Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror Read online

  “Dad?”

  Again the father paid no attention. Gleuvinn stood up, digging his hands into his trench-coat pockets. The man glanced up as he approached, apparently deciding the bandaged stranger was of more interest than his newspaper.

  “Can I help you?”

  Gleuvinn listened to the man’s pulse with escalating hatred, agonizing hunger. He could almost taste the iron on his tongue.

  “Yes,” Gleuvinn hissed like a snake. “I wanted to give your son my pen. Here. You can keep it.”

  Gleuvinn handed the boy his pen. The child looked up, eyes swimming with a contradiction of fear and gratitude. As Gleuvinn walked away, the boy started drawing.

  Underneath his bandages, the vampire smiled.

  Nicholas Conley, as an author, artist and traveler, spends his time searching for inspiration, strange places, interesting people and new experiences . . . well, when he’s not up past 5:00 AM writing his newest story, anyway. Nicholas has published over 20 short stories. His novella “Enslavement” appeared in the anthology The Road to Hell.

  LA RANA

  CYNTHIA (CINA) PELAYO

  Jerry felt hesitant as he followed the old man into the dark basement. The cramped, cement room smelled of earth and mold. White, red, and black votive candles outlined a red pentagram painted on the floor. On warping wooden shelves surrounding the room were stacked ragged boxes which overflowed with dried herbs, chunks of bark, and twisted roots.

  It was the first Friday in March. Today, the Black Mass would take place in a cave off one of the largest mountain tops in the town of Lake Catemaco. It was thought in these parts that today was the most powerful day of the year to cast a spell.

  Crossing his arms and standing off to the side, Jerry watched the old man make his way to an aquarium, its glass covered in a layer of grime.

  “How did you learn to do all of this?” he asked.

  “You don’t learn magic,” the old man said with disgust. “It’s in the blood. My blood. Something people have carried in this town before the damned Hernán Cortés arrived on this land.”

  Visiting a town known for its large population of witches and warlocks was not something Jerry ever thought he would do, but he was here now and there was no way to turn back. Money, a large sum, had already been paid.

  His original plan had been to go to Cancun and let loose, and he had done so. In Cancun, he drank every night and slept with any woman who would go back to his hotel room. But the booze and the women didn’t solve the problem he knew he would return home to in a few days, and every hangover, every post-coital throb in his testicles seemed to hammer that fact home. Then, a bartender at his hotel had told him about this town, and the upcoming mass, and he boarded a bus and made the twenty-two hour journey.

  “Why is the Black Mass held in a cave?”

  The old man turned away from the aquarium with a toad in one hand and a hand-stitched doll made of black cloth in the other. “It is the cave where the devil loiters.”

  The old man pointed to the center of the pentagram. “Stand there,” he said. Jerry did as instructed. After murmuring some words, the old man put the toad in Jerry’s left hand and the doll in Jerry’s right hand.

  “Now, feed the doll to the toad.”

  Jerry did as he was told, prying the slimy animal’s mouth open, and shoving the doll down its throat. The toad wrestled, writhed, and gagged, but Jerry managed to force the doll into its mouth.

  The old man then handed Jerry a rusted, threaded needle. “Now, sew its lips together and when you are done your wife will die in thirty days.”

  Jerry took the needle into his hand, smiled and pierced the animal’s lip.

  Cynthia (cina) Pelayo grew up in a haunted house, so a lifelong fascination with horror and the macabre seemed fitting. She holds degrees in journalism, marketing, and writing. She wears black – most of the time and whenever possible avoids the sun. She is also the Gravedigger/Publisher at www.burialday.com

  APPLE OF MY EYE

  RAMONA GARDEA

  I know what I’m doing. I’m writing this down to make that perfectly clear, before things get blown out of proportion.

  It’s the only thing I could have done.

  I love my son. I’ve done it so he can finally be happy.

  He just wouldn’t stop screaming.

