Tag: horror

Immortal

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I am immortal. And I am serving a life sentence in prison.
Sounds like a bad Twilight Zone episode, right?
It’s not. It’s my life.
And I am in prison for the rest of it.
Forever.
Maybe they’ll figure it out after a few decades,
Or, after “the organization” sends a few more guys after me.
Those knives hurt. But they can’t kill me.
Will I survive having my head cut off? Or being tossed in the furnace?
I don’t know. But they’re welcome to try.
Guilty? No. I didn’t kill her.
And I don’t want to live without her.

Scarecrow

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After Dorothy slew the Wicked Witch and Scarecrow was crowned as King Of Oz to rule in place of the departing Wizard, the sharpness of the tacks in his head didn’t always lead to the brightest of decisions.
Time brings rust, after all.
He was hailed when he was wise.
He was vilified for his foolish times.
So he enjoyed the times when he was hoisted on shoulders and led through Emerald City in a parade.
And he learned to hide when angry mobs wanted to burn him in effigy.
“They might mistake me for the dummy again,” he whispers.

The Ants

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All day long, Jimmy would burn ants with a magnifying glass, grinning madly.
He did this for weeks on end, until the ants all vanished.
Did he burn them all?
Hardly.
At night, the ants went into the tool shed, gathering up metal and lawn care chemicals.
With tiny ant hammers and anvils, they pounded and shaped until, at last, they were ready.
The sun woke Jimmy up, and he dressed quickly to go out to play.
As he stared at the anthill, it erupted into a deadly green cloud.
The ants on the roof wove their antenna with joy.

Do you believe in magic?

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How does that old song go? “Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s eye?”
I sure do. Which is why so many girls in this village have eyepatches and I’m still healthy after ninety years on the throne.
They make the most potent longevity potions.
I’ve warned the royal magician to be fair about his harvesting of eyes, though.
Visit each girl only once, and pay twenty gold coins. No sense in getting a reputation for miserliness and unnecessary cruelty.
And, despite my desire to live forever, I’d rather not be king in the valley of the blind.

My Spy

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An assassin is following me.
He’s an expert at this. Wouldn’t suspect a thing if you saw him there.
Friendly. Polite. Well-groomed.
But I know what he’s really doing:
Following me.
So, I turn the tables on him.
I put on a disguise, cover my tracks, and follow him.
He doesn’t suspect a thing. Doesn’t break cover. Maintains his routine.
Excellent.
I corner him in an alley, a knife to his throat.
He’s surprised and denies being my assassin.
Just like all the rest.
I bury him in the park with the others.
And wait for another to follow me.

The Kraken

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Off the coast of Port Byron, the seas boil with tentacles.
The Great Kraken has returned for its Solstice Sacrifice, part of the pact our ancestors made with the beast.
We load up a boat with murderers, thieves, and the feeble, lowering it into the water and sending its shabby crew to their doom.
Some townsfolk make a picnic out of the occasion.
They toast the ancestors with champagne, and feast on kraken tentacles, boiled in butter.
We give up our own, the Great Kraken reciprocates.
One taste, and you’ll agree that we got the better end of the deal.

Creative Juices

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We let the children play with their toys and draw with crayons for an hour.
Then, the valves open and knockout gas puts them to sleep.
Nap time.
When they wake up, they have no memory of our hooking up the spinal shunts and draining them of their creative juices.
Looking around the room, they pick up the crayons and stick them in their mouths or put them up their noses.
The toys are used to smash other toys or hit other kids.
Eventually, they learn to play and draw again.
And we are ready to harvest more creative juices.

Where do babies come from?

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Where do babies come from?
After the Cobalt War, they come from The Baby Factory.
Deep underground, shielded from the radiation and toxins in the air and soil, geneticists assemble the next generation.
Or, if we can’t remove enough of the contaminants, the last generation.
This time, the scientists are working on adding thick hides, culled from rhinoceros genes.
The babysitters have a high suicide rate, watching wave after wave of monsters come from the labs, dying from horrifying diseases and tissue rejections.
The ants crawl over their tiny, broken corpses.
“Looks like it’s your turn now,” I tell them.

City of Smoke

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The smoke came gradually, over decades.
At first, people could go around with a wet handkerchief on their faces, but after a while we needed full facemasks and breathing filters.
Eventually, nothing but air tanks would suffice.
Travelers say the Five Cities have also been swallowed by the smoke, and it has almost reached the Sea of Sorrows.
Warlock Sturgis once kept the smoke at bay, but he and his apprentice vanished years ago.
He left his library behind, but none of the sages and scholars can comprehend his writings.
Maybe one day he’ll return.
Until then, we breathe uneasy.

Chances

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Four gangsters sit at a card table in a room in an abandoned warehouse.
They pass around a revolver, each spinning the cylinder and placing it against their head before pulling the trigger.
They pass it round, sliding cash into the center of the table to up the stakes.
As if their lives weren’t stake enough.
Eventually, one of the men checks the cylinder.
“There’s no bullet in here,” he says.
He gets up, and tries to open the door.
Locked.
He pulls out his cell phone, but there’s no bars.
Then the lights go out.
And they smell… smoke.