Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror

by Unknown

  We’d been on the trail leading back to the cabin, just a little after sunset. Kelly had been cross with me because I hadn’t believed her when she claimed that she had seen a great, winged shape. I made fun of her, joking about dinosaurs and giant bats. The sky had just gone dark, in that sudden rush of dark purple that you only see up in the mountains. I had tried to apologize. I then resorted to lame attempts at humor to bring her around. She had just been starting to warm back up to me. I knew her mood had brightened as she reached for my hand. We’d left the woods and crossed the open ground that would lead us to the warmth of the big feather bed inside the cabin. I had plans for that feather bed.

  It came down on us so fast that I hadn’t even heard it. Kelly’s hand was torn from my grasp so quickly that her nails ripped the skin off my palm. The first sound that told me what had happened was the ominous beat of those immense wings as the thing propelled itself back into the sky, carrying her. I was too shocked to react. I just stood there, staring after it until it came back for me.

  It had dropped me in its nest. By the pale moonlight, I could barely discern what remained of Kelly’s body. Beside her still warm remains were three enormous eggs. Overcome with rage, I screamed and thrashed, and I cast those three eggs over the side of the nest into the bottomless darkness. It was only when I tried to climb over the side after them that I discovered the lack of footholds and became hopelessly stuck.

  Now I can hear the beat of the mother’s wings, returning to her empty nest, followed by her inarticulate cries of fury.

  Her head peers over the side of the nest.

  We’re even.

  Phil Bledsoe is a working author and freelance copy writer from Kansas City. He is the creator of Blaze Bing the Rodeo King for Decoder Ring Theatre and his own self-published pulp hero, the Scarlet Saint at bledsoep.hubpages.com. He likes to box, collect comics, and watch zombie movies.

  STITCH

  DAVID HORSCROFT

  I’ve been looking at my right hand for about fifteen minutes now. To be fair, there isn’t much else to look at in this badly lit room. The white, tiled walls are bare except for a collection of hacksaws, each suspended on its own separate hook. I got bored of their suspicious brown stains long ago.

  My hand is interesting for three reasons. Firstly, it’s tightly clenched. Secondly, it seems to be a sickly grey. Thirdly—and possibly most intriguing of all—it happens to be on the other side of the room, attached to someone else’s arm. I think I’m supposed to feel pain, but instead I want to laugh. It’s almost comical to see my signature birthmark-tainted appendage stuck to the wrist of what seems to be a bodybuilder, upon the shoulders of which sits a disproportionately small head bearing limp pigtails.

  I have no idea how I got here. My clearest memory is of a blurred face looming above me, covered almost entirely by a surgical mask.

  All the while, I find myself convinced that I should be scared; that I should try to get up and run from this collection of horrors. Instead, I feel dizzyingly euphoric. Without any stricture of pain—despite the fact that I clearly should feel a modicum of agony—I find myself unfettered and giddy with joy.

  I begin to laugh. An ephemeral, ghastly rasp insinuates itself through my ears—faint to the point of silence, but it is unmistakeably there. My grotesque display of humour only exacerbates the hilarity of the situation, and the hacking sound becomes minutely louder.

  Another sound invades my senses, and the pneumatic hiss of a door opening muffles my own laughter. Seconds later, an old, familiar face hovers above me. Decked out with a surgical gown and a white mask, his eyes are a crisp, calculating blue. They are staring at me with obvious disappointment. Raising a tape recorder to his mouth, he begins to speak.

  “Construct: Alpha-Twelve. Major parts taken from adult male subjects: forty-two, six and thirty, and child subjects: seventeen—male—and fifty-three—female. Construct result: overall failure. Unlike the previous constructs, Alpha-Twelve exhibits minor motor function in the eyes, throat and lungs. Eyes seem to track movement, and a laboured breathing is heard. However, no signs of full motility or volition are present. Refer to crematorium.”

