100 Word Horrors: An Anthology of Horror Drabbles

by Kevin J. Kennedy

  Consumed by Desire

  By

  Adriaan Brae

  My wife woke me with soft kisses. Eager hands slid across my bare chest, pushing blankets aside. She laid her naked body across mine, straddling my hips and we fit blissfully together with the ease of long practice. I stroked up her sides and over her breasts.

  Then, her hands gripped my arms, painfully tight. Her lips on mine suddenly vicious. Trapped under her weight, I could only turn my head away—which brought the unmistakable curves of my wife's sleeping body into view. My feeble, choking cries didn't wake her as the succubus began to rip into my flesh.

  Another Tonight?

  By

  William F. Nolan

  Night. Cold. Heavy rain. Shining streets.

  Blinking neons. Bar. Warm inside. Whiskey Sours.

  Glow.

  Ready for another. Feeling strong.

  Sexy blonde. Great figure. Alone at bar.

  Smiling at him. Cinch.

  No problem with her. Back at his place.

  Her, staggering, holding onto his arm.

  Inside apartment. Music on stereo.

  Intimate. Cozy. Fire and some wine.

  She goes to bathroom. Pills go in her glass.

  “Woozy!” she says. “Dizzy.”

  He smiles. “You’ll be fine.”

  She passes out on sofa.

  Knife. Sharp. Uses it.

  Blood. Lots of it.

  Cuts her up. Bags her.

  From car to river.

  Back to bar.

  Another tonight?

  Destiny’s Embrace

  By

  Michael Paul Gonzalez

  Staring down the slavering creature in the corner, Harker knew his destiny had arrived.

  He clutched his silver dagger, preparing to pierce the creature’s heart, saving the village from eternal damnation.

  The bastard-thing had taken his wife, leaving her fang-punctured heart on his table, next to his daughter’s eyes.

  Tonight, he swore, it would end.

  Harker knew this was the moment when heroes were forged, legends born.

  As he tripped over his own feet,

  and stumbled into the creature’s icy embrace, he realized he was no hero.

  The creature’s jaws snapped through his throat, drowning his final scream in blood.

  Clean

  By

  Valerie Lioudis

  No matter how many times I wash my hands, the red just won’t disappear. Well, not red really, but more of a crimson. His blood. My blood. Who knew where one ended and the other began? He put up a good fight, and that made me grateful. Each swing feeds the beast inside me and may keep him at bay for a bit. He had the upper hand for a moment, and the beast roared. For a second, I wished he would end me. Red bubbles swirl clockwise down the drain as the beast spins to nest in my mind.

  Trees

  By

  Donelle Pardee Whiting

  “The trees, Mama!” I cried.

  “What about them?”

  “They wanna get me.”

  Sighing, Mama glanced up from pruning roses. “It’s just your imagination. You really need to stop making up stories.”

  While she looked, the trees appeared normal—a bit overgrown, with a few branches draped over the backyard wall.

  “Mama, look. They’re climbing over the wall.”

  When she didn’t answer, I peeked at the garden. But she was gone. One shoe lay in the flowers.

  I looked at the wall again. One tree turned as if to look at me, and pointed with one spindly, leaf-covered branch.

  They’re here.

  Dancing

  By

  David Owain Hughes

  “Girls, stop arguing and biting each other!”

  “Bitch drew blood, Dougie.”

  “I don’t care. Get on that fucking stage, Dallas.” The fat boss snapped his fingers. “Time’s money.”

  Dallas stumbled through the beaded entryway, collapsing against the runway’s pole. She felt sick, but managed to gyrate her semi-naked body. Music played.

  “Over here, baby!” a guy called, waving a fistful of singles.

  She sauntered towards him, hair covering her face.

  “Get ‘em titties—”

  She flew at him with vacant eyes, mouth open. Her teeth latched onto his throat, and she ripped his jugular apart, drinking the hot, squirting blood.

  Running from Him

  By

  Michael A. Arnzen

  Kite string spools and Charlie knows he's finally caught a good gust, so he turns and charges down the beach as fast as he can, enjoying the resistance, the tension tugging, his feet kicking sand. He remembers the time his big brother once chased him with an axe, so now he runs faster, even faster, and he doesn't stop until he finally runs out of string and turns, breathless, to look up in the sky….

  The flesh kite swivels in sunbeams, tiny as a bat.

  A drop of bloody sweat lands on his forehead.

  Charlie chuckles and wipes. "Ewww, bro."

  Night Terrors

  By

  Lisa Vasquez

  The curious circumstance of his absence was detailed in black ink across headlines. He gazed out from behind a pinhole of light created by the keyhole in the darkness.

  “Tell us again, ma'am?” the officer asked, with a mixture of compassion and suspicion.

