Welcome to the Dark House

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Dad said that Uncle Pete had died in his sleep from accidentally taking too many pills. I hated pills after that. I hated even more that his death came only a few months after my mother had walked out without so much as a good-bye.

  Later, at the burial, I was surrounded by rows and rows of headstones, perched over hundreds of dead, buried bodies—proof positive that happily ever after doesn’t exist.

  I watched as they lowered Uncle Pete down into the ground, and a wave of panic struck me. What if my dad died in his sleep? Who would I have then? For as long as I could remember, Dad had been taking pills from the little brown bottle beside his bed.

  I folded to the ground, a broken-glass sensation inside my chest. Soon, no one was paying attention to poor Uncle Pete, covered in dirt. They were focused on me, the five-year-old nephew, as I tried my hardest to breathe.

  I passed out and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors insisted that I needed therapy, attention, and rest. Dad laughed at the first two suggestions. And that last one was impossible, because that’s when my nightmares started.

  That night, back at home, lying in bed, I kept a firm hold of my teddy bear—the blue one with no mouth (the threading tore) and only one eye—so that it wouldn’t leave me too. I tossed and turned for hours.

  The phone ringing finally pulled me out of bed. I was convinced that it was my mother calling to tell me where she was and that the phone extension was buried underground, right along with my uncle. If I wanted to speak to my mother again, I knew I had to dig up Uncle Pete’s grave.

  I walked past a long row of headstones. The ringing of the phone grew louder with each step. Tarantula-like trees bordered the cemetery on both sides. They looked like they could spring to life at any moment and take someone else from me.

  I got down on my hands and knees as the phone continued to ring. “Don’t hang up,” I shouted to my mother. “I’m going as fast as I can.” I dug my fingertips into the dirt, desperate to answer her call.

  The dirt came up easily at first, but around three feet deep, my fingers started to burn. Still, I kept going, my wrists aching, my shoulders throbbing. My heart pounded as I got closer—just a few feet more. I climbed inside the hole, using my heels to dig in too.

  Finally I got to the casket. With trembling hands, I lifted the cover.

  Uncle Pete’s eyes opened. “Hey, champ. I really dig it that you dug me out,” he joked.

  He’d been buried alive.

  I couldn’t stop shaking. Sitting at the foot of the casket, teetering on the frame, I stablized myself to keep from tumbling forward.

  “Thanks so much for rescuing me,” he continued. “I suppose now you’d like to answer the phone.” The phone extension was in his grip—in his powdery white hand.

  I reached out to take it. At the same moment, Uncle Pete grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. I toppled on top of him.

  The casket cover closed, locking me inside.

  I woke up, out of breath, in my parents’ bedroom closet. Two layers of skin had burned off my fingertips from digging into the carpeted floor.

  The phone had stopped ringing by then, so I have no proof that it was my mother calling that night, but I have a strong suspicion that it was—that she wanted to say sorry about Uncle Pete.

  I can’t help but blame myself for missing that call—my one and only chance to get her back.

  In a thousand words or less, describe your worst nightmare.

  By Taylor Monroe

  I should probably start off by saying that I hate camping—like, I really hate it. A deep-seated loathing that burrows to the depths of my soul. I’m not exaggerating, either. There’s just so much to detest: sleeping in the woods, eating charcoal-blackened food, peeing in an outhouse, getting bitten by mosquitoes. I hate tents, dirt, greenhead flies, bug spray, lawn chairs, air mattresses, wild animals, and “Kumbaya” by the fire.

  Of course, as luck would have it (please read sarcasm here), my parents insist that we go camping each year. This torture started at the age of eleven. I just turned eighteen (eighteen = a legal adult…and guess which legal adult will be exercising her right not to go camping this year). In case you haven’t yet done the math, that’s seven years of torture. Almost half of my life.

  Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t always hate camping. That first year, I was really into it (or at least the idea of it). I had the dates marked on my calendar and I talked it up to friends, practically making myself out to be G. I. Jane, the star of the next hit reality TV show—one that has a wilderness theme. I was also packed and ready to go before anyone else in my family.

  But then we got there and I discovered, much to my chagrin, that it wasn’t at all like that episode of The Darkashians…when the family drove a luxury RV two hours outside of LA to set up camp and spend the night.

  “Can you find us some long sticks?” Dad asked me on our first day there. He was standing by the fire, getting ready to make dinner, but he’d forgotten to pack skewers. “Six of them,” he added.

  With my mom and brother off swimming in the leech-infested lake, I had no other choice but to oblige. I abandoned my magazine and went up the trail, where we’d all hiked earlier in the day.

  Trees and brush surrounded me on both sides of the path. With the sun sinking in the sky, peeking down through the limbs, I had to admit, the forest looked really striking.

  I scanned the ground, searching for fallen sticks at least a couple feet in length. Maybe camping’s not so bad, I thought, my mind flashing to the cute boy at the campsite next to ours. Maybe I’d ask him to toast marshmallows with us later. I smiled at the idea, and then reached out to snag a curved branch, catching a glimpse of something brown and furry in the corner of my eye.

  I stopped to get a better look. Its eyes were watching me from beyond the tree, a stone’s throw away.

  A cub. So irresistibly cute, like something you’d see on the cover of National Geographic or on that reality show Super Cute. The cub had a friend, who appeared to be cleaning himself off, licking his coat.

  I wondered if they were lost, but no sooner did that thought cross my mind than I spotted the mother. She emerged from some brush. And stared back at me.

  My heart immediately sank. I didn’t have time to react. There was a flash of fur, and the sound of a growl.

  I was on the ground in seconds. The mother bear was on top of me, biting my arm, growling in my ear. Its razor-sharp teeth sank into my leg. It lifted me up and shook me from side to side, thrashing me around like a rag doll.

  Surprisingly, I felt no pain. My body went into some sort of self-protective mode. I dropped to the ground, shielded my face, tucked into a fetal position.

  But still the bear wouldn’t let me go. It bit the corner of my mouth. Then my shoulder. And the back of my head. I could hear myself whimpering, could feel my body twitching. Its claws ripped through my T-shirt, tearing up my skin.

  My vision was blurry, but I was able to peek around me. Blood was everywhere. I touched my shoulder, able to feel bone. I was sure I was going to die.

  I reached for a rock, but it was beyond my grasp. I needed a few more inches.

  The bear let out another roar before clawing at my side. I could feel my skin rip free.

  “Dad!” I tried to scream, but the word came out a wheeze.

  Still, Dad was able to hear me. He shook me awake. I’d been sleeping in my tent, having a bad dream. My magazine was on the ground beside me, splayed open to an article about bear attacks.

  “Taylor, are you okay?” he asked.

  I sat up, my heart pounding, my eye still blurred from my being pressed against the pillow. I collapsed into my dad’s arms, feeling insurmountable relief.

  He stroked my hair back and then started to pull away. But I refused to let him go. “Can you just hold me for a little while long
er?”

  “I’ll hold you for as long as you want,” he said, startled that I’d gotten so freaked. (For the record, I don’t typically scare so easily; I mean, hello, I entered this contest, didn’t I?)

  Anyway, you’d think that after seeing how horrified his firstborn had become, he’d think twice about camping, right? No such luck.

  In a thousand words or less, describe your worst nightmare.

  By Garth Vader

  I was seven years old when I got lost in the woods. It was during a camping trip with my dad and brothers. I woke up around two in the morning, needing to take a piss.

  I grabbed a flashlight and walked down a dirt path, searching for the grove of trees, where my brothers and I had whizzed earlier in the day.

  But I couldn’t find it. Nor could I find my way back to the campsite.

  “Craig?” I shouted, hoping to wake my brothers. “Paul?” Was this another one of my dad’s tricks?

