by Unknown
“Next caller, you’re on the air.” Pause. “Are you there, caller?”
Bill prepared to bring on another caller.
“Why didn’t y-you help me?” Dr. Wise asked. “Why didn't—no, stay away from me, s-stay away!”
An ear-piercing scream raised the decibels to their greatest level of the night.
“What the…?” Bill shouted, throwing off his headset.
Alex threw his off as well. “I think we better call the police now, Bill. There's no way that was faked.”
“Forget the cops, I’m going down there myself. I’ll prove this is all a load of hogwash.”
“You can’t be serious, Bill. Let the police handle it.”
Bill got back on the air. “Hey, listeners, here’s a real treat. I’m on my way to the town morgue. I'll get to the bottom of this one way or another. My assistant, Alex, will keep you all entertained until I get back.”
Alex went to commercial, then tried to stop Bill at the exit.
“Why are you trying to play the hero, Bill?”
“I’m not playing the hero, but if I can prove he’s okay, it'll be great publicity for the show.”
“And what if something did tear him to pieces on the air? What we just heard sounded way too real.”
“You think a Night Stalker killed the doctor? Don’t you?”
“It might not have been supernatural, but it still could be a nut job. You have no protection at
all.”
Alex walked over to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a handgun. He handed the gun over to Bill.
“Take this,” he said. “It may not have any effect, but at least you’re not going unprepared.”
“Fine, I'll take it...now get back on the air!”
It wasn't a long drive to the morgue. Cars filled the lot, but the windows of the morgue were dark. Bill stopped his car in the middle of the lot. He had made his way toward the entrance, startled by a fleeting shadow.
“Who’s there,” Bill asked. “Show yourself. I-I have a gun.”
Bill entered the building to a horrifying sight. A shadow with a pair of red-orange eyes, and the mutilated bodies of all the employees beneath it. Bill tried to dial his cell phone, but its energy, too, had been drained. The shadow moved toward him and he fired off a few useless rounds. Two more like beings appeared and he turned to flee, but the exit door had vanished.
Bill screamed.
***
The police found Bill’s car the following morning. Despite the slaughter inside, Bill’s body was not among the victims.
Written everywhere possible in blood was the question.
Believe now?
The Toy Bin
Justin Hunter
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski lay huddled under his Star Wars comforter on his cheap aluminum toddler bed. There was no way he was going to take a peek out from under the magical protection of his blanket. His bed was a refuge against the horrors of the darkness of night. It protected him from the vile creatures that slithered from his closet. Monsters that crept from the shadowy corners of his room couldn’t slice him to ribbons with their long, jagged claws. He was safe.
Until recently, that was. His toy bin was trying to eat him. His toy bin didn’t seem to understand the ‘in bed and under the blanket’ safety rules of surviving the night. He could hear it coming even now. The tattered and soiled blanket too thin to hide the regular noise of scraping wood against wood as the box slid ever closer.
Timmy picked up a corner of his blanket and peeked. This was a gross violation of his rules for surviving the night, but it was the only thing that stopped the toy bin from moving. It was in the center of the room now.
The toy bin had been against the opposite wall when the night started. He'd made his mother make sure of it, crying until she'd pushed the bin as far away from his bed as possible. She'd even stacked his stuffed animals on top of it to try and appease him. He'd asked her if she actually thought his stuffed animals were heavy enough to keep the bin in place. He wanted her to nail the damn thing to the wall. He'd even said so.
His mother had grounded him from watching television for a week for swearing. She didn’t nail the toy bin to the wall.
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski could see the pile of stuffed animals lying on the floor where they'd fallen when the toy bin started moving. A fat lot of good those damn things did to keep the toy bin at bay. It felt good to Timmy to swear, even if just in his head. He'd already lost the television anyway.
He glanced back over at the toy bin. It was wooden and handmade by his great-great grandfather. Square nails had been driven through two thick metal bands that wrapped around the bin, making it look to Timmy like something that had come off a pirate ship. The toy bin had been handed down through the family, and had finally come to Timmy.
Although the bin hadn’t come directly to him. Timmy thought about it, and liked to say that the bin had been handed sideways, diagonally and down until it came into his possession. His great-great grandfather handed it down to his children, who handed it off to each other, and then down to their children, and them off to each other, etc. The trunk had been with almost every relative he had. It was only last Christmas that his grandmother had given it to him.
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski remembered losing television for a week after what he'd said to his grandmother upon receiving the gift. It was a tough price to pay for swearing, but it had been worth it. Christmas was about getting new toys, not a box to store all the old toys in.
Timmy hated looking at the toy bin, knowing that it was just waiting for him to go to sleep so it could eat him. He would have never thought a toy bin would eat something, let alone could eat something. But he knew he was in trouble, because he'd tested it. He'd fed his cat to the toy bin just a couple of weeks ago.
