Tag: horror

The Returning Snow

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I watch the weather reports.
The first snow will be coming.
I doesn’t tempt me, though. That first snow never lasts.
I’ll wait for when the snow builds up and doesn’t just melt away the next day.
There’s no sport in the bodies showing up so quickly. No challenge.
I’ll wait.
In the meantime, I’ll check the engine in the snowblower and check the oil.
I’ll wipe down the walls in the basement again.
Last year was a light year, certainly, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less messy down there.
It’s the least I can do for my guests.

The Itch

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Two more days.
They warned me not to scratch it.
“If that poison touches the air, it’ll change,” said the nurse. “Your body can fight it on its own if it’s inside, but if you scratch it, you’ll get worse.”
They can’t give me anything for the pain.
“It’ll react with the poison, too,” said the nurse. “Nasty stuff.”
My hands are tied to the bed rails. I’ve dislocated my shoulder again in the past hour.
“MAKE IT STOP!” I scream.
The door is closed, the walls are padded.
The nurse smiles. “Be good, or we’ll inject you with more.”

The Noodle Mystery

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When I get a lunch hour, I make the best of that hour.
Mama Chang’s Noodle House.
There was something odd about the bowl of noodles I was having for lunch.
I’ve heard rumors that the chicken is really stray cat.
It still tastes good. Cheap, too.
This time, I had ordered pork and vegetables, but instead I had received Walt Whitman.
I tried to fish out the noodles around him, but Walt found this insulting.
“I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones,” said Walt.
So, I reached for him with my chopsticks and ate him.

Ghost Drinks

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The bar serves ghost drinks.
What’s a ghost drink?
Take an ordinary drink, like a Jack and Coke, and then bubble the spiritual essence of someone that’s recently died through it.
The fresher, the better. Has a tangy, sparkly feel. Like a battery.
If you sip it, the ghost’s ectoplasmic residue will be all that you taste. And that slime is disgusting.
You have to drink it. Quickly.
How the bar gets the ghosts, that’s another matter entirely.
I could tell you the secret, but I’d have to kill you.
Seriously. The last guy I told is in your glass.

The opposite of a muse

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What is the opposite of a muse?
What do you call someone who sucks all the inspiration and creativity out of your soul?
Or drains the soul right out of your body?
I need a word for what’s on my couch right now.
It’s been there for days, and I can’t rest. I can’t think. I can’t create.
I can’t write.
I keep trying, but the page is just as blank as when I pulled it out of my drawer.
I pour alphabet noodles across it. Scrabble tiles.
They slide off.
Without words, I have nothing to scream.
Only silence.

The Shadowcat

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Three rings in the wizard’s nose.
A glass eye, solid blue.
No hair at all. Not even eyebrows.
He tells me of the legedary Shadowcat, a spirit in his library.
Only he can touch the books. If someone else enters the library, the Shadowcat strikes.
Instant death.
“Never go in there,” he says.
I nod.
“Can you make a Greyhawk Slinger?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say.
“You’re hired,” he says, and I am now the butler to the most powerful archmage in the land.
He hands me a book. “Mind putting this back in the library?”
I laugh.
He smiles.

Nine

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Calendars are artificial constructs, I keep telling myself.
The number of days in a week or month, the number of months in a year. These are all based on arbitrary standards that society has chosen.
The length of the year and where it starts varies, adjusted constantly to compensate for these inconsistencies.
September was once the seventh month. Now, it’s the ninth. The ninth of September, on a year set from an arbitrary start, has no cosmic meaning.
I repeat this over and over as the skies turn red, and taloned beasts crawl out of the shadows, sniffing for prey.

Smacked in the face with a rollerskate

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I’ve never seen Lisa rollerskate.
She just carries that pair around to smack people in the face with.
That’s why I wear a football helmet with the full facemask.
She can slap me in the face all she wants with those rollerskates. It won’t make a lick of difference.
Other people, you can tell she’s whacked them. A bloody lip, a black eye, or a knocked-out tooth.
But me? My face is unblemished and injury-free.
That’s when she tried something new.
“Kiss me,” she said. And she pulled me real close.
So, I took off the helmet and… WHACK!
Bitch.

Fern

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The kids all point their fingers at Fern and laugh.
She doesn’t cry. Instead, she reaches into her backpack and pulls out a compass.
There’s no greater sight than the look on a bully’s face when he’s been stabbed in the chest. That change from the purest malice to emasculated shock happens quickly, but time slows down enough to let the moment be savored.
The bully goes down, hands clutched to his chest, blood leaking through his fingers.
Others scream, but Fern just rifles through the bully’s backpack.
She takes the compass, stows it away in her backpack, and leaves.

Returning Fire

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The humans watched as the vulture tore into Prometheus’ side.
“I didn’t quite catch what you said just there,” groaned Prometheus. “Bird trouble. Could you say that again?”
“We said we’re sorry,” said the leader of the humans. He held out a torch. “If we give this back, will they let you go?”
“Probably not,” said Prometheus. “Just as well you keep it. Might come in handy.”
The leader shook his head. “We’d just feel guilty about it.”
He apologized again, left the torch on the ground. and led his people away… right off of a cliff in the darkness.