Michael Lee Brown

Entry 001 [11/30/2015 – 11:32]:

Infiltration has been successful.

I arrived at the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri with the documentation and they have accepted it as genuine. I am to be assigned to the security team as a night-watchman starting tomorrow night. They asked few questions about the fictional “incident” which resulted in my transfer here but I was able to answer them satisfactorily.

Entry 002 [12/14/2015 – 04:12]:

I am now authorized to patrol the underground facility without assistance. I have been absolutely astounded by the level of technology the Koreans have here; some of this equipment far surpasses even what we have in the US. From what I have seen here, I would suggest the DPRK could easily mount an attack on whomever they please. I will send photos separately when I am able.

I have located a room called “The Gateway.” This seems to be the hub of the facility, filled to the brim with monitoring equipment. They seem to be watching the tunnels below the facility. But for what purpose? There has been no activity down there since the test in February of 2013. I’m apprehensive; I think they’re building up to something.

More to follow when I have it.

Entry 003 [12/18/2015 – 21:12]:

I have just been informed I’m to be on duty for a planned nuclear test in the next few weeks. The test should be going ahead on January 6th 2016 at 10:00 local time. I have no further details about the test at this time.

Entry 004 [01/01/2016 – 01:44]:

I have gained access to the record archives after hacking into the account of [REDACTED], the head scientist here, and I’m not quite sure what to think.

All the records of previous tests mention a target. These do not appear to be standard tests. In particular, the tests in 2006, 2009, and the last in 2013 all end with the phrase “target incapacitated.”

I didn’t have adequate time to read every detail included and the copies I made seem to be faulty. I will obtain the full reports and send them on.

Entry 005 [01/06/2016 – 10:12]:

There is something in those tunnels.

It all makes sense to me now, all the secrecy of this nation. North Korea is not a threat to the stability of the world as we know it, they are the reason we have survived this long.

These previous nuclear “tests” for which this nation had been condemned haven’t been tests at all – they were attacks.

I’ve seen the recordings of the previous detonations and I’ve seen what they have been referring to as the target. The creature must be 200-300 feet in length, though it’s difficult to tell exactly from the footage. The detonations seem to put it into some sort of coma, but it wakes after a couple of years and then they launch another attack when it gets too close to the surface.

I’m currently hiding in the men’s bathroom but I will be taking my cyanide pill as soon as this is written.

The device detonated as expected but it didn’t work. The creature is still awake; it must have developed an immunity. All we’ve managed to do is piss it off.

It's coming…

Oh God, it's coming and we can't stop it!

The Mire

Michael Parrish

Quinten stepped over the fallen log, after ensuring no snakes were nestled underneath it, and his right foot sank immediately into the muck.

Brilliant, he thought while trying to pull his shoe from the grasp of the water-saturated Alabama red clay. It was no use, his right foot was ankle deep, and the ground wasn’t giving up. Seeing another fallen oak to his left, Quinten surmised he could prop his left foot on its branches and use it for leverage to pull free. He made a large stride with his left leg, and propped his Keen boot on the closest sturdy branch. The tips bent down and grazed the top of the muddy bog, but the branch held firm when he tested his weight on it.

Hope this works, was Quinten’s silent prayer. He pushed with all his weight on his left leg, pulling upward with all of his strength. His right foot didn’t budge. In fact, it actually sank a little deeper into the pit. The top of the muddy sludge was now touching the bottom of his calf.

Damnittohell. With his left foot secure in place on the dead oak, Quinten plunged his right hand into the muck.

Hate to lose half a pair of two hundred dollar boots, but whatchyou gonna do. Only when his hand reached the laces of his boots, he found that he could not move his fingers. He pulled back with all the force he could manage, but his arm was as secure in the clay as his foot, unmoving as if encased in cement.

Okay. Calm down, Quint. This isn’t good, but no need to panic yet. For the next hour, Quinten yelled, calling out to any other hiker that might be passing along. No response or assistance came and desperation was beginning to take hold. His voice had grown hoarse and his throat was dry. The south Alabama sun had begun to rise higher into the summer sky, and the heat was taking its toll. Using his left hand and standing at a ridiculous angle, Quinten fumbled at the straps of his pack with trembling fingers, fishing out his canteen. He drank several long swallows in an attempt to quench his thirst and assuage his fear, but while doing so, the branch his left foot was resting on snapped in two. Quinten’s left foot plunged into the mire, and in a state of panic, he flopped to his right, dropping the canteen. He watched in shock and horror as it sank into the red clay.

Uh-oh. Quinten could feel himself being pulled to his right by the weight of his pack, it having fallen into the muck when the branch broke. He managed to free it from his left shoulder, and though he couldn’t really see it, he could feel the suction around his arm and legs as it was pulled beneath the surface. Again, Quinten screamed with all of his being, yelling, pleading, begging, praying for someone, anyone, to free him. He yelled for help as the summer sun crested at noon. The bubbling mud had pulled him deeper, now chest-deep. He waved with his free left hand, yelled, cried, and prayed. By the time the next two hours had passed, his chin was resting on the red clay surface. Tears flowed like pouring water from his eyes as he prayed to every God he could remember, confessing all of his sins, both real and imagined. At five o’clock, only four white fingers were visible on the surface of the mire. By six, they were gone as well.

The Tickle Monster

Marty Hoefkes

At first it tickled. The flat of a cold, invisible fingertip, gingerly caressing the space between my shoulder blades. Not a trick of the mind, or a rogue sensation: it was something unseen actually pressing against me, a shallow dent wandering around my back. I’d snake away, dodge, shake. Nothing could dislodge it. The finger stayed.

My friends and coworkers called it the Tickle Monster. To me, “monster” was a reach for something as benign and harmless. I thought of it as a pet.

I saw a doctor. I saw a healer. I saw a psychic. All of them were equally perplexed. The doctor, from arm’s length, advised I keep an eye on it. Neither the healer nor psychic had words to share. I suspect it marked the first time they’d ever witnessed a truly supernatural event. Until then they’d been experts in bullshit, and the shock of the real thing dulled their tongues.

Clothes acted like a barrier. In a t-shirt I could feel it easily. In a winter coat, not at all. When changing or showering, the initial cold prod of the finger on bare skin made me jump. Like a lover’s touch, delicate and teasing. I took to wearing layers and sleeping on my back. Strangely, though, I missed it. It was gentle, after all.

A year later, a second touch joined it. Not moving in tandem, as you would expect an index and middle finger to do. But independent, each light groove tracing its own random path on my back.

The third point alarmed me at first, only because it altered my imagined Tickle Monster from having the paws of a koala to tentacles like an octopus. Not necessarily more sinister, but certainly more alien. The fourth and fifth points only confirmed it.

But still, I didn’t mind. I never thought of it as malicious, or dangerous. Just there. Along for the ride.

One day, it stopped tickling. The flat fingers turned inward to use their nails, caressing me with sharp points instead of soft ones, like an automated back scratcher. But slowly, imperceptibly, the pressure mounted, and mounted, until skin no longer provided a thick enough barrier.

I wear a backpack now. Constantly. Kevlar fabric, military grade, stuffed with memory foam to ease the pressure which would push me over otherwise. I need a new pack every month to replace the tatters of the old one. Like a bear mauled it off my back. I put it on over top and then cut the old one away, not risking a second without its protection.

It’s still getting worse. Every day. Stronger. Sharper. I don’t know how many fingers there are anymore. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. They never stop.

Those friends and coworkers from before? They’re gone. I’m unemployed, stretching out the last of my savings while I sleep on the street. Alone.

Just me and my Tickle Monster.

*Click*

Marc Kinsville

Little Ashley sat quietly in her high chair like a good girl while I mopped the floor. With nothing else to play with, Ashley had taken to flicking the light switch on the wall. The first switch controlled the light in the kitchen. The second controlled the light in the dining room. The third one was a mystery. We don’t know why it was installed as it didn’t seem to control anything. For some reason, Ashley seemed fixated on the mystery switch.

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

I didn’t mind. It kept her occupied which meant I could finish mopping.

My husband returned home from work just as I was putting dinner in the oven.

“Hey honey!” he greeted. “Wow! The floor looks spotless! I can’t believe this is the same kitchen!”

“Thanks!” I replied.

“You’re performing miracles. What’s for dinner? I’m starving!”

“Dinner isn’t ready. It will be ready in an hour.”

*Click*

“What do you mean dinner isn’t ready!?” he barked. “What the fuck have you been doing all day!?”

“Excuse me!?”

*Click*

“Woah! Sorry honey!” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to snap. It’s been a long day. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Now that you mention it, maybe you can set the table?”

“Sure thing!”

*Click*

“Okay, where the fuck are all the forks and knives!?” he cursed.

“Hey!” I yelled. “What has gotten into you!? You never swear like this!”

“I asked you a fucking question, bitch! WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THE FORKS AND KNIVES!?”

I slapped him.

“Don’t you EVER talk to me like that!”

*Click*

“Oh my God. I… I am sooooo sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

I held up my hand and told him to go into the living room to cool off.

He left the kitchen and pulled little Ashley out of her high chair. She protested as she wanted to continue playing with the light switch. My husband kissed her and bobbed her up and down in his arms as he retreated to the living room.

I watched them close as I continued to prepare dinner. I had never seen this brutish side of him before. What had gotten into him?

After we went to bed, I told him I did not appreciate the way he acted. I’d worked all day at getting the new house in order. He apologized and vowed he would never disrespect me again.

We kissed each other goodnight and drifted off to sleep.

He spooned up to me, and caressed my hair gently. He kissed my neck. It was his cue he wanted sex. We went through the motions silently. We’ve become experts at quiet sex since neither of us wanted to wake Ashley. Unfortunately, little Ashley was still not used to her new surroundings yet, and woke up.

We disengaged from each other and I slipped into my night robe.

“I’ll get her some milk,” I sighed.

“Hurry back,” he whispered. “I can’t keep this up forever.”

I giggled at the double entendre and headed over to Ashley’s room, which was still laden with unpacked moving boxes. I picked up Ashley who by now had already screamed “Mama" at least a dozen times. Usually when I pick her up she calms down right away but even my immediate presence did little to soothe her.

“Hey, hey!” I said in my best motherly voice. “Mama’s here! You can calm down now.”

I entered the kitchen with her bawling in my arms and then she stopped crying. Her body went rigid. I smiled at her and noticed she was pointing to the wall making grabbing motions with her little hands.

She was fixated on the light switch again.

“Oh?” I realized aloud. “Little Ashley wants to play with the light switch again? Alright, but just for a minute okay? Mommy has to make you some milk.”

I held Ashley up to the light switch and let her play with it.

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

“The first thing I am doing tomorrow is unpacking your toys!” I said hoping this little light switch game didn’t become a habit.

I heard footsteps from down the hall. I turned and saw my husband, standing there naked. His face was a cross between stunned and enraged, like he had been asleep the whole time and had been rudely awakened.

He held his gun in his hand.

"H-h-h-honey?" I stuttered as Ashley flipped the switch again.

*Click*

My husband squinted, confusion was painted across his face once again.

*Click*

He took deep, heavy breaths. His gaze fixated on me. His face contorted with unbridled hatred as he raised his gun. Ashley lost interest in the switch, turning her attention toward her father.

"Dada!"

*Click-Shick*

Seventh-Inning Stretch

Jonas Lefkowitch

Years later, and that fateful Little League World Series Championship Game is still the subject of considerable media attention. By now, everyone's seen the infamous clip countless times, of Tokyo's Hideaki Nishikawa, stoic on the mound at Lamade Stadium, pitching a perfect game when that thing appeared on the field. The live coverage on ESPN switched to a test pattern during the first horrifying minute of the incident, and whenever the footage is shown on television, they always stop it before the graphic part begins. The videos you'll find online only capture glimpses of what occurred. Unless you witnessed it firsthand, you have no idea how gut-wrenching it was.

I heard it before I saw it. The white noise of the crowd and the chatter of my teammates in the dugout were drowned out by a horrid, ear-splitting howl mere moments before the creature showed itself, a black blur galloping onto the field from a nearby service tunnel, headed straight for the pitcher's mound. It skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt like a runner sliding into second, and sprang up onto its hind legs, towering above Hideaki Nishikawa who only stood there, rooted to the spot, too petrified to do anything but gawk. The monstrosity was misshapen, like a massive tumor sprouting one lumpen growth from another, with a dozen malformed, thickly muscled limbs haphazardly arrayed about itself. The abomination's ebon hide was taut and lined with swollen red veins, as if barely containing its bulk. There was no head, rather the torso was split vertically by a frothing, fanged maw which gaped and unleashed a deafening roar in Hideaki Nishikawa's face, spraying him with steaming bile. He tried to run then, but it was too late. What happened next…

You won't see it on television.

