Tiny Nightmares

by Lincoln Michel

  I know I should call the cops, help stop this evil motherfucker. But fear overwhelms outrage, anger, concern for my fellow man. I block him, I log out, turn off my phone, go to the bathroom to try to throw up.

  The pine trees are what fuck me up the worst. That’s how I know this is no poseur trying to freak strangers out with gory photos from the Dark Web, or garden-variety human murderer.

  The initials carved into the tree were mine. I’d done it myself, when I was fifteen, and I’d never told a soul about it.

  I uninstall the app. Spend another half hour on the bathroom floor.

  Weeks go by, before I have the strength—or the horniness—to download and open up that app again. No sign of Candy Boii, but I’d blocked him so of course there wouldn’t be.

  Unless he’s using a different name. A different face.

  He could be any of these boys.

  He’s out there still. I know he is. Sometimes, mid-brunch, between hilarious sex app stories, I wonder which of my friends have hit him up. What he showed them. What little cracks it opened up in them.

  We focus on the wrong fears. The man who might chain you up and torture you to death, or inject you with something unspeakable, or have a perfectly pleasant time but then come back later to rob and maybe murder you. As long as we stay alive, unharmed—as long as we can walk away—we think: we’re fine.

  The real danger is how we open ourselves up. What we let in, when we believe ourselves to be safe. We let them in. Like Klingon Birds-of-Prey, which can’t fire when cloaked, we must drop all our defenses before we can engage. Once Candy Boii broke me open with a pine tree photo, I could see how it had been happening all along. How, long before that warm wet May night, even the most banal chats had been planting seeds beneath my skin. So many unsolicited glimpses into the harrowed, salted soil of the human heart. The boy who’d been fucked by fifteen men in six meth- assisted hours, thirsty for one more. The guy whose username was I’m Lonely, which ruined my whole day. I’ve heard hundreds of terror tales, had countless creepy close calls, and I can say with certainty that there is nothing scarier than a close-up shot of another human being’s brokenness.

  The Unhaunting

  KEVIN NGUYEN

  I

  After Priscilla died, Carson’s only hope was that he’d be haunted. She’d left this world suddenly—a heart attack, as if to spite her perfect health, as if the world were conspiring to make Carson tragically miserable.

  Once she was in the ground, Carson waited alone in the bedroom they had shared for three and a half years. He wasn’t sure how Priscilla’s presence would manifest itself. Perhaps a movement in the dark, maybe a breeze that would rustle the sheets. Or an astral projection? Carson missed his beloved so much that he would’ve been satisfied with a cold shudder, the feeling that she had passed through him.

  The first night, Carson lay awake, anxious, in the hope Priscilla would make an appearance. But each painful minute gave way to morning, and Carson was left feeling disappointed, even a bit angry. No matter. She would materialize on the second night, he thought. That turned out to be wishful thinking, as the days went on, a week passed, and Carson remained unhaunted. Where had Priscilla gone? What was Carson doing wrong? He decided to google it.

  It turned out there were a great number of things that Carson could have been doing wrong. A subreddit about interactions with the afterlife, r/haunts, was full of tips and tricks and hacks, none of which were particularly consistent. One user recommended incense, another suggested candles (not lavender), but everyone agreed it helped to burn something. There were varying opinions on the effectiveness of incantations—some felt the words could be powerful forms of summoning, others found it useful just as a means of maintaining focus.

  Still, Carson practiced the easiest of rituals. Lights always off, of course. Open windows, Reddit advised, allowed spirits to enter more easily. It was cold out, but Carson was more than happy to bundle up to heighten his odds. A YouTube tutorial also had a handful of ideas, like spreading dirt on the floor to make the room feel “more earthy.” Certain patterns for candles (not lavender!) should attract specters with more ease. Still, none of it worked. The internet was a crapshoot, really, but as one YouTube commentator put it, “Ghosts only emerge under specific spectral conditions that depend on them.” The problem wasn’t Carson, necessarily. It was Priscilla.

