Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror Read online

  OF WHAT IS HIDDEN IN THE BLOOD

  STEPHEN GRESHAM

  Before dawn the boy found another boy almost real but not quite, where he came to be apart and away from passing fears: in Kansas, the loft of his family’s barn more silent than emptiness, with seasoned alfalfa stacks redolent of an old cutting. Tracked by the approach of sunrise, he pursued the sacred space altogether his, never to belong to another. But he welcomed the stranger in order to dissolve his loneliness.

  So there he materialized, this other boy, arrived from the everywhere, unnamed to him, unknown, nearly invisible where he sought himself.

  This other boy, darker than mystical night, brother to his solitude, said nothing, aware of startled breathing at his detection. With the promise of first light, this stranger disintegrated into a gray glitter of mist. In that instant, the boy wanted this other boy never to return; masked by the seductive shadows of things that did not belong, he feared this other boy. Hated him.

  But the stranger returned again and again, trespassed there, companion to the sour heat of darkness, the cooing of pigeons and the dust of no longer alone. This other boy would not fight, insouciant in the face of fisted demands and rage at his presence. He would not leave—this ghostly creature struck dumb—would not be exorcised by desire for no one else. For days this other boy confounded him, caught unsuspecting, sometimes lost in all that he revealed. Two dark boys who could not play. As softly as the beat of bat wings, this other boy whispered of a need for blood. Of an ineffable sharing. Of transformation.

  This other boy raised winds. Being and not being hovered as July torched fields, browned pastures, and lowered the pond. So there he was, nowhere, this other boy he could not be. Yet, familiar, he grew unseen before he needed more than one. When an owl nested in the never was, then he knew: and so it began—the long watching and waiting for what would not depart. This other boy, the answer from the outside, silently showed him the way of blood. This other boy, mouth filled with fangs—there was no resisting—eager to share death but not dying.

  Here was the path of secret things, of a longing for a life-beyond-life-within-death. And then the other boy was gone, slipping into the silvery, uncertain night to a place of great darkness and deep peace. The boy left behind never told his family, for the liquid ebony within him was a river of tasks impossible to explain.

  At night, this boy, forever changed, stole away to children in need of living more livingly—waited for their invitations into their undiscovered places, into where alone is no longer safe, into an intimacy beyond intimacy. An old belonging.

  They would awaken.

  And there he would be.

  A boy thirsting. A boy hungering.

  A boy who promised a life of always.

  A boy hidden in their blood.

  Stephen Gresham has published 20 novels of dark fantasy or supernatural horror since 1982. He has also published more than a dozen short stories. Retired from college teaching, he lives in Auburn, Alabama.

  PRIMAL WERE

  TIMOTHY P. REMP

  Firelight clawed at the darkness, deep inside an olden cave. The tang of blazing wood and hazy smoke stalked old cranks, deep crevices and a stiffening body.

  Black pools of blood coagulated and stained her dead flesh, broken teeth and snarled hair.

  He leaned back on his spread haunches.

  Sweat streamed from beneath his long matted hair, traced his lean naked form and streaked her splattered blood on his face and hands. His blue eyes were rimmed red and punished with dark circles. His breath, as if in fevered love-making, was harsh and short.

  He stared at his clan’s sacred bearskin hanging from the cave wall, complete with skull and feral teeth. He could feel the wicked runes under the skin, pulsating with brimming power as he pulsed, waiting to be released.

  He slowly rocked back and forth, murmuring to himself.

  “S-s-sorry. S-sorry.”

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Amazed, he noticed her body as if it was for the first time. Her beautiful body . . . broken . . . so frail . . . so soft, he thought.

  “Sorry. S-s-s-sorry.”

  Growing guilt forced his upper teeth into his lower lip as the heat of the fire waned and doubt began gnawing at his conscience. Still the skin’s primal power was flaunted before him, teasing him as she teased him.

  The bearskin moved. Its hollowed eye sockets tilted, drawing in his gaze. His breath came faster and faster. He wanted it, he hungered for it. He screamed. Moaned.

  He tore the skin down. The soft thick fur swathed his thick thighs and manhood, teasing release; release from the guilt, from humanity.

  He flung the skin over his shoulders and yanked its skull over his own head. His vision narrowed as the smeared runes bit deeply and tore into his humanity until nothing was left.

  ***

  The were-beast roared. It bound out of the cave and into the night, hungering for more.

  Timothy P. Remp is the Assistant Editor and contributor for Shroud Magazine. He is also a member of the Horror Writers’ Association (HWA), and New England Horror Writers Association (NEHW). He has had several flash and short stories published on-line, print and in several anthologies. He has also been a finalist in four script writing contests.

  QUESTION MARK

  ROBERT WILDE

  During the evening of November 28th last year, police were called to the Crompton family household by neighbor Janet Painter. She had seen someone skulking in the Crompton’s back garden. The police confirmed Mrs. Painter’s suspicions, finding the Crompton’s back door had been forced open. They soon discovered that the Crompton’s eldest son, Richard, must have disturbed the intruder, as they found him bleeding on the kitchen floor. Despite the swift arrival of an ambulance, Richard died of multiple stab wounds.

