by Mike Miller
Finally remembering the gun trembling in his hand, Felix aimed it forward. Unsure of where to point on the headless entity, he quickly began firing at the mass’s center. Pieces of the thing splattered outwards with each gunshot.
If he had managed to strike the monster’s heart, his bullets made no difference. The monster continued its assimilation and growth.
As the final bits of goop dripped from outside into its backside, the hellish fiend had grown so large that its flailing arms thudded against the vaulted ceiling.
With some eyes as large as volleyballs and mouths that could devour whole watermelons, the freakish entity began to take its final shape. Like a tower of coarse chocolate pudding, the tentacled blob opened its many mouths to cry its devilish shriek. Despite its inhuman form, the cry bore an incredible resemblance to the wail of a terrified woman. Felix plugged his ears, but the deafening roar still pinched his skull as if his temples were being squeezed by a gigantic vise.
The yellow creature in the washing machine had now clawed itself halfway from its trap. Its long arms scratched against the metal shell as its gibberish reached new levels of wild speed. Its black eyes were open wide, staring at Felix with desperation.
The man’s red eyes sweated tears while the gigantic monster sent several arms squiggling out towards him. Wrapping around his limbs and chest, the temperature of the thing’s supple appendages was oddly mild, neither warm nor cool. But the points of contact stung sharply, as he soon found his body tightly fastened to its very touch. It was as if powerful suction cups or hooks were binding the both fleshes together.
Felix yelled in pain as he was dragged closer to the demon. The thing was content to let its bulk stay put while its many arms moved its prey to its mountain.
Worse than the physical suffering was a different sort of pain he was experiencing. From within his own body, he could feel pieces of him being ripped away, as if small molecules of his bones and muscles were evaporating. It was as if his very soul was being stolen.
His cries and struggling did nothing to alleviate the situation as he drew closer to doom. His flailing feet knocked over an end table. His hands fought to rip free from the beast’s grip, digging into the wood floor. His voice screamed for help though nobody could hear his pleas.
The yellow thing escaped and dashed straight towards Felix. He closed his eyes.
It leapt over him and onto the giant monster.
The small creature yipped crazily as it bit and slashed at the gangly behemoth. The titan’s hold on Felix began to wane, as it diverted resources from restraining the man to defending itself.
Both monsters wailed loudly. The furry runt’s voice was filled with rage, while the larger beast’s cries were meek and alarmed.
Soon Felix was flung to the fireplace. The ferocious brown pile abandoned him to concentrate fully on the pesky assailant. Despite the mammoth monster’s efforts and superior size, the berserk attacker kept shredding away pieces of the amorphous entity. Coffee-colored chunks of arm and body splattered across the house, dripping with dark black blood. Occasionally a crimson eye or tooth would be severed from its host’s body to dissolve apart in a sizzling heap.
As the large intruder had entered, so too did it exit. While fending off the furious assault of the golden animal, the back end of the brown sludge began to pour back through the walls of the home. The once-trapped animal continued its rampage until the final bits of the hellish field had dissipated.
Through the windows of the home, the brown blob could be seen streaming away from the house. The yellow defender shouted angrily at the departing form.
It took all of Felix’s energy to remain alert through the battle. Once it had ended, he slumped onto the floor from pain and fatigue.
His vision became blurry, and he began to die.
Felix awoke to a wetness. As his eyes fluttered open, he realized he was being licked by the tongue of the strange yellow creature. It was hot, moist and bumpy like a feline’s.
He raised his hand for the animal to pet it. But the pain was too much, and his arm fell limp to the ground.
The thing curled into a ball by his side on the floor. It did not mind lying in the gushing blood from his bruised and lacerated body.
His eyes drifted over to the crude childhood drawings on the fridge. He saw one of a little boy besides a yellow teddy bear, which made him smile.
The pair blacked out together.
WARNING: This story is designed to give you a specific nightmare. The author sincerely hopes that you will nonetheless enjoy it, and not be severely traumatized by the overall experience.
