“Sam! Great to see you again, come in, come in, welcome, welcome!
“Now, now, don’t get upset, we had a deal, remember.”
Samuel Murphy Debuts on Billboard Charts with Smoking Soul Single
“I mean, you were just a pool boy for some rich old white woman in Birmingham, and now, look at you, right up there with Cooke, Redding, and Pickett. It was everything you could have asked for.”
Muscle Shoals Rebirth? -- Sam Murphy Shoots to Number One
“Now, I know you thought you were probably going to have a longer career, but I did promise you that you’d belong to a very exclusive club. I know it may not have been the club you were thinking of, but now just think of the legendary names that you’ll be mentioned with.”
Doors’ Jim Morrison, 27, Death in Paris Revealed
“Come, let me give you a quick tour before I show you where you’ll be staying. There’s Morrison. Guy thought he was a poet; I thought he was a hack, and I hated that godawful circus music they made. Called himself “The Lizard King” one time. So, I made him the Lizard King. The little desert dwellers burrow into his flesh and eat his entrails all day.”
Guitarist Jimi Hendrix Dies; Found in Coma at His Girl’s
“Hendrix is to your right in the corner. Best I’ve ever heard. He needed exposure to the masses, and that’s where I got involved. Now he plays all day, on an out-of-tune Stratocaster and with ten broken fingers… soul-crushing for a musician like him.”
Nirvana Lead Singer Commits Suicide
“That’s Cobain giving the press conference and signing autographs. Talk about a guy that couldn’t handle what he asked for. He absolutely hated the fame once it came his way. He railed against the media, the fans, everything. He was perfectly okay with going out early… until he got here. Now, he’s constantly surrounded by the press and adoring fans.”
Amy Winehouse is Dead at 27
“Winehouse, she was almost one of your contemporaries. What was that catchy song she had? Oh yeah: “They tried to make me go to rehab / I said, no, no, no.” Did you know that alcohol withdrawals are considered worse than those of any illegal drug? Amy is in constant withdrawals. Anxiety, vomiting, fever, hallucinations… she's in stage three, having a seizure right now… guess she should’ve gone to rehab after all.”
Janis Joplin’s Body Found in Hollywood Hotel Room
“Joplin’s in the back, behind those doors. She was quite the promiscuous little tramp in her day. I'm sure she's wishing things had gone differently now - she’s spending the rest of eternity, ahem, servicing my demon hordes.”
Rock Star Brian Jones Dead in Pool
“Brian Jones? Oh no, that wasn’t me. Just a coincidence. They really did make it to the top on their own devices. I loved Beggar’s Banquet, but they got so much about me wrong in that one song.”
Superstar Sam Murphy, 27, Dies Amid Rumors of Drug Fueled Orgy
“Ah, here we are. Sam Murphy, the pool boy turned soul sensation. Since your music was all about getting back to your roots, I decided to do the same thing. You’re the new pool boy for our lake of fire, Sam. I’m sure it will be quite unbearable for the first millennia or so. After that, maybe we’ll switch things up.
“Oh, and Sam, welcome to The Club.”
Sapper
Mike Sundberg
My dearest Charlotte,
It is not honorable in any sense of the word to serve in this so-called Great War. By day the shells scream above our heads and the rounds of the mechanized guns irritate the ears like hungry mosquitos. There is no heroism in survival, and though I like to think my existence is aided by the sharpness of my senses, my heart knows it is by blind luck that I am still alive.
By night the wailing calls of the wounded keep us from sleep; there is never any silence in these infernal trenches, where men shelter from bombs only to die from disease. On but one restless evening, when the moon was full and lustrous, I chanced a look out upon the wasteland between us and the enemy.
The dead lay in dark lumps across the desolate plain, the moans of the dying carried by the ghastly winds. The sight was so horrible I would have hid back behind the muddy walls had I not caught a glimpse of something low and crawling amongst the corpses.
