Failed Rituals

 

I really wish I had left that fucking light switch alone. Who would have thought the flick of a switch could mean the difference between life and death. Actually everyone’s thought that. That’s why I turned it on. Stupid little rituals that we take from childhood. The light will chase the monsters away, the blanket over your head will save you from the boogie man. And you just get more of these rituals as you get older. As long as you lock the doors and turn on the home security system, you can rest your head happily in your cozy little fortified home. No killers or psychos, monsters or boogie men.

But it doesn’t work. None of it. We always slip up some how. The one time you forget to lock that door. That’s when they get you. I would have been sound asleep if I hadn’t been woken by the loud slam as the front door blew open. I stumbled out of bed and down the hall to see it swinging back and forth. I moved quickly down the hall to secure it. A moment of panic swelled inside of me. My home felt like a crime scene. It wasn’t my safe little sanctum anymore.

Despite the overwhelming feeling of intrusion, there was no sign of disruption. Just the door. Just my careless mistake. I couldn’t comprehend it at first. It had to be a burgler or some psycho. I looked around the rest of the house. Checking every cupboard, every crevice. Nothing. I felt stupid but relieved. I just wanted to get back to bed, to forget this whole embarrassment. I flung myself back down on my bed, closed my eyes for just a second. I sat back up. There was no way I’d fall asleep unless I double-checked that I locked the door this time. I mean I was sure I had done it this time but I felt this was justified paranoia.

I got to the door and twisted the handle roughly about a dozen times, each time feeling the resistance of the lock. I smiled. Safe. I turned on my heels to go back to bed. But it was just a glimpse, a flicker of something in my peripheral vision that sent me swinging back into a panic. A shadow from the kitchen. I rushed in only to be confronted by my normal kitchen, bathed in moonlight. I sighed, questioned my sanity and decided that this, the longest night of my life must end. I went towards the bedroom once more. Another odd shadow crossed my path. As a shiver travelled down my spine, my tired mind braced apathetic denial and decided that it was probably the neighbours cat passing by the moonlit window.

I sat wide awake in my bed. Trying to lull myself to sleep. Counting in my head until I might eventually nod off. But everytime I closed my eyes that feeling of intrusion was still there. The hands of something unseen looming above my head. Every creak and every shadow filled my mind with the dread of my childhood. Those nights after being tucked in by my parents. Those same fearful thoughts of lurking terror. But it was nothing… right? More creaks. More movement in the shadows. I turned and pushed my face into the pillow. I felt something brush passed my foot which stuck awkwardly out from under my blanket.

I jolted upright, looking deeply into the darkness. Swirling shadows. The monsters. The boogie men. I felt around sheepishly for my phone. The dull light of the screen could put me at ease. Nothing on the nightstand and when my fingers roamed around the edge of the bed, instinctively I retracted them for fear of the unknown. I was alone but in the shadows I saw them, the monsters. Inky abominable beasts.

It was the only thing I thought could help me. I lunged from the bed directly at the switch. My palm slammed down on it and the room erupted into light. My eyes burned momentarily and I glanced round the room. Empty. Safe. Just paranoia. I shook my head and hit the switch once more. Climbing into bed in the pitch black. No shadows without my nightvision. But now I hear them. I can’t see them now. I don’t know what they want but I know I can’t leave. The rituals have failed. They’re on the other side of this blanket and all I can do now is hope that they’re gone in the morning.

//
Credited to Chris Stewart

The Lady Behind The Door

 

It was night and two guys in classic car traveled down a lonely stretch of I-95 in Pennsylvania. The one in the passenger seat had a pensive look about him. The driver reached down to fiddle with the radio. They slowly pulled ahead of me. Squinting through the darkness and the bug-dotted windshield of my eight year old Isuzu I observed a blue bumper sticker with the words in white “Hilary ‘08” on it. “God damn it. I hate those guys.”

Gabe looked at me inquiringly, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You mean guys who look like they’ve been pulled out of some teen drama on basic cable?”

“Huh? No. Guys who leave bumper stickers up from previous elections. For fuck’s sake Hilary didn’t even win the primary.”

“Where are we anyway?” Gabe stretched out until his hands touched the car roof. Admittedly that wasn’t that much of a stretch, he was one of those shaggy looking wiry fellows.