You roam through the party, hunting for something to do. You are lost and alone without any company. A loser. You must attach yourself to others soon.
The scene is not quite what you’d call a true party, at least not by your definition. You’ve been to some real barnburners, and this is not one of them. Though it was billed as such, this is more of a gathering. There’s alcohol and loud chatter, so that counts for something. But amongst the two dozen partygoers or so, there is no dancing or screaming. No disruptive behavior that really marks when a soirée is becoming wonderfully out of hand.
You wander over to a small pack of people chilling in a loose circle of conversation. You arrive just in time to hear one of them say, “Dude, so you had sex with Holly Johnson?”
This guy Nate smiles and nods. You just met him earlier tonight, and he seems like an okay guy. He’s tall, lanky, a little bit underdressed, both for this occasion and the cool weather. He could be considered physically attractive by some, though his cigarette is nasty. But the other five people present in the circle are all magnetized by him with large, happy grins. So that makes you like him too.
“Oh, yeah,” he adds with a wry wink.
Everyone laughs. You too, even though you don’t really understand the punchline. But you don’t have to get the entire joke to enjoy it. The idea itself is comical enough. There’s no way that this guy, cool as he could be, could ever sleep with a celebrity of that caliber. Could he?
Nate then continues, “In my dreams.”
Everyone guffaws. You get the joke now. Your laughter is no longer phony. You are amongst friends. One of them now, and not a loner.
Another voice repeats the joke reverently. “In your dreams.”
Dave wistfully says, “Man, I wish I had dreams like that. And then remembered them.”
Some light chuckles. Nate takes a slow sip of his drink, a drag on his cigarette, cueing the rest to do the same during the intermission. He is indeed the leader.
You’re still looking at Nate, while he slowly eye-contacts his followers. You get the feeling he could say more, but is politely allowing someone else to speak. When Nate starts to look at you, you nervously turn away to look at someone else. You’re staring at Steve, that old familiar friend whose face you’ve watched age from pimply pale to the earliest wrinkles.
Everyone’s waiting for someone else to keep the conversation flowing. The awkwardness of the silence is reflected by someone checking their watch. Another yawns and stretches. You are all losers.
If nobody else wants to, Nate begins talking.
“But you know the thing about having dreams, even the coolest, wildest funniest adventures that you can have--”
Christy says, “Like playing ping-pong with a dinosaur?”
Everyone laughs. You chuckle too, but don’t get it. Is it an inside joke or just something random? Not your taste. You hate being on the outside again. You wish Christy would shut up to let Nate talk.
Nate continues, “So...” and catches himself up, “for all the great dreams you have-- Like, I have had some pretty wild ones evidently. Compared to you, Dave, right?”
More chuckling.
“Right, go on.” Dave groans. He is evidently annoyed at both Nate’s putdown and meandering storytelling.
“Oh, I will,” assures Nate. His tone is not jovial and light, but stiff and harsh.
&n
bsp; An odd tingling washes over you. Something is wrong. You have goosebumps down your arm. It may be a little bit cold now, and you are not wearing long sleeves. But it’s not that cold.
You think something might be wrong with Nate. He’s not looking at you, so you can really study him now. His eyes are quite light compared to his complexion. His long hair has a too perfect but unwashed look, like a model posing at a beach. His teeth are very white. He’s dressed like a bum but has fit, lean muscles.
You realize his posture and movement is off. His lean has almost like an extra bend in it. And his limbs articulate in a slightly jerky manner. It’s as if the man was shot on a loop of film but a few of the frames are missing. His gestures are at a normal speed, yet skip a beat.
Maybe it’s just that he’s a little tipsy. Or maybe you are. Or maybe he’s a bizarre stranger whom you really don’t know shit about.
Nate waits for the side chuckling and chatter to quiet. He waits for everyone’s complete attention until you all obediently supply it.