CNN obviously can't show their audience a shrieking, helpless twelve-year-old lifted up by his ankles and pulled apart not unlike a wishbone, the ragged halves of his bisected body whipped and flailed furiously, scattering gore and glistening innards in every direction. And when the blood-spattered beast rips Hideaki Nishikawa's head loose and impales it through the eye with a barbed, prehensile appendage, thrusting so forcefully the head bursts apart like an overripe melon… Well…

That's absolutely inappropriate for viewers of all ages and dispositions.

As the savagery persisted, most people ran screaming while some, like me, watched in stunned silence as Hideaki Nishikawa was torn to pieces, reduced to a sticky swath of shredded meat and congealing blood carpeting the infield. And on the mound, the monstrosity became still, its rage finally spent. The infernal creature's slavering, snaggletoothed lips stretched wide, quivering as it loosed an utterance more terrifying than those announcing its arrival and commencing the evening's slaughter, a peal of laughter utterly cruel and shockingly human. Then it leapt into the air, high enough it was essentially flying, and vanished from sight.

There's been a tremendous deal of speculation about what the monstrosity was. Alien? Mutant? Demon? Wolf Blitzer always calls it "a thing beyond imagining," which is ironic, I suppose, because it certainly wasn't beyond mine…

When the creature first appeared, I was fuming over how Hideaki Nishikawa had just humiliated me during my last at bat. Three pitches, three swings, three misses. I felt so frustrated and useless… I imagined a monster tearing Hideaki Nishikawa limb from limb. And then it happened. For real. Back then, I had no idea I was capable of such a thing, that my mind can do anything, create anything it can conceive. Well I sure as hell found out. It took me years of experimentation and practice, but I learned exactly what this power can do, and it's fully under my control. There won't be any more accidents. I realize now there's only one thing beyond my imagining.

How much fun it will be topping what I did to Hideaki Nishikawa.

Sound Shadow

Kristopher J. Patten

"There is a species of salamander that live exclusively in lightless South American caves. They have no eyes, for they outgrew the need. These salamanders did not evolve from a previously sightless species. The fossil record confirms that their eyes withered and disappeared from underuse.

"As such, these creatures were able to retain more metabolic energy than species that retained sight. That extra power made them quick, agile hunters. This is the nature of the incessant evolutionary arms race between predator and prey. Predator sheds qualities to evade detection while prey develops ingenious sensory systems.

"And so, I am proud to unveil the species we discovered in the bright, icy clime of Antarctica. The perfect predator…"

The aged biologist smiled to the crowd and tore a black velvet curtain away from a primate-sized cage with her small, bony hands. The audience's premature applause died before it picked up steam, punctuated by confused whispers and screeching chair legs as spectators stood for a better view.

The cage was empty.

The biologist laughed. "As I said, the perfect predator. Invisible to conventional sight due to a unique pigmentation that diffracts light waves. If you look closely, you'll see a distortion of the background like a funhouse mirror."

The crowd murmured. Some claimed they saw the aberration, some insisted otherwise.

The woman on stage caressed a cannon-like device. "Allow me to prove it to you. This is a sound wave emitter. With it, we can detect the position of the creature from the reflection of the waves. Like echolocation. With the large, couch-like microphone opposite me, we can detect the sound shadow left by the creature and infer its shape by combining the two measurements. On the screen behind me you will see the first-ever image of our find. It may be quite mobile, as the sound gun produces quite the unpleasant sensation.

"While unpleasant," she added after a pause, perhaps remembering laypeople frequently became enraged at suspected animal abuse, "the creature will sustain no lasting damage. Perhaps some temporary equilibrium issues."

The screen lit up, revealing an empty cage.

"I…" the scientist stammered, running a shaking hand through her hair. "My God. Everyone stay calm. Stay bloody still. The creature's escaped."

The woman directed the sound gun into the crowd. It passed over the assembled guests, their worlds exploding into dizzying, knee-buckling shrieks. Half-digested hors d’oeuvres were retched onto brocade carpet and rented tuxedoes. Blood spilled from nasal cavities onto pressed shirts and silk dresses.

One man near the back of the room watched the wave of agony wash toward him like he was at some hellacious baseball game. The man to his right fell to the floor, heaving. Then the woman on his left fell completely unconscious. He was left unscathed.

An uneasy smile crept to his lips. It was as though he had been shielded from the sound. Perhaps he had found one of those “sound shadows?”

The smile faltered as he recalled the full explanation of the sound shadow. He tried to stand and felt a strong grip holding him in place.

Unseen teeth bit into his neck as easily as an apple. As his vision began to fade, his attacker lifted its head, visible now in the man’s own gore.

Its face and large cranium were unmistakably human. But the teeth were unnaturally sharp. The perfect predator.

My Parents Are Hiding Something

Marty Hoefkes

They confine me to the attic. They’re ashamed of my scars, and my growths, and my burns. I have fingers like spider legs, extra bones in my neck, and sharp, crooked teeth clutter my mouth and clack when I chew.

I can’t remember when I last looked in a mirror, but I’ll never forget the hideous thing I saw.

They’re right. I’m a monster. I belong here.

Every morning, Father retracts the attic ladder and pokes his head in. He plops a plastic bucket on the floor and slides it close enough so I can reach with my chained hands. He used to say a few words. He used to look at me with his downcast eyes. But now he only thumps back down and shuts out my only saving light.

The bucket comes full of scraps: slimy vegetables, moldy fruits, and any foods Mother hates. Sometimes there are cold chicken legs if I’m lucky, dog food if I’m not. I eat it all. And when Father comes to take it back at night, the bucket leaves full of waste.

It’s lonely. For fun, I put my functional ear to the wall vent. If I’m lucky, I can hear the TV. Entertainment news, or shows about bickering housewives. Usually, though, I only hear my parents fighting.

“Blame your genes!” Mother shrieks. “The true monster is in your blood!”

“He’s our son, whatever else he may be,” Father pleads. “He deserves more than this.”

It always ends with Mother throwing things.

Father warns me before guests come. If I moan or cry out, I’ll be punished with an empty bucket. Only after I’ve begged enough will it come back full. And if I’ve been particularly misbehaved, it's unrinsed.

Occasionally, the guests ask about me.

“Oh, our son?” Mother tells them. “Tragically, he died. Hit by a train.”

“Yes, hit by a train,” Father adds.

Some nights I wish I had been. Even now, I think about how wonderful it would be to be dead. I could sharpen a chicken bone with my teeth and shove it into my heart. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet.

Because my parents are hiding something.

“Oh, no,” I once heard Mother tell a guest. “We never had a daughter.”

“Never a daughter,” Father parroted. “Just a son, who was hit by a train.”

But I hear weeping in the vents some nights. A quiet, squeaking whimper. Not from my parents. Not from the TV. From somewhere deeper in the house.

How hideous I am to have been hit by a train.

How monstrous she must be to have never existed.

I sharpen the drumsticks with my teeth, and I use them to saw at my chains, and then I throw the splintered bones in with the waste. It took two years to cut the link binding my left hand. Another year for each leg. I’m almost through my final chain.

And then I’ll free my sister from the cellar.

The Lost Boy

Nicholas Ong

"Behind this door lies everything you've ever lost," said the hooded lady. "But I have to warn you: things are lost for a reason. Not every unfortunate incident is the result of bad luck."

"I don't care. I want to see him. As you promised. The correct age."

The lady bowed. "As you wish."

As the door opened, trepidation filled my veins with an icy poison. Eight years ago, I had lost my baby in a miscarriage, and as a result fallen into depression which had grown stronger ever since. It's weird talking about this so easily now - it's almost as though those days were from a stranger's memory.

The scene from behind the door tore at me.

No, it wasn't an eight-year-old fetus, or anything as terrible.

A dismal room set in a foggy world. Dark grey lines were painted over the walls, and the only furniture was the shape of a tidy little crib and a bedside table. I made my way over, each footstep unsteady.

As I approached, the fog cleared up enough for me to make out a masculine form. Could it… could it be?

"Steve?" I called. "Steve - is that you?"

The name my husband and I had wanted to christen for our child was Steve, after the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin. We used to love animals until everything seemed to stop mattering.

But it wasn't him. The figure blossomed into life, and I knew, despite having no idea what Steve would look like, that this wasn't him.

Because it was my husband.

He looked at me, tears running down his face. I don't understand. Did I lose him on this day, too? But he was alive and well.

"Katrina…" He called out my name with such tenderness and pain my heart began to ache.

Then he faded into the background, and everything swirled. A toy crocodile in the crib opened its mouth, and I was swallowed into an inky blackness. I didn't know what was going on. Why were these things lost? What was it that I needed back?

I'm not afraid, but still I ponder, in the canyons beyond the world. Light peeks out at cracks in space, and from time to time I can hear voices calling my name. I was certain the hooded lady had not lied to me. I had to find out for myself what I had lost to reach it, but all I knew now was I was Katrina, and I had a little boy I lost.

I was Katrina. I had lost a little boy…

I was…

Katrina.

And what I had lost… was my son. Steve. As long as I cling to that…

That's right. I'll find out the truth eventually.

Because I was Katrina.

I lost a boy.

I was…

Katrina…

Katrina?

Katrina!

KATRINA!

"WAKE UP! Why did you- OH MY GOD! KATRINA, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? SLEEPING PILLS? IT'S BEEN EIGHT YEARS, YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME ALONE LIKE THAT! WAKE UP, PLEASE! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

Accidents Will Happen

Dieben

The chill of the January morning still lingered in the speeding car. The heater had yet to warm up and the vents were churning out tepid air. Bev could see puffs of her own breath with tiny crystals of ice, like suspended pixels, wafting toward the frosty windshield, threatening her view and her safety.

She dared to glance over at Mary in the passenger seat with her light blue unicorn shirt and cute brown pigtails. In all ways, a typical six-year-old. Typical height; average weight. True, you’re not supposed to have your six-year-old in the passenger seat, and this was a particularly bad morning to do so, but…

Bev cut off her train of thought quickly, because she knew the next train car had “bad mother” spray painted all over the side. She filed it under ‘hurry’ and shooed the thought away. Let the subconscious chew on it for a while.

I just have to get Mary to school, she told herself. I’ll be very careful. What are the chances anyway?

She was cruising at 45mph down Torrence when it appeared out of the misty air, like an image materializing from the fog of a video game. A semi-trailer truck had pulled out in the middle of the street, unable to complete its turn and clumsily attempting to back up. She slammed on the brakes, but a thin glaze of ice from the humid air had formed on the cold road and made stopping impossible. The 2021 Honda Fit slid out of control.

Bev and Mary screamed in unison. Their fate was already sealed, but in the second or two remaining, time seemed to slow, allowing Bev to fully experience the torture of knowing her foolish haste had doomed her beautiful little girl. Her scream sharpened…

Death, regret… horror on so many levels.

But there was still time for one more thought.

Jared.

At least she’d had him. Such a kind man. Such a wonderful father. Fate extended a finger of pity and presented, as her final thought, the flash of a post-coital memory: her and Jared lying together in bed, his naked body holding hers, keeping her warm. Touching, caressing, and whispering loving things to each other.

Oh, Jared…

I…

love…………

Cold steel and broken shards pulverized tears and loving memories, arms, faces, brains, and chests.

***

Tom Boyles, manager of safety ops, peeked into a dimly lit room and found who he was searching for, a man in a lab coat hunched over and absentmindedly biting his thumbnail as he stared at a computer screen.

"Jared?"

The techie hesitantly turned away from his monitor to face his visitor. "Hey, Tom. What's up?"

"I just received some news," Tom said with a grimace. "I hate to have to tell you this, but…"

“Yes… What is it, Tom?”

"Well… you were right," Tom admitted. "Implementing the data from your traffic simulations has resulted in an additional twelve percent decrease in traffic fatalities for the Fit."

"I told you it would work!" Jared cheered.

"I know I fought you on this. It's just… the realism of these simulations is so… well… unreal…"

"And it works!"

"Yes! What you've done is incredible!" Tom exclaimed. "I mean, you're saving real lives! The lives of children. You're a hero, Jared. A true-"

"Hey, Tom," Jared cut in. "The thing about us heroes is, we don't like being called heroes. It makes us feel awkward."

They both chuckled.

Tom made his way down the hall, and back toward his office. Jared watched until he was out of sight, then turned back slowly to the monitor before him. The synthetic glow of the flickering screen illuminated the cracks in his still-smiling face.

Deprivation

Marty Hoefkes

.

See that? Every ∙ is a breath. Inhale, hold, exhale. Three seconds.

Let’s practice:

.

Did you do it? Excellent. If not, go back and try again, this time pretending you’re someone who’s not an asshole.

Ready?

.

It’s a gift from your girlfriend: 60 minutes in a sensory deprivation tank.

“It will open your mind,” she raves.

“I bet,” you say.

You don’t buy into this shit, but she’s fascinated with spirituality. Reluctantly, you agree.

It’s in a strip mall. Each room has a shower, a towel rack, and a small door against the far wall. The tank.

“It’s an inspiring experience,” the owner says.

“Sure it is,” you reply.

Your girlfriend kisses you goodbye and smiles, truly smiles, before leaving you alone.