“Just out of Jersey. You think you can help me stay awake? The Blush Twins back there aren’t much of a help.” My sister Prissy and her friend Claire were passed out in the back seat. When they drank more then they were used they had the tendency to turn as red as tomatoes. That limit was two glasses of red wine.

Gabe mumbled something that sounded like “alcohol camels” and responded, “Yea sure. There’s not much to talk about though, Jack.”

“Well it’s night and Halloween is a day away. You ever seen anything that could be considered paranormal?” That was always a good topic if two people need to stay awake through the night. I did not even need to worry about a “no.” Even the most logical human being has had that one weird experience, whether it was a bad trip or one of those waking nightmares experienced during sleep paralysis.

“Well, uh, no. But I swear to God, Jack, this one time when I was five I remember flying. This isn’t paranormal, but I had this one reoccurring nightmare back before my father left. Haven’t had it recently, but I remember it pretty clearly.

“I was about eleven and remember lying in bed listening to a shouting match in the living room. My bed room was on the second floor, so I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying except for the occasional ‘Fuck you.’

“Then I dunno, time passed, I fell asleep. The hall lights were out and screaming stopped. The doorway to my room was half open. Next thing I know I can’t move, not even blink. But I could see things moving on the walls, man. It was trippy.” Gabe was rubbing that scraggly blond thing on his neck he called a beard as he told his story.

“Don’t stop there. What kind of things?” I said.

“Shadows, man, shadows. But not like those stories on the internet. They had hair, like people hair. They were flat to the wall except for the hair. It was like the hair was three dimensional and the rest of them was two dimensional. They had different color hair too. I mean black and brown, normal people colors, but some of them weren’t people shapes. They did have people hair though, they all did. I could hear—

“I could hear them say, ‘Carry on my waywar—” The radio turned on without warning. Prissy had left the damn thing on at max volume, the girls in the back stirred with a bunch thrashing thumps.

I shut the radio off. “Sorry about that, my elbow must of hit the dial.”

Gabe gave me a weird look before he went on. “I was saying I could hear whispering and feel tingling on my toes. It felt like when a dog licks your toes. That’s when I saw it, the big it, or her, I really don’t know. All I know is that thing was boss and all the rest of them were bitches, ‘cause they all scattered off to the corners. She had really red hair, Christmas present red, and curly too. Its thin shadow was stretching out from behind my bedroom door.

“I didn’t hear her voice, dude, I felt it. Not like telepathy, like felt it reverberate in my skull. Almost as if it were that loud nagging voice in your head when you’ve done something real bad. She said, the voice in me said, ‘Dear—

“John on DVD this Friday at Wal-Mart.” Blared the radio again.

I shut it off again. “I guess I should get that looked at, sorry. Go on.”

Gabe went on, “It said, ‘Dear soul, you have grown so much. Why you’re so pink and cute, how’d like to come home with me? I could just dress you up with gravy. Look at those crinkles on your forehead you look just like a juicy jelly donut. The powdery dough is always the best part of a fresh baked donut.’

“I didn’t see a hand, but it felt like she pinch my cheek. Then the licking would not stop!” Gabe pounded the “would”, “not”, and “stop” out on the passenger side of the dash board.

If I had not been focusing on the road ahead of me Gabe would of seen the wide eyed bewildered look in my eyes. It was not over the dream, I have had weirder. The bewilderment extended from the clearly unresolved issue that were clearly bubbling beneath Gabe’s Chewbacca-like surface. “It was just a dream, Gabe. I’m sorry I asked. Relax, I‘ll drive the rest of the night. One of the girls can take over in the morning.”

The night after our chat in the car we spent the night in some shit motel in northern Georgia. In the morning we found Gabe feet up in a garbage bin behind the Waffle House next door.

//
Credited to Tower.

Psychosis

 

Sunday

I’m not sure why I’m writing this down on paper and not on my computer. I guess I’ve just noticed some odd things. It’s not that I don’t trust the computer… I just… need to organize my thoughts. I need to get down all the details somewhere objective, somewhere I know that what I write can’t be deleted or… changed… not that that’s happened. It’s just… everything blurs together here, and the fog of memory lends a strange cast to things…

I’m starting to feel cramped in this small apartment. Maybe that’s the problem. I just had to go and choose the cheapest apartment, the only one in the basement. The lack of windows down here makes day and night seem to slip by seamlessly. I haven’t been out in a few days because I’ve been working on this programming project so intensively. I suppose I just wanted to get it done. Hours of sitting and staring at a monitor can make anyone feel strange, I know, but I don’t think that’s it.