  Simon started screaming a few weeks after he was born. Mike and I weren’t exactly certain what was wrong, but like all new parents, naturally we worried. We consulted Dr. Tubbs as soon as we could. Dr. Tubbs told us not to worry, that it was probably just colic. He said nobody really knows the cause of colic and there’s no definite cure. However, it’ll generally resolve itself by the time a child is three or four months old. In the meantime, Dr. Tubbs told us he could run some tests to see if a change in diet would help.

  But it wasn’t colic. And the screaming didn’t stop. Even as Simon approached his fourteenth month, the screaming persisted. Constant. Piercing. Vibrating the walls of the house and the walls of my skull.

  Simon screamed all through his first birthday party.

  Dr. Tubbs said it was just an unusually long case of colic. Everything else about Simon was normal.

  Mike started spending the night at the office. He needed to sleep, but Simon was always screaming.

  Well, that’s not quite true. Simon didn’t scream whenever he fell into an exhausted sleep. But he never slept long. And I noticed that if he were left alone, he didn’t scream at all. He didn’t even cry.

  But he screams when he sees me. I’m sure that’s the only time he screams. And I can’t leave him alone. He needs me. I need to be with him. So, he’s always screaming.

  I told Mike about it one night when he came over for dinner. He doesn’t eat at home every night anymore. He says he feels bad about leaving us alone like this, but he’s doing what’s best for all of us.

  I know now that my son screams because he sees me. So, the solution was to make sure he couldn’t see me.

  He was screaming long before I used a melon baller to scoop his left eyeball out of its socket. I made sure to boil the melon baller first, to sanitize it. I also sanitized the scissors I used to cut the optic nerve before cauterizing the retinal vein and artery. I made sure I’d done as neat a job as I could before moving on to his right eyeball.

  Don’t worry. I wore latex gloves. I’d done some research online on what to look for, and I’m not squeamish when it comes to doing what’s best for my son. And I have plenty of baby aspirin for the pain I can’t kiss away.

  But the important thing is Simon isn’t screaming anymore. I’m going to go hold him now, because he’s laughing. I’ve never heard him laugh before.

  Ramona Gardea is a native Californian currently living in western Kentucky with her husband and n+1 house cats. She has been published in Kaleidotrope and won second place for fantasy and was also a double finalist for horror in Escape Artists' 2010 Flash II contest.

  POLLY GONE

  NATHAN ROBINSON

  Another damNed hair. She’s been gone for more than two years and I still keep finding them everywhere. The last time was about six months ago, when I found one beneath one of the sofa cushions. Sunset orange, like a dark-red sliver of fire. Thought I’d gotten them all when I’d scoured the entire house to remove every last trace of her.

  But she’s still here; I’m still finding reminders once in a while. I cried when she went. I still cry now.

  Found half a toenail the same day I discovered that strand of copper underneath the cushion. It was painted pink, so it was definitely hers. She was a pink sort of girl. A girly girl, always happy and lacking a care in the world.

  I found a strand more than a foot long, trapped in a road map that I keep on a shelf in the study. Page twenty-five—the Dales—where we’d spent our honeymoon. She’d done the navigating. We’d argued about directions, as most couples do, and she’d closed the map book when we’d arrived at the hotel, sealing her wisp of keratin as a bookmark. A wispy
reminder of a time when we were mildly happier. Before . . .

  Whenever I find one of her hairs it gets me thinking about her. I try to forget, but the bitch keeps haunting me. Even after I moved house, I still find evidence of her scarlet locks in boxes, on clothes, and in my bed. Drives me mad.

  Kirsty didn’t like it, either. She threw a plate at me, convinced that Polly and I were still sleeping together.

  She left anyways, despite my assurances that I was in love with her, not Polly. Polly’s hair all over the place had convinced her that I was lying.

  The day after I reported her missing the police came to interview me. I told them that I’d come home from work to discover that she’d taken a bag of clothes, her purse and left. Her credit card account indicated that she’d booked an online train ticket the day before she disappeared. One way.