His cat, a lovely tabby named Zeeber, liked to sleep at the foot of his bed. Timmy thought he loved Zeeber more than anything, but found out he didn’t have to think twice about dispatching her to the voracious bin. Timmy reasoned that if he died, nobody would think to feed the cat and, subsequently, she would die. That would be a waste.
Now, Timmy wasn’t sure if the toy bin would eat him or not, but he did know it had been moving. He'd gone to bed with the bin at the far end of the room, and woke up to it having moved
toward the bed a couple of feet. Timmy thought his mother might have been in his room looking for something, but she'd denied it, as he expected she would.
The next few nights made him think she was being honest. The toy bin was slowly moving toward him, and getting closer and closer each night. It was the on the fifth morning since he'd first noticed the toy bin's movements that he awoke to find the bin just inches from his face.
The lid was open.
Timmy stroked his cat and gazed at the bin. The cat purred and didn’t seem to realize how close her owner had come to his demise. Timmy leaned over his bed and looked in the bin. It was empty. This didn’t surprise him as he hadn’t put any of his toys into it. He put his hand inside the toy bin and waved it around, half expecting the lid to slam shut over his arm.
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski felt his heartbeat quicken as he teased the bin into biting him. It didn’t. He got out of bed and carefully shut the bin and pushed it back against the far wall. He ran out of the room and slammed the door. Zeeber barely made it through the portal before it shut, nearly getting crushed. He ran downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. He was too scared to look back over his shoulder, thinking he would see the toy bin chasing after him. He ate breakfast and went back upstairs to get dressed. The bin was right where he'd left it against the wall.
That night Timmy pulled the blankets over his head and did his best to stay awake. He had taken Zeeber under the covers with him. This was decidedly against her will. It was only with many caresses and cooing that he finally stopped her attempts of escape and she eventually slept. He couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. He thought that it had been hours, but
minutes spent in fear under the blankets at night can seem like a lifetime to a child.
Then he heard the sound he had been waiting for. The toy bin was moving. The dull scrape of the wooden bin against the soft wooden floor told him that the bin was coming. He looked out from under the covers and saw that it was already halfway across the room. He looked at it a long while, but it didn’t move as long as he was looking at it. As soon as he drew the covers over his head the scraping began again.
The toy bin was moving toward him, and quickly. He put his hand over his cat’s neck and stroked her fur with his thumb. She purred, not opening her eyes. The toy bin was close now. By the sounds it was making, it was only a couple of feet away. In another moment he thought he could reach out his hand and touch it. He felt his bed shiver when the bin bumped into it. Timmy heard a short shriek of metal as the ancient hinges rubbed against each other. The toy bin was opening up. Now was the time.
Timmy threw the covers off his head and threw the cat into the toy bin. The cat screeched. The lid slammed shut. Timmy jerked the covers back over his head. He heard flesh being ripped asunder. The cat stopped its wailing. Timmy heard a wet gurgling sound and then nothing. He stayed awake as long as he could. He didn’t come out from under the covers for another look. He was too frightened to scream for his mother. He cowered under the covers and thought he would never be able to sleep again, but he did.
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski slept, and woke to his mother calling him down to breakfast. He pulled the covers off his head. The toy bin was across the room and against the wall. He looked down at the foot of the bed. Zeeber was gone.
Timmy got out of bed and walked across the room toward the toy bin. He gingerly put his hand on the lid and opened it. It felt heavy to him. He peered into the bin. It was empty. Dust gathered in its dark corners. He closed the lid and looked around the room. There was no sign of his cat.
Later on, his mother would tell him that his cat had most likely just run away. She told him that cats were survivors and that she was okay, but Timmy knew better. He knew the toy bin had eaten his cat.
The bin didn’t move for almost a week, but then Timmy awakened to see it had begun to move again. The bin had eaten the cat, and was hungry again. Timmy had to act, and fast. Using some plans looked up on the internet, and some old wood from the garage, Timmy built a squirrel trap.
It didn’t work.
He ended up nabbing his neighbor’s corgi and feeding it to the toy bin.
His best friend had a pet ferret. He fed that to the toy bin too.
That had been almost three weeks ago. The toy bin was coming for him again, and he had nothing to offer it. As he lay under the comforter, his mind worked furiously as to what he was going
to do. He had tried telling his mother that he didn’t want the toy bin in his room. He'd told her that it scared him. She'd given him an exasperated look and moved the bin up into the attic.
This was perfect. He didn’t mind his mother thinking that he was some sort of baby, being scared of something like an empty box, as long as he didn’t have to worry about it eating him. Lying in his bed, he could hear the box scraping around in the attic. It was looking for him, but couldn’t get to him.
Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski had thought his troubles were over, but then his grandmother decided to fly up from Florida to visit them, and his mother brought the - damn - toy bin down from the attic and put it back into his room.
She told him that it would hurt his grandmother’s feelings if she came to visit and saw that he didn’t like her present. No matter what he said, she wouldn’t listen to him. Timmy’s mother told him he would just have to put up with the toy bin in his room for a couple of days, and then she would put it back up in the attic when his grandmother had gone back home.