You disrobe. You shower. You try not to slip and kill yourself on the slick slate floor. And then, naked, you step into the tank and pull the door shut.

The inside glows softly. It’s a tiny space. Half a jail cell, maybe. You lie down in the lukewarm water, legs spread slightly, hands up by your head.

Sure enough, you float.

.

The light dims.

.

And dims.

.

Eyes open or closed, it no longer matters.

.

You think about how stupid this is.

.

Why did you agree to an hour of this?

.

.

.

Your mind can’t feel space. Are you wandering to the side?

.

Yup. Your elbow bumps the wall.

.

You push off lightly.

.

This is ridiculous.

.

This is embarrassing.

.

Your toe bumps the wall.

.

You push off.

.

.

.

You can hear your heartbeat.

.

Thump-THUMP.

.

Thump-THUMP.

.

Thump-THUMP.

.

Your hand bumps the wall.

.

Before you can push off, the wall moves away.

Quick breaths now.

. . . . .

“Who’s there!?”

. . . .

. . .

. .

.

You feel stupid.

.

Of course nobody’s there.

.

You’re alone.

.

.

.

Each ∙ is now a minute.

. . . . .

You relax.

. . . . .

The silence is peaceful.

. . . . .

You admit it. Maybe she was right.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

Has it been an hour yet?

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

Okay. Enough. You reach for the door.

And touch nothing.

You sit up, but the bottom’s gone. Instead, you bob in warm water to your shoulders.

“Hello!?!”

There’s no echo.

You swim toward where the door was.

. . . . .

You’re still swimming.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

Why aren’t you tiring?

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

Each ∙ is now a day.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

“How?” you wonder.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

“Why?” you wonder.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

You find God.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

You lose God.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

You decide to kill yourself.

But your head won’t go under.

And your hands can’t find your neck.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

You don’t know what a ∙ is anymore.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You’ve forgotten her face.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You’ve forgotten her name.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You’ve forgotten your name.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The ∙ no longer has meaning.

Everything is nothing.

You are nothing.

A sudden, brilliant, blinding glow pierces the darkness. You block it with a hand to your head and blink and blink and blink until your vision adjusts.

A small room. Half a jail cell.

“My God!” you rasp.

You push at the door and spill out onto the cold slate.

You cry. You kiss the floor. You lie on your back, finding ecstasy in gravity’s tug.

“Everything okay in there?”

It’s her voice.

You remember her face. You remember her name.

Naked, you open the door and hug the air from her lungs.

She laughs and it’s like a symphony. “Well? How was it?”

You want to weep. You want to scream. You want to collapse on the floor and never get up.

“It was,” you begin…

“Something.”

The Higher You Fly

Jordan Accinelli

“You should jump.”

“What?”

“Jump. You should do it.”

We were on the bridge. The sun had only just begun sinking beneath the horizon. Jarod was nonchalantly leaning against the railing, tossing an apple from hand to hand, occasionally taking a bite. It was stupid; it’s not like he could actually eat anything. I guess he just liked the way it looked.

“I’m not doing it, Jarod,” I replied, irritated.

What kind of a guardian angel is named Jarod? Most people get ones with cool names, like Michelangelo or Gabriel or something Hebrew. But no, I got Jarod. Maybe his shitty name’s the reason why he’s got such a shitty personality.

“Why not?” he probed, “It’s not like your life has much worth, buddy. At least if someone’s filming, you could finally get internet famous, but let’s face it – you’d probably fuck that up too.”

His voice resounded about my head. You see, that’s the way it worked, no one else could hear him. Hell, I technically wasn’t even supposed to be able to see him either, but I was born this way. Neither of us could help it – no matter how much we hated each other.

“Making you happy is the last thing I want to do,” I retorted.

Up until recently, I’d always been confused about why my supposed guardian was trying to convince me to kill myself. It seemed rather counterintuitive - but after some nagging, he finally gave in and told me. In essence, angels were watching humans and realizing with all the war and the fighting and stupid shit we did to each other – well, they just didn’t see the point in helping us anymore.

“If you jump it will be the last thing you do.”

Thing is though, the Big Man upstairs hated quitters. It was around 2001 when He punished them with a pair of Godly bone scissors. In all honesty, He’d been doing it forever, but it was around then the number of fallen angels skyrocketed. The statistics say, one in four angels were getting their wings cut. One in four!

“That’s exactly why I shouldn’t,” I snapped before slumping my shoulders, defeated.

The major issue with all this stems from the process by which a guardian is assigned. Blood pact and all that – once they have a human, they’re stuck; not even He can change it. Therefore, if He cuts down a guardian, well, let’s just say the aforementioned non-angel has a field day terrorizing their poor little human subjugate.

That’s why I – we – were here. Originally I came to save as many as I could, trying to spread what I knew. But all I got from the people on the other side of the railings were “fuck off” and “you’re bat-shit crazy.” I’ve watched a total of 1008 people jump. I can still remember their names. Moreover, I remember how many I saved.

None.

I glared at Jarod. He glared at me.

He was supposed to protect me. They were all supposed to protect us, but I guess they all got their wings clipped before they could finish the job.

He watched me with a snide smirk.

I stepped off the ledge.

Stare

Grace Bowland

I always liked train journeys. There was something comforting about the rattle of the train and the clatter of the tracks, and something liberating in the huge windows and the endless views of the countryside they provided.

But not anymore.

Last week, my husband and I caught a train into London to finally spend some time together after a month of overtime and night shifts. It was a long journey, and a crowded one, but we were lucky enough to get seats next to one another, facing one of the windows. I settled down with a book as he perused the newspaper, companionable as could be.

About halfway along the route, as we rattled through a tunnel, I glanced up and caught my husband staring at me intensely in the reflection of the darkened window. I smiled at him fondly, expecting him to smile back, but instead he just stared. His eyes bored into mine as I stuck my tongue out at him, but his expression never changed.

Oh, I thought to myself. So it’s a contest, is it? I locked eyes with his reflection again.

I stared.

He stared back.

My eyes itched, but determination kept them open - I'd always been competitive, even with the people I loved most. He just stared, blank and unchanging, as I struggled not to blink. How was he doing it? I'd always beaten him in staring contests before. I frowned, about to give up-

He smiled at me, only for a moment, a sly, cruel, fleeting smile. For a single second, no more, I saw his mirrored hand reach out, cold fingers scraping my neck as they hovered menacingly over my jugular. I gasped, and blinked - and when I'd opened my eyes again, we were out of the tunnel and the reflection was gone, replaced by the dull grass banks surrounding the tracks. There were no fingers on my throat, no cold, dry skin against my frantic pulse. Snapped out of the trance by the light pouring through the windows, I turned back to my husband.

“David,” I snapped, shoving him, “what was that?”

He didn't respond. His head lolled to the side, and he slumped into me. I grabbed his arm and felt the cold skin beneath, and my heart stuttered. Shaking him, shouting, slapping him; none of it worked. People gathered around. Someone pulled the emergency stop cord. Someone called an ambulance. Someone draped a coat around my shaking shoulders, took my phone and called my sister.

That was a week ago. Today, I received a call from the man who'd been sitting across from us, the one who'd called the ambulance.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he began. "I know this must be a difficult time. I've been wanting to apologize to you all week, I just couldn't find the words."

"Apologize? You did everything you could," I murmured into the phone, stroking a hand absentmindedly across the photo of our wedding reception on the shelf.

"I only wish I'd realized sooner," he said sadly. Confused, I asked him what he meant, and he replied-

I hung up abruptly, my fingers trembling, before the well-meaning man could say anything more. Shaking, I sank to the floor, the photo dangling from my cold hands. Was it just my imagination, or was my husband watching me coldly from the photo? No, it must have been in my head. Just like the staring contest must have been a figment of my imagination, a desperate attempt by my subconscious to alert me to the tragedy. Because if not… after what the man from the train said, about the paramedics, the coroner's report, what he saw…

My husband had been dead for half an hour before I noticed his reflection staring at me.

He died with his eyes closed.

Medusa

Dieben

The cave of Medusa was exactly where I had been told. Inscrutable without a map. Hidden; a three-day journey in the high mountain ranges.

Legend said whoever killed Medusa would gain her treasures. More gold and silver than a king would possess, but I was not interested in treasure, power, or even in killing Medusa. I, a humble monk, had heard of this horrible beast-woman, the epitome of ugliness, and immediately wept for her lonely, suffering heart. I wished to be the first to gaze at her with compassion and love. I wanted to embrace her and let her know that all which exists, including her, is beauty.

The light of the sun had faded away quickly upon entering the cave, leaving only my feeble torchlight to reflect off of the rocky walls. Though my intention was benevolent, unease had begun to arise in me. Inching along slowly, I could feel every pebble beneath my feet and every damp stone my hands used for support. I could hear all the airy sounds of the breathing cave, and most importantly, the massive field of looming blackness ahead of me was wholly experienced, my senses energized with the power of life and death.

Finally, out of the murk, I came upon a cluster of “people”. Scores of man-sized statues. Much larger than I, in fact. Heroes carrying swords and shields. I observed their faces closely, frozen in their last moments. Some bore stances of action, with faces frozen in battle cry; fierce and unyielding until the last instant. For others, the last terror-filled thoughts as they realized futility were etched on their faces forever. I recited a prayer for the hearts of these men and their loved ones.

Walking forward a moment, another small grouping of statues came into view. The weak torch cast its light on their small, slim bodies, shaven heads, and robes. A sharp pang of dread stung my chest. My mind briefly tried to deny what my eyes perceived, but yes, these were monks. Around fifteen of them had come before me, undoubtedly with similar intentions. Fifteen noble brothers, frozen in stone.

Standing in prayer for the monks, my ears detected a subtle alteration to the inaudible respirations of the cave. A breath like sickness, or of an animal. The plague-ridden grumble told me I was not alone. Medusa was watching me.

I turned and immediately saw her heaving, staggering body standing some ten feet away, her cruel eyes trained on me. Her appearance was truly tragic. That of a demon, just as legend had told. Hair like knotted ships’ ropes; swooning stench. Naked, leprous skin.

Already, I could feel a strange sensation working its way up my feet and legs. Just the glimpse of her had begun my transformation. I summoned my countless hours of training; raising my hands in prayer and calming myself best I could, I stared straight into her eyes and prayed for her soul. I wished for her happiness with all my being. With truth, I wished for her heart to be healed.

But the stone did not abate. It continued up my waist, approaching my heart. I maintained focus, but I swore I could see a flicker of a smile in the eyes of Medusa. Mischievous and knowing.

The stone advanced rapidly, and my situation became clear. I would be a failure. One of many. I realized with sadness I would never know if there had been a chance at all, or if I had simply been incapable. Had this been a fool’s errand all along, and I the fool?

Confusion and doubt.

Confusion and doubt.

The stone crept past my neck, freezing my expression in its final, eternal pose.

Raised by Wolves

Bill Leeson

Dr. Monaras had exhausted every tool at his disposal in the specialized rehabilitation clinic. His patients usually showed progress after five years of rehab, with some qualifying for full integration after a decade, but one resident had gone years without any breakthroughs whatsoever: Gale, named for her favorite sound to make.

Gale was placed under Monaras’ care eight years ago, rescued after being abandoned at a young age. Her initial progress was average, but respectable; she learned her new name quickly and adjusted to her new diet within six months.

From this point onward, Monaras had been met with nothing but seemingly intentional resistance. Gale would not communicate with him properly no matter how he instructed her. The early theory was that Gale was mentally retarded, but it was soon dismissed in light of her passing an array of tests proving otherwise.

Maybe she just wasn’t fond of him. However, her disliking of him wasn’t a scientific explanation for her mental stagnation.

Monaras explored every avenue imaginable attempting to understand her limitations. He brought in everyone from behavioral psychologists to substance abuse experts to analyze her, but Gale only responded with negative emotions ranging from stupefaction to aggression. He was worried she was beginning to show signs of regression when a final technique occurred to him. He had never resorted anything as extreme before, but he had also never been pushed this far by an uncooperative patient.

Dr. Monaras unlocked Gale’s cell and smiled at her gaunt expression, always hoping to set a positive mood. “Good morning, Gale!” he began.

Gale glared up at him, exhausted after eight years of attempted reconditioning but still defiant. The sound of her cell door slamming open drew howls and barks of alarm from his other patients.

“Gale, I know you don’t like talking to me,” continued the doctor. “So I want to help you make a new friend.” Monaras nodded to someone hidden from Gale’s view who dropped something heavy onto the ground. Something alive and annoyed at being thrown around.

To Gale’s horror, a ferocious growl crept around Monaras and into her cell, amplified by a brief echo off the concrete walls.

A muzzled wolf thrashed at the end of a leash held by Monaras’ assistant as the doctor explained, “You don’t enjoy speaking with them, so I hoped you would take the real thing a bit more seriously.” Monaras punctuated “them” with a gesture to the unseen other patients. “Either you’ve learned enough to speak to him, or you haven’t. This is your last chance to show me what you can do, Gale!”