  I phoned her in front of the police but the phone number led nowhere. They explained to me that sometimes relationships don’t work and that people abandoning their spouses without warning; happens more commonly than you might think.

  I know.

  There was nothing the police could do, given how it looked like Polly had left of her own accord with no signs of struggle.

  I had to distribute my own missing posters, but I knew she was dead.

  I met Kirsty shortly thereafter. She was sympathetic about my loss at first, until the hairs came between us.

  You can’t divorce a woman who isn’t there or doesn’t want to be found.

  Insurance wouldn’t pay me out without a body.

  So I head down to Polly’s vegetable patch with a spade.

  It’s six feet down . . . but I’ll give them a body.

  She’s still driving me mad.

  Nathan Robinson lives in Scunthorpe, England with his wife, two adoring twin boys and a three-legged cat called Dave. He’s won the Spinetinglers monthly competition six times, four stories published by Panic Press, four with Static Movement and many more to come. Check him out at www.facebook.com/NathanRobinsonWrites for more stories.

  MOTHER

  FRANCA DI PIETRO

  The two boys began to plot Mother’s death. Not only was she cruel, nasty and never around to take care of them or their little sister, Molly, but what she had done to Dad was unforgiveable. They knew all about Max and his late night visits. There was always laughter and noise coming from Mother’s bedroom late at night, and cheap bottles of red wine and cigarette butts were scattered around the lounge room when the boys woke up in the morning. Mother’s crude behavior had to stop . . . and the boys were determined to make sure that it did.

  The first step would be to treat Mother like a queen. The boy’s plan was to cook her favorite dinner, consisting of satay chicken sticks on a bed of white rice. In her wine they would dissolve the sleeping pills that would knock her temporarily unconscious. Mother would then be dragged to the attic where she would be tied up, gagged and left to starve until she rotted away. She behaved like trash and deserved to be treated like it.

  Mother walked back from the pub that afternoon after having lots to drink. She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed a beer—paying little attention to her children slaving away at the stove. Mother sat down, took her shoes off and threw them across the kitchen floor. The boys hurried the food along and served it to Mother who quickly gobbled it down without bothering to thank them.

  Mother chatted to her boys just as she would with her mates down at the pub, and the boys slowly sipped on their glasses of milk, wondering when she would begin to drink her wine. They had dissolved ten pills in the glass placed on the table directly in front of her, but for some reason, Mother didn’t touch it. Molly had given Mother the glass after the boys had prepared it, just as she’d been instructed. While they listened to Mother’s endless chatter, the boys slowly began to doze.

  They awakened to find that they had both been bound with rope. They were situated in the attic on two chairs, Mother glaring at them with a look of hateful contempt. She explained that she could no longer handle the brutal behaviour of her two boys, who reminded her too much of their father. From behind her back Mother produced an axe with a gleaming silver blade. The last thing they saw before the axe fell was Molly’s wicked smile. And in that last fateful instant, they realized that they’d been betrayed. Molly had told Mother about their machinations. Once again Mother had won.

  Franca Di Pietro was born and raised in Australia, but is from an Italian background. Franca works in the International Education Sector and her interests include movies, reading and writing. Franca began writing at a very early age and her aim is to engage and leave readers wanting more.

  THE HOUSE CALL

  C. W. LASART

  “He’s not coming.” Mama’s voice was strained, trailing off into a painful groan. The boy shushed her, wiping her forehead with a damp cloth and smoothing her hair back. He thought of all the times that she had done the same for him during childhood illnesses.

  “Of course he is, Mama. It’s just the storm that’s keeping him. I sent for him. He’s gotta come.”

  Though he said the words, he wasn’t so sure. He had sent for the doctor this morning, but a blizzard had blown in from the mountains that afternoon, and he was afraid that there was no way to reach them. He prayed that the man would be there soon.