He says, “The worst part about dreaming is the nightmares.” A grave pause as the odd man dramatically looks through his crowd. “I have had some fuckin’ fucked-up nightmares, man.”
Maybe knowing that Nate wants someone to ask the obvious, to beg him for his magical yarns, Greg takes the bait. “Yeah? Like what?” A round of rapt sips from the audience demonstrates that everyone is settling in to hear what the master has to say next.
“I don’t know. Everything.” Nate flicks some hair back out of his eyes with a nod. “I’ve been...” He counts off on his fingers. “Chased by zombies or the undead. Whatever you wanna call them. Stuck in a war. Fighting and being shot at and all that craziness. I remember one with some kinda psycho demon creatures that were just... around, being scary. Giant insects.”
That one makes you wince. Giant bugs sound far worse than the others on his list.
Nate starts swaying like a mystic shaman from his involved storytelling. His voice drops a little deeper. His hands emerge outwards to carve up the space between all of you. He gestures artfully even while holding a half-empty bottle. His cigarette leaves a crooked trail of smoke behind his dancing hand.
When he finally looks at you, you realize what has been off this entire time: His eyes do not sparkle. You see dark and dead holes in the middle of his retinas. His eyes gleam in other areas except for small circles in the center of each eye. The spots are like windows to a hollow core made of stone.
Nate explains, “You battle for your life against shit your brain can’t even comprehend like some fucked-up game show for your own life. Fight or flight. But really just the panic, complete and total. Everything’s gone too. No family, friends, or any familiar things coupled with this complete disorientation of your surroundings. I mean, they could be there, but you don’t see them, don’t know it. That’s part of the fear. The isolation and loneliness.”
He is sorcerer who conjures fantastic adventures from another world. Of course you’ve had nightmares before, many like what he’s described. But you cannot help recognize some familiar truths in his words.
You realize now how rapt everyone else, how the group listens so completely and intently. Nobody here is staring around for something better to do at the party. No one is aimlessly surfing their phone for some diverting entertainment. This is as good as it gets, right here and now with this strange raconteur.
The storyteller’s charisma is so powerful that it even draws the attention of others from across the room like a black hole. They yearn to be in your group. The more intrepid ones fearlessly wander over without an invitation, swelling the speaker’s ranks.
“And then you die. And not just die, but you die horribly. It’s never fast. It is always a process. Dying.”
You look away for a moment, unsure of whether from boredom or fear.
Concerned by your cowardice, you look back only to find Nate’s dead eyes staring into yours. “And when you die, you don’t feel pain. You don’t really feel anything. At least, not your body. But your mind, your brain is just... screaming.” His hands curl into claws stabbing at his skull. “Pleading against the fact that you are about to not exist for forever. That’s what really hurts, the fear of death and how something so long will happen so fast.”
He rests again, allowing anyone to challenge him for airtime. When he stops talking, everyone’s gaze droops downward. As each listener disappears into introspective musing, they look as if they are bowing reverently to him.
After a small eternity, some guy you don’t know finally asks, “So what was your worst nightmare?”
Nate responds instantly, ready with his answer. “The worst ones don’t really involve any crazy monsters. You wake up and just know it’s all BS. And that’s a huge relief. But the ones that kinda could happen, that are real…”
He pauses with nostalgia. Part of you wants to leave, but you do not.
“I remember this one where my mom was just sick from-- I dunno. I can’t remember. But I was just telling her over and over that everything’s gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be fine. Even though she’s dying in my arms.”
Did somebody just sniffle?
“I’m just panicking the whole time. But all I can do is just say over and over that everything’s going to be fine, though I know it’s not. I know that she’s going to die. And it sucks to lie to her too about it.”
Somebody sniffles, then quickly coughs to pretend like they didn’t.
“So even if I’m fighting off zombie hordes of bloodsuckers, I can at least can do something about it, right? There’s action, a chance. When I wake up, I know that won’t happen. But not with the dying relative. That one totally sucked.”