I’m not sure when I first started to feel like something was odd. I can’t even define what it is. Maybe I just haven’t talked to anyone in awhile. That’s the first thing that crept up on me. Everyone I normally talk to online while I program has been idle, or they’ve simply not logged on at all. My instant messages go unanswered. The last e-mail I got from anybody was a friend saying he’d talk to me when he got back from the store, and that was yesterday. I’d call with my cell phone, but reception’s terrible down here. Yeah, that’s it. I just need to call someone. I’m going to go outside.

—

Well, that didn’t work so well. As the tingle of fear fades, I’m feeling a little ridiculous for being scared at all. I looked in the mirror before I went out, but I didn’t shave the two-day stubble I’ve grown. I figured I was just going out for a quick cell phone call. I did change my shirt, though, because it was lunchtime, and I guessed that I’d run into at least one person I knew. That didn’t end up happening. I wish it did.

When I went out, I opened the door to my small apartment slowly. A small feeling of apprehension had somehow already lodged itself in me, for some indefinable reason. I chalked it up to having not spoken to anyone but myself for a day or two. I peered down the dingy grey hallway, made dingier by the fact that it was a basement hallway. On one end, a large metal door led to the building’s furnace room. It was locked, of course. Two dreary soda machines stood by it; I bought a soda from one the first day I moved in, but it had a two year old expiration date. I’m fairly sure nobody knows those machines are even down here, or my cheap landlady just doesn’t care to get them restocked.

I closed my door softly, and walked the other direction, taking care not to make a sound. I have no idea why I chose to do that, but it was fun giving in to the strange impulse not to break the droning hum of the soda machines, at least for the moment. I got to the stairwell, and took the stairs up to the building’s front door. I looked through the heavy door’s small square window, and received quite the shock: it was definitely not lunchtime. City-gloom hung over the dark street outside, and the traffic lights at the intersection in the distance blinked yellow. Dim clouds, purple and black from the glow of the city, hung overhead. Nothing moved, save the few sidewalk trees that shifted in the wind. I remember shivering, though I wasn’t cold. Maybe it was the wind outside. I could vaguely hear it through the heavy metal door, and I knew it was that unique kind of late-night wind, the kind that was constant, cold, and quiet, save for the rhythmic music it made as it passed through countless unseen tree leaves.

I decided not to go outside.

Instead, I lifted my cell phone to the door’s little window, and checked the signal meter. The bars filled up the meter, and I smiled. Time to hear someone else’s voice, I remember thinking, relieved. It was such a strange thing, to be afraid of nothing. I shook my head, laughing at myself silently. I hit speed-dial for my best friend Amy’s number, and held the phone up to my ear. It rang once… but then it stopped. Nothing happened. I listened to silence for a good twenty seconds, then hung up. I frowned, and looked at the signal meter again – still full. I went to dial her number again, but then my phone rang in my hand, startling me. I put it up to my ear.

“Hello?” I asked, immediately fighting down a small shock at hearing the first spoken voice in days, even if it was my own. I had gotten used to the droning hum of the building’s inner workings, my computer, and the soda machines in the hallway. There was no response to my greeting at first, but then, finally, a voice came.

“Hey,” said a clear male voice, obviously of college age, like me. “Who’s this?”

“John,” I replied, confused.

“Oh, sorry, wrong number,” he replied, then hung up.

I lowered the phone slowly and leaned against the thick brick wall of the stairwell. That was strange. I looked at my received calls list, but the number was unfamiliar. Before I could think on it further, the phone rang loudly, shocking me yet again. This time, I looked at the caller before I answered. It was another unfamiliar number. This time, I held the phone up to my ear, but said nothing. I heard nothing but the general background noise of a phone. Then, a familiar voice broke my tension.

“John?” was the single word, in Amy’s voice.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hey, it’s you,” I replied.

“Who else would it be?” she responded. “Oh, the number. I’m at a party on Seventh Street, and my phone died just as you called me. This is someone else’s phone, obviously.”

“Oh, ok,” I said.

“Where are you?” she asked.

My eyes glanced over the drab white-washed cylinder block walls and the heavy metal door with its small window.