  “But not in time!” It was hard to see his mama suffering like this, but all he could offer was a cool rag on her face and soft words of encouragement. She looked awful; the purple rings under her eyes were dark bruises and her flesh had taken on the color of clay. Papa hadn’t even looked this bad on the day that he died of pneumonia.

  “I’m cold.” It was more a moan than actual speech. Her teeth chattered. Her claw-like hands clutched at the blankets.

  “Okay, Mama.” The boy left her side to add more wood to the already raging fire. Though it was bitterly cold outside, the temperature in the cabin was stifling. His shirt was glued to his back with sweat and rivulets ran into his eyes from his hair. His comfort was unimportant though. Mama was cold, so he added more logs to the fireplace and prodded the flames with the iron poker. Shadows danced across the inside of the cabin, cavorting in the fire’s hellish glow.

  A knock at the door startled the boy and he turned towards the sound, buffeted by a blast of icy wind as the doctor strode in, stomping the snow off his boots. Tiny crystals swirled in the air for a moment before melting. A wave of relief swept over him as the boy saw the man, certain that he would bring his ailing mama some relief.

  The doctor wasted no time, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of Mama’s cot. He grabbed her wrist to check her pulse, turning to the boy with an accusatory glance.

  “You should have sent for me sooner, boy! This woman is half-dead!”

  Mama bolted upright in bed and fastened her teeth on the doctor’s throat, tearing out his windpipe in one savage bite, stopping him from any further accusations. As the doctor slumped down on the bed, his torn neck pumped a furious stream of crimson, soiling the sheets and Mama. The boy turned his back and calmly resumed tending the fire. He could hear the awful noise of her feeding, and he tried to block it out.

  “You were close,” he said, more to himself than to the dead man on the bed. “She died two days ago. Thank God you got here in time.”

  C.W. LaSart, a lifelong fan of all things horror, resides in the Midwest with her three children and soul-mate. A recent winner of the Cemetery Dance Amateur Writing Contest, she made her publishing debut in Dark Moon Digest’s first issue. Ad Nauseam, her debut extreme horror anthology, will be released by Dark Moon Books early 2012.

  THE CALL

  ADAM J. MUELLER

  For days he’d heard it, faintly at first; the drums right away; the flute joining in somewhat later.

  Thrump, thrump, thrump: continously, even in sleep. He’d wake, not knowing why, or where; consciousness slowly kindling. Then he’d hear the beat of hands on taught, dried flesh.

  He stood at
the back door with his hand on the knob, staring out the window.

  What makes me keep coming back?

  The darkness outside was absolute; an impenetrable sheet surrounded by gnarled branches, faintly swaying. Nothing stirred.

  His wife called to him from the living room.

  He left the door, sitting down next to her and their two children.

  He looked at his family, feeling something stir that he couldn’t identify; an odd, alien feeling that was nothing like love, or loathing, or even apathy. It felt like there was something inside, something that wanted to leap out and . . .

  Everyone was in bed. The back door again. His hand rested on the knob as he stared into the blackness.

  Thrump, thrump, thrump, and something more; a lighter, higher sound, fainter than anything he’d ever heard before. A thought that had raised its voice.

  The beating went on, his heart seeming to match its rhythm: thrump, thrump, thrump.

  The flute came in softly, secretly. Like an insect, it flitted in and out of the drum’s steady cadence, never repeating the same pattern, never following a predictable path.

  It was a burning butterfly; chaos.

  It made him smile.

  He stood at the back door and stared into the night.

  From the darkness there stepped a man-like shape; a shadow in the twilight that sat down cross-legged in the backyard.

  The thing began to make motions, like it was beating a drum.

  More shapes appeared, forming a circle on the lawn.

  The flute played faster.

  He laid his hand on the doorknob.

  Is it time?

  The drum sped up, the flute becoming more erratic.

  He twisted the knob, pushed the door open and stepped out into the dark. As he walked toward the circle of drums, he heard the beat break into two distinct rhythms; one slow and one fast.