The Old Town Well, Part One of Two

The old town well was cursed.

The Onion House, Chapter One

The Onion House.

The Other Side of the Coin

“Lucy get the door! I’ll board up the windows!” I shout as I toss a pile of boards down to the ground beneath the stairs, a bag of nails already present from the work we’ve been doing on the house. I can hear the kids crying upstairs and pray that the sound won’t attract them. Slamming a board across the back door I begin hammering it into the framework, taking nails and hammering them into the crack between the door and the door frame. By my third board I hear the moans coming from our back fence, signaling that the dead have heard us.

Barker the Snowman, Part One

Timothy was bored.

Seeds Of Darkness, Part One

Sitting over the edge of the pier, Joshua and his three friends all laughed and chatted as bobbers floated in the water around them, occasionally sinking a little and causing the boys to fall silent as the lucky one with a nibble took his rod and reel and slowly, ever so slowly, reeled in the line to try and snare the fish. They came from a poor village, where their fathers spent the days breaking their backs in the sugar cane fields while their mothers and sisters kept to the animals. Their older brothers helped with the gathering of lumber for the village woodsman so they would all have firewood come the cold winter nights in the next few months.

Keep Austin Weird, Part One

“Austin’s a pretty crazy town,” Nick slurred as he walked behind his friends, his wider gait allowing him to keep an even pace with them at a slower speed.

Amber, hiccupping, looked back and smiled. “Told you. It’s a great place to party, that’s for certain.”

The Wolves of Fossil Lake, Part One

Lying with her back pressed to the searing sand, Kathryn allowed herself a moment to reflect on the day. Her two younger brothers were in the lake, searching for fossils, while her parents rested in the lodge, too “tired” from the hiking. Kathy just thought they wanted some alone time, and wouldn’t begrudge them such a thing, despite her own needs going unfulfilled. Her parents had nixed the idea that she invite her new boyfriend along, fearing what the two teens might get up to when the lights were out and the moon was full.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

The rain wakes me.

Frozen Heart

The frozen mist hung low over the valley, the harbor clogged by sheets of ice that were too brittle to move across, but too thick to sail through. The guardsmen were nervous, as the mist had descended on the city two days ago, and not one person had come to the gates since then. There were no sounds of birds, or of trickling water, or even of a peasant begging for entry. No, the guards of the wall were faced with absolute silence.

Anger for Dummies

Stooped low over him, the old man was carefully sewing up the awful tear to his pant leg, chiding him for his reckless nature.

“You had better be more careful my boy, if someone saw this they’d be asking questions.” The snowcapped head bobbed up and down, half-moon glasses perched on the end of a long nose. “I didn’t tailor this for you so that you could tear it up, you know?”

Snicker-Snap

     Snicker-snap
     Snicker-snap
     Snicker-snap

For the Worms

“You know, all this hunting has got me thinking,” Derek said as he bit into the leg of their freshest kill, juices dribbling down his chin.

“Thinking about what?” Monica asked, stoking the fire as she chewed on a fatty section of stomach like tobacco.

“About if I die young,” Derek revealed, earning groans from the other three gathered around the fire.

On a Clear Summer Night

     On a clear summer night, when the moon is full and the stars were just right, a gathering of men could be found deep in the swamp. Mulattoes and blacks, junkies and the mad, all are represented in these twisted congregations for lost souls. Through dark marshes and pitiless mires one must traverse, if one can, to find the secret hiding spot of the worshipers of  He-Who-Whispers-In-Darkness. 

Of Angelic Dreams

Christopher watched on with cold disdain as the serum was injected into the twelfth soldier, their name and rank taken down by a short man in a lab coat. The glass separating them allowed Christopher a chance to look over the nervous looking cadets, who had all been told this was to prevent an outbreak of Spanish Flu from spreading through the Nazi ranks. He gave a half smile as a shirtless shoulder smacked one of his comrades on the shoulder, pulling himself up to a top bunk where he laid himself out.

Jeffrey

Creaking open slowly, Matthew looked out of his room to try and catch sight of his parents in the darkened halls of his home. Seeing nothing, he turned and nodded to his friend Jeffrey, and the two crept out on light feet across the hall and down the stairs, skipping the one board that creaked whenever stepped upon. 