His assistant removed the muzzle from the wolf and Monaras kicked it into her cell and closed the door, eyeing her through a small portal.

Gale, trembled as much her restraints allowed and growled as the starved wolf paused and evaluated its new conversation partner, though its mouth still dripped saliva.

“He’s hungry,” Monaras taunted. He imitated her frightened expression with a puppy’s whimper and added, “But talk him down, and you’ll eat like a queen tonight, Gale, I can promise you that!”

Chesty

Ashley Franz Holzmann

Chester awoke with the same thinning, scratching sensation in his ear; he called it “the itch”, and it was never absent.

He knew he was not crazy. He was too intelligent for that.

Chesty.

Chesty?

Yes.

Chesty.

Junior. The name of Chester's son. Where was Chesty? Wasn't he just-

Chester had more depth to him than the others - to the point of frustration. If only he could convince them. It wasn't the doctors he cared about. Just the other members of the community. They hated listening to him. All of them except for Stan. Stan, with his fat rolling over the chair with wheels, kicking himself inexorably around the white rooms.

Everyone else was afraid. They despised listening to Chester tell them the truth. They never wanted to see.

Mice in cages fashioned from their own delusions, lust, immorality and drug use and-

Fuck.

Chesty.

Yes, Chesty. That's the name Margaret used to call Junior Chesty.

The itching.

It had never gone so deep before. And there was Stan. Stan with his fat, droopy face of indifferent banality. As insane as Stan was, Chester knew Stan would listen even though he knew nothing about earwigs.

Chester knew Stan would watch.

Watch as Chester finally showed them all the earwigs. All the earwigs in their nest.

Chesty.

Chester could hear them. They knew the answers. Knew what happened to Margaret and they would finally tell him. And Chester would finally show the mice what reality truly was.

Chester used his hands at first. He could barely feel it with all the dope in his blood. The doctors thought it helped, but Chester was too smart for them.

It took almost five minutes to rip out his hair and to start scratching through the skin.

Digging.

Digging.

Chesty.

Stan's eyes didn't move, but they did widen. They widened when Chester finally got through the layers and to the bone.

Stan's eyes widened when Chester screamed and banged his head against a steel support beam.

And Stan's eyes could not look away when Chester finally cracked open his skull, and attempting to get a finger inside.

It took five security guards to stop Chester from tearing the insides of his head out. The only reason they stopped him was because he passed out.

Chesty Brandley, the man who had to be monitored constantly because he would try to collect bugs and coax them into his ears.

Chester Brandley, the man who self-admitted when he found the body of his son. Decomposing. Covered in earwigs, with a note from his wife admitting she had done it.

Chester Brandley, the man who repeated the word "Chesty" over and over again when he spoke.

Henry's Eyes

Jonas Lefkowitch

I could prattle on endlessly about Henry's magnificent eyes, such was the pleasure they gave me. A thousand glorious shades of green they were, depending on the light, of emeralds and apples and all manner of verdancy. Whenever Henry gazed upon me, I felt galvanized, given new life, made more than I was. Truly they were windows to a soul of unparalleled kindness and generosity. Oh, how I adored them!

And him…

Long had I dreamt of making my feelings known, and if only Henry felt the same for me, I mused, joy might burst my heart, and mine would be a happy death indeed. But of course, I dared not reveal my love, lest I bring shame to my family and to my dearest friend. Neither did I wish to humiliate the boring young woman to whom I had become affianced, and thereby lose her wealthy father's patronage.

But upon the occasion of my graduation from medical college, Henry and I celebrated rather excessively, carousing late into the night, and when all the good wine we shared ignited a fire within me, like Prometheus I seized it, damning myself. We were toasting my late mother, in whose memory I had labored at my studies, endeavoring to someday conquer the forces of sickness and death which had stolen her, and the next instant I had embraced Henry, so closely his heart was beating its rhythm against my chest. Lost in his gorgeous green eyes, I professed my love and raved of my desires. Pressing closer still, my lips brushed his, when suddenly he pushed me away, gently to be sure, though in my ardor, the blow was more devastating than any I had ever suffered. Henry seemed as inebriated and dazed as I, but when finally he spoke, his words were terribly sobering. "I shall always be your friend, Victor," said he, "but I could never be more." With our revelry so disastrously ended, he bade me farewell, and I returned home in misery, cursing my indiscretion.

Some months later, during which we had not spoken, I sent Henry an invitation to tour the premises where I had begun practicing medicine. He graciously accepted, and upon his arrival I greeted him in the office where I received my patients, then showed him the rooms where I conducted examinations and ministered to ailments. All the while, I was sad to see Henry was now ill at ease in my company, and I realized our former camaraderie was gone. With a heavy heart, I escorted him to my laboratory where he took in the impressive sight of the arcane apparatuses assembled therein. What followed was a moment which haunts me, blessedly brief, when Henry unexpectedly turned just as I swung my axe, and his eyes filled with terror while I dealt the single blow which killed him… It still shames me that he did not die as I intended, ignorant of his impending doom…

Please understand, I know I had no right to take Henry's life. But I had such… need… It was not a waste, though, I assure you.

I made something of him.

I am not sure it can be called a man, though it does possess a man's form. My creation wears Henry's face, but its features have lost his soulful expressiveness. Thankfully, the eyes are as vibrant as ever, perhaps even moreso. Admittedly, the creature lacks man's capacity for higher thought, but its depth of feeling and unflinching obedience are ample compensation, as when it dutifully snapped my father-in-law's neck, then strangled my wife, earning me an inheritance and freeing me of those tiresome entanglements.

We live most happily together now, my creation and I. Each day, I kiss its slack lips and make love to its clumsy patchwork body, pretending its unintelligible grunts are eloquent words of devotion. Afterward, gazing into Henry's adoring eyes, I am contented.

The Deep Hell

Nicholas Ong

"Are you sure it's safe here?" questioned Mark for the millionth time.

I groaned.

"Yes, you idiot. It's perfectly safe. The only things you have to fear around here are sharks and the bloody kraken."

Through the dim lights of our submarine, Mark seemed less anxious, but he was still a quivering bag of nerves. The Amphibian shined its search beams downward, illuminating the darkness of the deep ocean, until there was a stripe of white-

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" screamed Mark.

I gazed in slack-jawed horror and awe at the magnificent skeleton perched in the middle of the ocean. Intact, it hung in the water as though it was still alive, still searching for food to sustain itself. It was shaped like a serpent, except a large dorsal fin stuck up from its back. Oddest of all were its limbs. Two long, clawed hands protruded from its body, positioned as though it were carrying a heavy rock. The most probable reason for this was the difference between densities of water - from this point down, the level of salinity in the water was going to skyrocket.

"It's incredible," I said. "This is… this is a new discovery! Quick, take a picture!"

I quickly snapped a couple of shots. The gloom made the pictures turn out even more foreboding than they already were.

Thump. I whirled around in shock to find Mark white on the floor.

"What're you doi-"

I stopped short as a shaking finger pointed toward the monitor.

Outside, emerging from the depths of a watery hell, came several of the serpent monsters.

Most of them were fully grown, but I saw a few which I assumed were newborns. They lived like whales, I observed, and moved around in a pod. They were, without a doubt, the ocean's ultimate predators - even the legendary kraken would have a tough time with these huge beasts. A whole whale carcass was still clenched in one of their jaws, and that was the baby.

"Sebastian! WE HAVE TO GO!"

I snapped out of my stupor and fired up the engines. Even as the submarine throttled, I realized these serpents were too fast: even the top speed of The Amphibian wouldn't outrace them.

But it wouldn't stop us trying. The world needed to know of these creatures. The shuttle roared to life and we began inching forward, painfully slow.

Shadows obscured our vision as long, bony fingers grabbed at our windows. This was it. Mark was sobbing in a corner, terrified out of his wits, and it was taking all I could not to freak out and scream. The Amphibian stopped moving - one of them had stuck its finger in the propellers and it had broken off.

Then all at once, they disappeared.

I checked on Mark, who had turned white and fainted.

I sat on the floor staring into the murky waters of hell as the serpents swam away. Were they just uninterested in an inedible thing? Their intelligence was sorely lacking for such evolved-

No.

I was the one whose intelligence was lacking.

Our submarine sat in the middle of an unexplored trench with a broken propeller, unable to move.

In front of us, a shadow stirred, and the serpent monsters, who had cleverly used us as a decoy, managed to escape.

The Canyon Cave

Kristopher J. Patten

For as long as I’ve been a rafting tour director on the Colorado River, I’ve heard stories about caves dotting the sheer, beautiful face of the Grand Canyon. From my fellow directors I’ve heard boastful tales of lone excursions to primitive mine shafts strewn with tools from the 1800s. From tourists, I’ve heard theories about sprawling cavern systems running beneath the entire Southwest that either were or are populated by a lost native tribe or ancient extraterrestrials. My university geology classes taught me there are nothing but wind-eroded pockets placed haphazardly in the Canyon wall like Swiss cheese bubbles.

For years I held the skeptical scientific line. After 100 or more trips down the Colorado surveying the arterial eddies and inlets, though, I began to wonder. No one could have explored every wall of the Canyon. Some inlets were damn near impossible to enter because of the strong currents which would tug a raft in the opposite direction at speeds a human simply could not overcome. Powered craft encountered problems in the rapids as their rudders and props would be shorn off by the shallow rocks. Sometimes it seemed like I would catch a glimpse of an opening but, by the time I pulled out my binoculars, it had moved out of shadow and become just another shallow impression.

However, if a climber left his raft at a calm zone above the rapids and scaled sideways across the treacherous face of the Canyon, he could round the bend in the rock and be suspended above the relatively calm waters of the inlet. Relatively calm was a key phrase, though; without a raft, a human would be carried out to the rapids and bludgeoned against the rocks. You couldn’t swim the inlet. An emergency inflatable raft, however, might do the trick.

The first vacation I had, I attempted my plan. Save for a few close slips on my toe holds, it went off perfectly. Paddling my raft around the small space, I saw a dark maw to my left. I had found a real cave! Unlike the tall tales my workmates told, mine would be backed up with photographic evidence.

But a few exterior shots weren’t enough. I had to go inside.

I tied the raft off to a boulder with a smooth circular groove, that seemed almost made to be a mooring, and hopped into the abyss. A cool breeze suggested the cave extended quite a long distance. The passage seemed almost dead straight, though it must not have been because the light beaming in from outside eventually fell away as though I had gone around a corner. There were no tools, no fire pits, no sign anyone had ever been inside the cave.

I placed a hand on the cool rock and was surprised to find it rough and dry. I'd never been in a cave without at least a little lichen on the walls. There wasn't just no sign of human visitors, there was no sign of any life in the cave.

The cave began to narrow and I hiked, hunched over, for what felt like an hour before turning back. In truth, I had no idea how long I walked. No matter how deep into the cave I went, the scenery was identical: a long cylinder molded from clay. Inexplicably, the cave felt narrower on my return trip, too. When I hit a dead end of solid stone, I assumed I had taken a wrong turn.

But there had been no branches.

And the tunnel continued to close in.

My Daughter’s Necklaces

Marc Kinsville

Would you mind if I talk to you about Leane? You see, I got her this jewelry-making kit for her birthday last year. She took to it right away. She’d spend all day stringing these multicolored beads on them and giving them to me.

I loved wearing them and Leane loved making them. She experimented with her creations by finding other objects to make her necklaces with, like tree leaves, flower petals, and acorns.

Being the ever-supportive parent, I encouraged her, and wore her creations with pride.

One day, she came to me excitedly with her latest creation. It was another necklace but this one had tiny insect wings on it. She told me she had found a dead fly and peeled the wings off of it.

As usual, I encouraged her and complimented her creativity. Next thing I knew, she was coming to me with necklaces made out of caterpillars, shadflies, and other bugs. I had no interest in placing those around my neck, but I did so because – well – I love Leane.

You have children. You understand, don’t you?

It got to the point, however, where her necklace creations were becoming somewhat… disconcerting.

I pulled her aside for a heart-to-heart.

“Leane, I love these necklaces, but you have to respect other living creatures. Killing bugs just to make necklaces is wrong, do you understand?”

Leane had a quizzical look on her face at first, but she is a smart girl. She understood.

Or at least… I thought she understood.

I came home from work the next day to find Leane anxiously waiting for me.

Yes, she had made another necklace of insects, but with one small difference: the insects were still alive!

I think Leane mistook my horrified shock as pleasant surprise. She asked me to bend down. She wanted to place it on me. It’s a good thing I don’t have a phobia of insects, but it was a challenge to act pleasant while feeling this wriggling, squirming mass of bugs on my chest.

I had to put a stop to this! I talked to Leane, but she’s a bit stubborn.

Finally, I told her I didn’t care what she used to make these necklaces, as long as it wasn’t bugs!

Poor choice of words.

A couple of days later she surprised me with another necklace…

…with an eyeball attached.