  II

  The feeling of cold, damp fingers; the musty scent of hair; an embrace of wet skin and jagged bone. Weeks went by, and Carson could only conjure these sensations in dreams.

  After expressing his woes to a close friend, Carson was referred to a specialist. He would be expensive, the friend warned, but Carson had nothing left to lose. He’d lost everything already.

  The initial phone call was strange. Carson felt it fair to ask about the man’s accreditations and background—shaman? witch doctor? exorcist?—but the response was a light scolding that those terms were outdated and lightly offensive. He was simply known as Derek, the guy who could get the ghosts. Still, Derek was able to detail his track record. Carson’s case was not unusual—just particular. Every ghost was unique, after all.

  Carson put down a significant deposit, and a couple hauntless nights later, Derek showed up at his front door. His appearance was different than Carson had expected, more normal. He came armed with a few Tupperware containers. Carson had imagined someone arriving with an otherworldly, mystical aura to them. This guy had the fastidious energy of a housecleaner.

  In fact, the first thing Derek did was clean the dirt from the bedroom. What is this, he asked, a nursery? You hoping your dead wife sprouts from the ground? The phrasing forced Carson to hold back tears, and he immediately hated the man. Still, there was an efficiency to how he worked. Derek began rearranging the furniture.

  Did Carson have more framed photos of his wife, he asked, which sent Carson to the other rooms of the house to pull pictures off the wall and present them to Derek, who then piled them on the bed in a rather disorderly fashion. Did Carson have more of his wife’s clothes, Derek wondered, and so Carson went to the closet and pulled out all of her dresses, shirts, pants, underwear even. Though it felt uncomfortable presenting his wife’s undergarments to a complete stranger, Derek appeared confident. All the clothes were dumped on the bed.

  The secret, Derek explained, was quantity, volume. If you wanted to be haunted, you needed to bring as many signals into the room as possible. Ghosts, like in Priscilla’s case, couldn’t find their way. The afterlife was confusing, a labyrinth, lost souls learning how to navigate distant planes in order to return to this one, to ours. Yeah, okay, Carson said, impatiently. Listen, Derek went on, I’ve never had trouble finding a ghost that wanted to be found.

  As night fell, Derek continued scanning the room. He checked the closets, opened drawers, flipped the light switch several times, all for reasons Carson couldn’t understand but had to trust were done with the confidence of experience and expertise. Derek had, after all, nearly a five-star rating on Yelp. He laid down a series of blankets, cast dried rose petals on the floor, set out an array of candles (NOT LAVENDER!!!!) of varying heights and widths throughout the room. Then he pulled out a large tome from one of his Tupperware bins—a massive, aged book—and flipped to a bookmarked page. He began chanting a phrase over and over. It wasn’t in English, but a language that Carson couldn’t make out. Maybe Portuguese. And as Derek repeated the incantation, the room began to shake. A wind blasted in through the windows. The candle flames seemed to grow, illuminating the room. Carson watched as Derek’s pupils turned white. Outside, the clouds began to swirl, opening a path for the moonlight to shine directly into the room. It’s finally happening, Carson thought. Priscilla, my love, we will be reunited soon.

  But in the chaos, nothing emerged. Eventually the wind stopped blowing, the candle flames returned to normal, and the clouds returned to concealing the moon. Derek had run out of breath and could chant no longer.

  Wait, don’t s
top, Carson pleaded. But Derek, whose eyes were back to normal, could only muster a head shake. He’d done everything he could, but Priscilla would not appear. Derek was excellent at his job, but no matter how good he was at summoning specters, it would always be impossible to call on a ghost who did not want to appear.

  What did he mean, exactly, that Priscilla did not want to appear?

  I dunno, man, Derek said. That seems like something between you and her.