  I giggle—it comes out as more gruesome rasping—and look the scientist in the eye. I try to tell him that I’m perfectly aware of what is happening—but nothing save for a congested hissing leaves my mouth.

  The man pushes my gurney out of the room and into another, this one outfitted with a large steel furnace. As my body slides into the large oven, I laugh harder. I’m going to burn—my body will scorch and soon I shall be nothing.

  My ghastly hacking gets even louder as I suddenly realise the most amusing aspect of this scene:

  I died at least two weeks ago.

  Born in 1992, David Horscroft is currently studying genetics and computer science in Cape Town, South Africa. An avid gamer, reader and scientist, he spends most of his time writing strategy articles, playing around with corrosive chemicals, immersed in books, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable.

  BLOODY PERFECT

  VINCENZO BILOF

  We’d finally succeeded in piecing together the ultimate killing machine, and it was neither dead nor alive. Eyes closed, I can still hear the echoed screams of Doctors Burns and Heckfield as they’d met their untimely demise at the masterpiece they’d helped me create—an unplanned test of our son’s capabilities.

  I cowered beneath an office desk until the noise died down, then ran down the hallway, nearly slipping on the blood and viscera of my disemboweled associates. They’d been helpless at the wonder and the terror that was Prometheus. Doctor Burns even arched his back and exposed his stomach to get a better view as it skewered him.

  I was afraid that it might hear my shaking hands because we’d equipped it with extrasensory abilities, and I was a bit anxious to see if those abilities worked. I held my breath against the thundering heart in my chest while sweat soaked my white collar, and licked my salty lips as I began to creep towards the command center.

  All of the security cameras were still functioning in our officially non-existent laboratory, and I could see the corpses of the men who’d been assigned to guard the facility. When I turned up the volume, I could hear screams mingled with gunfire, but guns couldn’t stop my creation; it could regenerate wounded tissue.

  A recently posted transmission suggested that THEY’D been alerted about what was happening, and were watching the video. But they weren’t going to send help until the “test” was complete. Everyone would have to die before they would attempt to apprehend my son.

  Euphoria overcame fear, and I retreated to my quarters, satisfied that the inner sanctum was locked down and Prometheus wouldn’t be able to get in, though his interest in my flesh was clearly weak, since he’d left me live.

  While I sat awake in the darkness in my bed, I had the eerie sensation that I wasn’t alone. Feeling like a terrified child melting beneath the blankets, I wanted to turn on the light but couldn’t bring my limbs to move. Angry with myself, I stared at the closet door, listening closely . . . certain that I could hear him, my son, breathing.

  No. Not in the closet. The perfect killer, a hunter, equipped with the killer instinct of a master computer with a twisted sense of irony instilled in it by Doctor Burns. I told him to leave out the humor.

  The closet door opened and my breath caught in my throat. Tall and powerful, flexing well-muscled limbs pieced-together from the corpses of dead heroes. It breathed through the gas mask that was its face, rhythmically inhaling and exhaling while I trembled in fear.

  I made him. He lives. He walks among you. He let me live because he wanted me to warn you. He wanted you to feel the terror in his coming. Such is his power. He wants you to feel fear.

  He’s perfect . . . so perfect.

  Vincenzo Bilof is an educator from Detroit, Michigan. Publication credits include six stories in SNM Magazine, with appearances in Book of the Dead 6 (Living Dead Press) and three anthologies from Ope
n Casket Press: Zombie Buffet, Bigfoot Tales, and Dead Christmas. Currently finishing the post-apocalyptic zombie novel, Under a Red Sun.

  FERTILIZER

  JOHN ERIK PETERSEN

  The ground was baked to a hard crust, and the old man’s trowel chipped, more than dug, at its surface. He stood up next to his rusty pickup, drew a hand across his brow, and gazed across the expanse of his land.

  It was useless, he thought. All fourteen-hundred acres of it. It grew more demanding every year.

  A light breeze swirled out of the still air, lifting the few fine hairs on his scalp and chilling the sweat on his neck. It tickled at his ears, and out of it came the voice.