Thankfully, the eyeball was from an animal. I don’t know where she got it, but I was worried.

Which is why I came to see you. I thought, ‘surely child psychology has advanced to the point where it could help children like Leane with their… creative tendencies.’ But of course not! You psychiatrists must always jump to conclusions and say Leane must be “disturbed” and needs “treatment.” First of all, my Leane is not “disturbed,” and secondly, I love my daughter and would sacrifice my own life before letting you lock her away in an institution as if she is some dangerous animal! Yes, I know what you psychiatrists mean by “treatment."

Do you understand now why I brought you here then… and why I can’t let you leave?

I’m just trying to protect my family. It may be too late for me, but my daughter has her whole life ahead of her, you know? Now hold still. My daughter tells me she loves your fingernails…

There's No Such Thing

J.A. Marshall

Many of my clients frighten me, but none as much as Stanley. He thinks he sees demons. Sometimes they stand outside his window, staring in. Other times, he'll wake up to find one leaning over his bed.

He lives in constant, unrelenting terror.

"He spoke to me again," Stanley told me last week.

"There are no demons," I said. "We've discussed…"

"He said he's had enough of your fucking skepticism."

"That language is inappropriate…"

"He remembers you from the basement. In the house where you grew up. He misses you."

"We're done for today." I stood up and opened my office door. "Our sessions are not supposed to be about me, Stanley. You know that. Next time I'll report you to your parole officer."

"Go to the basement," Stanley whispered. "He'll make you believe."

I locked the door behind him.

It was nonsense, of course, a cheap fortune-teller's trick. If a statement is vague enough, it applies to anyone. Lots of people grow up with creepy basements or closets or attics. But still, my hands shook as I put away Stanley's file.

As a child, I was convinced a monster lived in our basement. Going down there was torture, but coming back up those stairs was even worse. I swear I felt its hot breath on the backs of my legs as I fled up the steps, taking two at a time, holding in a scream. There was a cross-shaped crack in the wall near the top of the stairs, and I knew if I touched the cross before the monster touched me, I'd make it to the safety of the kitchen. And I never, ever looked back.

After work, I drove to my parents' house. Standing in the kitchen at the top of the stairs, I contemplated the darkness below. Then I went down.

Everything was the same. Creaky steps. Musty smell of dirt and old potatoes. Ubiquitous dust.

It was just a basement, I realized, nothing evil about it, no monsters, no demons. I took out my phone and video recorded everything, hoping to finally convince Stanley his demons were imaginary.

Going back up the stairs still unnerved me, I admit it. Even holding my phone flashlight, it took every ounce of my adult rationality to stay calm. Breathing deeply and climbing slowly, I deliberately took one step at a time. At the top, I forced myself to look back.

There was nothing there.

I smiled. I'd conquered a childhood fear and disproved Stanley's demon. Not a bad day's work.

At our next appointment, I showed Stanley the video. He watched it twice.

"See?" I said. "No proof of demonic activity. Nothing scary. What does your so-called demon have to say about that?"

"He says he doesn't have to prove anything to you."

A triumphant smile began to grow across my face, but it died when I noticed Stanley was staring past me, at something behind me. He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"And he says that you'd better not forget to touch that cross ever again. Next time he won't be so forgiving."

Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple

Michael Parrish

The digitized voice of a young woman filled the main room of the run-down shotgun shack Anita called home. She sat Indian style in the middle of the floor, an old laptop resting across her knees, an old home video playing on the screen.

The young woman in the video made the shapes with her fingers and recited the words:

“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open it up and see all the people.”

The tow-headed boy who had her full attention cackled and clapped his hands. “Again Mama, again!”

A single tear rolled down Anita’s cheek, and her hand impulsively reached to finger the gold cross hanging around her neck. It was then she realized she was no longer alone in the room.

A hulking figure of a man darkened the doorway leading into the kitchen. Anita, startled, snapped the laptop shut and bounced to her feet, showing wry athleticism for a woman in her early forties. The man stepped forward, dirty brogan shoes tracking mud in from the outside.

“Andy, what have I told you about taking your boots off before you come into the house,” she scolded, “and I just mopped the kitchen this morning, too!”

The blond man hung his head. “Sorry, Mama. I forgot.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Anita sighed, embracing her son, “just don’t do it again. Are you ready for dinner?”

“Yes, Mama.”

Anita stepped around her son and into the kitchen. A steaming pot of stew simmered on the stove. “Those rabbits you caught yesterday are gonna be delicious, Andy.”

“Mama, when are we gonna go back to the church?”

Anita dropped the ladle and turned to her son, torn between the need to nurture her son and the knowledge of what he had done. She longed for her son to have some sort of human contact outside of their daily interactions, but since the event at the church, there was no one left to interact with. As such, despite his strength, size, and clear intelligence, Andy never developed social skills beyond those of a grade school boy.

“Honey, you know that we can’t go back to the church. Not now, not ever.”

Andy plopped down into a dining table chair, his lips protruding, arms crossed over his chest. After contemplating for several seconds, he looked back to his mother.

“Mama, what happened to all the people?”

Anita approached her son and brushed his blond hair back from his forehead. She fingered the cross around her neck and sighed, rubbing her thumb across the red, slightly raised mark that had been clear on her son’s head since birth. Despite repeated claims to the contrary to herself and to anyone else who would listen, she could no longer deny the obvious shape of the three intertwined sixes. She leaned down and hugged him, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“You did, baby,” she whispered, “you did.”

A Long Night Drive

Tony Johnson

Headlights parted the dark as she reversed down the driveway, spitting bloody fragments of teeth through split lips.

“That… shitfire fuckwad!” She screamed. It was the best she could think of at the time.

She dropped the old Chevy into gear and sped away from the low and unkempt ranch house, gravel tinking against the living room window. A left and another took her to the freeway, desolate and indifferent trucks speeding along in the night.

Down Route 15, west to the exit by her mom’s, exit 19. Ten miles to escape, and even if only temporary it was all she needed for a time. She and her mom hadn’t been on speaking terms for a while, but for this… she has to take me in.

Thoughts churned as she drove, one finally rising to consciousness and forming, like clotting blood.

I have to leave him. Next time, he’ll kill me.

The abuse had recently escalated to the point where she knew it to be true. Started as mental – she was worthless, a harlot, a tramp.

Then physical; at first, nothing leaving a mark – he had mastery of the bar of soap in a sock trick.

Then, hell’s bells – it was like he didn’t give a single fuck anymore – black eyes, broken fingers, dragging her by the hair. She’d show up to work and she didn’t know which was worse: the throbbing pain from the wounds or the disinterested stares of her coworkers.

Road under her wheels, exit 18 up ahead, the verdant, metallic green of the freeway sign her sole focus.

And then… the sign changed.

Exit 18 became exit 4 – five miles before her own exit.

She blinked, wiped sweat and blood from her eyes, and tried to refocus. But it read exit 4, clear and precise in the headlights. Even had the bullet hole right above the street name like a stunted umlaut.

Did I go the wrong way on 15? Man, he really scrambled my head good this time. Exit… 4? The fuck?

She drove on, passing her own exit, mind numb, not processing. She passed her gas station, her bank, certain she’d already done so, and pressed on, ticking off nine more miles in under seven minutes.

It happened again.

18 became 4, bullet hole and all.

She tried it seventeen times more, dawn starting to show orange in the east. She’d approach her mom’s exit, feel the pull of safety and something more basic – something if not love, at least the polar opposite of what had happened in her house, and the sign would waver, shimmer, and… reset.

And she’d be back at exit 4, five miles from her home. The sign with the same bullet hole.

The first dozen times, she’d tried to figure it out, tried to outsmart it. Gradually, with repetition, she became numb to it, going through the motions.

18… 4… bullet hole.

Slowly, and with motions guiding from outside herself, leaden hands on the steering wheel, she took her exit and turned right, turned right again…

And pulled into her own driveway.

Welcome to the Club

Michael Parrish

“Sam! Great to see you again, come in, come in, welcome, welcome!

“Now, now, don’t get upset, we had a deal, remember.”

Samuel Murphy Debuts on Billboard Charts with Smoking Soul Single

“I mean, you were just a pool boy for some rich old white woman in Birmingham, and now, look at you, right up there with Cooke, Redding, and Pickett. It was everything you could have asked for.”

Muscle Shoals Rebirth? -- Sam Murphy Shoots to Number One

“Now, I know you thought you were probably going to have a longer career, but I did promise you that you’d belong to a very exclusive club. I know it may not have been the club you were thinking of, but now just think of the legendary names that you’ll be mentioned with.”

Doors’ Jim Morrison, 27, Death in Paris Revealed

“Come, let me give you a quick tour before I show you where you’ll be staying. There’s Morrison. Guy thought he was a poet; I thought he was a hack, and I hated that godawful circus music they made. Called himself “The Lizard King” one time. So, I made him the Lizard King. The little desert dwellers burrow into his flesh and eat his entrails all day.”

Guitarist Jimi Hendrix Dies; Found in Coma at His Girl’s

“Hendrix is to your right in the corner. Best I’ve ever heard. He needed exposure to the masses, and that’s where I got involved. Now he plays all day, on an out-of-tune Stratocaster and with ten broken fingers… soul-crushing for a musician like him.”

Nirvana Lead Singer Commits Suicide

“That’s Cobain giving the press conference and signing autographs. Talk about a guy that couldn’t handle what he asked for. He absolutely hated the fame once it came his way. He railed against the media, the fans, everything. He was perfectly okay with going out early… until he got here. Now, he’s constantly surrounded by the press and adoring fans.”

Amy Winehouse is Dead at 27

“Winehouse, she was almost one of your contemporaries. What was that catchy song she had? Oh yeah: “They tried to make me go to rehab / I said, no, no, no.” Did you know that alcohol withdrawals are considered worse than those of any illegal drug? Amy is in constant withdrawals. Anxiety, vomiting, fever, hallucinations… she's in stage three, having a seizure right now… guess she should’ve gone to rehab after all.”

Janis Joplin’s Body Found in Hollywood Hotel Room

“Joplin’s in the back, behind those doors. She was quite the promiscuous little tramp in her day. I'm sure she's wishing things had gone differently now - she’s spending the rest of eternity, ahem, servicing my demon hordes.”

Rock Star Brian Jones Dead in Pool

“Brian Jones? Oh no, that wasn’t me. Just a coincidence. They really did make it to the top on their own devices. I loved Beggar’s Banquet, but they got so much about me wrong in that one song.”

Superstar Sam Murphy, 27, Dies Amid Rumors of Drug Fueled Orgy

“Ah, here we are. Sam Murphy, the pool boy turned soul sensation. Since your music was all about getting back to your roots, I decided to do the same thing. You’re the new pool boy for our lake of fire, Sam. I’m sure it will be quite unbearable for the first millennia or so. After that, maybe we’ll switch things up.

“Oh, and Sam, welcome to The Club.”

Sapper

Mike Sundberg

My dearest Charlotte,

It is not honorable in any sense of the word to serve in this so-called Great War. By day the shells scream above our heads and the rounds of the mechanized guns irritate the ears like hungry mosquitos. There is no heroism in survival, and though I like to think my existence is aided by the sharpness of my senses, my heart knows it is by blind luck that I am still alive.

By night the wailing calls of the wounded keep us from sleep; there is never any silence in these infernal trenches, where men shelter from bombs only to die from disease. On but one restless evening, when the moon was full and lustrous, I chanced a look out upon the wasteland between us and the enemy.

The dead lay in dark lumps across the desolate plain, the moans of the dying carried by the ghastly winds. The sight was so horrible I would have hid back behind the muddy walls had I not caught a glimpse of something low and crawling amongst the corpses.

It moved slowly and unnaturally about no-man’s land, and I thought I could see strange appendages wheeling about in the night. It came upon a struggling man, of whose country was indeterminate, and the shriek of terror I heard numbed my extremities. When I awoke at the next dawn, I considered the memory but an apparition of the mind. Such is war.

For the past few weeks I have had the privilege of digging underground toward the enemy lines, and have been spared the horrors of the daylight shellings. Our mission was to detonate explosives underneath the trenches of our foe, and yesterday we succeeded in reaching our goal.

I followed our demolitions expert down the tunnel we had excavated, carrying the explosives and laying the detonator cable. We had reached only half way when the ground caved and he fell into the dark.

I shined my torchlight down the fissure and found him but a few feet down in another tunnel, surprised but unscathed. We must have come upon a passage carved by the enemy, he told me, but as my light illuminated the hole I saw it was circular and its walls were coated with oil.

I grew nervous and offered him my hand to pull him out, and as he grasped my palm so too did a multitude of thin and grey tentacles wrap tightly around his legs.

He cried in terror and pleaded for me to pull, his free hand not reaching for his pistol, but clawing at the mud. With all my strength I fought to lift him from the caved earth, and to my surprise I did, but what I dragged out was only the top half of the man, his bloody entrails spilling out violently before me.

I set the charges next to his torso, and fled.

