Small Horrors: A Collection of Fifty Creepy Stories

by Darcy Coates

  41

  Bogrot

  Meg fished through her purse. “He wasn’t any trouble, was he?”

  Tara, her schoolbooks tucked under one arm, shook her head so vigorously that her hair fluttered around her face. “Nah. He went to bed early and hasn’t stirred since.”

  “Good.” Meg produced the promised twenty dollars and added an extra five. She’d been away for nearly an hour longer than she’d anticipated; she could only be grateful that Tara was patient enough to wait for her.

  Tara said her goodbyes and hurried to her car while Meg let herself into the house. The building was still and dark. Meg didn’t expect her husband home for another hour or two; it was football night for him, and sometimes, he wouldn’t come home until the early morning, tired and delighted, smelling of cheap beer.

  Meg dropped her car keys and purse onto the kitchen counter then went to her son’s room. She kept the hall light off and pressed the door open gently, expecting Riley to be asleep. The boy was sitting bolt upright in his bed, though, and he gasped when Meg opened the door.

  She turned on the light and went to him. “Hey, honey. What’s wrong?”

  His dark eyes, so much like his father’s, blinked at her from under long lashes. “Bad dream.” His eyes immediately turned to the window.

  “Want to tell me about it?” Meg asked, sitting on the edge of his bed. She could hear their dog, Jasper, barking in the yard. Something’s gotten him worked up. I’ll have to check on him before bed.

  Riley gave his mother a sidelong glance but hesitated, seemingly uncertain how to start. “Have you ever heard of the Bogrot?”

  Meg quirked her eyebrows up. “Nope. What’s that?”

  “Tara was telling me about them.” Riley shrugged and pulled the blankets farther up his body. “She says one’s been following her.”

  Meg pursed her lips. “She shouldn’t be telling you scary stories, especially not before bedtime.”

  Riley’s huge eyes turned back to Meg, desperately sincere in his desire not to get his babysitter in trouble. “Don’t blame Tara. I made her! I begged her and begged her to tell me the scariest story she could. She didn’t really want to, but I made her tell me about the Bogrot.”

  Bogrot sounded like exactly the sort of name a young adult would choose for a fictional monster. Meg sighed. “Okay, why don’t you tell me about this Bogrot, and I’ll tell you if I think it’s scary.”

  Riley shrugged. She could tell he was trying to look nonchalant, but the way his eyes kept flicking to the window gave him away. “Well…” he said, speaking slowly. “She said there was a monster, which she called the Bogrot, that used to follow her around at night. She didn’t like going outside after dark because of it.”

  Meg followed her son’s eyes to the window, where the moonlight pierced the thick trees at the back of the yard. Jasper’s barking was becoming more frantic. He’s probably found a raccoon. “And what exactly does a Bogrot do?”

  “It makes squelching noises when it follows her. She says it hides in the shadows so it’s hard to see, but it has yellow eyes and really long claws.”

  That sounds ridiculous. He’s getting too old to be frightened of monsters. “And it scared you so badly, you had a nightmare?”

  Riley bristled. “You didn’t hear the way she described it! Like it could really be there, waiting for me to step outside. Waiting for you.” He shivered and pulled his blankets still higher. “And I thought I heard you call Jasper from the back of the garden, and Jasper was barking and barking and barking, and then suddenly there was a snap of huge teeth, and…” Riley turned his huge eyes towards his mother.

  Meg felt a stab of guilt for teasing her son. Of course an eight-year-old would be disturbed if he dreamed his pet had been eaten. She pulled Riley into a hug and squeezed him tightly. “Hey, it’s okay. The Bogrot didn’t get Jasper. You can hear him barking, can’t you? He’s fine.”

  “Yeah,” Riley said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “It seemed so real, though.”

  “It can’t have been, honey.” Meg brushed Riley’s golden-blonde hair out of his face and kissed his forehead. “I only just got home. There’s no way I could have been calling Jasper.”

