by Unknown
DEAD EYES SEE NO FUTURE
SCOTT DAVISON
Joey lies there, lifeless on top of the old mattress pushed against the far corner wall. Head tilted to one side, he stares directly at me asking—why?
As I sit on top of an empty blue Lego storage box, I begin looking around, remembering when things were not so complicated. These now-bare walls rifled with nail holes where framed artworks of finger-paints and crayons once hung tell a hundred joyful stories of tickle-fights and hand-shadow shows, of bed sheet camp-outs and scary bedtime stories.
Painted a soft hue of orange and yellow, these walls glow bright when the sun shines. Christmas lights strung year-round make it feel magical and safe.
Sometimes alone in that room, however, I try to silence the warped and twisted thoughts these demons in my head whisper. Thoughts keeping me from enjoying affection and happiness and love like everyone else. Resisting the urge to cut myself again in order to feel anything.
Startled by my three-year-old son, Jake, walking into the room, I am dragged back into the present reality. Like the sudden shock of an old filmstrip ending, my eyes are blinded by the horror surrounding me.
The Lego box morphs into an old rusty bucket before my eyes. The beautiful orange glow is replaced by ripped patches of water-logged wallpaper, and nail holes become shotgun holes made by bored vandals.
From outside the broken window my wife yells, “Come on! We have to go now.”
I force a smile and look down at Jake. “Okay, grab Joey and let’s go.”
Jake reaches for Joey, his favorite stuffed animal, a bright yellow horse now faded, with bleached white eyes from too many soapy baths in the rust-stained tub of the last house we squatted in. Joey says it’s my fault. I try to ignore him, but that sound, that unnerving sound from the rattle inside him, makes me hate myself.
With one quick motion I pick up Jake and Joey and head towards the doorless opening, slowing only to maneuver around broken glass and distorted metal shelves lying on their sides. Sunlight from gaping holes in the roof guide me past endless piles of old newspapers and ripped plastic sheets used as curtains. As I kick empty cardboard boxes out of the way, I exit through the collapsed front porch and hand Jake to his mom, who buckles him tightly into his car seat.
In an instant we are gone.
“That house wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” my wife says after several minutes of silence. “It would have taken too much effort to make it livable. We’ll find another one, we always do.” She reaches over and touches my hand in an effort to reassure me that my overwhelming guilt and pain of our homelessness is unnecessary.
But like Joey, I know otherwise.
Scott Michael Davison is a member of the Horror Writers Association and currently lives in Bethel, New York.
HOWLING
RICHARD ALLDEN
I‘m hungry.
I have some freeze-dried food in my rucksack, but I’ll never get a fire started in this rain. It’s heavier now than before. I take shelter under a cluster of trees, struggle to put my rucksack on the ground before me, and remove my tent bag from the side toggle. The rain has penetrated the bag. I put my tent up as quickly as possible and open the rucksack for a towel to wipe the tent of excess water as the heavens open further. My towel is also wet. Everything is. Unbeknown to me, the rucksack has been letting the water in for the last ten hours. Every single item I have is soaking. I empty my sleeping bag of the water it holds and wait as the little strength I have left ebbs out of me.
I sleep fitfully, waking up with the violence of my shivers. I’ve read about the cold but I’ve never fully understood. I abandon the sodden sleeping bag, strip naked of the wet clothing and clench fists, curl toes and rub my arms as if to start fire. I have no idea of the time. I’m confused, disorientated and weak as at no other point I can remember. Then comes the howling.
It’s not a dream—an impulse brings me instantly to consciousness. In the absolute blackness, my other senses work to compensate as the rain hammers the canvas above. The small river at the back of the tent gushes with a new ferociousness it didn’t have a few hours ago. The howling almost obscures it.
After the initial shock, I welcome the sound. The howling means dogs, and that probably means I’m near a farm house. I remember the road. Tomorrow, I will travel up it until I find the farm house, explain my situation and call a swift end to my cursed winter hike. There can’t be too many hours left until sunrise. I draw a little strength from the thought and feel myself drifting once more.
The howling is louder now. Light invades the tent from my right hand side. Headlights. My thoughts are woolly, confused as they are ripped from dreams once more. I think to make myself known to the driver, to get back to people and warmth, but something in my instincts keeps me pressed to the ground. My breathing slows. The howling stops. The air becomes fetid and warmth pervades the tent. Breath. Shadows dance from the headlights, but the claws of sleep paw at me once more. Dreaming.
Then blinding pain.
I try to awake. I know I’m in the dream but I can’t do anything to end it. The knife lies on the sopping towels. The howling is orchestral in my ears. I reach for the knife, I will wake myself now. It’s all right, I tell myself, I must be sleeping. I must be.
Rick Allden is a writer who lives within the South Wales Valleys. He graduated with a Masters in creative writing from Swansea University, and runs a theatre production company.
LOVELY GIRLS
MARSHALL A. TAYLOR
Three nights ago, my girls, the ones buried under the house, knocked on my door. I asked them to go away, but they only knocked harder.
