Firing Squad
By
Mark Fleming
Tyrone was spray-painting the railway tunnel. Shoogling the near-empty tin, he noticed something poking from the shale. He clawed at it. It was a wallet, the contents remarkably preserved, including a faded photograph of a kilted soldier. Apparently a troop train crashed here years before; volunteers en route to the Western Front. Ditching the wallet, he absently fired a jet over it until just the soldier’s eyes were exposed, glaring vengefully from the luminous goo. Now his legs had turned to jelly. The fumes were overpowering him. He felt faint. He could hardly feel the vibration of the oncoming train.
Alone
By
Brandy Yassa
It was a simple test, they said. Nothing to it.
“We’ll be with you all the way,” they said.
So, they prepped me, then placed me into a very narrow, long tube… and left me.
The magnets began their banging, so horribly loud, even with my earplugs.
Through a speaker they spoke, reassuring me all was well.
The magnets resumed their infernal banging, banging so loudly, I whimpered.
They heard. “How’re you doing?” they asked.
Without waiting, they continued, “Just a little longer, nothing to worry about.”
A jovial voice added, “Just bear with us.”
Then, the lights went out.
Baby Steps
By
Michael A. Arnzen
Teaching my toddling son to walk is exhausting us both. We're red-faced, hostile. Holding his fat little hand as he lumbers up from a crawl, I hoist him so high his arm might pop out from the socket like a doll's. But this time he magically catches his balance, swings out a leg and lurches forward like a dinosaur, erect. He swivels his hips and lands the next step solid. This time, he didn't trip over his tail. He balances above the volcano's edge, high on his hooves. He smiles up at his daddy, and then surveys his future dominion.
A Song For Them
By
Mark Cassell
The woodwind melody drifted from their cabin and she pictured Neil still hunched, the flute at his lips. Overshadowed by the boat, Ronette knelt on the jetty. She gripped weathered planks to gaze into the water. A bitterness clogged her throat, tears cooling her cheeks.
Something stirred the depths, rising: pale face, dead eyes bulging amid puffy flesh. It broke the surface with a cloying stink of fish and rot.
The euphonious tune continued.
A bloated hand burst upwards in a rush of salty water.
The melody played on the breeze. Cold fingers clamped her wrist.
Ronette began to sing.
The Other Me
By
P.J. Blakey-Novis
It is difficult to describe what it looks like, always in the periphery of my vision. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of the white eyes, the blackened teeth. If I try to focus on it, then it disappears. Paranoia personified. Following me. Always close, yet out of reach. It is dangerous, claiming victims wherever I go, leaving them for me to find. I’m always the one who finds the bodies; they are my hands which turn crimson under the moonlight. One day it will take me too, but only when it is ready. For now, I wait, avoiding the shadows.
Late Night Drive
By
John Dover
Thump, thump, thump
My tires bounce across the center lane, jostling me awake. My eyes itch and burn from staring too long, the eyelids chafe my iris, straining with raw effort to stay closed, but I fight them open. Heavy, inky rain hisses underneath and my engine roars. The chains hooked to my bumper hammer away with their syncopated song. A rush of wind and I finally hear my passenger tear loose from his bonds, rolling broken, limp, and probably dead. I am free of the bastard. He shouldn’t have let his dog shit on my lawn.
Thump, thump, thump.
Hobby
By
Matt Hickman
The bellicose, coppery aroma of spilled blood, interspersed with the putrid stench of his voided bowels hangs in the air.
I breathe it in, and revel in his suffering. His ruined carcass lays slumped in the chair in a defeated posture. A stream of warm claret dribbles from his fingertips to the wooden, blood soaked floorboards.
I hear a familiar voice, calling from a distance.
Damn.
I dance across the room in elation, carefully shut and lock the door of my treehouse, and begin to descend the rickety, wooden ladder.
“Coming, mom.”
I wonder what’s for dinner. Hope its spaghetti.
Beauty Mask
By
Sara Tantlinger
Step 1: Exfoliate, stated the bottle clutched in Remy’s hand. She lathered her face with the gunk and tiny beads slathered off dead skin cells. The scent claimed to be blood-orange, but a sour, metallic odor exploded from the beads the more she rubbed them. After exfoliating, rinse and place the beauty mask over your face for 15 minutes. Remy tore off the plastic and pulled the package out, delighted that the mask was fresher than the last one she bought. The tone matched her skin much better, plus there were fewer maggots clinging from the flesh covering the eyeholes.
Bessy
By
Mark Lumby
A watchman for forty-five years.