  After confirming that the assailant had fled the scene, the officers entered Richard’s room, which was normally kept locked. Richard’s room was long and narrow, with a large window overlooking the cul-de-sac. The content looked normal and neatly ordered: a desk, shelves, and a bed which stuck out into the room, dividing it in half. Then they turned on the light.

  Richard’s walls were covered in photographs and timetables, organized in a very simple manner. The left hand side of his room corresponded to the left hand side of the cul-de-sac, while the right wall coincided with the right of the street. Photos were clustered together depicting the inhabitants of each house, with their schedules and routines, the rooms in which they slept, and other private details.

  Richard intended to commit the greatest mass killing by an individual in modern memory. Taking out your classmates had been done, as had shooting random passers-by. But nobody had ever killed an entire street in one night: ten houses and thirty-eight people, including his own family. The plan had a perverse beauty. After studying his neighbors obsessively, he would pick a night when they were all present. Then, he would start in one house and work through them, one by one, killing the inhabitants until, once the sun had risen, the cul-de-sac would be, quite literally, dead. His wall revealed the details of each death. The first ones would be silent, using garrotes, progressing in intensity until the final one; perhaps with an axe, or an electric carving knife. Only one neighbor appeared to have stood a chance. Richard had evidently taken a shine to Victoria, the eldest daughter of the family next door. While the wall left no doubt as to his intent, no method of killing had been listed. Instead, there was only a question mark.

  I know all this because the police interviewed me the next day. Richard had been a childhood friend of mine, but we’d grown apart. I left for college and Richard stayed behind. Perhaps I should be flattered, as my house was to have been first. Home on break; my name was first on his list. Richard’s killer has not yet been caught.

  Robert Wilde is a freelance writer from Britain. He covers history by day and writes weird tales by night; it's sometimes hard to tell which has the higher casualty figure.

  RESIDUE OF DECAY<
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  RANIA HANNA

  Nourished by the residue of decay, the man bent down low to feed off the body of the dying soldier. He drank the few remaining drops left in his victim’s veins, and continued down along the bloody battlefield. His face was one that had obviously been hidden from the sunlight for years. His paper-thin face crinkled when his lips pursed to suck the blood out of the brave fallen. The moon burned with an unnatural red hue, dark veins channeling their way on its surface. The man listened to the battlefield’s whispers. Picking out the last prayers of the dying, he stole the weakened lives and gloried in the gore that attacked his vision. His dark eyes smoldered with their intense craving for more. When he had had his fill of flesh and blood, he left the field and continued on in the night.

  Shadows haunted him, fear knocked at his withered heart’s door, but still he continued on. Drawing his midnight cape tighter around his body, he quickened his pace. The shadows sped up with him. He broke into a run, running as if the demons of hell were pursuing him with the vilest of weapons, until he entered a secluded cemetery. He stopped, his parched lungs crinkling harshly under the stress of his labored breathing. He listened intensely through the cemetery trees, listening for sounds of the shadows. He gave out a strange sound, a suffocating and hollow sound. He stood statue still—a pathetic monument of desperation and fear. The sheer terror he was plagued by would have driven those weaker in spirit to complete and utter madness. Fear bloomed in his desolate heart.

  A violent shock of maddening lightning evolved through the night’s sky and highlighted the sharp silhouettes of the tombstones. He fell deeper into throes of terror and anger. His mind was imprisoned in a cage of paranoia and became strangled by virgin fear. He fell heavily to his knees, clasping his hands as if in repentant prayer, his face uplifted to the harsh, black sky. Tears of blood streamed down his face, forging crimson channels on his withered skin. The violent winds whipped his flesh, stabbing him with the most forcible of all kisses of death. The shadows flitted eerily in front of his eyes, caressing him with their inky blackness. His tears rained down upon the unhallowed soil, nourishing the worms that fed off blaspheming decay. The shadows danced around the man, maddening him further.

  His mental memory strip inked his mind’s eyes. His scars, never truly healed, bled out the tears of his crimes. Time reversed its stream and stabbed him with the deeds of the past. The shadows kept moving in on the guilty man, enclosing him, swallowing him in their darkness. They engulfed him completely, encroaching harshly deep beyond the weak seams of his mind. They tore at his thoughts, ripping violently at the delicate shreds of his decrepit sanity. They demolished him, stealing the last dim lights of his life. He screamed out his tears and invoked upon the shadows for the prison of death; deeply craved for after the prison of immortal life. The shadows ignored him, refusing to pause in their mental torture. His guilt raged on, and the shadows pressed on. But they did not leave him, for the crimes of our blood are shadows.

  Rania Hanna is a young author currently working currently on a trilogy, the first novel tentatively entitled Shahor.

  ROAD HAZARD

  CHARLIE BOOKOUT

  I-70 cut through the Kansas night like taut wire. Sam switched on the rented Camry’s radio, and the FM station he’d found back in Topeka was still clear; still on its 90’s kick. He couldn’t remember the exact name of the group that was playing, but he was pretty sure it had the word “crow” in it. Counting the Black Sheryl Crows, he thought and grinned at the oncoming headlights.