It moved slowly and unnaturally about no-man’s land, and I thought I could see strange appendages wheeling about in the night. It came upon a struggling man, of whose country was indeterminate, and the shriek of terror I heard numbed my extremities. When I awoke at the next dawn, I considered the memory but an apparition of the mind. Such is war.
For the past few weeks I have had the privilege of digging underground toward the enemy lines, and have been spared the horrors of the daylight shellings. Our mission was to detonate explosives underneath the trenches of our foe, and yesterday we succeeded in reaching our goal.
I followed our demolitions expert down the tunnel we had excavated, carrying the explosives and laying the detonator cable. We had reached only half way when the ground caved and he fell into the dark.
I shined my torchlight down the fissure and found him but a few feet down in another tunnel, surprised but unscathed. We must have come upon a passage carved by the enemy, he told me, but as my light illuminated the hole I saw it was circular and its walls were coated with oil.
I grew nervous and offered him my hand to pull him out, and as he grasped my palm so too did a multitude of thin and grey tentacles wrap tightly around his legs.
He cried in terror and pleaded for me to pull, his free hand not reaching for his pistol, but clawing at the mud. With all my strength I fought to lift him from the caved earth, and to my surprise I did, but what I dragged out was only the top half of the man, his bloody entrails spilling out violently before me.
I set the charges next to his torso, and fled.
The explosion shook the earth itself, sending rock a hundred body-lengths into the sky, in the middle of no-man’s land, and took not a soul of our enemy.
***
My dearest Charlotte,
I write to you because tomorrow I am to fix my bayonet and partake in a charge toward the enemy lines, as punishment for my failure to execute my orders.
I pray I die quickly and am not left wounded, for there are far more hellish things than man that gnaw on the carrion of battle.
With all my love,
Pvt. William J. Smith
November 1916
The Test
Dieben and Jonas Lefkowitch
Late one evening, during a chilly autumn downpour, I heard a knock at the door and arrived there to find my wife, Anna, opening it to a stranger on our stoop: an elderly, emaciated black man, soaked to the bone in a yellowed, threadbare suit. In spite of his sorry state there was an unmistakable dignity in his bearing. "I am hungry, cold, and weary," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Have you food to spare and a warm place where I might rest?"
I was about to pull Anna aside to discuss the matter when our six-year-old, Danny, shouted, "Aren't you gonna help the man?" My wife and I exchanged a long glance.
"Of course, Danny," Anna finally said, and my son's innocent smile made me regret I'd ever considered turning the old man away. While Anna prepared him a plate of leftovers, I set up a cot and a space heater in the garage. The old man thanked us for our hospitality before settling in for the night. The next morning he was already gone when we awoke. I didn't expect we'd ever see him again.
No one was expecting him to show up in the papers and on television, to discover this was no mere man, but rather a worldwide phenomenon, who in one night had visited every home in every nation, asking for help in every native language.
Humanity had been tested - by whom was obvious - and it was just as obvious we had not fared well. Most of us sent the Old Man packing. Many called the police. Few had invited Him in. Yet there were no repercussions, no raptures, no rebukes from above.
Until tonight.
I answered another knock at our door and there He was, dre
ssed in an immaculate white suit.
"Oh my… God?"
He smiled and nodded, then asked if He could come in, soft-spoken and serene as ever.
"Of course!" I replied.
He stepped past me, making His way to the center of the family room. Anna was watching Him from the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with awe. I was shaking.
"You did well last time," He said.
"Thank you, my Lord!" I cried.
"I must test you once more," He said.
"Whatever you ask!" Anna declared.
"Please, sit," He said, and we did, hand in trembling hand, eager to hear what He would ask of us. "This shall be difficult, but I have faith in you."
Anna was nodding. I was too.
"Your son, Daniel, is among the finest souls I have encountered," He said. "I have need of this child. Please, I ask that you free his soul so he may join me."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Daniel must die," He said plainly. "Please, I ask that you see to it now."