“At my building,” I sighed. “Just feeling cooped up. I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“You should come here,” she said, laughing.

“Nah, I don’t feel like looking for some strange place by myself in the middle of the night,” I said, looking out the window at the silent windy street that secretly scared me just a tiny bit. “I think I’m just going to keep working or go to bed.”

“Nonsense!” she replied. “I can come get you! Your building is close to Seventh Street, right?”

“How drunk are you?” I asked lightheartedly. “You know where I live.”

“Oh, of course,” she said abruptly. “I guess I can’t get there by walking, huh?”

“You could if you wanted to waste half an hour,” I told her.

“Right,” she said. “Ok, have to go, good luck with your work!”

I lowered the phone once more, looking at the numbers flash as the call ended. Then, the droning silence suddenly reasserted itself in my ears. The two strange calls and the eerie street outside just drove home my aloneness in this empty stairwell. Perhaps from having seen too many scary movies, I had the sudden inexplicable idea that something could look in the door’s window and see me, some sort of horrible entity that hovered at the edge of aloneness, just waiting to creep up on unsuspecting people that strayed too far from other human beings. I knew the fear was irrational, but nobody else was around, so… I jumped down the stairs, ran down the hallway into my room, and closed the door as swiftly as I could while still staying silent. Like I said, I feel a little ridiculous for being scared of nothing, and the fear has already faded. Writing this down helps a lot – it makes me realize that nothing is wrong. It filters out half-formed thoughts and fears and leaves only cold, hard facts. It’s late, I got a call from a wrong number, and Amy’s phone died, so she called me back from another number. Nothing strange is happening.

Still, there was something a little off about that conversation. I know it could have just been the alcohol she’d had… or was it even her that seemed off to me? Or was it… yes, that was it! I didn’t realize it until this moment, writing these things down. I knew writing things down would help. She said she was at a party, but I only heard silence in the background! Of course, that doesn’t mean anything in particular, as she could have just gone outside to make the call. No… that couldn’t be it either. I didn’t hear the wind! I need to see if the wind is still blowing!

Continue Reading…

Humper Monkey’s Ghost Story

 

This post is just a link to a story hosted on another site, for two reasons:

1) I don’t have permission from the titular ‘Humper Monkey’ to host it here, though if he would like to contact me and tell me otherwise, I’m down for mirroring the story here, by all means.

2) It’s quite long, at least compared to what I usually post here. But entirely worth it, if you want a supposedly true-life, military/Nazi ghost story. I’m sure a few of you will give the ‘not creepy’ bawww that every pasta gets, but this has become something of a classic in the Something Awful ghost story threads and I’ve even seen parts of it copypasta’ed onto /x/ a few times.

So, without further ado, here it is: Humper Monkey’s Ghost Story. Settle in, grab some hot cocoa, and enjoy!

The Suicide King

 

Modern playing cards are filled with layers of meaning and symbology that can be traced back centuries. The four kings, for example, are based off of real rulers: the king of diamonds represents the wealthy Julius Caesar, the king of clubs is the brutal Alexander the Great, Spades represents the strong but kind David of Israel and Hearts represents the… emotionally disturbed, shall we say, Charles VII of France. It is this king that we will be dealing with today. It should also be noted that Charles was the only one of the four who was actually there to see the day that his face was printed on a playing card, which may rationalize why he acted apart from the others.

Charles’ visage was put on the king of hearts at the very beginning of his rule, but he never really got a chance to come into contact with playing cards until many years later when he became very ill with a fever and was informed that he would be bedridden for the rest of his life. It was during this period that Charles began learning card games to pass the time, such as an early version of black jack, “vingt-et-un” (twenty one).

Charles lay in his bed for two years, constantly fiddling with the cards and always getting weaker. As time continued to pass, there were reports that Charles had begun obsessing over the idea that the king being the thirteenth card in a suit was causing him bad luck. He talked about how he was starting to see the number pop up everywhere and that he was close to figuring out its secret. Of course, his ramblings were blamed on the fever, and by the end of the second year, he had been declared insane, and his son Louis XII took over the thrown.