  “I tucked him in last night, then heard him scream. When I ran in he was gone, and the closet was empty.”

  She pointed toward the door, and the officer looked at it. They had already checked it.

  “I… keep hearing scratches from inside,” his mother sobbed.

  The hair on his arm raised as childhood fears resurfaced.

  It’s Just a Dream, Right?

  By

  Ellen A. Easton

  For as long as I can remember, it was always the same. Terrified to go to sleep, but unwilling to wake up, no matter how much I wanted to. It was different this time. Same bloody nightmare, filled with death and dismemberment.

  But it seemed real. I could feel the bones snapping, hear the wet squelching of muscles torn apart. The acrid bitterness of bile and blood filled my nose. I looked down, hands darkened and dripping. My hands.

  I woke up screaming. Sitting up, I turned on my lamp and sighed, until my shadow turned to me and lunged.

  Over the Edge

  By

  Mark Cassell

  Adrian lives alone and doesn’t have any children, yet the sound of giggling snatches him from sleep. Moonlight reveals stickfigures scrawled across the wall. With one foot tangled in sheets, the other hanging over the edge, he jerks upright.

  Something scratches, just out of sight – pencils? He twists and squints.

  More stick-figures, even now being drawn, only this time, given attention by red detail, stark beneath the moon’s glow.

  Sweat prickles his forehead.

  More sketching, more red detail…

  Agony spears up his leg, from his dangling foot.

  A pencil juts from his ankle. Blood gushes, warm - just like the stick-figures.

  The Beauty of the Sea

  By

  Kevin J. Kennedy

  A caravan by the sea had seemed like a great idea, until the creatures crawled out of the water. They were the size of large dogs, but clearly a strange combination of lobsters and crabs. The weird hybrid had somehow mutated. They swarmed the caravan site, shredding anyone in their path, their pincers cutting through metal as if it was butter. Sitting on top of the caravan, I hoped they would pass us by after they killed everyone in the open, but it’s as if they can smell us. We are surrounded now. The sea doesn’t look as beautiful anymore.

  Breadth of Bone

  By

  Sara Tantlinger

  “Misery. Mis-er-ee,” she repeated, as if fascinated by how the letters felt. Her peachy mouth captured the word perfectly. “It’s all in the lips,” she told him. “No tongue.”<
br />
  His hands shook. “I know.” The blade pressed against her back in that way she liked. She paid him little mind and watched her own pursing lips in the mirror. Sunlight glittered through the window, casting a multihued gleam onto the knife.

  “Just a little deeper than last time,” she said. Always, just a little deeper.

  He speared her just a little deeper, losing track of when moans turned to screams.

  Never Leave Me, Nor Forsake Me

  By

  Mike Duke

  Wrists and ankles shackled to the gurney, leather straps secure forehead and chin. Polished, stainless steel utensils rest on sterile blue fabric. Wide eyes, held open by a mechanical device stare up at a surgeon’s mask. Pupils, plump with terror just moments before, now shrink away from bright operating room lights.

  Yet, icepick and hammer in hand, he sees only love.

  “Don’t worry. When you wake up, you’ll feel right as rain. You’ll never, ever want to leave me again.”

  Warm smile. Cold kiss on her skin. Icepick touches corner of eye. Hammer rises… and a content wife is born.

  Escape

  By

  Megan Ince

  Every fiber in her body was screaming to stop, but the screeches and noises behind her in the dark forest kept her legs moving.

  The forest was starting to thin out. There was a reason no one went into the forest. Pale, nasty, crawling things had shredded her friends before her eyes. She was barely able to slip away.

  Her legs finally slowed down as she started to cry. She wanted to keep running, but the ground stopped. Staring over the cliff edge, she was suddenly calm. One final step.

  The rush of wind finally drowned out the horrible creatures.

  Forever Men

  By

  Eric J. Guignard

  They’re odd men, should you glimpse them, those three brothers living in the veiled moors of Lower Thorncombe--gaunt and grim and old, their skin wan from sleeping in the day, their eyes filled with tales from long ago. Some call ’em Brothers Death, but those of us who have been here long enough--who have peered toward that horizon which has no dawn, o’er the vast sea without tide, or have even touched the cold of its bleak shallows--we know them as Forever Men, for they carry off the unfortunates who wade into that lightless Sea of Oblivion.

  The Artist

  By

  Howard Carlyle

  Now stripped, their skins were tossed to one side and their corpses were all neatly hung in a line, on hooks, along the wall. Each corpse varied in size, both male and female. He stood back to admire his work. He saw himself as an artist with a finished masterpiece, there in the flesh... or, actually, minus their flesh.

  Before skillfully skinning them , he saw them as a blank canvas, but now they were perfect... a perfect piece of art of his own creating. It wasn't their outside appearance that interested him.

  After all, beauty is on the inside.

