Tag Archives: horror story

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

The Shadow in the Fire

He had always been attracted to fires. It wasn’t the heat or even the flames, it was the sheer destruction that he found cathartic. Fire consumed and destroyed everything, leaving only ash behind.

His mother and stepfather had been in his first fire. It was like his birth because he could not remember a time before that fire. His memories all faded to darkness before that fire had awoken him and his passion for arson.

These thoughts all mingled together as he watched the old warehouse in the docks begin burning. The fact that he could not really remember getting there hardly bothered him. That sort of thing happened often these days.

The hungry flames began licking around the warehouse’s ceiling. These old warehouses often had wooden beams in parts of their structures and burnt beautifully. And now the walls were taking in the growing blaze.

It was beautiful.

He liked these remote buildings. They were often desolate and empty. Typically, the fire department only arrived at these spots many hours later. It gave him plenty of time to enjoy his art before slipping back into the shadows.

A door in the side of the warehouse suddenly flew open and a handful of people in white lab-coats spilled out! It looked like some of them were even carrying handguns. One was shouting into a mobile phone while they all piled into a black van that he had not noticed before. It had tinted windows. The van’s engine revved in a panic and it screamed down the street and into the night.

None of them had noticed him lurking in the shadows a little way down the street. He felt relieved if somewhat excited by all of this. Why am I relieved, he wondered to himself? Who are they?

It didn’t really matter much to him. What could they have been doing in there, his mind wandered to next? He was more curious than anything else. From the outside, this warehouse in the docks looked as run-down and disused as any other warehouse around this area.

The questions quickly slipped from his mind as the fire began to lick the heavens. His grin widened as the hungry tendrils danced into the night sky. Soft ash began to rain down around him as the great catharsis spread, calming and exciting him through its destruction. It reminded him of home. No, it reminded him of Home.

A sudden, small explosion surprised him, sending a minor fireball roaring into the night sky. His grin widened. What could have exploded in a supposedly-abandoned warehouse? The fire’s rage and intensity rose with the explosion and it began to reach climax as parts of the roof progressively collapsed inwards.

Just before the inferno fell in on itself, a being emerged from within it. It was only a dark shadow against the fiery mass–he could see no other distinguishing features–but it walked from the gloomy doorway where the lab-coated men had run. Somehow, he felt a connection with it.

For the briefest moment, the shadow lingered on the edge of the flickering firelight and seemed to turn in his direction. Is it sniffing the night air?  Is it looking at me? Why isn’t it moving?

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he felt cold and terrified. It felt like the shadowy being was looking at him. Like it was looking straight at him through all the ash, heat, fire and shadows behind which he hid. Like it knew what he was through all of it…

And then it was gone. A shadow flickering off into the dark night.

He gasped. He realized that he had been holding his breath the whole time.

Just then the whole warehouse came tumbling down into a fiery inferno and the sirens reached his ears.

Time seemed to be moving quickly. It was time he left too.

***

Later that night, he could not sleep. Or is this a week later? Why can I not remember the time? He was tossing and turning in his bed, images of the shadow in the flames kept playing through his mind. They mingled and merged with older memories of some primordial darkness until he thought he might start climbing the walls.

Eventually, he sighed, got up, dress and wandered down to the street. It was nighttime. It was always nighttime. There was an all-night diner a street away from where he lived and, lost in his thoughts, he set out at a brisk pace towards it.

This was why he never noticed the black van with tinted windows start-up a little way down the road. He also never noticed it start driving slowly behind him. And, this was why he never saw it pick up its pace heading towards him as its side door slid open slowly…

Suddenly, the van screeched to a halt and two heavy-set men jumped out in front of him! He stopped in his tracks, surprised and frozen to the spot. A scary-looking woman lurked inside the van and the last thing he remembered seeing was the puff of smoke from the dart gun in her hand before the men grabbed him, pulled a bag over his head and he lost consciousness.

“That’s the one. Quick, grab the Time Demon before it realizes an–”

***

He slowly became aware of the light and sound around him. It felt like he was crawling up a long, dark tunnel towards consciousness and it hurt.

He was naked, sitting slumped in a chair as scientist-types in lab-coats strutted around him. He was not restrained in the chair but a glass cell was all around him and he felt it sucking the life out of him. Is there enough air in this place? I can hardly breath! It felt like he was deep underwater with all the pressure pushing down on every fiber of his being.

“It’s awake, right, OK,” the scary lady with the dart gun started talking authoritatively to the others in the room, at this point he noticed the silver cross hanging around her neck–a strange detail amidst all this science and technology in this room, “Double check the prison’s constraints, don’t let that Holy barrier waver or we’ll lose this one. These time-shifters are slippery, especially when cornered. I want–”

“So-sorry,” he managed to say, still feeling so weak, “You must have made some mistake? Why am I here? What–”

“You are a Time Demon,” the Scary Lady said addressing him, “We have caught you. It’s no mistake. You are from the bowels of Hell and–after extracting everything we want–we are going to send you right back there.”