  No one answered.

  I hurried up and down the path, shining my flashlight over trees and brush, continuing to call out for help.

  But no one came. And I was starting to panic.

  Noises were coming from everywhere—sticks breaking, leaves shifting. Finally, after an hour of walking, I found a cabin. The windows were dark. Maybe the owners were sleeping. I shone my flashlight over the entrance. The words Welcome to the Dark House were scribbled in red crayon.

  I knocked and the door edged open. I went inside, hoping to find a phone.

  A voice cut through the darkness: “Have you come to play?”

  A creaking sound followed. I aimed my flashlight at a doll. The Nightmare Elf, rocking back and forth in a wooden rocking chair.

  The door slammed behind me. The lock bolted shut. The elf’s smile widened.

  Desperate, I ran into a room with an open door, hoping to find a phone.

  Little Sally Jacobs was there, sitting on the floor, playing a game of jacks. “Do you want to play?” She looked up at me with skeleton keys jammed into her eyes. Blood trickled down her cheeks. She went to remove one of the keys—a thick slopping sound.

  I hurried to the window, but it was locked, and I couldn’t get the bolt to unlatch.

  I turned back around.

  Sally was there. “Leaving so soon?” she asked, coming at me with the bloody key.

  I ran to the closet, closing the door behind me, and keeping my hand on the knob.

  The doorknob twisted beneath my grip; she was trying to get in. I clenched my teeth and struggled to hold the knob steady, my wrists aching, my forehead sweating.

  Finally the knob stopped moving. I placed my ear against the door, unable to hear a peep.

  My pulse racing, I searched for something to protect myself, noticing a secret door at the back of the closet. I opened it. A long, dark alleyway faced me, surrounded on both sides by tall brick buildings.

  I began down the alley, able to hear a rattling sound. I peered over my shoulder just as a shopping cart came into view. A woman in a big blue dress was pushing it.

  Lizzy Greer from Halls of Horror. She turned to face me, pulling a bloodstained ax from the heap of soda cans in her cart. “Have you come to play?”

  My body began to shake. I dropped my flashlight and tried to run past her, rounding a corner, spotting the rear door of Hotel 9. I tore through it and mounted a flight of stairs.

  Someone was following me. I could hear the sound of footsteps, the creaking of a rocking chair, the bouncing of Little Sally Jacobs’s ball, and the rattle of Lizzy’s cart.

  “Come play with us,” their voices said.

  I ran into one of the hotel rooms, locked the door, and hid beneath the bed. That’s when I completely lost it—right there in the middle of my dream, I pissed on the sofa.

  I used to get a variation of that nightmare a few times a week. Sometimes Pudgy the Clown would show up with his chain saw; other times, it’d be Sidney Scarcella wearing his butler’s apron, or Sebastian Slayer in that scene where he plays the piano in the middle of the forest with severed body parts strewn about.

  It was on my seventh birthday that I first saw the original Nightmare Elf movie. My dad had dared me, saying that it was the only way I could prove I wasn’t still a baby. Pretty screwed up, I know. But that’s my dad for you.

  He and my brothers had watched a bunch more of your films that night. And me, being too chickenshit to go up to my room after seeing Nightmare Elf, I brought a sleeping bag into the TV room so I wouldn’t have to be alone.

  Keeping my head beneath the covers, I tried not to peek at the screen, even when my dad bribed me with money, candy, and days off from school.

  But I also didn’t want to be a baby. I wanted to make him proud—to this day, I’ve yet to succeed.

  For a while, I was sleeping under my bed, paranoid that the Nightmare Elf would take my dreams and make them come true.

  The more fearful I became, the worse things got at home. My dad would call me pansy, pretty girl, baby, and sweet pea. He’d give me a baby cup at dinner and point me toward the girls’ room when we were out in public. Finally, when I couldn’t take his teasing anymore, I started watching more horror flicks—as many as I could get my hands on.