The explosion shook the earth itself, sending rock a hundred body-lengths into the sky, in the middle of no-man’s land, and took not a soul of our enemy.

***

My dearest Charlotte,

I write to you because tomorrow I am to fix my bayonet and partake in a charge toward the enemy lines, as punishment for my failure to execute my orders.

I pray I die quickly and am not left wounded, for there are far more hellish things than man that gnaw on the carrion of battle.

With all my love,

Pvt. William J. Smith

November 1916

The Test

Dieben and Jonas Lefkowitch

Late one evening, during a chilly autumn downpour, I heard a knock at the door and arrived there to find my wife, Anna, opening it to a stranger on our stoop: an elderly, emaciated black man, soaked to the bone in a yellowed, threadbare suit. In spite of his sorry state there was an unmistakable dignity in his bearing. "I am hungry, cold, and weary," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Have you food to spare and a warm place where I might rest?"

I was about to pull Anna aside to discuss the matter when our six-year-old, Danny, shouted, "Aren't you gonna help the man?" My wife and I exchanged a long glance.

"Of course, Danny," Anna finally said, and my son's innocent smile made me regret I'd ever considered turning the old man away. While Anna prepared him a plate of leftovers, I set up a cot and a space heater in the garage. The old man thanked us for our hospitality before settling in for the night. The next morning he was already gone when we awoke. I didn't expect we'd ever see him again.

No one was expecting him to show up in the papers and on television, to discover this was no mere man, but rather a worldwide phenomenon, who in one night had visited every home in every nation, asking for help in every native language.

Humanity had been tested - by whom was obvious - and it was just as obvious we had not fared well. Most of us sent the Old Man packing. Many called the police. Few had invited Him in. Yet there were no repercussions, no raptures, no rebukes from above.

Until tonight.

I answered another knock at our door and there He was, dressed in an immaculate white suit.

"Oh my… God?"

He smiled and nodded, then asked if He could come in, soft-spoken and serene as ever.

"Of course!" I replied.

He stepped past me, making His way to the center of the family room. Anna was watching Him from the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with awe. I was shaking.

"You did well last time," He said.

"Thank you, my Lord!" I cried.

"I must test you once more," He said.

"Whatever you ask!" Anna declared.

"Please, sit," He said, and we did, hand in trembling hand, eager to hear what He would ask of us. "This shall be difficult, but I have faith in you."

Anna was nodding. I was too.

"Your son, Daniel, is among the finest souls I have encountered," He said. "I have need of this child. Please, I ask that you free his soul so he may join me."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Daniel must die," He said plainly. "Please, I ask that you see to it now."

My blood ran cold. I tried to respond, but no words would come. Feeling faint, I looked to my wife for the strength I desperately needed, but only found indecision in her dazed expression. The Old Man was watching us, waiting patiently. I realized I had no choice…

"NO!" I screamed, bursting from my seat. "We won't kill our son for you! Get out of this house!"

The Old Man tried to speak. "Please, I know-"

"YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM, DAMN YOU!" Anna roared.

The Old Man didn't say another word, only nodded, turned on His heel, and strolled out the door. Anna and I immediately gathered the family, huddling together in our bedroom. There was nothing to say and no use covering our ears as the shrieks and wails began to emerge from nearby homes. Throughout the night, we laid awake just listening. We recognized the voices of many of our neighbors amongst the tumult crying out for help… for mercy… for forgiveness… for God. More than a few believers, it seemed, had taken Him up on His challenge.

Bonus Stories

Island

Tony Johnson

People of a certain age can probably remember the phone booth. Once ubiquitous, now gone the way of things that are gone.

You stepped in, dropped your dime or nickel or (near the end) quarter and could voice your pithy little syllables which seemed meaningful at the time. There was no need for Gramming Instantly, Hashtagging, Chatting Snaps, or Booking any Faces. I was in just such a contrivance when the world ended.

June sprang warmly on the city, much needed after a particularly vicious winter. Humanity seemed to be coming alive again, peopling the cafes and parks and staring up at the blue skies in blinking disbelief. Disbelief over such a wondrous thing as a blue sky actually existing after months of leaden deadness the winter firmament seemed committed to. And then, later, when the shit started, there was further disbelief at the birds dropping dead from the same sky, their plumage coming unfeathered as their lifeless bodies were now under control of gravity, that bitch, and not their innate ability to fly.

I watched it all unfold from the cramped confines of my little phone booth on West 8th.

Inside my little booth I bellowed, loud and shrieky, ululating out of my throat up into the world as the birds fell. Shrieks like the end of the world, which it was. Outside the booth, I probably had the appearance of a guy in mid-yawn.

After the birds, it all happened quickly. People next, just up and dying like Mr. Bojangles’ dog. Stopped dead in their tracks or, worse, behind the wheel, the cars piling into each other, some exploding.

I had stepped into the booth on the way to the lab to call Dr. Täuschung – I needed a refill of my meds, and things always got a little hazy when I ran out. I saw things, and sometimes, when it got serious, I did things. Working at the lab, as I did, both seeing things and doing things were undeniably unacceptable. I’d been able to hide my little problem as I thought of it, in check and under wraps. Which was necessary, because I needed hefty security clearance to handle the materials I worked with.

If the stuff ever got out – was ever released into the world – well, it’d be the end. The end of phone booths and meds and good old Dr. Täuschung and my mother and everybody.

Now, after the birds and people, the spiders came. Colossal, black, and bristly, and about the size of a human head. They scrabbled up the concrete and were even able to climb the smooth, reflective glass of the skyscrapers. Their little pointy feet, or whatever was at the end of their legs, made tapping sounds on the mirrored surfaces of the buildings.

I saw myself reflected in the glass of the building across the street as it all happened. I think it was me, anyway. It was certainly a guy in a phone booth, but he seemed totally normal. Not terrified at all.

Odd.

Black spiders, their abdomens tense with eggs, glistening like obsidian, crawled all over the reflection of my face. I could practically feel them.

The seeing and the doing which happened while off the meds were bad, but the feeling was worse. Seeing and doing are distant things – outside of you and you can pretend they’re someone else.

Feeling – now that’s personal. It’s in your nerves. It’s in your brain.

Here’s the funny thing – I never got through to Dr. Täuschung. Dropped in my quarter, ringy ringy – nothing. The line died, not even an answering machine. And then the shit started. Bird and spider and dead people shit.

No meds for me. Meds and ends – it is all the world was that day. Meds and ends. Meds and ends and sons and mothers.

It was cramped in the phone booth, and I felt short on air and my muscles were seizing up. Even with a world swirling with spiders and littered with bodies and flaming cars outside my little booth, I felt the need to escape. I had always been a tad claustrophobic (or closet-phobic as I called it as a kid, when mother would lock me in there) and, Armageddon or no, the phone booth was starting to panic me.

Sometimes the things on the inside are worse by far than the things on the outside.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled open the door of my little booth and stepped out onto a sidewalk not littered with dead, featherless birds and corpses, but onto normal, everyday grey concrete and the quotidian noises of a city going about its business in an ordinary fashion.

I took a moment to compose myself and checked my surroundings. No spiders click-clocking up the side of the building where I worked. The only thing resembling a dead body in sight was Alfred, the usual homeless guy camped in his refrigerator box on the corner of 8th and Hedren. No flaming cars. Just… normal.

Rattling the empty pill vial in my pocket, I felt the phone booth panic subside and drift away. I turned toward my building and flashed my security badge at the guard. One biometric scan later, I was on the elevator down to the lab, six stories below the city. I thought about the rows of gleaming vials containing the sleeping crystals of cis-ricin isomer, I thought about my mother and the closet.

Meds and ends and maybe a beginning.

Four Peaks Spring

Kristopher J. Patten

The spring felt wrong from the moment we found it. Maybe even before then.

The hike was supposed to be a celebration, another step toward conquering the world. Two years ago, we graduated college. Last year, we went white water rafting. This year, we were going to scale the highest point of the Four Peaks range in our county.

I had hiked a few miles up the same trail with my cousin, who lived in Oregon, up until a couple months ago. We reached a low saddle, but he wanted to turn around before even setting foot on the main slope. The heat and the sparse desert landscape were too much for him, he complained. Too ugly.

I disagreed, though. The desert was my home. We had been born there, grew up together there, and still lived there. I felt safe among the creosote and mesquite. Besides, more traditional trees were visible growing further up the steep slope and likely gave way to pines near the top. When my friends and I exited our car, something was different about the trailhead. The sun was out but it seemed shrouded in gloom.

I scanned the horizon for incoming thunderheads. Clear. I shrugged, considering my perception of the trailhead might just be trepidation at the day’s heat manifesting itself visually.

The desert plants, usually thriving in all temperatures, were dried and brown. It looked as though someone had come through with a backpack too wide for the trail; yuccas, ocotillos, and century plants – all tall, spire-like vegetation trying to present the least surface area to the unforgiving sun – had been snapped and lay along the trail. Oddly, none were fully broken. Each one had been cracked halfway up the stalk, the top bending to rest on the ground and forming a natural barrier. A guard rail of jagged triangles kept us on the trail.

The path soon became dark with the charred remains of an old wildfire. We hopped over prostrate cactuses, thin and delicate flesh singed away revealing the latticework skeleton underneath, and prone palo verdes, blackened arms thrown out as if trying to crawl away from the flames. Here, though the fire had burned twenty years ago, the tall, slower-growing vegetation had been consumed by the fire and hadn’t yet regenerated. Short scrub and ankle-high cholla cactuses had grown back thickly, however. The effect was of wading through a charcoal swamp and dodging the bony hands of ghouls reaching up from the depths of Hell.

As soon as we entered the shade of the more broad-leafed cottonwoods, we stopped for a water break.

“Shit,” Steven mumbled.

We looked over to where he was digging through his pack, growing more frantic with each pawing handful.

“I left my water in the car.”

Shawn rolled his eyes. I shrugged.

“You can share, dude,” I offered, handing my plastic gallon jug his way. “Besides, there are two springs up here. From what I saw online, they’re difficult to find. They’ll appear as puddles in the middle of a boulder, but they’re fresh water. We’ll just refill. Probably better than this 88-cent shit, anyway.”

Steven thanked me and we continued on. Though we had been silent through the desert portion, we chatted as we hiked through the cool reprieve from the sun. Maybe Steven and Shawn had sensed something weird back down the path, too.

As our conversation moved from silliness to jobs and girls, I must have lost focus on my footing. I was at a fork in my career and the last six months had been consumed by a relationship with a close friend, now perched on an apex with continued friendship on one side, romance on the other, and a wasteland of heartbreak in between. The trail wasn’t particularly treacherous, but I’d rolled my ankle. I twisted as I fell, my pack taking most of the impact. As I sat up to take stock of myself, I heard the guttural slurping of air moving back inside an emptying jug. A sharp rock had punctured my water jug.

“Christ,” Steven moaned. “Now you’re both going to want my water. Why don’t you have a real container, man?” He held out his steel jug, trying to pass his comments off as a joke. I knew, though, it wasn’t. He could be pissy sometimes.

I purposely drank more than I needed to get back at him.

By the time we reached the oddly specific line up the trail where cottonwoods and other leafy trees gave way to pines, the water was gone. My thighs burned from climbing, my mouth felt fluffy and swollen from inhaling the dry air. I needed a short break, but I knew we needed to power on to find the spring. It was somewhere off to the right in with the pine trees. Whether we continued on to the top or called the adventure off due to our packing follies, we needed to fill up. I didn’t want to be airlifted out in a helicopter, sick from heat stroke and dehydration like the people I scoffed at when I watched the nightly news.

Shawn kept glancing over his shoulder and dragging his pace. I wondered if he was judging the distance back to the trailhead. He probably needed a break, too.

He trotted up to me and touched my elbow. Leaning close, he whispered, “Some dude has been following us for a long ass time. When we stopped to finish off Steven’s water, he stopped, too. I’ve been slowing down to see if he passes us, but he just slows right along with me. Stays about 800 feet back.”

I peered back for a moment before I could make out the slow movement of a maroon ball cap behind us.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… Keep watching him. Maybe he’s just kind of socially awkward and doesn’t want to have to pass us.”

Shawn nodded, but didn’t seem to buy it.

We trekked on for another half hour, my throat sore, my teeth rough and gritty. The spring should have been close.

And then a cough from ahead of us caused me to jump. A low chuckle wafted out of the trees.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” a silvery voice said as a maroon ball cap emerged from further up the mountain. They belonged to a skinny, middle-aged guy dressed in an old t-shirt and shorts. The emblem on the cap was an old ASU Sun Devils logo, probably mid-80s.

“How’s your hike going?” he asked.

“Good,” I answered, clearing my phlegmy throat. I glanced back down the path to see if he was the maroon cap Shawn had pointed out. How did he get ahead of us?

“Did you see the spring up ahead?” I asked. “I was hoping to fill up a jug.”