  Riley hesitated, and Meg guessed she wasn’t getting the full story. She raised her eyebrows at him in silent question, and he shrugged. “It’s just the other thing Tara said. She said the Bogrot can imitate human voices. So it could have been the Bogrot at the back of the yard, calling Jasper. And he thought it was you, and…” Riley shook his head and squeezed his eyes closed. “Never mind. I don’t want to think about it.”

  Meg sighed. She had no idea what Tara had been thinking, coming up with such a ghastly story. The only comfort was Jasper’s persistent barking. Meg gave her son’s forehead a kiss then stood and approached the window. The clear moonlight painted over the closer patches of grass, but the trees filled the back of the yard with shadows. A glint of silver caught Meg’s eyes, and she saw a dog tag lying on the ground next to…

  Fur. A clump of fur, golden-brown with bloodstained tips, lay next to Jasper’s tag.

  Meg raised her eyes, searching the yard for the barking dog, and saw two faintly glowing globes hidden in the shadows at the back of the yard. Then the globes blinked as the Bogrot barked, and barked, and barked.

  42

  Beanie’s Fast Food

  Beanie’s plastic eyes surveyed the restaurant as his wide smile stretched his rosy cheeks. Paulie always made a point of tapping the bright-yellow button on Beanie’s suit whenever he passed, as though the giant plastic torso could bring him the good luck. He did so then as he crossed to the door at the back of the restaurant, two garbage bags clenched in his other fist.

  He could hear Jen, Paulie’s co-worker, grumbling as she sorted the inventory in the walk-in fridge. She hated the closing shift almost as much as Paulie did. He shoved through the narrow door at the back of the building and used one foot to slow its closing so that it would hit the latch but not lock.

  The cold night air bit at his face and ears. He jogged towards the dumpsters at the opposite side of the carpark, trying to keep up his momentum and reminding himself that he would be home in another twenty minutes.

  Paulie was halfway across the carpark when a bang startled him. He turned, surveying the nearby streets, which were empty. The parking lot had only three cars: his, Jen’s, and another he didn’t recognize. The car possibly belonged to a druggie or a drunk who’d forgotten where he’d parked. It had happened before.

  Their branch of Beanie’s Fast Food was nestled on the edge of a not-so-pleasant part of town. Train lines ran behind the parking lot, and every half an hour, a carriage would whistle past, drowning out their customer’s voices. The slums on the other side of the tracks housed some of the strangest people Paulie had ever met—and he’d met his fair share of weirdos. He couldn’t count the number of employees his boss, Jacob, had fired, and for far more extreme reasons than he’d ever anticipated. Selling drugs over the counter was a common one, but two cooks had been let go for trying to deep fry a rat, and one employee had tried to gouge out a customer’s eye. Some days, Paulie felt as if he, Jen, and Jacob were the only sane people left in the world.

  Paulie pushed the dumpster’s lid open and threw the bags inside. Nearly the end of your shift, buddy, he reminded himself as he turned back to the store’s sooty back entrance. Then you get to enjoy opening shift tomorrow, too. Hooray.

  The streetlamps spaced around the carpark left stark circles of light on the black asphalt. Paulie didn’t like walking through them and skirted around their edges, eager to get inside the relatively warm eatery.

  He hesitated at the door. It was pulled tightly closed. Must have been the wind. That could have been what the slamming noise was; the door being forced closed.

  Muttering under his breath, Paulie unlocked the door and pushed inside. The back areas were far less orderly and clean than they kept the parts of the kitchen visible to the public
, but, between himself and Jen, they managed to stop it from getting too disgusting. Paulie could still hear Jen in the walk-in fridge, muttering to herself as she counted off inventory and made a list for Jacob to re-order goods the following morning.

  Paulie grabbed the broom from the corner of the room and returned to the front of store, where the floor was permanently in need of cleaning. He raised a hand to tap Beanie’s bright-gold button out of habit then pulled his hand back as he touched something wet.