  Hungry.

  “No more,” the old man said. “Not this time.”

  The ground under his feet churned. The hard crust dissolved into fine powder and spiraled downward in a funnel. The old man tried to run. His feet sunk into the roiling dirt, locking his legs in place. In a moment, he was buried up to his knees, and the churning stopped.

  An old man makes a lean meal, came the whisper. But you’ll do in pinch.

  “Maybe that’s as it should be,” the old man answered.

  It hurts. You’ve heard their screams.

  “I can take it.”

  They scream for days. And for you, that’s only the beginning. A man with your history, why, you’ve nowhere to go but down.

  “I deserve nothing more.”

  Your sacrifice is useless. I’ve grown beyond your boundaries, and soon I will speak to your neighbor. The bits of me you have carried with you on the soles of your shoes have begun to come into their own.

  The old man began to shake, his body shuddering from the knees up. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  I’ll double last year’s yield.

  “I’m much too old to care about the money.”

  Children are better for me. Why, a greedy young man just might be persuaded to bring me one. Perhaps a baby girl with green eyes.

  “No! This is my burden.”

  Ah, so sad when the consequences of the guilty destroy the innocent. I’ve given you many years of plenty. I will not hesitate to take my reward.

  The old man dropped his head, and his tears spotted the soil dark. He pictured his granddaughter. Her soul-warming smile. The cheerful cooing of her newly discovered voice. Her stunning, bright green eyes. His heart ripped.

  “How many?”

  We shall see. You can start with three.

  The dirt churned, boiling upward out of the ground until the old man stood on its surface again. He tossed his trowel into the truck’s cab, got in, and started the engine.

  And make them young.

  The old man drove for an hour, and then pulled over on the shoulder of the highway and cut the engine. He got out, opened the hood, and returned to the driver’s door. The surface of the asphalt was baked soft and sticky. It tugged at his shoes with each step. He leaned against the side of the truck and waited for someone to stop.

  John Erik Petersen is a professional technical writer, authoring user documentation for consumer electronics. He lives with his wife and three beautiful daughters in Overland Park, Kansas. John is a fan of classic supernatural horror, and he is working on a novel in that tradition, tentatively titled The Stendhal Curse.

  GRASPING AT STRAWS

  PATRICIA LA BARBERA

  “Blood stained the floors. They left nothin’ else.”

  Ellis stared across the chipped Formica diner table at his uninvited guest. “People have to get over it, Rufus, he said. “Consider themselves lucky to have survived.”

  Turning his head away from Ellis, the old man rubbed his nose with his sleeve. His hair was oily gray weeds wandering from beneath his skullcap. He dug out a grimy rag from his gray quilted jacket. Rufus coughed up something Ellis tried not to think about.

  “They’ve been gone for two weeks.” Ellis leaned forward a little and looked hard at the old man. “If anyone should be dwelling on the past, it should be me. They killed my father after they destroyed all the animals in his barn.” Ellis concentrated on steadying his hands.

  “They’ll be back,” Rufus said.

  “No, they only take form at night, and we burned all the straw here. It’s not happening in any other town.” As he said the words, Ellis realized it was a small consolation, with half of the residents of the town dead.

  “They’re just waiting—straw men. You’ll see.” The old man stood and began walking down the aisle. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Wait! Have something before you leave. Breakfast’s on me.” Ellis sipped his coffee.

  Rufus waved him off and continued down the aisle. He opened the door, letting in tendrils of the thick, rolling fog.

  Shut the door quickly, Ellis thought. But Rufus took his time and then slowly walked down the steps.

  The waitress set scrambled eggs, bacon, and a basket of rolls on the table. “Anything else, Ellis?”

  He noticed her haggard face and empty eyes; she had seen too much and it had husked her hollow.

  “No, Millie. That’s just fine.”

  “It’s them!” the old man screamed from outside, his voice muffled by the diner’s windows.