“But, but, I-I am…me,” he said lamely, confused, “I am not from Hell or wherever, I am from downtown…down–I am from here.“

The Scary Lady smiled, “You don’t know where you are from, do you? Sometimes the summoning process does that. You must be fresh. Or maybe it was the body you possessed that is fighting back? Who knows. Notice how you don’t actually know where you are from? Downtown where? What was your mother’s name? You don’t know, do you? Joe, bring me that mirror.”

A nondescript lab-coated man darted out from a corner with a full-length mirror on wheels.

“We have this mirror around here for vampires but it’ll work for now,” the Scary Lady slid it in front of him and looked right back at himself in growing shock and terror, “The glass cell you are sitting in is iron-lined and we are running holy-current through it, so it both holds you and peels away your possessed shell to reveal your true form. Unfortunately, we can do nothing for the man you possessed but we can expel you.”

He saw himself sitting in the glass cell on his chair: rotting flesh was peeling off most of his body but there was still enough that he could recognize his stepfather. Who is that? What is my mother’s name? What lay beneath his flesh was dark and writhing, like some shadowy aberration of nature crafted solely to disturb those that looked upon it.

It was him.

Suddenly, he remembered! It felt like a darkness swallowing him…

He remembered crawling up through the layers towards the Summoning Circle. He remembered stepping out into the dark, gloomy basement where the couple was chanting over the dripping sacrifice. He remembered her screams as he tore her to pieces. He remembered the fear in the man’s eyes as his ethereal form filled up his body up and ejected its feeble soul. He could still smell the fire and brimstone as it began to spill out from the portal and engulf everything around him in a raging fire…

“Ah,” the Scary Lady smiled cruelly, “The Time Demon remembers. It never takes much. Evil always wants to remember. That’s the real difference. Good prefers to forget. So we may as—wait! Hey, what’s that? What’s going on outside?”

He stood up, shaking while fighting the pressure of the holy-cell. The final pieces of rotting, host flesh fell from him revealing his twisted, blackened self to all the world. He was a Time Demon. He could move around the dark corners of time and he could feel something coming. He could smell something coming. It had already happened and it was already going to occur.

It was fire.

The lab-coats all ran around frantically but the Time Demon stood tehre grinning wickedly. The air grew hotter, soft smoke began to bellow in and then the first, red, flickering locks of beautiful flames began to curl around the corners and edges of the walls…

“Out! Out! We have to abandon this place!” the Scary Lady was screaming. She threw a vengeful glare at him before turning to run out with the rest of her crew, “Let the Time Demon burn, if it can,” where her last words before she disappeared out of the laboratory.

Moments later, some canisters of some gas exploded. Their forced blew the ceiling to the heavens upon a grea fireball while engulfing the room in a hell-storm. Everything was destroyed in that moment and, more importantly, his iron-lined glass cell cracked.

It was enough for him.

He grinned and expanded. Space creaked and his wicked, twisted hands tore through the glass towards the fire. It felt comfortingly warm. Like home. No, Home.

And then he was strolling out of the laboratory and into a collapsing warehouse.

He grinned. He knew what was coming next. It was always his favorite part.

Just on the edge of the fiery warehouse and just before it all came tumbling down, he stood still, grinning to himself. His shadow-black demonic form writhed as he looked up the street and grinned at himself lurking in the darkness over there. His grin widened and his form flexed. Time was his again.

And then he was gone.

General Fiction

Flowers of Oblivion

“I can’t save you if you don’t want to save yourself,” said the voice on the other side of the phone. The line crackled and a monotonic voice softly said that there was one minute left before her money ran out.

She closed her eyes and sighed. Her lips were dry and the air was cold. Or was she cold? It was hard to tell these days. Or was it night? She pulled her jacket tighter around her.

“I’m fine. I don’t need saving, just money, ok?” she said, “Not everything’s about life or death, some things actually lie in between.”

“Yes,” the voice crackled on the line, “somethings do lie in between. You are not quite alive anymore, are you? And I’m just here waiting for the phone call that tells me when you’re finally dead.”

Click. The line went dead.

“Ma-ma?” she started, “Ma! For fuck’s sake that–”

Her swearing was abruptly broken by the clatter of coins rattling out of the phone. It sounded like broken promises bouncing through the metallic skeleton of dead dreams. She scooped them out and looked down at her life savings.

She found herself wishing that she did not exist. She did not want to die. No, she just wished that she did not exist at all.

***

After the brief burn from the needle, a comforting numbness spread through her as gravity softened and she fell right into its warm, velvet embrace. The floor lightly held her as she swayed, floating in the moment.

She closed her eyes, leaned back and drifted away into nothing. From this world into nowhere.

There were no problems, pain nor people out there. There was nothing, not even herself.