I let one of them in. Susan, I think. I had put an axe to her about eight months ago. But she smelled rotten, and tracked in flies. I asked her to leave, but she refused. I shot her in the head with the revolver I kept in my bedside drawer.
Two nights ago, my girls, the ones I collected, tapped at my windows. I tried to be quiet, but they broke through the glass.
“Why do you want me?” I asked. Adrien, the one with the burnt copper hair, didn’t answer, and I didn’t like the ashen color of her skin. I put the gun to her temple and killed her a second time.
Last night, my girls, my lovely girls, found me in the closet. I tried to hide, but maybe they smelled my warmth.
They pulled me out into the bedroom, stretching me out flat, and bit at my fingers, cheeks, toes and collar bone. I asked them for forgiveness, but I don’t think it was anything personal.
Marshall A. Taylor is a full-time student at Middle Tennessee State University, where his studies include a minor in writing. He is an avid fan of the horror aesthetic, and is currently researching its relation to cultural branding and fandom in heavy metal music. He resides in Nashville.
THE CREATURE BENEATH THE NARROWS BRIDGES
JUDY COMER FRANKLIN
Luke stood on his bed so he could get the best view of the two Narrows Bridges with his new extra-wide Bushnell binoculars. They were his favorite 10th birthday gift and he couldn’t wait to try them out.
There weren’t any nearby houses to look at, as his family lived at the end of a long lane lined by fir trees on Fox Island. It had only been a few months since they’d moved into the new house. It was okay, he told everybody, but the truth was he was lonely. He had no friends. None of the kids at his new school gave him a second glance. But then, that was better than being bullied, which is what had happened at his old school.
Luke aimed the binoculars out the window and focused on the gigantic bridges that spanned the narrowest part of the waterway between Tacoma and Gig Harbor. This was the best part of the new house; its view of the bridges. Sometimes he could see wet-suited divers going into the water. He’d watch them as they’d sink down in the dark, ice cold waters of the Puget Sound.
His dad had promised that next year for his birthday, he could take diving lessons and find out for himself what was beneath the bridges.
Luke watched as the sa
ilboats with their tall masts glided gracefully under the steel bridges. The motor boats looked like fun, too, because they went so fast. The day slipped into twilight and many of the cars had turned on their headlights.
Then something caught his eye.
It looked like a long, thick arm reaching up one of the huge trusses that held the newest bridge in place. It grabbed the lowest truss and Luke saw that the arm had big white spots on one side. He held his breath and tried to steady the binoculars so he could get a better look. The arm seemed to gently stroke the truss, as though testing it.
Luke took the binoculars away from his face, put them down and rubbed his eyes. He cleaned the lenses against his pants then put them up again to his eyes.
The arm was gone!
Traffic flowed in normal patterns, as did the boats. He put his new gift down on the bed and went downstairs and into the kitchen.
Luke hesitated. “Dad, I just saw a monster come out of the water and start to crawl up onto the bridge,” he said at last.
“That’s great, son. Glad you’re using those binoculars. What did the creature look like?” his dad asked without looking up from his newspaper.
Luke could tell his father wasn’t listening.
“I saw only one arm, but it was long and had white spots. Like an octopus.”
His father nodded slowly.
Luke returned to his room.
He picked up the binoculars and aimed them at the bridge.
A long shadow shifted beneath the trusses.
Luke waited as the night settled in.
Judy Comer Franklin was born and raised in North Carolina and currently lives in Tacoma, Washington. Judy has written two mystery novels, Cold Passion, and Sanctuary Stones and is finishing a third novel, The Rocking Horse Murders. Judy is a member of Northwest Authors and a local writer critique group.
ALWAYS COME BACK
JOE MYNHARDT
William picked up the envelope with trembling fingers.
“You’ll never go,” his dead wife said. “Look at you. You can’t even open it.”
William dropped the envelope back on the coffee table.
“We go through this every year. And don’t think they’re gonna come visit you.”
William walked to the large pane window. The city streets below flowed with vehicles he’d never even seen up close. “Stop talking. I’m not listening to you today.” His warm breath fogged up the glass.
“Why would they want to visit you anyway?” she asked.
“I’m their dad–and it’s Christmas. Maybe I should go visit them.”
The voice of his dead wife taunted. “And when was the last time you left this place?”
William felt like strangling her. He turned back to the letter but it was gone. So was the table. His couch had been moved against the far wall.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Same as last year, darling. Did you forget again?”
William tried to remember. “It kinda feels familiar.”
“Of course it does.”
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “No, this isn’t possible. You’re not real.” He opened his eyes. His apartment had turned into a small room. A wall now stood where the window had been earlier and his couch was a single bed.
William pulled his hair. “I have to get out of here. I have to get to my kids.”
“You can try, but you’ll just come back to me,” she replied. “You always do.”
William stormed towards the door and pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge. He stumbled through the room, searching. “It has to be here somewhere.”
“Why do we have to go through this every Christmas? Do I have to watch this pathetic display every time?” she said.