My blood ran cold. I tried to respond, but no words would come. Feeling faint, I looked to my wife for the strength I desperately needed, but only found indecision in her dazed expression. The Old Man was watching us, waiting patiently. I realized I had no choice…
"NO!" I screamed, bursting from my seat. "We won't kill our son for you! Get out of this house!"
The Old Man tried to speak. "Please, I know-"
"YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM, DAMN YOU!" Anna roared.
The Old Man didn't say another word, only nodded, turned on His heel, and strolled out the door. Anna and I immediately gathered the family, huddling together in our bedroom. There was nothing to say and no use covering our ears as the shrieks and wails began to emerge from nearby homes. Throughout the night, we laid awake just listening. We recognized the voices of many of our neighbors amongst the tumult crying out for help… for mercy… for forgiveness… for God. More than a few believers, it seemed, had taken Him up on His challenge.
Bonus Stories
Island
Tony Johnson
People of a certain age can probably remember the phone booth. Once ubiquitous, now gone the way of things that are gone.
You stepped in, dropped your dime or nickel or (near the end) quarter and could voice your pithy little syllables which seemed meaningful at the time. There was no need for Gramming Instantly, Hashtagging, Chatting Snaps, or Booking any Faces. I was in just such a contrivance when the world ended.
June sprang warmly on the city, much needed after a particularly vicious winter. Humanity seemed to be coming alive again, peopling the cafes and parks and staring up at the blue skies in blinking disbelief. Disbelief over such a wondrous thing as a blue sky actually existing after months of leaden deadness the winter firmament seemed committed to. And then, later, when the shit started, there was further disbelief at the birds dropping dead from the same sky, their plumage coming unfeathered as their lifeless bodies were now under control of gravity, that bitch, and not their innate ability to fly.
I watched it all unfold from the cramped confines of my little phone booth on West 8th.
Inside my little booth I bellowed, loud and shrieky, ululating out of my throat up into the world as the birds fell. Shrieks like the end of the world, which it was. Outside the booth, I probably had the appearance of a guy in mid-yawn.
After the birds, it all happened quickly. People next, just up and dying like Mr. Bojangles’ dog. Stopped dead in their tracks or, worse, behind the wheel, the cars piling into each other, some exploding.
I had stepped into the booth on the way to the lab to call Dr. Täuschung – I needed a refill of my meds, and things always got a little hazy when I ran out. I saw things, and sometimes, when it got serious, I did things. Working at the lab, as I did, both seeing things and doing things were undeniably unacceptable. I’d been able to hide my little problem as I thought of it, in check and under wraps. Which was necessary, because I needed hefty security clearance to handle the materials I worked with.
If the stuff ever got out – was ever released into the world – well, it’d be the end. The end of phone booths and meds and good old Dr. Täuschung and my mother and everybody.
Now, after the birds and people, the spiders came. Colossal, black, and bristly, and about the size of a human head. They scrabbled up the concrete and were even able to climb the smooth, reflective glass of the skyscrapers. Their little pointy feet, or whatever was at the end of their legs, made tapping sounds on the mirrored surfaces of the buildings.
I saw myself reflected in the glass of the building across the street as it all happened. I think it was me, anyway. It was certainly a guy in a phone booth, but he seemed totally normal. Not terrified at all.
Odd.
Black spiders, their abdomens tense with eggs, glistening like obsidian, crawled all over the reflection of my face. I could practically feel them.
The seeing and the doing which happened while off the meds were bad, but the feeling was worse. Seeing and doing are distant things – outside of you and you can pretend they’re someone else.
Feeling – now that’s personal. It’s in your nerves. It’s in your brain.
Here’s the funny thing – I never got through to Dr. Täuschung. Dropped in my quarter, ringy ringy – nothing. The line died, not even an answering machine. And then the shit started. Bird and spider and dead people shit.
No meds for me. Meds and ends – it is all the world was that day. Meds and ends. Meds and ends and sons and mothers.