One day, several months after the end of his reign, one of Charles’ physicians went to his chamber to find the frail old man standing in the middle of the room wielding a large sword. Before the doctor could react, the king said, “Ils m’ont montré la vérité de treize, et il n’est pas signifié pour les yeux mortels.” which roughly translates to, “They have shown me the truth of thirteen, and it is not meant for mortal eyes.” Without hesitation the king proceeded to ram the blade in through the left side of his head (between the ear and temple) until it came out the other side. He wavered a moment, before collapsing to the floor dead.

After the incident was announced and it was made public that the king had gone mad, the image of Charles on the king of hearts was altered to show himself offing himself. Although the picture is now shown significant-ly less graphically, the image of Charles thrusting the sword into his skull can still be found on modern day playing cards. Perhaps the strangest part of the whole story, however, is the day that Charles chose to kill himself: 7/6/1462. Whether or not it was intentional of the king, the facts that 6+7=13 and 1+4+6+2=13 can only be explained as coincidences.

//
Credited to John ♠.

Evaporation

 

Water.

Water is the cornerstone of life. It nourishes us, irrigates our crops and waters our livestock. Water is vital for all known forms of life. We rely on it to wash our cars, clean our food and produce our power. It has an effect on almost every activity in everyday life. Without it, civilisation would cease to function. Governments would collapse, crippled by an undefeatable enemy – drought. It would be a matter of days – no longer than a week – before every living being on Earth perished. In short, we cannot live without water.

Two days ago, we were forced to begin doing just that.

I don’t know how it began. Nobody left alive does. During the initial hours of it, theories ranged from the barely plausible, like a new form of greenhouse gas, to the ridiculous, such as a new type of light, one that only evaporated water. I remember those hours fondly – the true enormity of what had happened had not yet sunk in and hysteria had not yet clutched the human race.

What happened?

I’ll put it simply.

The first was that every single drop of freshwater on the entire planet evaporated instantly.

I don’t think I can do this event justice, but I’ll try.

Can you imagine every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water drying up instantly, without rational explanation? I doubt you can, but that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t restricted to natural sources, either. As far as I can tell, all the bottled water in the world also evaporated, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It also disappeared from other substances, including soft drinks, creating foul sugar compounds that would make those that consumed it quite ill. There was not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink.

But by far the worst result of the lack of water was the nuclear reactors.

Without pressurised water, most of the nuclear reactors in the entire world – those that utilise purified water as coolant – had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The resulting effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy.
International communication ceased after almost exactly twenty-four hours after it began.

But there was a second effect.

The saltwater poisoning.

Many people flocked to desalination plants in the first few hours, hoping for salvation.

They found none.

At approximately the same time as the worldwide evaporation, saline increased by fivefold in every sea or ocean on Earth. Desalination plants were able to cope with this load for approximately twenty hours. Then, fuel began to run low – and with the imminent collapse of civilisation thanks to the multiple nuclear catastrophes, no more was delivered. Thus, the last ever drop of freshwater on Earth was pumped out no later than midnight yesterday.

After the drought came the collapse.

With no water available, civilisation soon descended into anarchy. Governments, typical of authority to the very end, tried maintaining order. It didn’t work. Soldiers rebelled, shooting rioters and runners alike. Those who didn’t die were brutally executed moments after. They turned on each other soon enough, with only a few militaries intact from the carnage. The deserters fled, unwilling to stay and watch the extinction of Earth.

But then came the worst, far worse than anything before it.

There was, in fact, one source of water that hadn’t been touched.

I’m so lucky I realised before anyone else in my town.

It was blood.

Blood, which is over 90% water, was the only remaining liquid fit to drink.

And so some did.

At first, I didn’t believe it. It was too horrific.

Animals went first. The desperate drank the blood of cats, dogs, pets and feral animals of all kinds. Many offered too little blood to be of any value. The situation was made worse by the fact that I live in a rather large metropolitan city and beyond domesticated pets and the odd feral animal, there was no animals to catch and drink from. Perhaps those in the country fared better – I have no way of finding out, and frankly I don’t really care.

I knew then that humans were the only other option.

I first saw it twelve hours ago.

An elderly man, dressed in nothing but a torn dressing gown, slowly made his way down the street that ran in front of my house. He called for help desperately, croaking out that his entire nursing home was dead or dying, that the nurses had fled and that he was looking for help. He was so pitiful that I almost opened my door, if only to offer him some respite from the midday sun, and some of my sparse rations.

If I had been a second faster, I would not be writing this.