I waited until the manager left, let myself in.
“I’m not ready to go,” I told myself. “I’m not leaving you, Bessy.”
I stepped up to her, running a hand over her cold metal, her cutting blade shining suggestively.
I climbed inside her, feet first and stomach against her surface. I took a last look around before flicking the switch.
The clamp shattered my spine; my stomach exploded. The blade released, waist separating away from my torso. I was alive when my blood warmed my death bed.
“I’ll not leave you, Bessy,” I murmured.
Heart Shaped Box
By
Pippa Bailey
My naked body quivered, legs splayed on the hospital bed. The stink of bleach and decay stung my nostrils, and marred my tongue. A masked doctor slid the lower scissor blade into me –slicing. He split me from pelvis to neck. A jagged wound of effluence. My heart, no longer of use, was torn from its resting place.
His fingers caressed a golden box of puzzle and sin. It spewed forth a slick, undulating black which filled the aching void, that was my broken heart. Replaced with a darkness that consumed all thought, all feeling, and would know no bounds.
Post Halloween
By
Veronica Smith
Halloween was over, but Kim was reluctant to take down her decorations. She loved Halloween, her favorite season. She sighed and pulled a moaning ghost down. As she dropped it into the storage bin, it flew up and went right back to where it was before, laughing. She whirled around at the sound of all her decorations laughing. Normally she loved them but now they were scaring her. Suddenly she felt her body folding and being forced into the bin.
As the lid was locked down over her she heard, “That will be the last time she puts us away!”
The Man in the Black Sweater
By
Richard Chizmar
The beer was gone. The fire was dying. A chill had crept into the autumn night air.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
The boy in the red hat spoke up first. He was drunk.
“I killed someone once. A hit and run. I was speeding and it was an accident, but I could have maybe saved the girl’s life if I had called for help. Instead I got back into my car and left her there.”
The man in the black sweater slid the knife out of his pants pocket. After three long years, he had found him.
Virtual Reality
By
David Owain Hughes
Danny’s hands ripped at the bright birthday paper like a zombie at flesh.
“Hell, yeah, King Kong,” his pre-pubescent voice cracked.
“This is going to be killer—”
The television turned off, the console’s door flew open, and the game was spat out, hitting Danny in the face. The boy’s eyes widened when a huge, flaming barrel squeezed out of his machine and hurtled towards him.
“Fuck. This is—”
I Was Loved
By
P.J. Blakey-Novis
I died for her. Not in some heroic way, but because it was what she wanted. Death changes your perspective, in the most literal way, as I look down on my still-warm corpse, watching her scrape the rest of the poisoned meal into the bin. I promised I’d do anything for her, so I pretended not to know she was killing me, slowly, for months. It didn’t hurt, and it made her happy. Therefore, I have no complaints, no interest in knowing her reasons. She loved me, she owned me, and finally she set me free. My mistress, my wife.
The End of the Pier
By
Amy Cross
When you think about chaining a concrete block to your leg and jumping off the end of the pier, you probably imagine sinking into a glittering blue sea and falling serenely to the bottom, but it's not like that at all. The truth is you're immediately swallowed by dirty, ice-cold darkness and you start panicking. You sink deeper and deeper until you hit the bottom, and there you start gulping great mouthfuls of filthy sediment. It's so dark as you're buried alive in the water. And then, as you die, you start wondering where all the hands are coming from.
The Dublin Pub
By
Veronica Smith
The Dublin Pub was quiet when Anthony walked in the open door. He was to meet some friends for a drink. Stepping inside, he saw that it was empty, not a soul around. The neon sign behind the bar flickered in the darkness. He leaned over the bar and saw several bodies. Hearing the fluttering of wings near the rafters, he looked up. To his horror, his friends were hanging there, but not by their necks.
They were hanging like bats, their faces and chests were covered in blood. He didn’t even get to scream when they dropped on him.
I Am The End
By
Michael Bray
I am the whisper in the wind, the goosebumps on your skin.
I am the cold spot in the corner of this shadow draped room.
I am the black, the endless night.
I watch you sleep your untroubled dreams, each breath the only sound in this old house.
I touch your cheek, causing you to stir as I whisper into your ear.
This is your last, the end.
No time left to achieve those hopes and dreams.
I kiss your lips, stealing that last delicious breath as the house falls silent.
You belong to me now, forever by my side.
Beasts from Below
By
Alex Laybourne
Nobody knew where they came from. All they knew was that one night they went to bed, and by the morning, the monsters had arrived. They had never seen anything like it before.