  “What the hell…?”

  A red substance had been smeared across the plastic mascot’s neck, connecting one ear to the other in a gory replica of a cut throat. The substance had dribbled over the torso, including the button Paulie liked to tap.

  Paulie’s mouth felt dry. He stared at the mascot, too confused to feel proper shock. I was only outside for a couple of minutes. Who could have done this? Not Jen, surely?

  As if on cue, Jen rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of the defaced statue. Her eyes roved from the red splatter to Paulie’s tinted fingertips, and a scowl settled above her dark eyes. “What the hell, Paulie?”

  The shocked indignation in her voice convinced Paulie that she had no knowledge of the vandalism. That was enough to shake him out of his stupor, and he took a step back, feeling revolted.

  “Wasn’t me,” he said. He pressed his thumb against the red liquid on his index finger, trying to guess its origin based on its viscousness. As he rubbed his fingers together, the substance began to dry and tack in the way only one thing could. “Blood…”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Jen snapped, moving closer to the mascot. She squinted at the stains, seeming reluctant to touch them. “I mean, it looks like it, but…”

  “I thought I heard the door slam,” Paulie said, as the memory came back to him. “When I was taking the trash out.”

  “That wasn’t you?” Jen’s eyes scoured his face, testing his truthfulness, then she swore under her breath and pulled out her phone. “If this is really blood… jeeze. I’m calling Jacob. I’m not paid enough to deal with this sort of crap.”

  Paulie couldn’t stop staring at the mascot. The blood had been smeared deliberately to replicate a cut throat. Is that a threat? Who’d want to threaten us? Could be a dismissed employee, I guess, or maybe a customer who really hated their food…

  A strange haunting jingle came from farther in the store. Both Paulie and Jen swung towards it. From what Paulie could tell, its source was somewhere near the back of the dining room.

  “It’s the boss’s phone,” Jen said, taking her mobile away from her ear and glancing about the shadowed eatery. “He’s still here.”

  Paulie remembered the third car left beside his and Jen’s in the parking lot. It had been too deep in the shadows to see clearly, but it could have been Jacob’s.

  “C’mon,” Jen said, pushing past Paulie to cross the dining area. “I’m not going to stand for any sick pranks.”

  Her voice was strong, but he thought he detected a note of anxiety hidden in it. He followed her as the haunting jingle led them to the bathrooms at the back of the building.

  The ringtone came from the men’s, and Jen pushed in without hesitation. “Jacob?” she called, and to her credit, she hesitated only a second before striding towards the stalls. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

  Paulie froze in the doorway, his nerves on fire and the hair on his arms standing on end. Only one stall had its door closed: the last one in the row. It wasn’t fully shut, though—the door had been pulled to, but not locked.

  “Jen,” Paulie said, and the word rasped across his dry lips. “Jen, don’t.”

  She either ignored him or hadn’t heard him. Just like she hadn’t heard the dripping sound—barely audible above Jacob’s ringtone—or seen the trickle of dark blood running from inside the stall and dribbling towards the drain.

  Jen pushed open the stall door, and her scowl morphed into an expression of absolute terror.

  43

  99 Messages

  Just inside his apartment’s front door, Mirko dropped his suitcase on the floor and sighed. He took a moment to bask in the blissful silence and stretch the knots out of his back. Work had been gruelling, and he was looking forward to running a hot bath and reheating the previous night’s leftovers.

  Mirko crossed the room to the sideboard and pressed the flashing button on his answering machine. He untied his shoes and kicked them off as he listened to the mechanical female voice.

  “You have… ninety-nine… new messages.”

  Mirko hesitated, one foot raised, ready to pull off his sock. Ninety-nine? That can’t be right.

  “First new message received today at… eight… forty-six… a.m.”

  He’d left for work at eight forty-five on the dot. He must have just barely missed the call.

  There were several seconds of silence, then a voice, oddly crackly, said, “Hello, Mirko. I’m going to start counting now. Are you ready?”