  Ellis shot a look out the window and saw Rufus pointing into the fog. Hesitating for a moment, he ran outside and grabbed him.

  “Do you see them?” Rufus was still pointing.

  “There’s nothing there. Come back inside.”

  “No, they’re back! We gotta get away from here!” Rufus broke free and ran, disappearing into the fog.

  Ellis sighed. He turned slowly and went back into the diner. Millie was putting silverware on a table and held a knife, turning it over in her hands. When he walked past her and calmly sat back in his booth, she set the knife down.

  He swallowed his first bite of breakfast. “Eggs are good.” A piece of bacon crunched between his teeth. “Crispy. Just the way I like it.”

  She smiled. Ellis thought he saw ghosts of happiness in her eyes.

  He forked another mouthful of eggs and reached for a roll. The basket twitched, and one of the ties that held the lacquered straw popped free. He jerked his hand back and heard Millie scream. A pile of baskets unraveled on the counter. When the food stuck in his throat, Ellis coughed and pressed his lips together to form the “m” sound as the pieces of straw formed into a hand that reached for his throat.

  Patricia La Barbera, MFA, is a freelance editor. She has had poetry and prose published in various magazines such as House of Horror, Fear and Trembling, SNM Horror Magazine, Flash Me Magazine, Big Pulp, Death Rattle, 69 Flavors of Paranoia, and Everyday Weirdness. The writer's mystery novella is titled The Celtic Crow Murders. www.patricialabarbera.com.

  GRAY

  JANEL GRADOWSKI

  Alex woke with a vicious headache. He was afraid to open his eyes, knowing light would make his pain rage. His nauseous stomach growled. A dull ache spread across his back. He tried to roll over, but couldn’t.

  His eyes snapped open. Everything was gray.

  A scream rattled in his throat, not able to escape. A rag had been stuffed in his mouth. The rancid wad mercilessly sucked up saliva. The noxious odor assaulted his sinuses.

  He flexed his forearms. Bracelets of pain seared his wrists. Black dots danced across his vision.

  The last thing he remembered was talking to another guy who had been attending the sales conference. They sat in the hotel bar drinking martinis.

  That was it. His mind was blank after the second drink.

  Alex exhaled through his nose and the gray shifted. It was fabric. Faint light filtered through the threads.

  The bomb in his head exploded. The rope stretched across his forehead burrowed into his skin. A faint humming wormed into his consciousness. The sound got progressively louder.

  It was a motor. He could feel the vibrations of tires rolling over pavement. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as a vehicle roared past.

  Alex tried to arch
his back to inchworm to safety. His chest strained against more rope. He dug in his heels and tried to raise his legs, but they were strapped down, too. A splinter from the plank he was bound to dug into his ankle.

  Another automobile approached from the same direction. Vomit scorched his throat as it passed. The bass beat of a radio lingered in the damp air.

  The cars weren’t slowing down. He wondered how they couldn’t see him.

  A weather report playing on the bar’s television slipped into his thoughts, heavy fog likely for the morning commute.

  The growl of a semi-truck perforated the cloth. It approached from the opposite direction of the other vehicles.

  Alex squeezed his eyes shut while the whine of massive tires resonated through his body. He just wanted to go back to sleep so he could wake up from the nightmare—

  Janel Gradowski lives and writes among the farm fields of central Michigan. Her fiction and non-fiction work has appeared in Long Story Short, Every Day Fiction, Luna Station Quarterly, Beadwork Magazine and several other publications. You can also find her blogging at: http://janelsjumble.blogspot.com.

  HOLLOWED WALLS

  DIANE WARD

  The human corpse in the painting reminded him of a drowned rat he’d once found in the swimming pool when he was nine years old—pallid, with bloated skin stretched until torn over tightly corded muscle.

  Disgusted, he dropped the sheet that covered the painting back into place.

  “It’s horrible,” he muttered. Not that the technique was poor. He didn’t know much about art, but he could tell the oil painting was of exceptional quality, despite being grotesque.