“Yeah, it’s coming up. You can’t miss it,” he replied, holding eye contact with me as he passed. I tried to look away but there was something intriguing about the bright yellowy-brown of his irises, the shape of his veins, the twinkle in his pupils. Like a magpie, I stared until he turned his head away.

We continued silently on until Shawn decided we were out of earshot.

“Dude! What the fuck? That’s the guy that was following us.”

“I know,” I said. “He must have taken a shortcut around some switchbacks.”

Shawn shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, but Steven’s gleeful shout cut him off.

“Found it!”

Steven stood at the edge of a circular clearing with a small cairn in the center. He laughed and raced to the cairn, where he drank deeply from the water bubbling forth. Shawn followed him and splashed cupped handfuls of water on his face.

I was confused, though. Everything I had read said the spring was difficult to find and located on the hiking trail floor. In the pictures, trees grew right next to the rocky outlet. There had been no mention of this spring and yet the cairn appeared ages old. I realized a cairn constructed a day ago and one a century older might appear the same because they are both constructed of millennia-old rock, but something about the bubbling structure felt ancient. Older than time.

When I crossed into the clearing, a troubled tension seized my chest. It felt like walking through someone else’s home, defiling a tomb, or breaking into a sacred house of worship. The pine branches aligned themselves to cast triangular shadows on the clearing floor. The trees at the edge of the clearing had their shorn branches propped against them in pyramidal shapes. The cairn, which had seemed cylindrical from afar, had been constructed as a pyramid, three triangular sides lifting to a three-sided stone bowl.

Steven filled his container and moved off to sit in the shade. Shawn joined him and tore the wrapper from a Clif Bar. I stared into the bright, cool water jumping from the cairn. I pushed away the feeling I was doing something inappropriate, something irrevocable and immoral, and drank.

I saw myself – felt myself – ascending to the peak with my friends, then laughing our way back down. I smelled the aroma of our cooking lunch back in town.

And then I was back, drinking at the cairn. Steven and Shawn still sat in the shade, munching their snack.

“What did you see?” the hiker with the ASU cap asked from the side of the clearing opposite my friends. A cry of fright caught in my throat, stifled by a mouthful of sweet water.

How had he come back around without being seen?

“What?” I asked.

He lifted his hands in a shrug. “You saw something. I want to know what.”

“You’re crazy, man. You need to stop following us.”

“Just answer me.”

“The hike. Cool? I saw the hike.” I glimpsed over at Steven and Shawn. I was talking loudly enough so they should have realized someone was with us, but they lazed in their comfortable corner of the clearing.

“Don’t look to them. This is about you,” the hiker said with gleaming eyes. “Do you have other uncertainties? Hold them in your mind and drink.”

He could tell I wasn’t buying it.

“Try it. What is there to lose? You have fresh water to soothe your burning throat if I’m wrong.”

I thought of the girl at work, the one I wanted to ask out, and pulled my hands to my lips.

I saw her, smiling. We were at a fancy restaurant by my house. I spilled my water glass and she laughed, crinkling her nose.

My heart ached as the sight, the feelings, faded. The hiker’s eyes appeared before me and I could feel the cold spring water on my hands again. I noticed, as I studied him, the veins in his eyes fell together in threes like the shadowed floor of the clearing.

“It worked,” he said.

I nodded.

“What I’m offering you isn’t free. But try again.”

What the hell did that mean, ‘not free’? I shook the thought away and focused on my job.

I sat at my laptop, a scrawling spreadsheet open in front of me. I had taken the data analyst job. But I was miserable. The numbers never stopped. The subtraction columns and formulas were a bleak void into which my days fell. The vision disappeared in a mist, replaced by my ringing cell phone. I couldn’t see the caller ID, but when I answered, a frantic voice replied.

“There was an accident—” it shrilled, but the scene faded back to the clearing before the voice could say what had happened.

“What was that?” I asked. “At the end?”

Ballcap shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see what the spring shows you.”

I leaned back toward the water, stopped by the hiker’s strong hand.

“This is not free.”

“Well, I’ve got money, man. I’ve got food.”

“Those things have no value.” He moved closer to me, the heat of his nose palpable on my own. His eyes filled my field of vision. I saw nothing but bright amber protected by a triangular red lattice of flowing blood.

“It is a debt to be paid later,” he whispered. “Each nourishing mouthful provides knowledge but also brings you closer to eternity. Drink, if you will, but do not expect your debts to go uncollected.”

And then he left the clearing, hiking away down the mountain.

I drank deep. The girl from my vision had been in a car accident, fallen into a coma. She would be removed from life support without waking. But I could save her.

I just needed more information about the crash. Then I could stop it before it happened.

I drank, and the pieces fell into place.

I drank, and gathered knowledge.

I drank.

I lifted my head from the spring. The accident happened as she left my apartment the morning after the date. I could switch the day, or drive her home. I knew how to save her.

I smiled, but felt no joy.

Steven, Shawn, and I completed our hike. I laughed with them, but felt no sense of accomplishment. There was no anticipation for our special meal to come at the Brazilian steakhouse. I was drained. Empty.

As we left the trail, walking back through the desert portion inside our corral of fallen vegetation, I caught sight of Ballcap standing on a low peak. He grinned wide, a smile of true joy, and waved to me.

I wanted to hate him, but there was nothing inside to back it up. I was a husk of a person, an automaton playing a part. I felt myself smile back at him.

Spirit of the Party

Crimson Clubs

As Sara tilts back her drink, mischief sparks behind her mascaraed eyes. “Hey, all of you have heard about the Party Ghost, right?” she asks, yet somehow answers with the plucked curve of her brow.

Everyone gave shallow nods while trying to hide their ignorance behind silent swigs from beer cups. “Isn't it a cartoon character or something?” I say, straining my brain for any hint of a Party Ghost. Didn't one of those late night shows have “Ghost” in the name?

The muffled wall reverberates from the pulsing beat of the dance floor on the other side. It's rare for clubs to have areas this private, for the obvious reason they tend to be magnets for unsavory activity by unsavory characters. However, this club apparently needs this emergency exit hallway for fire code compliance. Although, according to all the conspicuous signage, they have such a problem with drunks running out and setting off the alarm. They'll ban anyone who sets it off. Regardless, this quieter area is the only reason Sara managed to drag me out here in the first place. She's considerate like that.

“Seriously, Becky? A cartoon? Gawd, don't be such a child,” she pointedly admonishes. “You're a big girl now at a big adult party. You saw the kegs they brought in earlier. Those weren't filled with Sunny-D and Kool-Aid.” Matt laughs from the back of his throat and embarrassment burns onto my cheeks. Hopefully no one can see with the dim lighting. If Sara sees – or cares – she shows no indication.

“Well, what is the Party Ghost then?”

“Just a dumb story,” Sara says as preemptive cover. “They say the Party Ghost will only show up at awesome parties. Or, maybe I should say parties only become awesome when the Party Ghost shows up. You see, at every party, there will be an extra someone. Someone who doesn't quite belong. For the most part, this someone will look like just another face in the crowd. But there will be something ever-so-slightly off about them. Something which makes them different from you and me. Maybe it's the way they move. Maybe it's the way they talk. But they won't seem right. No one will remember having invited them, and no one will be able to tell you their name. That's because this uninvited guest… is dead. And now they're a wandering spirit drawn to the party like a moth to the flame. And when even the dead think your party is the best thing this side of the afterlife, you know the party is great. Just don't talk to this Party Ghost, kiddos. Or else…” she swirls her cup, “you might never go home.”

“Bu-” I started.

“C'mon,” Sara drapes an arm back over her head and across the length of Matt's shoulders, pressing herself into his broad chest, “let's get back to the dance floor, I'm dying here.” A spring in her heels, she leads Matt and our other friends out like a herd of cattle.

Sighing, I slide down, sinking into the small corner between the wall and floor. How is it so effortless for some people? Forget this stupid Party Ghost, I'm the one who feels out of place. Alone, muttering to myself, “I wish I never came out tonight.”

“Now that would've been a shame,” speaks a plummy voice.

With a start I jump up to see a man emerge from the shadows. Blond waves of hair and a half-moon grin, he wears a tuxedo far too fancy for this dingy club. “C-can I help you?” I say, rather unhelpfully.

“Not really,” he replies, shrugging. “Care for a drink?” His hand offers me a glass. Not a plastic cup, an actual martini glass.

A strange drink from a stranger? Definitely not. Who knows what he put in it? “Uhh, honestly? I don't drink.” Which is honest enough. I certainly haven't been drinking yet, and I'm definitely not about to start with a Mystery Martini.

“To each their own.” He casually tosses the glass made of actual glass back over his shoulder where it shatters somewhere unseen.

Okay… this guy is… weird.

The tell-tale glint of curiosity sparks behind his eyes. “Why are you hiding back here anyway? Shouldn't you be enjoying yourself with everyone else?”

“I don't like parties, er- clubs I mean. Actually both, now that I think about.”

“Oh?” Intrigue piques along his brow. “And what, pray tell, is wrong with parties?”

Pray tell? What, did this guy escape from a Dickens novel? “Er… well, I guess it just seems so pointless, is all. I don't see what's so fun about getting plastered and dancing and sleeping around a bunch. There's more to life than… than instant gratification. Life is short, so people shouldn't waste time chasing the temporary buzz of, you know, parties and stuff. See, I understand wanting to forget about all the unpleasant things in life, like dying and all that, but it just seems like such a, as I said, waste when I could focus on the long term instead.” The words pour out with conviction, but as they reach my ears all I can hear is the sour note of doubt.

“Perhaps,” his shoulders roll into a shrug, “but perhaps they enjoy parties not because they are wasting their lives trying to forget death, but because they wish to experience a perfect death. Allow me to posit: every moment is a moment that will die. Whenever we part with friends, that connection dies. All songs must end eventually, and when they do the music dies. Every time we blink, a portrait far more beautiful than any smear blotting on a canvas dies too,” his chest heaves and chuckles. “The French even call an orgasm: the little death, do they not? A death of desire and passion, I suppose.”

Eyes shut, he confidently strokes his chin not unlike an all-knowing sage, smiling, altogether above the raucous shouts emanating from the dance floor. “So should it be any wonder why people crave the ecstasy of the temporary? They would rather feel the sublime touch of death in their last moment than spend their final moment simply waiting to die. And there is no other event which embraces and indeed celebrates this fundamental truth than a party. Indeed, a great party must be the greatest death of all.”

This guy, he's not weird, he's…

His eyes narrowly open, staring like two daggers in the dark. “So I ask you…”

He's…

He tilts his head in daring invitation. “Would you share this moment and…”

He's…

An open palm reaches out across unspoken distance. “Join me for a dance to celebrate the spirit of the party?”

He's… a total loser. “Um… no thanks. I'll pass.”

The corner of his lip curls with disappointment. “Really? This is your last chance.”

“Yeah, no. I'm good.” Seriously, what kind of loser uses a bizarre philosophical rant as a pick-up line?

“Hmm… just as well then.” He pulls back his sleeve, revealing a cheap plastic watch. “I probably ought to leave and get a head start on the police anyway.” With a clack of his scuffed shoes, he charges toward the emergency exit.

Oh thank god. You're really starting to creep me ou- “Wait, what?”

But the only reply is the piercing wail of the alarm as the tuxedo man bursts out through the emergency exit, fading into the naked night.

Blinking, surrounded by shrill sirens, I'm left in a dazzling confusion of strobing warning lights. I wait. And I wait. Yet, nobody comes to check the door or shut off the alarm. Eventually, apprehensive steps take me back toward the dance floor. Slowly, I move to open the door. Maybe it's just the unanswered electronic screams, but the door feels empty to the touch, like the entrance to an abandoned house. Certainly seems quieter than I remember. It vibrates with the electronic bass, but there's no vibrancy or life, no percussive feet or chattering voices. As I finally swing it wide, a flash of intuition convinces me no one lies beyond and while I was distracted by the strange man in his strange, out-of-place tuxedo, everyone else simply disappeared. Vanished.

Except I'm not that lucky.

Skin puckered purple, eyes screaming in silent terror, torsos stacked and strewn about like crumpled twigs, gaping mouths gushing rivers of scarlet, a few twitching limbs grasping at overturned kegs, Matt's face planted in a pile of his vomited organs, Sara's cold fingers clutching the holes she tore through her own throat.

Focus flees my vision. The moist air hardens in my lungs. Drained of all mass, my knees snap, and I collapse. I just barely brace my arm in time for the fall – when sharpness stabs deep into my palm.

Broken shards of a wet martini glass puncture the skin.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jordan Accinelli (otherwise known as /u/Mr_Halloween) is a part-time author, part-time poet and a full-time student. He often idles about, writing stories here and there of varying genres, but always seems to excel in the realm of dark, twisted horror. He has penned a multitude of stories for reddit’s /r/shortscarystories and is one of the co-founder of the subreddit /r/DarkTales. A number of his stories have been narrated and uploaded to YouTube by various different narrators, large and small. He’s heavily inspired by the works of Derek Landy and his dark, comedic fantasy novels, as well as other fellow short story writers he has interacted with over the years. He hopes to someday bring smiles to all the faces of those who read and enjoy his works. Permanently.