  Both socks off, Mirko gave the answering machine his full attention. The voice was silent for nearly half a minute, then it said, calmly and precisely, “Ninety-nine.”

  The message bank beeped, and the mechanical voice returned. “Next new message received today at… eight… forty-nine… a.m.”

  Again, after a second of silence, the unfamiliar voice said, “Ninety-eight.”

  Mirko rubbed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes. Is this some kind of joke?

  He didn’t recognise the voice. It had no discernible accent, but spoke in an odd monotone lacking both inflection and emotion. He couldn’t even tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. Crackles, as though the voice were speaking through a walkie-talkie, accompanied it.

  “Next new message received today at… eight… fifty-two… a.m.”

  “Ninety-seven.”

  It’s not serious counting down from a hundred, is it? Mirko glanced at the number flashing on the side of his machine: ninety-six new messages. How long would it have taken someone to record all of these?

  He mashed his thumb into the button on the side of the machine, deleting messages before they played. He watched the number of unheard messages drop from the nineties down to fifty, then twenty, then ten. Once he’d reached the third-last message, he released the button to let it play.

  “Next new message received today at… twelve… eighteen… p.m.”

  “You forgot to lock your door this morning, Mirko. Three.”

  Mirko slowly turned towards the rear of his house. The hairs on the backs of his arms rose.

  “Next new message received today at… twelve… twenty-one… p.m.”

  “Mirko, have you found a weapon yet? Two.”

  This is a joke. A sick, strange joke. Mirko turned back to the answering machine, where the number one flashed on the screen.

  “Next new message received today at… twelve… twenty-five… p.m.”

  “Are you ready, Mirko? One.”

  A long, loud beep followed as the phone marked all messages listened to.

  Mirko turned slowly, swallowing the dry taste in his mouth. For a moment, his apartment was filled with complete, perfect silence, then there was a quiet click as someone fastened the lock on his front door.

  44

  Death Follows

  Death’s exhale was a protracted, scraping rattle. It conjured memories of dead leaves skittering over dirt, fingernails drawing across gravestones, or an elderly man’s final rasp.

  It wasn’t unfamiliar to John. He was at the head of his driveway, and it took a moment of searching to spot the black shadow nestled in the corner of his neighbour’s house where the vines grew thick and the slanted roof blocked out most of the waning light.

  The spectre looked near identical to a shadow, save for its movements and the flash of light reflecting off its eyes. It was taller than a human, but its back and shoulders were stooped. Its unnaturally long fingers twitched at its side as it stared at John.

  H
e turned, put his hands into his pockets, and began walking to town. His job as a spirit medium had introduced him to the spectre. Curiosity in life after death, of spirits and lost souls, had increased dramatically at the turn of the century, and John’s unique talents had allowed him to charge a rich sum for contacting the husbands, sons, and daughters of grieving women. The spirits would answer his call and communicate messages through taps, chills, and whispers.

  John had been a spirit medium for close to a year when he first saw Death. During his work, he’d given a great deal of thought to the souls and where they went after their mortal bodies perished, but none to the entity that reaped them. Then, one evening, he’d glimpsed the shadow in the back of an elderly widow’s parlour. Its lamp-like eyes were fixated on her bowed head, and a sense of unease had prickled at John’s skin and made his saliva bitter. He’d left early. The following morning, he received word that the widow had passed in her sleep.

  Since then, he’d seen Death lingering around men and women who were near the end of their time on earth. The creature was infallible. And this time, it had come for John.

  He picked up his pace and heard the scrape of long, steady footsteps behind him. Death had seemingly endless patience, he’d learned. The intended victims would live hours or even days after the spectre began trailing them.

  That gives me time, he thought, though he didn’t know what he intended to use that time for. His first thought was to settle his affairs, but he had no wife and no children to settle on. There was no one he cared about to say goodbye to. As a spirit medium, he travelled through towns so quickly that he never became attached to the inhabitants.