It was oblivion.

***

“You are free here,” a warm, cherry-pie voice woke her up, “You are safe here.”

She blinked and looked around her.

Her family stood there before her, just a little way ahead of her. They were all smiling, tears of joy in their eyes.

“Ma-ma?” she asked, confused.

“Yes,” said the same warm, cherry-pie voice, “Do you know where you are?”

She nodded. She smiled and got up, still looking at her family just a little ahead of her. She had not seen little Timmy for ages but he looked like he had not changed one bit. Her father looked as stern as ever, but even he was smiling and wiping back tears of joy as he held her openly-weeping mother up…

She took her first tentative step forward. It felt like she was leaving something. Tears streamed down her cheek and she sobbed with joy. It felt like she was forgetting something, but she did not care. The step became a stumble and then she was sprinting towards them.

Just a little ahead of her.

Just before she fell into an embrace with all of them, the warm, cherry-pie voice whispered into her ear. She remembered and stifled a great sob. Did it matter? There were no problems, pain nor people here. She was finally happy.

***

“Hello?” the voice on the other side of the phone asked. The line crackled a bit amidst the pause that followed.

“Am I speaking to the mother of–”

“Yes,” the voice stated on the other side of the phone, interrupting the quiet man speaking, “This has happened enough times that I know how this goes. Yes, I am her mother. Where is she?”

“I-I’m sorry, ma’am,” the quiet man’s voice paused before going on, “She has ov–passed away. We found her this morning and it took until now to confirm the identity. I’m sorry, ma’am. If there is any–”

“Thank you,” the voice said. The line crackled less but rather than sounding clearer, it just sounded more distant now, “Thank you, sir. I-I just hope she found what she was looking for. Whatever it was.”

“Wherever it was,” sighed the quiet man.

“I-I’m sorry?” the voice said, sounding strained.

“Ma’am, with respect, the only thing they are looking for is oblivion and, eventually, they all find it. If only we c–”

“Thank you,” said the voice, “No need.”

Click, and the line went dead.

Horror & Dark Fiction

Fragile Creatures

He watches the butterfly flutter over the busy road. It is late afternoon and the cars scream by, probably on their way home from work. The colourful little creature fights her way to land on his hand. She is so light and fragile, he can barely feel her weight resting on his hand. But he can sense her heart pounding as she catches her breath. Her soft, golden-brown, red, speckled-white and black-rimmed wings flutter open and then close slowly as she recovers.

He lifts his hand up to his ear and then nods.

She saw them. She saw them all, and they did not see her.

“Yes,” he growls, “We will go once it is dark. Very dark. I love you.”

***

“Jesus Chris-almighty!” exclaims the janitor walking into the room. He takes a step back immediately and averts his eyes while pinching his nose. But he looks back. He has to see.

“J-e-s-u-sss…” he mumbles as he runs his eyes over the ghastly scene, “There is so much blood. Is that–is that a fucking leg over there? How many are here?”

But no one answers him back. He is first on the scene. He heard the screaming and came running. Now there is no one screaming anymore. He will have to call the cops. Soon the cafeteria will be swarming with forensics and outside will be full of journalists, but for now, he has a few moments to catch his breath.

He has a few moments to absorb all the horror.

Perhaps slipping in from an open window or maybe it had always been hiding there in the shadows, a butterfly suddenly flutters over the bloody scene. He stops muttering swearwords and watches the red, black and white little creature as it flies towards him and lands on his outstretched, shaking hand.

He smiles at the butterfly like a lover. His hand stops shaking immediately. She is so fragile on his hand. So small and light; so frightened with so much violence around her. Much like him, she is fragile and unprotected in this dark world. He lifts her up to his ear to listen.

She saw them. She saw them all, and they did not see her.

“Yes,” he growls, “We will go once it is dark. Very dark. I love you.”

***

The blood drips off his hands onto the tiled floor. He does not notice it. He is smiling because he is happy. He–and she!–they are both safe. Everyone is dead, and so they are safe.

“This world is so violent,” he growls softly under his breath, “So violent, but we are safe now, my love.”

He slips out the back of the hospital, casually throwing the knife into a bin out there. He starts to walk, still smiling, but then she flutters off his shoulder. The red, black and white little creature’s fragile wings barely move, but she rises in the soft breeze in the alley. She flutters silently upwards like the chorus of oncoming sirens to disappear over a roof and is gone.

Except those sirens just keep getting nearer.

He is left standing there. He is no longer smiling. He mouth is wide open and his eyes terrified. All the blood is forgotten. Suddenly the sirens cut into his consciousness and he starts. Panic sets in.

And he begins to run.

She is far above fluttering in the warm air. Below her is the mortal world. He is running and the blue lights are chasing. She is watching, and from up here she can see them and they cannot see her.