  He could sense the enormous presence of his next landmark coming up on the right: the first in an army of windmills that would loom against the stars, row upon row, for the next ten miles.

  There they are . . . That means six hours to Denver, and a drink. A few meetings to sleep through tomorrow and I’m back on the road.

  “You’re right about one thing, my dear,” Sam said aloud to the radio. “Every day is a road. But mine is not winding.”

  ***

  It was both instantaneous and eternal, the way all highway crashes are. The thing standing in his lane was almost human. It was in his lights for the briefest of moments, but Sam saw with clarity its pale translucent skin, its ragged hospital gown and the indescribable horror of its mouth. He swerved to miss it and overcorrected. As the car spun out of its third roll and pirouetted into a cornfield, Sam lost consciousness. But Sheryl kept on singing until the fiery end. I get a little bit closer to feelin’ fine . . .

  ***

  Since its escape, it had been living in an abandoned service station off the exit 219 ramp. It slept during the day, its bed a pigeon-shit covered chunk of drywall stuffed into the stinking remains of the checkout counter. At night it searched for the manna the interstate would sometimes expel into the ditch. There were never any cats or dogs out in the dark territory between towns, but coyotes were good. . . especially if they were still twitching.

  Its latest find—a putrid owl—was down to just bones and feathers, so it had tried the trick again. It raced to the smoking wreckage. It had only moments, before others would come, and it would have to disappear into the corn. It was cautious as it hurried. It still had a sliver of glass lodged in its tongue from the last time it licked human blood off the hot pavement.

  ***

  One Saturday in August, some local kids set fire to the gas station. It curled up in a corner, trying to hide from the flames. The firemen heard it screaming. And afterwards, they heard it screaming in their dreams.

  Charlie Bookout lives with his family in Gentry, Arkansas, and is part of a group of artists who have converted Gentry’s abandoned mortuary into a studio devoted to independent music and film. More of Charlie’s stories will appear in upcoming installments of Residential Aliens, Silverthought, and The Washington Pastime.

  SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT

  COURTNEY RENE

  As the last slow heartbeat sounds, I ease out of the shell that had been my home for the last few weeks. In my basic form I am nothing but darkness. I am a shadow, for now.

  I glide quickly over the dark earth until I come to a dwelling of yellow. Flowers of red and white border the home. I hate them. I circle the home until I find entrance. A single window opened just enough to let in the cool night air.

  I slip inside and drift slowly up to the far dark corner near the ceiling, where I blend in perfectly. A dim light puts off a rosy glow illuminating the room and its contents. A small form lies in a bed surrounded by bars. I move to investigate.

  It’s an innocent. It doesn’t know fear. It won’t do at all. I caress the small body. I watch with glee as it cringes even in sleep. A small cry squeaks out of its little mouth. Maybe later I can play.

  Next I flow to a big room at the center of the house. I hide in the darkness along the walls at the floor. A big form is stretched out on the couch watching television. Humans are too easy. I laugh deep and hollow.

  The man sits up, looks around, alert. He can’t see me. He doesn’t know to look in the shadows. I slip under the couch and tickle his toes with wispy, smoky hands.

  He shivers and jumps to his feet. I laugh again, enjoying the game. I watch as he checks doors and windows, searching the night for danger. He doesn’t realize danger hovers quietly right above him.

  His gaze swings toward the back corner of the house and I wonder–

  I drift in that direction to look. I enter another room, where a long slender form sleeps. I settle directly over her. I caress her face.

  She shivers. Her eyes snap open and I retreat back toward a high dark corner.

  I watch. I wait.

  She looks around. She sees and she fears. She knows what she is looking for within the darkness. She is perfect in her fear.

  I create the illusion of wings, like a bat. I fly directly at her, fast and furious. I need her to see. I need her to . . .

  She screams.

  I force my way inside her open mouth.

  I shift.

  I settle.


  I take hold.

  “Honey?” the man says from the doorway. “Are you all right?”

  I blink my new eyes and bring the man into sharp focus. I smile wide. I beckon to him.

  Now that I have a new home, a new form, it’s time to play.

  Courtney Rene lives in the State of Ohio with her husband and two children. She’s a member and graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. Her works include short stories, magazine articles, anthologies and her YA series Shadow Dancer. For a complete listing or to contact her, please visit: www.ctnyrene.blogspot.com.

  THE LEOPARD OPTIMIST

  BENJAMIN MCELROY

  Brendan awoke to his young daughter’s screams. He rushed into her bedroom as any concerned, single father would, and found her seated on the carpeted floor, sobbing.

  “What’s wrong, Carla?” Brendan asked, kneeling down next to her.

  “A monster was in my room,” she said.

  “What kind of monster?”

  “He said he was the Leopard Optimist.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A giant yellow butterfly—with mean eyes.”

  “I think you had a nightmare.”

  “He was real!”

  “Some dreams feel that way, but—”

  “He said he’s been watching me for a few nights, and wants to stab a big pin into my tummy so he can admire me forever.”

  “I’ll never let anything hurt you.”