Timmy heard the front door open and his grandmother come into the house. She had taken a night-time flight to save money. His mother had told him his grandmother was coming in so late that he would be fast asleep before she arrived, and he'd have to wait and see her in the morning. Funny how when something is trying to eat you it messes with your sleep.
Timmy listened to his mother and grandmother talking downstairs. The sound of the toy bin scraping toward him drowned out their words. He felt the bin bump into the side of his bed. He heard the hinges open. Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski screamed. He screamed so loud that the shriek seemed to be coming from outside of him.
He heard his mother running up the stairs. He waited for the moment when the toy bin closed over him. He thought about how it would feel when he was trapped within the box being torn apart, his blood making a gurgling sound as it sloshed around in the bin’s black painted interior.
His mother swung the door wide.
“What on Earth is going on in here?” she yelled. She ran over to the bed and pulled the comforter off him.
“No, mom!” Timmy screamed. “Run!” The toy bin’s lid slammed closed, catching his mother on the hip. A sick cracking sound split through Timmy screams as the bin snapped her pelvis bone in half. His mother fell forward and the bin slammed several times on her head and neck.
Timmy screamed and gagged on his own saliva. His mother’s face was a ruin of broken bones and torn flesh. The toy bin rocked slightly on its back legs and his mother shot inside the box, as if she'd been slurped up through a straw. The toy bin quivered. The sounds of breaking bones and ripping flesh filled Timmy’s small bedroom. He lay down on his side gazing at the bin, his world in the midst of crashing down around him.
The toy bin didn’t seem to mind moving in full view of his gaze now. The box slid little by little back to its resting placed against the wall. Little Timmy Thomas Jakowski lay still on his cheap aluminum toddler bed. He was too afraid to move and had no words. No words at all.
From below he heard his grandmother’s footsteps coming up the stairs. They came slowly, calmly. His door opened and the old woman flicked on his bedroom light. The soft blaze of the 60 watt light bulb hurt his eyes, but he didn’t shut them.
She smiled. Her wizened face creased deeply along her cheeks. She looked over at the toy bin. The smile never left her face.
“I had that toy bin in my room for a while when I was growing up,” she said, her voice even, emotionless. “Back then it seemed that everyone had a large family. I had twelve brothers and sisters. Ten of them died young. People didn’t think much about that in those days. You, being an only child, the odds don’t look so good. I’ll be here for a couple of weeks. Goodnight, Timmy. I love you.” His grandmother turned off the light and closed the bedroom door.
Stranger Danger
Mark Woods
The man was back.
Watching the park again for like the third or fourth time that week.
As the young girl silently pushed herself back and forth on her swing, she turned her head to look at him.
Yes, she thought, definitely the same man.
She knew what he was, even if she did not know quite who he was.
He was a bad man.
The kind of man that parents always warned you about; the kind of man you always told your children not to go off with, not to speak to.
A stranger.
And not just a stranger, but the worst kind of stranger.
The sort of stranger who was fully capable of making innocent little kids disappear as soon as look at you, never to be seen again.
The girl stopped swinging as the stranger gradually approached.
She watched him come.
The little girl was the last one left in the park. All the other children had gone home.
Not her.
She had nowhere else to go to.
Home was no longer the warm and welcoming place it had once been.
Her parents barely spoke to her anymore, barely acknowledged her presence, where once they had spoken every single day. They ignored her and treated her like she wasn't even there most of the time; and so the park had become her new home away from home.
It was where she now spent all of her time when her parents didn't want to know.
"Are you on your own, little girl?" The man asked tentatively, as if trying to suss out the lay of the land; as though he were appraising the situation he now found himself in, whilst making sure the coast was clear and that it was safe to approach her.
"No mum or dad? No brothers or sisters waiting to come and collect you, take you home?"
The little girl shook her head.
"Mummy says I shouldn't speak to strangers," she said.
"Your mum's right, poppet, you shouldn't," the man agreed. "But you probably shouldn't be here all alone in the park this late at night either. It's not safe...where do you live, sweetheart? Maybe I could give you a lift home...?"
He raised his voice, ending what he was saying with a question. He had found, from past experience, that it was always best to let the child make up their own mind, rather than trying to persuade them into getting into his car. Often, if he could manage to come across as harmless and unthreatening enough, the child would end up only too willing to come along. And in the end, anything that helped to avoid causing a scene was a bonus.
"I'm not supposed to go with strangers," the little girl said again.
She was a sensible kid this one, he thought. There were no flies on her.
"Well, let me introduce myself and then we won't be strangers," he said. "My name is Sebastian, and you are...?"
The girl looked at him without saying anything. He judged her as being somewhere around eight or nine, the perfect age. Not too young, not too old. Just right.
"Well, if you don't want to tell me your name, that's fine," he said. "But I have some rabbits at my house who have just had babies, and I thought maybe you might like to stop by and take a look on