Before I could open the door, three people – two men and a woman – pounced from the shadow of a nearby tree. The poor old bastard had no chance. They leapt upon him, frenzied in their dehydration, and set on him with makeshift tools. It was the most terrifying spectacle of my entire life. One of the men had a hammer – he set about bashing the man’s joints in, one by one. Crack. Crack. Crack. I retched bile each time the hammer slammed into bone, so sickening was the crunch. The other had a gardening hoe. He hovered above the elderly man, bringing the makeshift weapon down once, twice. The tool cut through the man’s ankles like a knife through a steak.

The metaphor made me vomit. After I did, I looked back, if only to satisfy my own growing horror.

Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.

The woman, who was weaponless save for her own two hands, had straddled the man’s chest. Her hands were spread on the screaming man’s face as her own companions butchered him. Then, even as I watched, she dug her thumbs into his eyes. He howled like nothing I had ever heard before. She dug harder, pushing inwards and outwards simultaneously. When they were pulled free, blood and some even less discernible liquid splattered all over her. She grabbed them and ate them like fruit. I could hear the chewing sounds from my door. They bent to consume the precious blood and I turned away.

I call them the Drinkers.

There’s one thing I want to make very clear about them. They aren’t zombies. Nor are they affected by some external force that forces them to drink the blood of humans, such as a virus or disease. They are entirely human. I suspect that dehydration affects them worse than it does others and this forces them to drink from humans in a form of pseudo-cannibalism or perish. They represent the dark side of humanity. The Drinkers also seem to recognise each other through some subtle signal. Not being a Drinker, I wouldn’t know it.

As fast as I possibly could, I took my meagre supplies, some small comforts, this journal and my .357 Desert Eagle up into my bedroom. I pushed the bed against the door with my rapidly fading strength and piled furniture on it. The Desert Eagle has a full clip of seven, and I have one spare. Enough for thirteen Drinkers and – well, I’m sure you can imagine.

—

Another six hours have passed. I can really feel the dehydration now. My tongue feels numb and my skin feels like sandpaper. I tried to eat some bread before and I almost choked, with no saliva to moisten my throat. Now I’m hungry as well as thirsty. I don’t even know why I’ve kept writing this. Maybe it’s something to occupy me during the final hours of mankind. Maybe I hold some hope that a solution will be found and somebody in the future will read this and remember what it was like. Maybe I’m just delusional.

—

It’s getting worse. I’m breathing heavily and becoming more and more lethargic. This room feels like a sauna. I can almost see the heatwaves bouncing across the room, becoming more and more intense until I am literally cooked alive. It’s not a pleasant vision. My pen keeps slipping from the page as I suffer random bursts of weakness. I’m scared I won’t even be able to pull the trigger if the time comes.

—

I’m so terribly thirsty. The last time I urinated it burned. I haven’t defecated for a long time now. My vision’s fading in and out and my head feels like it’s going to split open from the intense pressure inside. My skin is so dry and leathery. I know I’m dying, but I’ve still got the Desert Eagle. Maybe I should kill myself before I lose the strength to do so. God knows it’s better than dehydrating to death or letting the Drinkers get me.

—

so thirsty
its dark and i’ve lost the gun
vision almost gone
so THIRSTY
i’m going mad
i’m dying
wait
what’s that
so thirsty
somebody’s knocking at the door
they want to be let in
they say the drinkers are coming
should i
i don’t know
maybe i’ll go get a drink.
i’m so thirsty.

//
Credited to Archfeared.

I Don’t Sleep Anymore

 

Earlier this week, on Sunday night, I had a dream in which I knew I was asleep. I was stood outside of my house in torrential rain at night and thought I needed to get inside in order to wake up. I approached the front door and placed my knuckles onto the door-window ready to knock. I knew that my next action would bring me one step closer to consciousness. The moment I knocked on the door, the thudding sound of the knock was so loud, so frightening and so real that it woke me from my sleep.

BANG BANG BANG

I jumped up immediately and listened out for a further knock at the door. I was roasting hot, sweating profusely and my heart was beating so hard, I don’t think I would have been able to tell the difference between a knock at the door and my thudding heart beat. After I came to my senses and realised that the possibility of the door knocking at the exact moment of dreaming it is incredibly low, I fell back to sleep.