The group murmurs in appreciation and understanding.
“But I know there was something even far worse than that.”
His voice trails off in thought. Some very light chuckles trickle through the crowd to relieve the tension. Nate’s wry smile allows the humor to be permitted.
Right as a new voice inhales to talk, Nate speaks, as if he were poised to pounce on someone with an ambush interruption.
“Oh! Okay,” he announces proudly. “Now I remember what the worst nightmare is.”
He further teases the reveal by mischievously looking around to see if everyone is ready. You want to hear the answer so bad. What could be worse than the death of his mom?
“Nah,” he stops himself. He waves things off and takes a drink.
“What is it?” Christy demands like a mad junkie. “You can’t not tell us! Is it something you’re embarrassed about? We won’t post it online, I swear.”
Nate coolly replies, “No, it’s not that.” Then he sighs deeply. “But I can’t tell you, or else you’ll have the nightmare too.”
Laughter. It nicely splices the dread solemnity of the subject matter.
Nate does not like the levity though. “Seriously, it will. I’ve already seen it happen. I can’t tell you.”
The challenge is proposed.
Part of you figures: Of course I wanna hear. It’ll be interesting. There’s nothing better to do right now. Besides, he’s just full of shit.
The other part of you says: Don’t listen. Walk away. Because he’s weird and creepy. And he’s telling you. Warning you.
And just in case he’s right.
“C’mon,” Dave whines.
“Naw, man, I can’t.” Nate replies. He nonchalantly lights a new cigarette. “It’s just how dreams work. Your brain’s gonna start thinking about it, and then it gets buried back in your subconscious until something triggers it to emerge. Or by not thinking about it, you have to dream it. I mean, how do you think I started having it?”
“You’re full of shit,” Greg scoffs.
It is a bold move to dare this man. You’d like to scoff too, but are too afraid.
Little Joe discretely slinks away from the circle as fast as anyone can when slinking. Roger leaves too, a weakling who boldly confesses, “Fuck this
. I don’t need to hear it.” Christy shivers back to the periphery of the group, ready to flee if things get worse.
You stay.
So Nate asks you, “So you wanna have a nightmare? Not just any old nightmare either, but the worst one around?”
He interprets your steadfast stature as a yes. “Well,” exhales a plume of smoke, “don’t say I didn’t warn you,” inhales and makes the tip of his cigarette glow dark orange. You watch the red embers burn into black flecks and become gray ash. They float aimlessly in the night before scattering apart in the wind.
“I remember the first time I had it. I’ll never forget it. I was young. Maybe eight, nine years old the first time I dreamt it.” His face is bright with wistful memories, but his tone is steeped in melancholy. “And in the dream-- Nightmare... I was sitting on a train. Not the subway, but a regular, above-ground train. We were going through a desert. Just wide-open, beige sand heading off into tall mountains on the horizon. The scenery is so boring and simple, it was like I wasn’t moving at all, even though the train was zipping along. I can still feel the rocky vibrations shifting me in my seat. It was bright as shit that day, with a clear blue sky. I was probably, I dunno, hanging out with my family? Or maybe I was just by myself? I don’t remember that.”
The landscape is easy to imagine. You envision the mundane world.
You are on the train. You see the vast plain and distant mountains. The bright, blue sky is clear of cloud or sun. The train gently bops you about as you ride.
“But then there’s a flash,” he says. “And in the distance billows a plume of smoke shooting straight up into heaven.”
Your eyes wince at the burst of light. Then they see the massive brown-gray cloud funneling upwards into the sky. The blue is polluted by the death and dirt. It is like a massive god slowly awakening, dwarfing the mountains below, spreading its awful reach to canvas the world.
“I see that bomb go off, and it’s just silent at first. But then you hear the rumbling in the distance. It gets way louder real quick. And from the base of the explosion you see the wall of destruction, flying at you like a sped-up tidal wave.”