  Could it have been possible this whole time that it was no lack of skill or effort on Carson’s part, but the fact that Priscilla was not looking for him at all? How could that be true, that his beloved was not searching for him? Priscilla would never abandon him. Not like this. Not after he’d tried so hard to make it work. This was typical Priscilla—selfish, unkind. Carson had never been anything but supportive, even in the worst of times, and now, after death, she couldn’t muster the effort to haunt him once. Just once! He asked so little of her and yet—

  Derek finished packing his things, but the man was still rambling. With his Tupperware tucked under his arms, it seemed best to Derek just to leave his disappointed client as he was.

  He could hear the man going on and on still, even as Derek made his way downstairs, past the hallway full of empty spots where photos used to hang. Even outside, as he packed his belongings in the trunk of his old sedan, the angered sounds of the man could still be heard in the distance. Indignation, it seemed, traveled far.

  As the house disappeared in Derek’s rearview, he wondered if the man understood what had happened to him. This man was reckoning with the fact that, now, he was truly alone. But the thing he still hadn’t comprehended was the lesson of it all: that it was likely his fault.

  But whether this guy would understand that was not Derek’s concern. He had other clients, easier ones. People with ghosts who didn’t feel better off gone.

  The Marriage Variations

  MONIQUE LABAN

  1

  When your husband told you he would be sleeping in a separate bedroom, and you complied, you suspected some health problem. After all, you heard those moans at night and wondered if he was gnashing his teeth, curled on the bathroom floor. But every morning, he woke you with the smell of coffee, a couple slices of buttered toast, and a smile, as if you had spent your whole marriage like this. Then you suspected a late-night addiction. You checked his video game controller for warmth when he left for work. Both bedrooms have TVs, and matching armoires, and bay windows overlooking the sea. Everything about the rooms looks the same, in fact, except for his console and controller.

  Your husband is obsessive, training to be the top player of his intramural soccer team; a week of feeding you omelets until they met your family’s high standards. Surely he’s spent night after night in bed, defeating demons, saving princesses. You wonder if your husband plays as a demon, a princess, or a different creature entirely.

  Video games never interested you. He told you about one with angry goddesses and adventures to the underworld, but you forgot the details immediately—you were late to the real estate agent’s walk-through inspection. You told him, on the steps of your new seaside cabin, that this was a real adventure.

  As you lie awake with the moans, the scraping, whatever other noises you refuse to put an image to, you hope he is playing a game, acting out fantasies through the body of a monster.

  One night, the noises are unbearable. You aren’t to disturb him, but you will break if this continues. If you intend to learn their cause, go to 2. If you must escape these ghastly moans, go to 3.

  2

  You remember the story your husband told you now, don’t you? With your phone flashlight on, it comes to you as you climb down the stairs, slower than your shadow. You know the game he plays, a myth about a woman who learns her lover’s divine nature and how he vanishes upon this knowledge. She searches for him anyway, more in love after her discovery.

  Perhaps your husband is hiding something shameful. If you force him to reveal himself, if you accept the cause of these moans, will he disappear? Is knowing the truth worth this risk?

  You hear a bang. In the light, you see that the cat has knocked the keepsake box off the hallway shelf. Out spill childhood photographs of your sister and two brothers. They never liked your husband.

  His door opens on the cat’s commotion. He stares at you, blue eyes wide. If you confront him about the noises, go to 4. If you return to bed and seek counsel from your family in the morning, go to 5.

  3

  The tide rumbles up the shore and the foam licks your toes. If only you could sleep standing up, feet in the sand and the breeze on your neck.

  “Hello there,” says someone calling from the sea. You search for the voice and spot a beautiful woman in a white dress, floating in the water. You recognize her as one of your husband’s ex-wives.

  “I thought you were dead,” you say.

  “I am,” the woman says.

  “We all are,” say the other beautiful women floating along the shore, all your husband’s ex-wives.

  “We’d have been good friends,” the first ex-wife continues. “Our deaths weren’t his fault, really. His mother was the true terror.”