William searched his clothes and, after finding nothing, tore them from his body. He scratched his hands across his naked skin and searched between his toes and behind his ears. His nails tore and dug through his hair and into his skin. “Where is it?”
His wife’s laughter flooded his ears and echoed into his skull, louder and louder until it felt like his head would burst.
He continued to bore his fingertips into his flesh until he felt a hard bump beneath his scalp. After pulling a piece of skin out of the way William pushed it, and the door clicked opened.
“You’ll be back!” his wife shouted. “You always come back to me you murdering son of a bitch.”
William stumbled into the hallway and laughed hysterically. He no longer heard his wife’s voice. He was free.
***
The night watchman shook his head and picked up the radio. “Orderlies to Ward C. Patient 137 has escaped his room again.” He put the radio down, slightly perplexed. “Every damn Christmas,” he said to himself. “How the hell does he get that door open?”
No matter, he thought, noting the time before continuing on his rounds. The call would go out and Patient 137 would soon be returned to Ward C.
They knew, as every year before, exactly where to find him.
Joe Mynhardt is a South African writer and teacher. While having dozens of short story publications, Joe also tends to a tome of ideas scraping for a chance to be written. Read more about Joe and his creations at www.Joemynhardt.com or find him on facebook at ‘Joe Mynhardt’s Short Stories’.
INSANITY
ELLEN DENTON
Alan woke up screaming like a girl. It was the same nightmare; he was being devoured by hundreds of rats. Now, as he sat up in bed, he could still see their small, red, angry eyes and smell the disgusting, dirty odor of the ones that were on his face.
Weeks ago, when the bad dreams started, Alan had also begun hearing objects in his house whispering to him during the day. He still had enough presence of mind to know that they really weren’t talking to him; that would have been crazy.
He got out of bed, shuffled into the kitchen, pulled a package of ham from the fridge and got out a plate. He regarded the plate lovingly for a moment. It was one of four that his sister had earlier sent him as a gift from Mexico, where she was currently stationed as a translator. It had a beautiful, shiny, golden-green glaze on it. He placed the ham on it, then dropped it shattering to the floor, because the plate threatened to kill him if he didn’t return the five dollars he had stolen seventeen years earlier from his mother’s purse.
He pinched his arm to make sure he was actually awake. He was disturbed by this threatening, whispering piece of dishware, but it’s what he saw outside the kitchen window that froze him in terror. Two huge, amber eyes stared at him malevolently from a height taller than any human being could possibly be. The eyes lowered and moved closer, almost pressing against the window.
Alan knew that he was not going crazy, and that it was all really happening. He screamed and backed away from the window. He grabbed the phone to call 911, but the receiver turned into a hissing, giant spider as soon as he lifted it out of the cradle. He could feel stiff, little hairs on its body. He cringed in pure, agonized, spiritual terror and dropped it.
***
Bill, the mailman, knew what death smelled like. When he was a teenager, he found his grandmother dead on her kitchen floor from a massive coronary. To this day, he recalled the putrid, overpowering smell of her body, which had been rotting on the floor for days. This is why he knew what the smell was coming from Alan's house.
The coroner ruled Alan’s death by hanging a suicide.
It was almost a week after Alan’s body was found that his sister’s letter arrived from Mexico. In it, she had updated him on things there, and mentioned that he should never eat off of the decorative plates she had earlier sent him, because the glaze in them contained metals that could cause a barrage of serious physical problems, not to mention delusions, hallucinations and bad dreams.
Ellen Denton has been published in Underground Voices, You and Me, Things Japanese, Fed Caps, Animal Wellness and Greenprints magazines with upcoming pieces in a Spruce Mountain Press anthology, Vampires 2, and Underground
Voices. She has placed as finalist, runner-up and honorable mention in many contests, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
INFECTED
DONALD HAAS
I thought I was in the clear, but I found the scratch on my arm the next day.
The city walls and the patrols keep the hordes at bay. There hasn’t been a serious zombie sighting in years, but somehow that little undead cat slipped in and got me.
It was just after dusk. I was passing through the alley and heard the eerie growl. Then, the cat shambled out from beneath some boxes.
I always thought I would be more scared if a zombie caught me. But all I could think about was my mom’s shrill voice, nagging me to always make sure to be inside before dark.
I’m still amazed that I was rational enough to grab a trash can lid and deflect the cat’s attacks. I half-scooped the cat up and tossed it into a dumpster, before latching the lid closed. I scribbled a warning on some cardboard and shoved the dumpster to the end of the alley. Then, I hightailed it home. If the patrols think a zombie even looked at you, you’ll be quarantined for a whole month. There was no way I wanted to deal with that.
The symptoms were clear enough, too–low fever, pulsing headache and a strong sensitivity to sunlight.
Going to the clinic was not an option. There’s a reason the receptionist there keeps a shotgun loaded with deer slugs on her lap.
I called in sick to work, taped some blankets over my windows, and considered my options. Telling anyone meant an instant death sentence, but I couldn’t call in sick forever. I’m not exactly the type to go and off myself, either. So, I figured I would play it cool and see if anyone caught on to my game. I could always try and make it out the city wall, if they did.