Rising up from under the earth, the woken giants wasted no time in claiming back their land. They slaughtered humans by the dozens, sweeping through towns like a plague. They killed for pleasure, leaving bodies to rot where they fell.
But the fight was far from over. The new commander smiled, as he pressed the button that launched the nukes, and started what he called ‘mankind’s revenge’.
Coming Home
By
Suzanne Fox
Excitement and elation quivered through Dexter with the intensity of an electrical current. He had conquered the odds and was ready to quash the critics who had dismissed his genius as folly.
The hum of the time machine faded as he returned from a forthcoming century to his own. Dexter stepped out, disease-free, and improved to perfection after his encounter with future humanity.
His welcoming committee screamed. The barrel of a gun raised. He turned, catching sight of a monster reflected in the window. An exposed brain protected by a glass dome, a metallic breast plate, and Dexter’s confused eyes.
Stone Dry
By
Sara Tantlinger
“We gotta do something about Momma,” Billy said, his throat as dry as the fields. “She doesn’t want me here.” Momma didn’t understand his relationship with Ash.
Ash said nothing, just stared with that gray glare.
“Momma ain’t been right since the baby. Pa says she brought the drought, like a witch. You know they used to burn witches? Or maybe stone them...”
Billy nodded. “You’re right. I don’t want Momma to suffer.” His hand wrapped around Ash’s weight. The dark, pointed stone brought warmth onto his palm. Billy clutched the jagged rock and headed home to end the drought.
The Box
By
Valerie Lioudis
Gasp. Struggling, I try to pull enough air in to keep myself from passing out. Gasp. It isn't working. The box feels like it's closing in on me. Blood falls from my finger onto my face as I attempt to claw my way through the pine box. Gasp. The spinning has begun. Fireflies explode in my eyes. Gasp. Molten lava fills my lungs with scorching hot pain. The rhythmic thump of each shovel load of dirt lulls me to sleep. Gasp. Last one. Thrashing, I fight against death, but death wrestles me down, and the shovel empties again.
Best of Friends
By
Stefan Lear
I'm a people person. I value the bonds, the memories, I create with another person. I'm not into superficial friendships, though. I want to explore relationships that will last a lifetime. I want to know you inside and out. I'll do whatever it takes to completely and utterly understand my friends. It's my belief that you never really know someone until you've looked someone in the eye as they beg for their life. "I'm sorry," were the last words whimpered with his final breath. His eyes faded dull and all life left his body. I am not a superficial friend.
It Came
By
Mark Lumby
They watched it from the bridge, tall and shadowed from the river side, loose skin moving from maggots underneath.
I stood trembling from behind, couldn’t see what it was doing as people from the bridge screamed warnings. Some were silent in horror. Some were vomiting.
It was ten feet tall, head hunched into its wide shoulders like it was decapitated.
I shuffled through the leaves, catching its attention, its dark eyes shimmering.
But it didn’t care.
I moved closer. I could smell it: decay and fish. Blood poured onto the grass as it took another bite from the dog’s stomach.
Cold Toes
By
Georgia Lennon
I swear if his cold toes touch me one more time, I’ll bury him; they’re like little ice cubes for Christ’s sake and it’s only November. At least I don’t have to worry about him stealing the covers, he costs a fortune in heating bills. Maybe I’ll try soaking them in boiling water this time, see if that’ll warm ‘em up? Attempting to shove him into the oven last night wasn’t the brightest of ideas I’ll admit, but what do you expect? I miss his warmth. If he hadn’t tried to leave me, then perhaps he would still be alive.
Edmond
By
James Matthew Buyers
There may be better ways to die
Than buried to the neck,
And all the dust here in my eyes
As ravens stoop to peck
Reminding me I had to pay
To find myself in dirt.
The witch had said, “Come have your way.”
And no, it didn’t hurt
Until she bared her dripping fangs
And nicked me on my chin,
Unleashing all her hunger pangs,
A fearful, haunting grin.
She took my essence, aging me,
But that was quite alright.
The an
ts all down below the tree
Enjoy each tiny bite.
Her spell,
My hell
To dwell.
Goodnight ..
Knock Knock..
By
C.S Anderson
They were at the fucking door.
They had found her.
Again.
Shit.
She was sure she had masked her path to this place, scrubbed it squeaky damn clean, as a matter of fact, but she must have screwed up somewhere because here they were.
Knocking at her damn door.
Crap.
She took a moment to consider her options.
100 Word Horrors: An Anthology of Horror Drabbles Page 2