***

The aircon in the detective’s office is broken and the open window barely helps, but he does not notice the sweat on his brow. He is lost in thought looking at the cases on his desk. All of them are murders. All of them are seemingly random homicidal murder, and in all of their cases, the suspect was chased from the scene and eventually died in the pursuing flight.

Suicide-by-cop, he thinks. He knows it must be right. It was their inability to face the consequences of their actions that drove them to this, and so they took the easy way out.

But why had all of them done the murders in the first place? So violent, so bloody…

All of the perps had been described as wildly psychotic by the police that had chased them. Yet all of the perps had appeared to be completely normal people by everyone who had actually know them in their day-to-day lives. All of the murders were so violent with little regard for hiding them; some in the middle of the day, some in the middle of busy schools or hospitals…

It was almost like they had wanted to get caught in the act. But then why had they run from the cops?

He shakes his head and leans back in his chair. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He needs a drink; something cold and strong.

Something brushes his hand on the table. Without thinking, he slaps his other hand down onto it. He sighs and opens his eyes.

Crushed between his right palm and the top of his left hand is a red, black and white little butterfly. Its wings are broken and its little body and insides squished all over the detective’s rough hands. Its tiny heart beats its last time in its shattered frame as life leaves it.

“Fuck. How the hell did that get in here,” he asks, but then realises the window was wide open. He feels bad; a pang of guilt stabs into him. It looks like it was a beautiful little creature, but just so fragile.

He grabs a tissue and wipes it off his hand and throws it into a bin under his desk. He sits up and leans forward, pulling the case files nearer to him. In front of him is a mosaic of murder with bloody pictures on his desk. So many. Why? Why would they do all of this?

He sighs and growls under his breath, “This world is so violent. So violent…”

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction

Miggi Island

The people of the island had simple lives. It was quiet and far away from civilisation. They were too remote even for the most adventurous trader, particularly since they had nothing to trade. War was foreign and the only politics were around the Raincoming Day when the men would bargain with the fathers of the potential brides for their sons.

Fish, though, were important. So were the fruit trees with their sweet harvest. And, finally, so was the Miggi Min. They all sustained the people of the island.

After the Raincoming Day, the storms would roll in. The Miggi Min always reminded them, her voice silvery as it travelled across the darkness. The waves would roar as they smashed on the white beach and the rain would pound down on the rickety huts. The Miggi Min would always hold the island together. And then the storms would pass, the waves calm down and the people would come out into the warm sun.

There had to be a sacrifice to thank the Miggi Min. She only accepted blood, but they were safe and they would gladly give it to her. Sometimes the Miggi Min visited them while they slept. No one died, but those that were visited were always weaker the next day. But, she kept them safe, and they fed her hunger.

Everything on the island worked together. The people were happy, as the people that had come before them and the people that had come before those had been too. This was how the island worked. It was the Miggi Min’s island.

One day, a few days after the Raincoming Day and its storms, a pale stranger washed up on their shores. The men were out fishing, but the women found him near death on the beach. His clothing was strange and tattered, like his hair. When the men came back and he woke up a little in the shade of the witchdoctor’s hut, his words were just a collection of strange sounds.

The men shrugged their shoulders and cut him some smoked fish and poured him some fiery fruit water. The women bathed him and he slept and slept.

Days passed, the men went fishing, the woman gathered fruit and the children played. The waves on that crystal blue ocean calmly lapped the white beach and life on the island went on.

The men came back from fishing late one afternoon. The sun was beginning to set and cast its red eye over the island. The strange man was awake. He was sitting out by the fire that the women had lit and he was talking his strange, round echoey words. The women were politely talking back, and the children were laughing and touching his pale skin and playing with his long, fine hair.

The men chuckled to themselves, gave the women the fish they had caught and poured fiery fruit water all around. They sat late that night trying to talk to the strange man while he tried to talk to them. The same thing happened each night thereafter. Each time, a little more communication happened. Slowly the strange man learnt some of the island’s language and, with a funny accent, began to communicate in broken sentences.

His name was “Barret” and he came from a place called “Europe”, but sometimes he called his island “France”. Maybe it had two names. His boat had shipwrecked somewhere in the storm and he had no idea how he had washed up on their island’s shore.

The men liked him and, when Barret asked if he could help them fish, they liked him even more. He quickly learnt how to fish. He told them that he would sometimes fish back home. He worked hard. The men all nodded in agreement.

When they got back to the village that afternoon, the youngest man carried all the fish to the women to cook while the oldest man went and poured some fiery fruit water for himself and Barret. That night they ate and drank their full. They laughed at the strange stories Barret told about his home. He spoke about things called ‘kings’ that everyone had to scrape and bow to. The ‘kings’ would rule the land and look after their people, much like the Miggi Min for this island. A man mentioned this, but Barret looked confused. The men chuckled. Barret would know the Miggi Min soon enough.

And so days, weeks and months passed, but, true to the cycle, the Raincoming Day eventually arrived upon the island. The blue sky and crystal ocean both turned steely grey, and dark clouds began to roll in. The waves grew larger and louder as they began to smash against the beach. The men did not go out to fish and the women did not go out to pick fruit because their sons needed wives for fruit and their daughters needed husbands for fish.

Barret watched all of this fascinated. He occasionally asked questions, and the men or women would politely explain what was going on. He would nod and smile. He seemed to understand until on of the men told him about the Miggi Min. Barret’s eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. The man that told him chuckled, slapped his back and told him that he would find out soon enough, but Barret seemed very disturbed.

The heavens began to open up with soft, large raindrops falling. The fiery fruit water poured thick and strong, flowing fast as the drumbeats, distant thunder and flashes of lighting all mixed up together. Barret was jumping around to the beat, the women and children laughing. The men kept on pouring him more and more fiery fruit water. He was laughing hysterically and trying to dance like the other men and the women who moved with a primal grace around the flickering fire in the stormy night. The old ones took shelter in the doorways in huts and the newly coupled husbands and wives were sneaking embarrassed, lustful glances at each other. And the drums beat, the men and Barret howled at the night, the women swirled seductively, the fiery fruit water flowed and the primal energy of the celebration rolled on and on…

This went late into the night. Long after the pale face of the moon had peaked, the island was still full of sound, light and laughter. The men kept topping up Barret’s drink and eventually he could barely stand and they could barely understand the slurring words coming out of his mouth.

And then he collapsed, fast asleep.

The drums stopped playing and the whole Raincoming Day celebration fell silent. As with every Raincoming Day, to keep the fish plentiful, the fruit sweet, the babies strong and the island safe, the Miggi Min must be kept happy too.

In silence, the men stripped Barret naked. They then strapped his snoring, passed out form onto a stretcher slashed together of palm leaves, branches and vines. The women were softly beating their drums and humming a haunting, wordless melody. Then the whole procession began slowly walking towards the island’s Western shore where a dark, deep cave was hidden. And, right at the back of that dark, deep cave there was a pair of cold eyes and a pair of pure white fangs with an immortal appetite that needed to be fed.

The Miggi Min only accepted blood, but she kept the island and the people safe and they would gladly give it to her.

Horror & Dark Fiction

Shadow of Nobbs Road

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There was something off about that part of Nobbs Road. When I stood there in the day, it felt like home. Yes. Indeed, I had lived there for a number of years in a creaky old house with beautifully kept wooden floors and a large, ornate, green gate made of twisted iron. I was very happy living there and only had good things to say about the place, at first.

But, like creeping damp in a wall or fine hairline cracks in a beautiful portrait, there was something else. There a disquiet about the road or the land that grew on me over time.

When I stayed awake at my house on the Nobbs Road late at night, I felt the tug of something strange there. As the hour grew later, my thoughts would grow darker. It took me a while to recognise this, but there was a sense of foreboding that permeated my sleep and seeped into my waking mind. I only became aware of this in moments of idle thought or when a cloud passes by on a sunny day.

At first, it was just a feeling of unease, but then over the years it became its own entity and I began trying to avoid the shadow of Nobbs Road. I would make sure I was inside before dark, tucked into the safe illusion that domestic comforts project. I would lock my front door and make sure my curtains were closed. I would make sure I was fast asleep long before the midnight. I stopped inviting friends around and began to consciously ponder why I felt like this.

Insanity is incremental, and so is obsession. At face value, they are pretty similar, but with a key difference is the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

So one day I decided that I would investigate it. Being unattached and financially secure, I had both the time and the means to plough into such a pursuit. And so I would investigate the quaintly-named Nobbs Road, that part of that road and what happened there long ago. If nothing else, I would find out something of the history of where I live. And, at best, I would dispel my ghost with a dose of benign reality.

Over months of scouring the Internet, old library paper clippings and, eventually, the city and the police’s public records I had a story. Actually, I had many stories from the civil war shelter in the old farm building to the retired couple who died in a fire there that destroyed the second incarnation of the house (excluding the original gate that still stood there now). There was even a bootlegger that lived there for a while and a moderately successful author who had been born there before moving inland.

All these lives and their related stories were scattered over centuries, but there was one that stood out. I found vague references to it online, so I went to the library and found a key part of it as a tiny fifth-page article in a now-forgotten newspaper. Then I went to the public records and found some of the legal records evidencing this narrative.

Interestingly, I could find no record of who designed and installed the same twisted, iron green gate that stands in front of my house now. It just seems to have always been there, but I suppose that is another story entirely.

And that is how this story begins, as one day about two centuries ago an old lady was banging on that gate. The recently married couple that had just moved into the house–the wife’s father owned it, but he was off in Germany–came out to see her. They had their newborn in their arms when this strange, wild-haired old lady had warned of where they were living.

I could find no record of exactly what that warning had been, but the man the next day had reported it at the police station. The entry into the police records had just said: “Residents at 2 Nobbs Road receive another warning. Woman not located.”

There is a gap in the records, but in Winter that year the poor couple buried their firstborn. The grave is still there on the hill at the old cemetery overlooking the bay. I went and visited it and through the moss and cracked, weathered rock I could just make out the words, “…taken tragically before his time.”

The police records showed that an investigation into the child’s death was opened, but the couple refused to co-operate and their statements are not on record. The case was closed and marked as “Cot Death“.

It was at this point that the story took a strange turn.

The tiny fifth-page article in the now-forgotten newspaper speaks about the mysterious gatherings taking place at 2 Nobbs Road. Neighbours reported dark-dressed strangers coming and going from the house late at night. They also spoke of strange sounds and smells coming from the property. And then there was one naked, terrified man seen jumping the gate and running from the property late at night. When the police found him, he was screaming uttering incomprehensible gibberish about falling stars and the “the darkness below that speaks“. By the time the journalist from the newspaper got to interview him in the mental hospital, he was unresponsive. Given those type of clinic’s treatments, the latter was no surprise to me. The journalist, though, did note in his article the deep cuts and scratch marks that covered his body, before concluding that “…in the interest of public good, the men of the law should investigate the unseemly goings-on at 2 Nobbs Road.”

But, I suspect that without a coherent statement from the man committed to the mental hospital, the police could not legally act nor issue a warrant for searching 2 Nobbs Road. Either that or they did not care for it. Either way, the police do not appear to have done anything at this stage and, thus, it not surprising to see that a later seventh-page article talks about a group of neighbours that had had enough. They had been complaining about strange sounds and smells coming from that house at night and a number of them had now also reported missing pets.

The final pieces of evidence that I have points to a terrible climax late one Winter’s night. That fateful night, the police were called out to settle the peace as a neighbourhood crowd apparently stormed 2 Nobbs Road. What they found, though, was a raging fire that had broken out across the property. The police report spoke about how the strange fire raging through the property was impossible to put out, but it did not travel to adjacent property and its flames touched nothing outside of 2 Nobbs Road, stopping at the twisted iron gate. But, this raging fire was also the least of their worries, or so spoke the third-page article I found.

The couple that had lost their child were at the front of a gang of black-robed people standing on the properties lawn before the burning house. The lead policeman on the scene describes the couple’s faces as being dark and unrecognisable. The police found no sign of the neighbours that had apparently stormed the property (and they never would find signs, as no less than seven unsolved Missing Person cases are filed at that date from Nobbs Road). But there was a caucus of screams coming from inside the burning house and, thus, some of the policemen attempted to charge into the flames and save whoever was trapped in there (the firemen, busy with a fire across town at the time, would only turn up later and extinguish much of the blaze).

The police that charged into house would never come out. Part of the house collapsed and a lot of the property–except the green, twisted iron gate–was consumed in the fire. Neither the policemen who charged towards the screams nor any neighbours came out of the blaze. Heat of the blaze must of been intense, as no bodies–not even charred ones–were found. The police report noted that the screaming quickly died out and the lead investigator noted that he believed the fire had simply consumed everyone trapped in that house.

The remaining police had rounded up the black-robed gang, after a brief skirmish, pulled them from the raging inferno of 2 Nobbs Road, and marched them down to the police station for questioning. At this point, the firemen had turned up and begun dealing with the fire. The firemen of the day did not keep any records that I could locate, but the police report noted in a post-note that one of the firemen had also been killed fighting the fire that night.

The next morning, the officer on duty at the police station had walked into the jail and found that all the black-robed strangers were gone, save for the young couple. But the couple were hanging, dead from the ceiling with the words, “SORRY, WAS NOT ME” scratched into the husband’s chest.

The police noted the suicide and their files were empty from there. The wife’s father had come back from Germany and auctioned what was left of the house and the couple had been buried in two separate graves. The wife’s grave is somewhere in Germany with the rest of her family. Her husband, though, is in a tangled, overgrown part of the old graveyard overlooking the bay with no stone or name to mark it.

Pondering this twisted tale, a strange thought occurred to me and I checked the lunar calendar of the day. The date recorded for this bizarre climax was over a three-night lunar eclipse occurring on the longest night of the year.

There is one final event that may or may not be related to this story, but a year later the new residents of this address–after building the third and, so far, final house that now stands at 2 Nobbs Road–reported a strange, old woman threatening them at their self-same green, twisted iron gate. This time the police records note what the old woman said by the following note: “New residents at 2 Nobbs Road receive warning against living there. Told to leave or else they never will, as ‘beast is hungry’. Parks Dept. report no animals in vicinity. Woman not located.”

I sold that house and moved far away. And, although life has moved on for me, sometimes when a shadow of a cloud passes or the full moon dips behind dark clouds, I can still feel something tugging at me. I can still sense something old and evil with a hunger whispering about a twisted, iron gate that holds it tied to that its accursed prison.

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction

Hands in the Woods

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hands-in-the-forest

“Don’t go down to the woods tonight, little girl,” said the grizzled, old man while sucking on his half-lit pipe, “The Sleepers there will be waking from their dark, ageless slumber to dance in the bloodless moonlight like wild dogs. They will drain you of your virgin blood, little girl, because no one has ever come back alive.”

The younger, less-grizzled man next to him chuckled loudly, “No, no, old man! Are you saying that we are a village with only virgins wandering around in our woods? We won’t last this generation if that is true. It has nothing to do with virgins or blood. No, the Sleepers don’t dance and they couldn’t care less about the moon or your sexual proclivities,” the man leaned forward, looking intensely at the young girl, “Sweety, the Sleepers rise from where they once fell on their ancient battlefield to haunt the old willow trees that grew over their graves. They climb the boughs to scout the battlefield. Our woods are a battlefield just as real to them now as it was to them back all those ages ago in whatever ancient kingdom they were once part of. Today is the anniversary of their great, forgotten battle, and so, Sweety, we all huddle up in this warm, cozy bar with everyone and drink until dawn before going back out. The Sleepers will be sleeping once again and all will be fine in this world of ours then.”

“W-what do the Sleepers look like?” the wide-eyed little girl managed to ask the two men before her mother found her and dragged her away to sit with her family. But, this question sparked a heated debate amongst the two men. Soon enough a number of men from other tables joined the debate.

“Dark, twisted, hairy forms with bloated hands that float in front of them,” one medium-grizzled man piped up, “My Cuz told me he once saw them across the river late one night. They float all ghastly-like out there–”

Another man laughed, slamming his tankard on the worn, wooden table, “And how would your drunken Cuz know such things? He was probably pissed and saw your mother fetching water!”

This was met with an uproar of loud laughter and manly back-slapping. Another round of ale was ordered for everyone. The inside of the inn was warm and packed. Most of the villagers were in there that evening. They were all laughing and joking amongst themselves. There was flirting amongst the young and tale-telling amongst the old, but no one was in the mood for anything more.

Outside the night was cold and the woods were dark.

Outside the Sleepers were waking up. They were crawling from their nests inside the unique willow trees that grew in that wood. Their hairy, eight-legged forms had a pattern on their backs in a soft whitish-pink that made them look almost like a human hand from a distance.

A whole forest of hairy, eight-legged human hands was crawling out from their nests in the boughs of the willows. Like some dark and twisted ritual, they all climbed to the tops of their trees. At the top of the trees, poking out above the woods, there was the cold wind that constantly blew from the mountains. It blew down those rugged peaks through this valley and out to the next forest a kingdom away. Each Sleeper would spin an off-white sail, stand up on its back four legs–four other hairy insectoid legs spread upwards–and flick out its sail to catch the cold wind.

One by one, each spider took off, floating upwards and onwards like a silent, hideous, hairy hand over the dark woods. One by one, they would disappear into the night.

Only, nothing really disappears. The Sleepers would reappear, falling from the sky in the nearby kingdom. They would silently fall from the night sky in another wood outside another village that were also huddled indoors telling stories about the annual flight of the Fallers that dropped from the dark sky once a year to steal away mortals caught in their webs…

And, back in the wood in the boughs of those old willow trees, the spiders’ eggs lay awaiting the day in a year’s time when they too could fly to the mating grounds.

General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction

The Dream Eater

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The Dream Eater

He knew he was dreaming.

The landscape felt both familiar and vague with no real details. He had no idea how he had gotten here or what he was doing. Somehow he was in his old classroom–the English classroom or was it the Math one?–and outside it was sunny with green trees. Somehow this was not strange, despite the fact that he was now forty and working in another country.

Yes, this was definitely a dream he thought to himself while he sat in his old chair.

“A-are you real?”

The question made him jump. It came from right next to him. How had he not noticed the strange little, goblin-looking creature sitting next to him in the classroom? Bare skin stretched tightly over a skull-shaped face with large child-like eyes all combined to inspire a strange combination of fear, revulsion and pity when looking at the little creature.

“Are you real?” the little creature asked again looking directly at him, grave near-comical concern over its ugly little face.

“Ye-um, no,” he paused before shaking his head, “This is a dream, none of us are real. I’m not real and neither are you.”

The little creature looked away. It almost looked sad and he felt a silly impulse to hug it. Before he could do anything it looked back at him. The classroom was getting dark. It was nighttime now.

“Are you sure you are not real?” the creature asked softly, almost threateningly showing some pointed, sharp teeth in its mouth, “I am certain I am real. How do you not know that what lies out there is not the dream? Why can’t this be real and the strange place you think you live in be the dream?”

Lightning began to streak in the sky outside. Shadows were rising up in the corners of the classroom with menacing eyes peering out from them. And, just as he was about to answer, the bell rang.

He woke up in his bed covered in sweat with his heart racing. He shook his head. He was sitting in his bedroom a million miles away from the classroom. He was forty years old and had long since left that school.

What a strange dream.

The next day dawned and he fell into the bustle of the weekday routine. All day, though, he could not stop thinking about the strange, goblin-like creature in his dream with its large, child-like eyes and pointy teeth.

In fact, as the day went on, he thought more and more about the creature. What a strange thought? What if he was currently dreaming now? What if this was the dream and at night when he fell asleep, he actually woke up in the real world? What if he was a teenager dreaming that he was a forty-year-old man? What if the creature was right and he was really there? What if all of this was not real? What if he was a child dreaming that he was an adult living in another city?

These thoughts had started as mental itches. But as he scratched them, they had gotten itchier. By the end of the day, sitting in traffic on the way home, these thoughts were starting to circle around and around in his head. By the time he opened the door to his small apartment open, the thoughts were all he could think of.

Faced with the dark emptiness of his apartment and life, he suddenly felt tired. He felt exhausted. He was completely drained of every ounce of energy. If this was a dream, he did not want to be in it anymore. It was a miserable dream and he wanted to wake up.

He collapsed on his couch in his living room. He could not even summon the energy to turn the light or the television on. He just slouched down into a crumpled heap on the couch and–in the growing darkness of evening–he drifted into a deep sleep.

“A-are you real?”

He was standing back in the classroom, only it was a little different. Perhaps it was the French classroom? Maybe the walls were a different colour or the room a different size? There was more detail in the room this time.

But none of that mattered, as the little creature with child-like eyes and pointy teeth stood before where he sat.

“Are you real?”

“Y-yes,” he stuttered, trying to desperately remember why he was here or where he had come from, “Yes, I am real. I know I am real,” and then he remembered the other dark, dreary dream and added, “I do not want the other dream! I do not!”

“Then if I kill you here, you will die,” the little creature whispered menacingly. He was suddenly aware of how he could barely move and how sharp the claws on the little fingers of this creature were. The hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to rise. A cold shiver ran down his spine.

“Y-yes, I th-think so,” he stuttered, barely able to move his mouth as a fearful paralysis crept up his helpless limbs and his mind became blank.

“Goooood, goooood,” the little creature cooed wickedly, rows and rows of sharp, pointy teeth appearing in his mouth as it began to grin, “For I am the Dream Eater, liberating the sleepers from their false dreams of light and life. Come, let me show you the true dreams of darkness and death…”

A gurgling sound rose up from his throat as he tried to scream, but could not. He could not move, his limbs did not exist. His mind was frozen and the darkness was closing in. The classroom suddenly looked terrifying. Flashing lightning and pounding rain sounded outside, as the Dream Eater floated closer and closer to him with its sharp, pointy teeth becoming all he could see…

The police found him two days later when a family member called them. He had not shown up for work for two days without notice. Work had then called the family and his brother who lived in the same city. After numerous calls and no answers, his brother had come over to see if he was alright and had not been able to get into the apartment. It was then that his brother had called the police, who had kicked the door down in the attempt to see if he was alright.

He was not alright.

He was curled up on the couch. He was pale white like the very life had been sucked from him. His eyes were wide open and glassy, like a blind man. Most terrifying, though, was his face. It was contorted in a silent scream that no one in this dream had heard.

For this is how the Dream Eater hunts and that is how the Dream Eater feeds.

Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the Dream Eater bite.

General Fiction

Running

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"He had to keep moving."

The gravel crunched under his feet as he ran. Each impact was heavier than the last. His breath came in desperate, reaching gasps that roared in his ears. The air felt like fire in his lungs. Despite each breath filling them to capacity, his lungs felt empty of oxygen and filled with fire that ran down to the lead in his weary legs.

Each step was harder than the last. Each breath more excruciating than the last. Each movement driven by sheer willpower pushing against the wall of pain. And so he kept going for what seemed like the entirety of existence.

He had to keep going.

Everything was quiet around him, except for the repetitive crunch of his feet on the road and his breathing in his ears. Everything was silent in the half-light, the Sun’s rays barely made it over the horizon and the sky was mostly dark.

But, far away, somewhere, somehow, there was something out there. A shapeless, formless horror was hunting him. Old and dark and deadly. It slithered and stalked and stank. It was tireless and endless in its pursuit, but he could run. He could keep moving. He had to keep moving.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch…

He opened his eyes. The light from the crack in his curtain cut into his eyes and he blinked. Pushing himself partly up he glanced at the time beside his bed and groaned.

“That can’t be the time already,” he sighed, sitting up in bed and swinging his feet to the floor, “God, I’m tired! It feels like I’ve just ran a goddamn marathon!”