  The other ex-wives agree heartily. They guard you as you sleep. When you return to the cabin, go to 4 to confront your husband. Go to 6 to investigate your mother-in-law.

  4

  “Have you been all right?”

  “Never better. Why do you ask?”

  “Then what’s been going on every night?”

  “What? Every night?”

  “Moaning? Thudding? Wails?”

  “From you?”

  “No, from you.”

  “Are you having those dreams again?”

  “No, that’s not what this is.”

  “Have you been taking your pills? What’s going on?”

  “I can’t sleep. You’re loud.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “No, something is wrong with you. You need help.”

  If you wish to believe your husband and end the conversation, return to 1, having learned nothing. Go to 7 to press on.

  5

  The slow Wi-Fi distorts your brothers’ laughter through the Skype call.

  “Remember the keys?” your sister says. Your husband has a ring of keys that he keeps in his inner coat pocket. Your sister once asked what they were for, and he spent the whole evening explaining each one. There was one left whose use he couldn’t recall. He went silent when your sister suggested he dispose of it.

  “That’s just how he is,” you say in defense.

  “We don’t trust him,” your brothers say. “He and his family are strange.”

  “And now you’re sleep-deprived?” your sister asks. “What’s he hiding?”

  “We didn’t think you two would last,” they all say.

  If you need to clear your head, go to 3. If you look into his family, go to 6.

  6

  You find his late mother’s scallop-shell earrings in his nightstand’s drawer. He was a mama’s boy, but you were scared of her and not without reason. She tested you viciously before the wedding—adhering to her strict weight-loss diet, spending a week’s worth of wages to gift her the pricey beauty supplies she wanted.

  “You are stunning,” she told you. “He has such good taste in wives.”

  Even after proving yourself to her, you knew she resented you for taking her son. Perhaps the nights are punishment from beyond the grave.

  If you are ready to confront your husband, go to 4. If you seek counsel from your family, go to 5.

  7

  “What’s the problem here?”

  “Why can’t you talk to me?”

  “We’re talking now.”

  “Then tell me what’s going on.”

  How has communication between the two of you crumbled so steadily?

  “You’re the one ma
king a problem out of nothing.”

  You miss him next to you at night. The bed is too large without him. The blankets don’t bring you warmth.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop this nonsense.”

  Perhaps this is as far as you will get. Return to 4 if you must continue this game with him. Go to 8 once you realize there is no possibility of winning.

  8

  Neither of you speaks to the other for the rest of the day.

  Hasn’t he noticed how your long black hair has gone rough? You forget and repeat tasks so often that you find yourself with four new ChapSticks but can no longer locate your phone. What would it take for him to admit that everything is wrong?

  Is anything, indeed, wrong, or is this how things have always been? The direction they would always take? When you sleep that night, or try to, you wonder when you will break, or if you’ve already broken.

  In the morning, there is coffee, toast. If you could have tried harder, go to 2. Go to 3 if you just want peace.

  The Family Dinner

  MICHELE ZIMMERMAN

  The forest—autumn crisp, deep purple. The stone hut—overwarm, cluttered. Inside, identical twin sisters cook meat stew over a stove.

  Each sister has a gap between her two front teeth. Each has a permanent blemish between her eyebrows. Each has a scar on her left shoulder—dips in the skin that came naturally at birth. They are separated in age by two and a half minutes. But that’s nothing, they are one and the same.

  Together they stir the blood and remnants of the girl in the pot over the wood-burning stove.

  Each sister has seven piercings on each earlobe. Each has a ring for every finger on her right hand. Each keeps wrists and neck bare.

  Their mother is ash in a jar on a shelf above their bed. Wrapped around their mother is where the opal pendant should hang.

  One sister pinches red and brown seasonings from glass vials; the other stirs the pot with a long, splintered spoon. Together they breathe in the rich scent, rear their heads back, and spit.