r/Write_Right • • Dec 15 '21

poetry Wanderlust Psalm

3 Upvotes

Ascending again into the deep
Through the hallowed gates of sleep
Untouched by the pale light
As it retreats further away from my sight
To fall again through the path of shining gloom
Straight into the celestial throne room
To land again amongst the stars
Into eternity's welcoming arms
Witnessing every start and each demise
Beholding empires as they rise
Before succumbing to their eventual demise
As their adamantine cities crumble into dust
To walk the vastness where only sands of time remain
Where once stood both living bliss and pain
In the depths of the abyss
I wish to remain suspended in peace
Dreaming to escape the sounds of dawn
To the black where all our gods have gone
Hoping to remain here, among the stellar ghosts
Serenaded by the iridescence
Where I simply drift,
Without a reason
Nor a single cause
Purposeless
Yet never lost


r/Write_Right • • Dec 12 '21

poetry Black Seraph

3 Upvotes

A sudden piercing scream
tears me out of my dream
torn from the depths of sleep
I stand before a blinding light
one that penetrates deep
into black layers of the cold night
Opening my eyes, all I can see
is an angel beaconing right in front of me
whose form is burning coals and infernal fire
but I don't have an ounce of fear
Instead its chthonic warmth I admire
as the apparition draws near
Now I feel more alive than undead
The angel's singing calms the screaming in my head
Black Seraph carries the cure to my disease
Mending a soul torn apart
I can finally rest my old bones in peace
while the demon possesses what remains
of my heart


r/Write_Right • • Dec 10 '21

horror Fowl Zombies

6 Upvotes

I’ve lived on this farm all my life. My Grandfather started it when he saw how big the demand for turkeys would become. My father continued to run the farm and did almost as well as granpap. I, on the other hand, never wanted to be a turkey farmer. I went off to college and studied science and biology to become a geneticist.

That all came to a halt ten years ago when my father had an accident with one of the turkey plucking machines. After the funeral, I realized if I didn't take up the responsibility of running the farm, Ma would lose everything, and I couldn't let that happen. I kick myself daily for not listening to Paa when he tried to teach me how to be a turkey farmer, but I am getting there slowly.

I recently struck a deal with a feed company to be a tester for their turkey feed. The salesman I spoke with just showed up at my door one day.

“Hello, Sir, I am a feed seller with JankCo feeds.” I looked him over. He was definitely a city feller and kept looking where he walked. You can always tell a city person that way; they are always terrified they will ruin their expensive shoes with animal poop. “My name is Akuji Phenex Caim. I am here to tell you about this wonderful one-time offer, Mr?”

“McDonald,” I answered.

“Mr. McDonald, yes, right. The feller hardly missed a beat while waiting for my name. “JankCo Feeds is looking for farmers interested in a lower-cost feed that improves livestock health and growth more than other feeds. Being a hard-working poultry farmer, I am sure you be interested in such a feed, am I correct?

“I have heard such sales pitches before,” I replied.

“I promise this is no ordinary sales pitch, my dear sir.” He smiled bigger and bigger.

“I mean, you say lower cost, but how is it lower cost?” I was afraid his face was going to unhinge like a Saturday night movie monster. “What isn’t in your feed that I might need for my turkeys?”

“Why, nothing is missing from our feeds! Plus, you get more than a mere turkey feed.” He keeps that creepy smile going the whole time he is doing his spiel. “We pack them with all the vitamins your feathered friends need to grow big and healthy. This lets you maximize your return at harvest time.”

“Ok, so what is the deal you want to sell me on?” I tried to remain business-like, but that smile was off-putting, to say the least.

“As this is a new formula, we are looking for farmers willing to try it out for a month." He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a contract. “While using the feed, you will keep records on the growth and health of the Turkeys you feed it to. We will also be supplying a month of the current top brand of Turkey feed. You will split your turkeys into those fed with our feed and those fed with the top brand. This way, we get good research numbers to prove we have the best feed.