Monday, the very following night, I had the same dream. Right back outside the front of the house in the pouring rain again, intensely staring at the house. I slowly walked to the front door, this time it was open. I walked in and went straight into the kitchen. I opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out the largest meat knife I have. I looked into my reflection through the blade of the knife.

If you stare directly into the reflection of your eyes for long enough, eventually it will hit you that someone is looking at you. You know it’s your reflection, but for just a second, you forget and become self conscious, as if it’s somebody else behind your reflection’s eyes. It didn’t take a second of looking at my reflection through the blade to realise that somebody else was looking back. The moment I realised it was somebody else wearing my grin in the reflection, I slammed the cutlery drawer shut.

BANG

Again, I shot up out of bed. The sound of the metal clanging in the drawer as it abruptly closed was so defined and so crystal clear, it couldn’t have been a dream. Really spooked this time, I went downstairs into the kitchen. I was half asleep and had to check. I opened the cutlery drawer. I was relieved to find the knife still in the drawer. I closed it and went back to bed. It took a little longer this time, but I fell asleep.

Tuesday night, my dream started with that grin in the reflection. From the look in his eyes, I could tell that the man in the reflection knew he was looking back at someone confused and scared. I found myself looking into the reflection of the knife, already in my hand, while stood outside of my house in the rain. The front door was open again. I walked into the house, directly up the stairs and into my bedroom. I looked at the bed and saw someone sleeping in it. It was me.

I knew what I was going to do, but also knew that I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I kept think over and over again “Wake up”. My emotions were both in two extremes at once. I was terrified, but at the same time I was thrilled and excited to kill. “WAKE UP!”

I shot right out of bed and stood up. I was absolutely drenched in sweat, roasting hot, but relieved to find nobody stood in front of me with a knife. It took a few seconds to realise that I was gripping something tight in my hand. I knew what it was even before I looked down at it and saw my reflection in it. It was the meat knife, and this time the reflection in it looked terrified.

I don’t sleep anymore.

Self Preservation

 

If you’re reading this, then I am hopefully long gone. It’s been… two months now since the meteor struck Mississippi. There was a lot of public interest in it, astrologers and the like all gathering around for a look. They took samples of the rock and shipped them all over the world to museums in every country. Hell, I almost made a trip to have a look myself, but I had an interview with a potential employer. If he hadn’t called me up the previous day, I’d be dead now. Three days later, after the initial hype died down, the news reported nothing on the meteor for a couple of days.

The next thing I heard about it was when I got home from the pub and turned on the late-night news. I was just in time to catch a breaking news article. The worried-looking reporter informed me that almost everyone who had been in the vicinity of Mississippi when the meteor went down had been hospitalised. Their symptoms were similar to those that a corpse experiences during decomposition. Ten people had already died, mostly the elderly and the very young. Scientists and geneticists from all over the globe were working frantically to try and find a cure. Being smarter than the average bear, I gathered some supplies and prepared for an epidemic. Years of being paranoid beyond reason was finally about to pay off.

The news the next day had a lighter tone. A Chinese scientist had worked out that the meteor had contained an alien strain of bacteria that slowly broke down flesh tissue. The scientist also remarked that the bacteria were only affecting humans. He had also worked out that if a victim consumed a living being, such as an insect, it would delay the progression of the bacteria, giving the scientists more time to figure out a permanent cure. Anyone who thought they may have contracted the infection was to eat as many live creatures as they could. The reporter also explained that the US Army was attempting to contain the infection.

They failed.

Anyone who has read Stephen King’s book, The Stand, will have an idea of how the bacteria made its way around the world. It passed through the air, but to catch it, you had to be near someone infected. Because the symptoms took between three to five days to kick in, people didn’t realise that they were infected. In a week, Victus Somes Disease, as it had been named, was global.

I had barricaded myself in my house, with towels and blankets stuffed into every crack. I had the TV tuned to the news all day and night. The scientists had not predicted that the bacteria would adapt to the infected people’s efforts at trying to keep it at bay. Victims all over the world were claiming that the insects were no longer working. People were starting to catch small mammals and eat them.

As the days went by, people were slowly eating larger and larger animals. The first reported case of cannibalism was, ironically, the last broadcast made. The anchorman’s hair was falling out and he was missing three teeth. He nervously told America that there had been a reported case of cannibalism in Southern Europe. He also said that there would be no further broadcasts. All survivors were to lock themselves in their house and not let anyone in.