You can contact him through his email at jtaccinelli@gmail.com or find odd quotes and literary pieces on his Tumblr (http://thebackofmymindhatesme.tumblr.com/)

John Andreini (minnboy) is a marketing copywriter by trade and writer of short stories, screenplays and stage plays by choice. As a screenwriter, he has been a finalist in half-a-dozen national contests, won “Best Screenplay” at the 2007 California Independent Film Festival, and was a runner-up in the 2009 Scriptapalooza competition (One of the top 13 screenplays out of 4,200 entries). He’s been contributing stories to /r/shortscarystories on Reddit for over two years, and a number of them have been turned into Creepypastas on Youtube.

Grace Bowland, known to some as acingit, is a slightly paranoid law student who avoids doing anything productive by writing horror instead. Her stories can be found on /r/shortscarystories, the subreddit that first inspired her interest in horror. Her overactive imagination is great for writing scary stories, but less so when it comes to reading them - when she first got into the genre, she slept with a light on for a full week. Nowadays, the light stays off ... but if there's something strange in her neighbourhood, she'll be the first to call the Ghostbusters. And then buy a new house.

Michael Lee Brown was born and raised in Derbyshire, England. He has dreamed of being a published author since he was a boy and feels privileged to have his stories included in this book. Michael lives with his wife, Kellsey, whom he married on their 7-year anniversary, and their two cats, Jimi and Jinx. The couple are expecting their first child in February 2017.

Crimson Clubs, a.k.a. /u/CrimsonClubs was a regular writer on Reddit's /r/ShortScaryStories posting more than 100 horror themed stories. If you would like to know more about them, pick a card, any card. Crimsons Clubs did precisely this, plucking a card out from a stack of unread books. The chosen card's colour did not match the symbols etched along the periphery. Unread words resemble colours and shapes that cannot be. They can never be forgotten because they were never known. When you see Crimson Clubs they will be unforgettable. Remember, their black suite is red.

D.G. Collins (IPostAtMidnight) is an average-looking person of average age and average weight who lives in an average-sized city. Unfortunately, he is slightly taller than average, so he attempts to average out this inconsistency by writing short fiction. Some of his stories have appeared in anthologies, and many more have been narrated on The NoSleep Podcast, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, and quite a number of lovely YouTube channels. A few have even been illustrated, animated, and filmed by otherwise rational people. Although he has been threatening to collect his work into a book for years, he keeps getting distracted by new stories. He is an accomplished guitarist, a noted fencing expert, an award-winning chef, and an appalling liar.

He does not always post at midnight.

Edwin Crowe is an aspiring horror writer, who uses his small amount of spare time conjuring up short stories.

He has been lucky enough for his stories to be included on The NoSleep Podcast as well as Chilling Tales for Dark Knights.

If you are interested in adapting any of my work into other formats, or to include them in on podcasts, please contact him.

Dieben is a part-time author who never had much interest in writing until he stumbled across the SSS reddit page. He was amazed by the work of IPostAtMidnight (D.G. Collins) and other wonderful authors on that page, and decided to try his hand at a few stories. To date he has written around 50 stories, finding inspiration in science fiction, identity themes, and subtle plots where good and evil can be mixed or ambiguous. His few interests include practicing meditation with his Sangha, and being a four year old again, courtesy of his young daughters. His dreams include being retired so he can spend more time writing and playing with children.

Kathryne H. is a sculptural artist who occasionally writes halfway decent short stories for Reddit's Nosleep and ShortScaryStories forums (as well as an embarrassing amount of fan fiction) under the username "theotherghostgirl" in her spare time. Although she will probably never actually write that werewolf novel she's always talking about, some of her stories, like "Immortal", and "Happily Ever After" have gotten narrations on YouTube.

If you are interested in seeing some of her slightly less horror driven sculptural work, you can check out her etsy, themuddydragon.

Dan Hilliard hails from the Romero heartland of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been writing horror - between other gigs - since middle school. He currently works as a trade journalist for the steel industry. He lives with his wife and assorted critters at Full Moon Farms, a horse-and-pumpkin homestead outside of Greensburg, PA.

Marty Hoefkes is a copywriter from Toronto, Canada. After a long day of creating pleasant, life-affirming advertising at work, he sometimes writes the complete opposite for fun: the deep, the dark, the disturbing. Like spiders! Ugh. So creepy. You can read more of his writing at ShortAndStrange.com.

Ashley Franz Holzmann was born in Okinawa, Japan and raised in a variety of countries while his parents served in the Air Force. He considered attending art school, but is instead a graduate of West Point, where he enjoyed intramural grappling and studying systems engineering and military history. He majored in sociology and is currently a captain in the Army. Ashley speaks Korean and Spanish, enjoys backpacking, and is the cook in his family. He currently lives in North Carolina with his wife, two sons, and their two 100 pound dogs.

If you enjoyed his stories, you will also enjoy his first anthology, The Laws of Nature: A Collection of Short Stories of Horror, Anxiety, Tragedy, and Loss, which is available on most platforms. His Facebook page is a great way to get in touch with him.

Beat Navy.

Matthew Jeffrey, a.k.a. MrCarcosa, is a writer of snappy scary stories and incisive, competition-winning poetry. Drawing inspiration from miners, escape artists and probability machines, he searches for inspiration in increasingly restrictive environments. He is currently working on a post-apocalyptic detective novel, with plans to publish the day before the world ends.

You can contact him at missing_pieces@hotmail.co.uk

Tony Johnson, or as he is known in your tongue, DVMDV8, is a veterinarian, educator, writer and alcohol enthusiast.

His normal gig involves creativity and writing, just not usually simultaneously, so writing short stories allows him to empty his brain without anyone getting hurt. He has submitted dozens of stories in many subs on Reddit and has an impressive stack of rejection letters from bricks-and mortar publishers, including his prized possession, a New Yorker cartoon rejection. He has lost several creative writing contests, making him a multi-award-losing author. One short story from /r/DarkTales was narrated and is on YouTube. So, there's that. Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, Jeremy Robert Johnson and Thomas Ligotti all influenced his writing and thinking.

He lives in perpetual fear and darkness with a strange droning sound ever-present in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Indiana with his cat, Boopsie. Should the test results come back and you need to contact him for the antidote, please dial your internet to fig.neutron@gmail.com.

Marc Kinsville a.k.a MechDog2395 is an engineer, a technical writer, a trainer, and a beer aficionado who is also known as “The Alpha Geek” amongst his northern brethren. He was named Reddit’s /r/ShortScaryStories Author of the Month in March 2016. Several of his stories have been adapted into audio stories that can be found on YouTube. “The Wallet in the Sewer” and “The Dare Game” are also featured on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. Most of Marc’s stories can be found on r/ShortScaryStories and he is actively seeking publication for a larger work. While heavily influenced by Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert McCammon, Dilbert, Papa Smurf, and more B-horror movies than you can throw popcorn kernels at, Marc’s inception into the world of the macabre originated from stories that were told to him by his grandparents who took great pleasure in making sure Marc couldn’t sleep at night. Feel free to contact Marc at mkinsville@yahoo.com.

J. L. Knight has a deep love for the gruesome and macabre, as evidenced by her stories which appear on reddit under the username u/bottlerocket23. Several of her stories have been narrated on YouTube and a few have been illustrated by the YouTube artist Tales of Tim. She spent her childhood reading entirely inappropriate books by Stephen King and Poe, which doubtless warped her young brain. She also counts among her influences such writers as Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor and Roald Dahl. When she is not writing stories, she is haunting - er, working at an antiquarian bookstore and trying to scare her husband and two children, who would like it to be noted that they are pretty much onto her and don't fall for any of her crap, thank you very much.

You can find more of her work at: http://mockingbird2342.tumblr.com/

Bill Leeson (who occasionally uses the reddit username JMAJS) is a student at Penn State University studying chemical engineering. He enjoys the freedom and creativity that can be expressed in a short story as a diversion from his academic work. The kind souls of reddit have compared some of his stories to the dark humor of Christopher Moore. When he isn't confined to the dreaded abyss of statistical thermodynamics, you might find him on a golf course.

Jonas Lefkowitch is passionate about storytelling, and has been inspired by those who practice the craft his whole life, with his own writing being influenced by such authors as Kurt Vonnegut, Joe R. Lansdale, Clive Barker, and Jack Ketchum. Under the name Dove_of_Doom, Jonas has posted short fiction on Reddit, mostly in the Short Scary Stories forum. Readers have shared his tales on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, and several can be heard narrated on YouTube. His most popular piece, Everybody's Waiting for a Twist at the End was adapted into a short amateur film.

Jonas Lefkowitch is on Twitter (@JonasLeft) and can be contacted at jonaswrotethis@gmail.com.

J.A. Marshall is a writer of mysteries, scary fiction, and the occasional horror screenplay, whose stories often appear on the subreddit Short Scary Stories under the username whoeverfightsmonster. Working in real life as an online copyeditor, J.A. Marshall has a master’s degree in English literature with a spectacularly useless and impractical emphasis in medieval literature. For further information and more scary stories, go to www.noisesinthecellar.wordpress.com.

Nicholas Ong (/u/nichonova) is a soldier in the armed forces of his country who occasionally churns out word salad coherent enough to be called stories. Previously posting on a throwaway account (/u/dev9x), he was approached by the NoSleepPodcast and has thus decided to go with a more pronouncible username due to dev9x sounding really dumb when read aloud. In his free time, he enjoys reading manga and doing sketches, although he has yet to read a manga on sketching.

He can occasionally be found on Twitter under the same username, and emails to nicholas.ongx@hotmail.com have sometimes escaped the 'mark all as read' button.

He is currently working on a sci-fi fiction novel, even with his muse on leave.

Michael Parrish is a full time Southerner and a part time amateur writer who refuses to live in any environment where the winter temperatures regularly dip below 30 degrees. A graduate of Troy State University, Michael took a twenty year break from writing creatively until he stumbled across Reddit's /r/ShortScaryStories. His most popular work, The Undying Love of a South Texas Girl, has been narrated on YouTube's CreepyPastaJr channel.

He cites his greatest influences as Harper Lee, William Faulkner, and the Drive-By Truckers. Michael currently lives in deep south Alabama with his wife, two children, and a foot biting cat named Moxie. He enjoys his free time cruising back roads in his Jeep, drinking beer on his back porch, and perfecting his modern take on Southern cuisine in his kitchen.

Kristopher J. Patten recently graduated from Arizona State University with a PhD in cognitive science where he made several contributions to auditory perception and multidimensional scaling. His fiction work has been featured on the NoSleep Podcast, The Kernel Online magazine, and the Ibexian literary magazine. Kristopher draws inspiration from literary masters like Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, Richard Matheson, and Max Brooks. On the rare occasions he follows the narrow slit of light beaming under his office door and leaves behind his computer, Kristopher can usually be found hiking, boxing, or playing disc golf at one of Arizona's numerous and beautiful courses. His fiction work can be found on the world wide internet of things at kristopherjpatten.wordpress.com or you can treat yourself to a spur-of-the-moment, in-person tale at Valley Bar in Phoenix every Tuesday between 8pm and midnight.

Mike Sundberg chose the username “Don Ganja” to be his internet personality more than a decade ago. Long story short, the end. Mike writes for pleasure, producing such private masterpieces as Cheerio Rape, For the Love of Running, and Harold the Cigarette. His first public publishment was on reddit.com, in the sub-reddit, r/shortscarystories. /r/shortscarystories/ is really hard to read when drunk, was his first submission and his most popular. Mike Sundberg can be reached via reddit, under /u/DonGanja.

Eskild Thomsen, largely unknown and never before published, writes his stories in between changing diapers and trying to start a rock band. One more successfully than the other. He is inspired by the chilling light of sunny northern European evenings and also a little bit by Chuck Palahniuk, Cormac McCarthy and Jakob Ejersbo. Eskild can be reached at thomsen.eskild@gmail.com and more of his stories can be found at www.thomsen2016.wordpress.com.

K.J. Williams (/u/lordhi) is a vivid hallucination that enjoys terrifying those with sleep paralysis. In his downtime, he reads science fiction and horror books. His favorites include the likes of HP Lovecraft and Stephen King. If you wish to contact him, he can occasionally be found haunting various web servers, especially the curiosity that receives all messages sent to kaedon33@gmail.com.

Claudia Winters (/u/TeamShadowWind) is a writer getting her start among the darkened webpages of /r/ShortScaryStories. Her favorite author? Neal Shusterman, obviously. Getting up in the ungodly hours of the morning is pretty much an everyday thing for her, and one of her favorite hobbies is drawing. Who knows what demons she'll put on the page? Though she refers to her typing method as "unconventional," she's just happily pecking away at her keyboard, eager to once again use her wordsmith powers to tamper with the minds and hearts of those around her.