It was cramped in the phone booth, and I felt short on air and my muscles were seizing up. Even with a world swirling with spiders and littered with bodies and flaming cars outside my little booth, I felt the need to escape. I had always been a tad claustrophobic (or closet-phobic as I called it as a kid, when mother would lock me in there) and, Armageddon or no, the phone booth was starting to panic me.
Sometimes the things on the inside are worse by far than the things on the outside.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled open the door of my little booth and stepped out onto a sidewalk not littered with dead, featherless birds and corpses, but onto normal, everyday grey concrete and the quotidian noises of a city going about its business in an ordinary fashion.
I took a moment to compose myself and checked my surroundings. No spiders click-clocking up the side of the building where I worked. The only thing resembling a dead body in sight was Alfred, the usual homeless guy camped in his refrigerator box on the corner of 8th and Hedren. No flaming cars. Just… normal.
Rattling the empty pill vial in my pocket, I felt the phone booth panic subside and drift away. I turned toward my building and flashed my security badge at the guard. One biometric scan later, I was on the elevator down to the lab, six stories below the city. I thought about the rows of gleaming vials containing the sleeping crystals of cis-ricin isomer, I thought about my mother and the closet.
Meds and ends and maybe a beginning.
Four Peaks Spring
Kristopher J. Patten
The spring felt wrong from the moment we found it. Maybe even before then.
The hike was supposed to be a celebration, another step toward conquering the world. Two years ago, we graduated college. Last year, we went white water rafting. This year, we were going to scale the highest point of the Four Peaks range in our county.
I had hiked a few miles up the same trail with my cousin, who lived in Oregon, up until a couple months ago. We reached a low saddle, but he wanted to turn around before even setting foot on the main slope. The heat and the sparse desert landscape were too much for him, he complained. Too ugly.
I disagreed, though. The desert was my home. We had been born there, grew up together there, and still lived there. I felt safe among the creosote and mesquite. Besides, more traditional trees were visible growing further up the steep slope and likely gave way to pines near the top. When my friends and I exited our car, something was different about the trailhe
ad. The sun was out but it seemed shrouded in gloom.
I scanned the horizon for incoming thunderheads. Clear. I shrugged, considering my perception of the trailhead might just be trepidation at the day’s heat manifesting itself visually.
The desert plants, usually thriving in all temperatures, were dried and brown. It looked as though someone had come through with a backpack too wide for the trail; yuccas, ocotillos, and century plants – all tall, spire-like vegetation trying to present the least surface area to the unforgiving sun – had been snapped and lay along the trail. Oddly, none were fully broken. Each one had been cracked halfway up the stalk, the top bending to rest on the ground and forming a natural barrier. A guard rail of jagged triangles kept us on the trail.
The path soon became dark with the charred remains of an old wildfire. We hopped over prostrate cactuses, thin and delicate flesh singed away revealing the latticework skeleton underneath, and prone palo verdes, blackened arms thrown out as if trying to crawl away from the flames. Here, though the fire had burned twenty years ago, the tall, slower-growing vegetation had been consumed by the fire and hadn’t yet regenerated. Short scrub and ankle-high cholla cactuses had grown back thickly, however. The effect was of wading through a charcoal swamp and dodging the bony hands of ghouls reaching up from the depths of Hell.
As soon as we entered the shade of the more broad-leafed cottonwoods, we stopped for a water break.
“Shit,” Steven mumbled.
We looked over to where he was digging through his pack, growing more frantic with each pawing handful.
“I left my water in the car.”
Shawn rolled his eyes. I shrugged.
“You can share, dude,” I offered, handing my plastic gallon jug his way. “Besides, there are two springs up here. From what I saw online, they’re difficult to find. They’ll appear as puddles in the middle of a boulder, but they’re fresh water. We’ll just refill. Probably better than this 88-cent shit, anyway.”
Horror d'Oeuvres - Bite-Sized Tales of Terror Page 12