For the next week and a half, I watched the infected shamble up the street, knocking on doors. One of my neighbours, a couple of houses down from me, was stupid enough to open the door. Three people dragged him out and started biting his flesh. They started with his arms and legs, trying to keep him alive for as long as possible. They were crying as they ate. Their meal was shrieking in pain, and the three people eating him were apologising furiously through mouthfuls of his arm. I don’t think they were unable to control themselves; it looked more like they were disgusted by what they had to do to stay alive.

They tried to break into my house five or six days later, but my barricades held. They were outside, begging me to let them in. “Just one bite. Please, be generous.” I listened to their pleading all night, too scared to sleep.

I suppose I should explain why I’m writing this. I’m infected. Yesterday I coughed and lost a canine. I spent the night pulling out my teeth, easing them out one by one. It didn’t hurt; they just slid out, like pulling up carrots. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m infected. The bugs have stopped working, and all the wild animals have long since run away. I have decided to lure someone into my house and attack them. It sounds so wrong writing that out, but I don’t want to die. And I’m so hungry.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

//
Credited to BananaCorn.

Seriously?

 

A man and woman walked out of the bank, hand in hand. This might be a normal thing for anyone, maybe even you. But not for her.

The man made a typical, throwaway remark about their lunch plans. Under usual circumstances, this would just be interpreted as a feeble attempt to incite lightheartedness into the conversation. But not for her.

With a quick, agile movement, the woman, his wife, picked up a slab of concrete by the sidewalk and, with great aim, hit two doves perched on a low-hanging branch. They fell, like two pathetic white balloons. As soon as they hit the ground, his wife beat them to a pulp-she could see that they were still breathing. And her husband knew that he fucked up again.

Some passerby began to stare openly at the horrible sight of two bashed birds.

“Linda!” Her husband yelled. “Stop it!”

“I thought we were going to kill two birds with one stone?” She replied, in a voice of unnatural calm. Her face gazed up at him from the ground, stoic and rigid, like some dread mask.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

She had a certain….well, mental illness is a bit of a euphemism. Let’s just say she had a disability. A serious and rare one. Linda could not understand the difference between jokes and imperatives. She took every figure of speech she heard seriously, and was often compelled to make whatever it was into an actuality. Her husband recalled, one point, when she nearly pushed him out the window, when, in light of the recent resignation of his business partner, he remarked that he was in fact flying solo. Linda wasn’t always dangerous, though. Sometimes, he’d go home only to find her giggling like a little girl at the sight of milk on the floor. Or maybe even staring out windows during rainy evenings to see whether any cats and/or dogs were to be found falling from the sky. But then came the times when she would get harmful. Only last month, the pediatrician living in the apartment next to theirs got pelted with apples and other fruits. Poor woman nearly tripped down the stairs. This other time, an event which still scared him up to now, she shoved in his hands a bit of her bloody scalp, saying it was a piece of her mind. She had to wear a bonnet whenever she had to get out of the house after that. In spite of all this strange and violent behavior, he still loved his wife very much and could not bear to send her away to a mental hospital.

His mistake.

He became very careful around what she would see or hear coming from anybody since the episode with the birds. Much to his joy, a year and a half passed without much incident, and their firstborn child was soon to come. It was good, since the coming of a baby took their minds off whatever financial problems they had.

He was away when it happened. After he heard that child was born, he rushed back home.

As soon as he stepped through that door, he knew something was wrong. His wife was calling him from the kitchen. In her arms was the son he could never know.

In the light of their kitchen, lain on the table, were the remains of the baby, their baby. Its mouth was stretched open to such a degree that it split open, the underside of its jaws seen. It reminded him of a tear in cloth, the seams not made of fabric but of flesh. What little blood the baby had to spare was everywhere. In response to his child’s grotesquely expanded mouth, his father’s jaw fell open in surprise and terror and disgust, threatening to do the same. A scream tried to come out, but it did not.

Forcibly thrust into the gaping hole that was a baby’s mouth, was his wife’s forearm. She seemed to be trying to claw something out of the-

As soon as his wife spotted him, she turned in his direction, bloody baby still stuck on her arm.

“You have to help me! The doctor said he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth!”

//
Credited to Truncheon

DAY OF ALL THE BLOOD: THE MOVIE

 

So, uh, who did this?