Graverobber

Walking through a graveyard at night, you start to wonder whether or not you chose the right profession. You may have been a little hasty dropping out of school all those years ago, but in your defense you were drawing a good amount of attention with your… obsession with the dead. Shifting the shaft of the shovel on your shoulder, you lift your lantern higher to get a good look around you; this is a new graveyard that you’ve yet to venture to, so you’re not very familiar with the layout.

“Where oh where is that fresh grave…?” You mutter aloud, looking around to try and discern where the fresh body could be. “I know I read that obituary right, today should be the day that she was buried.”

Paint It Black, Part One

Sitting on the window sill as I eat my breakfast, I cast my gaze out over the waterfront district of this colonial port town. I see men bartering over barrels of whiskey, pointing hands shouting as several lankier looking fellows roll said barrels down a ramp leading from the boat to the pier. Fishmongers, all surly looking sailors with skin as tough as any animal hide and as tanned as the skin of a coconut shout their wares to the errand boys moving through the crowds, who duck between shopping wives and mothers, who turn their nose at the homeless children begging for alms in the gutter.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

I always believed immortality was a curse, a wretched, miserable, eternal existence with no meaning. Any bond I formed with anyone else was fleeting at best, as years pass for me as days pass for the rest of humanity. I’ve ridden through the rolling hills of France, slaying all in my path to spread the glory of the Mongol horde, battled side-by-side with would-be priests during the Crusades, and even helped crush the Aztec empire and their dark covens of warlocks. Truly the thrill of battle gifted me with a second life, allowing me to finally… feel once more.

Growing Pains

I wake in a pool of my own sweat and urine, in the boiling furnace I loathingly called my new home. I’d moved in a week ago, taking over the old German mansion from my late Aunt Gertrude after she’d disappeared. Batty old loon probably wandered off into the woods and got eaten by wolves… but that’s neither here nor there.

Shortly after moving in I’d come down with some bug, the flu or something, and had been doing my best to stay healthy in the decrepit old place, in the dead of winter. Germany, for all its advances in science and culture, still could not master the blizzards that would come annually. I’d have probably been well on my way to recovery had I been able to leave the place, but thanks to the snow I was stuck there, fending for myself.

The fever had come on so suddenly I hadn’t a chance to do anything about it. The next day the chills began, followed by the worst nausea I had ever experienced. I was having to trouble keeping down water, though this was probably due to the fact I was forced to drink well-water. Lord knows what parasites dwelled in the darkness of that centuries-old hole…

“Shit!” I cry out as a wave of pain ripples through my stomach, echoing throughout my limbs, as if my veins are trying dance their way out of my body. This has been the latest symptom, crippling pain.  Now I know I can’t leave this hellhole even if I wanted to.

Another wave pulses through my frame, but unlike the others this one seems to end in… relief? Like the draining of an infected wound, it feels as if an unknown pressure was being lifted from my chest and stomach. I sigh in relief, pushing myself up onto my elbows with the plan of hobbling to the bathroom for a hopefully relaxing shower.

Instead I see blood-stained sheets decorated with my own entrails, leading from between my legs, which I can no longer feel and which are taking on a dangerous purple hue.

And then they start flowing out of me…

Thousands of small, gooey globules, colored red either naturally so with my own vital fluids, become minute spiders, that begin streaming out of me like water from a busted dam. Panicking, I try and pull myself away, but the numbness is rapidly spreading up my torso, leaving me weak. The spiders are now spiraling up my chest and arms, as hundreds more continue to carve their way through my body, oozing rivulets of blood pulsing randomly as spiders push their way through the newly carved tunnels.

My screams begin to waver as my throat goes cold, and go silent as the same spiders begin spewing forth from my mouth. Now in the silence I can hear them. No hissing, just a rhythmic chanting with each to go softly into this horrible night:

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

Breeding Water, Part One

The crisp air of the high Colorado Mountains was dry and smooth, the sky a marvelous shade of midnight blue with a few errant strands of white, wispy clouds dotting it here and there. A lone figure, a young man barely out of his teens, sat atop a grassy hill with a loosely rolled cigarette hanging from his lips, gazing skyward at nothing in particular as he took in long, slow drags of smoke, before billowing it out through his crooked nose. With messy black hair pulled into a loose ponytail and a lean frame, he was hardly what one would call a lady killer.