  In the end, I grew to love horror just as much as my dad, probably even more because it became a part of my identity. Incidentally, in case you hadn’t already noticed, I was named after my dad’s all-time favorite villain—with one obvious adjustment, that is. He would’ve gone full out and named me Darth, but luckily my mom won that coin toss.

  In a thousand words or less, describe your worst nightmare.

  By Natalie Sorrento

  I have nightmares about my reflection—about seeing myself, that is. They started two years ago, after my sister Margie caught me with my pants down—literally—after I’d just come out of the shower.

  Standing naked, I was about to look at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door, but the steam from the shower had fogged up the glass. So I gazed downward at my thighs—at my very first tattoos. They were newly done and deliciously red and sting-y.

  A moment later, the bathroom door whipped open. “Gross,” Margie said, shielding her eyes from the sight of me. But still she was able to find my newly inked tattoos through the spaces between her chocolate-stained fingers. “What are those?” A megawatt grin formed on her face, like she’d just struck the blackmailing lottery. If only she’d wanted to blackmail me.

  Instead, she went straight to my parents and pulled them into the bathroom. I’d managed to grab a towel, but my dad ripped it out of my hands. And they all stared, open mouthed. At me. Naked. At my paunchy gut, my cottage-cheese legs, and the bloody tattoos on my thighs: Lizzy Greer’s ax on one thigh, and the infamous door-with-a-peephole from Hotel 9 on the other.

  I tried to cover up as best I could, cupping my hands over my boobs and crotch, while holding back hot, bubbling tears. But it wasn’t nearly enough. And their expressions confirmed what I already knew. I was undeniably hideous. Deplorable. Hopeless. Regrettable.

  Mom: “How did this happen?”

  Dad: “If only…”

  Ever since that day, I’ve avoided mirrors. I keep a desk blotter over the vanity in my bedroom. I close my eyes as I wash my hands in bathrooms. I never stand or walk too close to windows or glass doors, for fear of seeing a reflection. And I’m careful not to go into places that are known to have mirrors, e.g., hair salons, dressing rooms, department stores, and gyms.

  I also avoid having my picture taken, including for class photos. I’ve ditched school on picture day for the past several years. Nobody’s ever questioned it—nobody gives a shit that I’m not standing with my classmates, a fake smile across my zit-covered face.

  Lastly, I keep myself covered—tattoos, wigs, sunglasses, la
yers of clothing—so that no one has to see me. And so that I, in turn, never have to see the reflection of myself in anyone else’s eyes.

  But at night, I can’t escape my reflection. I have nightmares about being trapped inside a maze of mirrors, unable to find my way out. With each corner I turn, my image gets uglier and more distorted—one moment short and bulging, the next stretched out and warped.

  The images accentuate what’s wrong with me: face too long, eyes too big, hair too frizzy, crooked nose, fishlike lips, hips too wide, waist too thick, chunky knees, pasty skin. In my dream, I try to run away from the images, but they’re everywhere, chasing me, laughing at me. I move to the side—into yet another mirror—as if that one will make a difference. And it does. It’s the worst image yet. It’s the real me, in a real mirror—far worse than any distortion.

  In a thousand words or less, describe your worst nightmare.

  By Parker Bradley

  Its teeth sank into my leg—a tearing, mind-blowing pain. Despite not being in the ocean, I thought it was a shark. But then its body crested the surface of the water, and I saw what it really was.

  An eel—at least six feet long and five inches wide.

  Its mouth arched open—dozens of razor-sharp teeth snapped at my ribs. I tried to get away, but it was too big, too fast. The next thing I knew, I was underwater.

  In my mind, I screamed for help. In reality, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. Somehow I managed to paddle upward, and the eel lost its grip on my side. I started to move away. But then it bit my thigh—deep into the flesh—pulling me back under.

  My mouth filled up with water. Everything around me turned red. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move over the surface of the water. An oil spill? A liquid of some sort? It was spreading like lava.