  Initiation

  By

  Mark Fleming

  I’m at the cliff’s edge. I know the gang will be watching. They’re always there, spying. Their voices threaten constantly. But this is all I have to do to be accepted, to join them: this quick initiation. Heart hammering, I kick my trainers aside. Several deep breaths, then I dive. For seconds I’m flying through the void…. into a black wall. Through the churning waters I imagine the screams of everyone who has jumped before me, hear their splintering bones. Lungs expiring, I fight towards the surface. No one will be waiting to cheer. I think I’ve always known.

  What's For Dinner?

  By

  Christopher Motz

  Bernie had never been a fan of his grandmother, but her holiday dinners were epic.

  This year was like all others, except for the fact that the house smelled more like roadkill than savory, baked turkey.

  The table was set, but in the place of steaming trays of meat and corn were piles of writhing maggots and dusty plates.

  Bernie saw Grandma seconds later, dangling from a rope in front of the dry Christmas tree.

  A three sentence note was pinned to her sagging flesh.

  Make your own fucking dinner.

  Your grandfather is hanging in the garage.

  Merry Christmas, assholes!

  Vermillion

  By

  Lisa Vasquez

  A film of dreamy, winter white covered her eyes as she awoke. Ringing in her ears muted the screams of those around her, their blurry faces like masks of fear as they mouthed words she could not hear.

  Where am I? she thought to herself, trying to make sense of the chaos. Her vision cleared. She saw the white walls painted with splashes of red, and bodies on the floor stared back at her through cold, lifeless eyes. The memory came flooding back, as the priest pressed the crucifix to her brow, “See the cross of the Lord, hostile thing!”

  Jack Frost

  By

  Christina Bergling

  His icy finger traced freezing lines along my skin. The bitter spires penetrated deep through my flesh, piercing down to my unsuspecting bones. The frost branched out, seizing my cells, captivating them. I felt my body constrict as my own skin enclosed me tighter. When I exhaled, a curling plume floated up from my lips. Yet each breath became smaller, slower. The world itself became lethargic and heavy. I felt the weight on my eyes as I struggled to move. As the ice spread into my brain, darkness closed like a waning vignette around my mind, until all thought ceased.

  Coming Around

  By

  C.M. Saunders

  He was being chased down a long, dark tunnel by a pack of dogs. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them panting and snarling. They were gaining on him.

  His chest burned. Couldn’t catch his breath. Shooting pains.

  Then the tunnel and the dogs began to melt away, and Duncan’s world was spinning into focus. That was a dream?

  Where the fuck was he?

  Then he remembered: the operation, heart surgery.

  He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Too soon.

  But he could hear noises, like someone tuning a radio. Voices.

  “Too bad we couldn’t save him.”

  Bad Cop, Bad Cop

  By

  James H Longmore

  104 degrees of Texas heat, the corpulent cop has my keys; he’s been in my car since he clocked me going five miles over the speed limit, showing me clips of vee-hicular accidents- odd how people are still alive when he gets to them…

  The stifling air reeks of sweat and the underlying stench of something- is it possible to smell crazy?

  Gwendolyn adds to the stink with her shit-filled diaper, fine blonde hair plastered to her sweat-drenched scalp, fontanel pulsing slowly as she fights to breathe.

  Desperate, my hand reaches the door.

  “Ma’am…” the cop grasps his gun.

  Experimental Animal 7

  By

  Lee McGeorge

  Soldiers on snowmobiles. High speed under moonlight. The convoy halts and the prisoner is pushed out.

  “Start running,” a soldier says.

  Prisoner runs like hell in deep snow.

  Tracked vehicle with a cargo container opens up. Experimental Animal 7 crawls out. The body of a leopard, the long snout of a wolf, bigger than a family car. Screams and blood, it shreds the prisoner in seconds.

  The animal turns to the soldiers, snarling, blood on its snout. Still hungry. Leaps on the closest man. Gunfire. Panic. Limbs torn off. Shooting ends with a final howl.

  Escaped.

  Last seen heading West.

  Bummed Light

  By

  James Matthew Byers

  “Has anybody got a light?”

  He asked to no avail.

  About the body, bound and tight,

  The keeners let a wail.

  A cigarette between his lips

  Remained within a dance

  As if it moved, Hawaiian hips,

  A secretive romance
-

  Around it turned as others cried,

  Awaiting fiery sorts.

  Investigating who had died,

  He puffed at his reports.

  So certain that this was the place

  Until the mourning came,

  The questions etching out his face

  Revealed a banshee’s game

  As, all at once, the cigarette

  Lit up and made him choke,

  And suddenly to his regret,

  He drowned within its smoke.

  Sugar & Spice

  By

  Chad Lutzke

  The tickle in his ear had been there for days. It scratched and scraped and clicked like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle.