Story: Possessed

(My most recent effort in the genre of short horror fiction.  I don’t know about you lot, but I try to be friends with my demons!)

“You don’t have to be so nervous,” Hannah reassured me. “It may seem strange to you, but this is just going to be a routine intervention. We do it all the time, actually.”

“I don’t know,” I muttered, wringing my hands together as I stared fixedly at the cracked pavement passing beneath my feet. “‘Routine’ doesn’t exactly seem like the right word to describe an exorcism. Besides, if I actually do have demons inside me, shouldn’t we be a little more… well, alarmed about it?”

“Oh, Jess,” Hannah chided with a knowing smile, “Lots of people have demons in them. I’d go so far as to say most people, actually. They just don’t realize it. It’s really nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Okay, yeah, I get that lots of people have metaphorical demons to deal with – phobias, addictions, depression, that sorta thing – but we’re talking about real demons, right? Living, thinking spirits from Hell that want to get inside you and take over your soul?”

Story: No Contest

(I had originally conceived this story as ending differently, but when I came up with the current version, I just couldn’t resist!)

“Alright, kids,” the counselor announced, a devilish grin stretching across her face.  “You know what time it is!”

Jack nodded vigorously, bouncing up and down with excitement.  He had been waiting for this moment all day.

“That’s right!” she responded.  “It’s time for our scary story competition!  I want you to share the most terrifying tales you can imagine, and the camper with the most depraved imagination wins bragging rights for the whole summer!  Muahahahaha!” the counselor finished with an over-the-top evil laugh.

Jack had to sit on his hands to contain his enthusiasm.  The atmosphere was perfect.  The campers were seated on log benches around a vigorous fire, surrounded by darkly foreboding trees through which the wind rustled like something alive.  Jack had always adored the bizarre and frightening – it was in his nature – but tonight, horror stories weren’t the only thing that had him excited.  The other reason for his anticipation was seated directly across the circle…

Story: Psilocybe

(I originally wrote this for a scary story contest on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights.  It didn’t win, but I still like it anyway ^_^)

I don’t believe.  It’s not real.  I don’t believe.

I repeat this over and over in my head, like a mantra, but still the memories, the dreams persist unabated.  She comes to me in my dreams.  The Gray Woman.  Faceless, spine bent into unnatural curves and conformations, drab skirt hanging like a bell around tall, emaciated legs.  Reaching, always reaching towards me from the dark, a basket of oozing fungi hanging from her groping arm.  I run as if through molasses between the shadowy silhouettes of the trees, bending and shifting as if racked by a gale, though the air is stiflingly thick and still.  Every night, the same dream, haunting me, causing me to awaken tense and unrested.

I wouldn’t complain, though, if it were just the dreams.  I could deal with the dreams.  What bothers me most is when they bleed into reality.  When I see the silhouette of the Gray Woman pass across a window, or disappear around a corner in front of me.  When I see her out of the corner of my eye in broad daylight, drifting through the city crowd, or standing in an alley, hunched over, faceless visage leering at me from the shadows.

Story: (My Attempt At) Two-Sentence Horror Stories

(Not exactly my best work, but I thought I’d share it here anyway. I guess brevity isn’t my strong suit.  Two-sentence status on these was mostly achieved through a very liberal interpretation of the word “sentence.”)

–

While up late working at your computer, you see one of those disgusting, many-legged house centipedes skittering around on your floor, and resolve to kill it before it gets away. Wielding a rolled-up magazine, you chase the centipede under the bed; but as you stick your arm and head into the dark void beneath the bed skirts, you are seized with a sharp, sudden dread and quickly withdraw back into the brightly-lit room… only to discover that now, they are everywhere.

–

Tanya awoke to the sound of some talk show murmuring unintelligibly from the half-muted speakers of her alarm clock/radio, and reached across blearily to shut it off. It wasn’t until her hand brushed over a cold, clammy something resting on top of her nightstand that she remembered she was in a hotel room, and it didn’t have a radio.

Story: The Stalker

(This story was originally divided into two parts because it got WAY too long for Creepypasta.com to publish in one shot.  I decided to publish it all together here for the sake of convenience.  Enjoy!)

Transferring to a new school in the middle of the semester really sucks. First off, it’s a logistical nightmare jumping into the thick of seven new classes and getting caught up with all the material that may or may not have been covered in your old school. More importantly for a slacker like me, it makes developing a successful social life virtually impossible, at least for most of the remaining year. Everyone already knows each other and has formed up their little separate cliques… the school clubs and activities are running full steam and not really gunning for new members… and then, of course, there’s the omnipresent fact that you’rethe freaking “New Kid” and everybody knows it. Yeah, mid-semester transfers can be pretty crappy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. When you’ve gotta move, you’ve gotta move, and I definitely had to move. So here I was, walking in to my first day at Black Creek High School in middle-of-nowhere West Virginia… in the middle of freaking February. I stepped off of the bus into a blast of freezing air that made me miss Atlanta more than ever, and made a beeline for the front door. Despite the cold, a fair amount of people seemed to be socializing on the sidewalk in front of the school instead of taking it indoors, and even in the roughly twenty-second span of time it took me to cover the distance from the school bus to the building, I felt several pairs of eyes turn to look me over.

Story: Face Your Fears

(My first scary story posted online – and still one of my favorites!)

The sun was just setting on a clear and brisk fall evening as Diane began making her way home through the winding, cobbled streets of the city. In the countryside, it might have been a lovely twilight, but much of its beauty was lost here. The tall brick buildings crowded close to both the streets and each other, obscuring the sunset and plunging the ground below into deep shadow. The streetlights had already been on for quite some time. They cast sickly yellow pools of artificial light around their immediate area, but somehow never managed to bridge the gap between adjacent lightposts entirely. They were bright enough, however, to hide most of the stars from view, leaving the sky above the city a dull, undifferentiated gray slowly fading to black. Incidentally, if one were to gaze up at this uninspiring sky while walking between the close-set buildings – and if the haze and shadows were just right – the tops of the structures would seem to lean in and reach towards each other ever so slightly, as if trying to enfold the street like a giant hand and block out the sky completely. It was enough to make even a deserted street seem unbearably claustrophobic.

Diane did not gaze up at the uninspiring sky as she walked home. She also did not gaze left, or right, or anywhere else except forward and slightly downward, fixating on the cracked and uneven brick road immediately ahead of her. Walking the city alone at nightfall could be dangerous, and she knew it. And while it was not quite late enough to mark the transition from mildly risky to downright stupid, it was still plenty late enough for Diane to feel uncomfortable. She walked briskly, ignoring the shadows of strangers passing on either side of her, the lights and laughter from pubs and shops lining the street, and the dark, gaping mouths of the shadowy alleyways in between. She wanted nothing more than to be at home, curled up in front of the fire with a good book; and she silently cursed her poor planning as the streets darkened around her.

Story: A Demon’s Game

(A loose follow-up to The Devil Game.  I liked it just as much, but it never got nearly as popular.  Go figure.)

Come to me, children, and follow my way,
Into the world of Darkness and Magic.
With all my power, I’ll show you the way,
To all your dreams, hopes, and illusions.
– DHT, “Magic Melody”

With quiet reverence, you ease open the delicate wrought-iron gate and step into the moonlit night garden. The faint fragrance of roses pleases your senses, and a soft breeze lightly tousles your hair to and fro. A fountain stands immediately in front of you, its centerpiece a dreamlike, abstract bronze sculpture whose twists and turns form the vague and distorted shape of a woman. Water flows in melodious, burbling streams from the tips of what seem like the statue’s beckoning fingers. Otherwise, the place is deathly silent. A brick path circles the fountain and splits off in several directions into the tangles of semi-wild foliage that represent the garden proper. Moonlight shines through gaps between broad, tropical leaves, amongst which bloom flowers of bright blue, garnet red, velvety purple, and inky black. It is a beautiful place, and yet its surreal atmosphere is, on a subconscious level, vaguely disturbing. The atmosphere seems charged as if with faint electricity, and the whole place carries a distinct aura of waiting.

This doesn’t deter you, however. In fact, it is in large part what attracts you. The darkness, the mystery, the dreamlike atmosphere, even the shadowy undercurrent of fear and menace… these things just add to the excitement and magnificence of the garden, bewitching your senses and drawing you almost hypnotically further in along the brick path betwixt the trees, hedges, and vines. As you pass about the fountain, marveling at the clear, sparkling water, you hear the iron gate creak shut behind you of its own accord. A strangely pleasant shiver of apprehension courses down your spine as your heartbeat picks up speed. Some small, rational part of your mind wants to leave, to get out right now… but most of it still wants to go further in, to explore, regardless of what dangers might or might not be involved. For most of your largely ordinary life, you’ve wished for something… magical… to happen to you, and that’s exactly what this place is. Magical. Even if it seems to be a dark sort of magic, you can’t simply walk away and leave it behind. So, nerves abuzz, heart fluttering like a little songbird, you slowly venture down one fork of the brick path, underneath a shadowy canopy of lush foliage, deeper into the garden…

Story: The Devil Game

(Probably my most popular piece of fiction so far.  Enjoy!)

Pray, for devils have no reason
Satan waits to curse your ways
Have you seen it in his eyes in the sunset?
Have you wondered if he’s laughing when he plays?

– Kansas, “The Devil Game”

This is a set of instructions for how to speak with the Devil.

Which, as those of you with any sort of brains at all might note, is a patently moronic proposition on the face of it; one likely to culminate in any number of thoroughly unpleasant fates. Honestly, it would probably be smarter to publish your credit card number on Facebook, or take up a career in crocodile-wrestling.

But then, that isn’t going to stop you, is it? Not if you’re sincerely interested, at least. Technically, if you do everything just right, there’s a fair chance you’ll walk away scot-free; and that seems to be reason enough for some people to decide that it’s a good idea. Especially if you’re the fate-tempting, thrill-seeking, scare-junkie type. Or the desperate type.