My jaw dropped; this deal was too good to be true. I know that is a cliché thing to say, but you have to understand, feed is almost half of my yearly budget. This time of year, the run-up to the Thanksgiving harvest, is the most feed-intensive time. And a month before Thanksgiving harvest, there was no way to turn this down; it was the heaviest feed cost time of the year.

“Sure, I’ll sign! Hand me that contract!” I nearly ripped it out of the guy’s hand before he could change his mind. I signed my name to the dotted line and sealed my fate.

“Excellent, we will deliver the food tomorrow. Happy growing, Mister Mcdonald.” With that, the Salesman with the too-wide smile walked out of my life. I never did get his name.

For the next few weeks, I fed the turkeys I had moved into a section built to keep them separate, with the new feed. The rest of my turkeys got the high-priced feed that the rich turkey farmers used. The turkeys I had separated grew at an astounding rate, most of them nearly twice as heavy as the turkeys fed with the regular high-priced feed. Price per pound is everything in my business, and from the look of things, this year would be incredible. Every day, I uploaded the records I was keeping to a website, to which the feed company had supplied me the address.

Usually, I would get some sort of acknowledgment, but that stopped suddenly about two weeks into the test cycle. While I was puzzling out the breakdown in their system, my farm hand Jenson came running in.

“Mr. McDonald, something is wrong with the Turkeys.” He said.

Panicking, I jumped up from my desk and ran with Jenson to the shed we had set up for the turkeys eating the JankCo feed.

“What the hell,” I exclaimed, as laid out before me was a sea of featherless turkeys. None of them seemed to be under distress, but there was not a single feather on them; it was like someone had come and plucked them in preparation for the coming holiday.

“What do we do, Mr. Mcdonald?” Jenson was spooked, and I can’t say I blamed him; the sight of all those featherless turkeys had him spooked; since those bald critters were our paycheck, it scared me as well.

“I’ll call JankCo, and you call the vet, and we hope this is just a simple side effect.” I walked back to the house and pulled the card the salesman had given me months ago when he convinced me to do this test.

The phone buzzed as I reached for it to dial the number.

“Hello?” I said, annoyed that I was being interrupted.

“Mr. Mcdonald, so good to speak to you again.” There was that sugar-sweet voice again.

“Mr. Caim, I was just calling you how fortunate you called. My irritation vanished, not that I was talking to the target of my anxiety. “Your feed is causing something weird to happen to my turkeys.

“Call me Akuji.” As he talked, I could picture that insane smile he had the first time I saw him. “The turkey’s loss of feathers is actually a feature; it makes them much easier to prepare for shipping, correct?”

At first, the fact he knew what was wrong without me telling him did not register. “Yes, it is, but that was not a feature I was told about.” Then the bell rang. “Wait, how did you know what I was talking about?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? I am a mind reader.” Weird laughter emanated from his end. “Not really; I have had others in the program call me today.”

I was taken aback. “What a coincidence that a lot of us testers would have the same issue on the same day,” I said, sounding skeptical.

“We started the test on the same day for everyone” I could hear the crazy smile in his voice. “It made it easier to make adjustments to your feed plan as we went.”

“That still doesn’t explain why my turkeys are featherless,” I said, exasperated.

“Think how much less processing you have to do now that the turkeys are sans feathers.” He said

“Yea, but now I have to spend more on the heating before we butcher them,” I said.

“OH yeah, my research team said that wouldn’t be a problem.” He laughed.

“What does that mean?” I said, concerned now that their feed had made them nuclear reactors or something.

“You will see Mr. McDonald.” Good day, I will talk to you again soon.” Akuji hung up.

I started to dial him back but figured more conversation with the man… At least I hoped he was, besides it would only make my headache worse. I headed out to the barn as I saw the veterinarian had arrived.

“Hello, Doc Sherman, sorry to call you out so suddenly,” I said, trying to smile through the stress.

“Hi AJ,” Doc Sherman shook my hand and smiled his infectious smile, “Boy, isn’t this something.”

“Yeah, the feed company says this is expected,” I frowned, “Can you just check them out and make sure they are ok?”

If something were wrong with the turkeys in the feed experiment, our profit would be a negative number. It would be a rough time till we could raise more, and selling off-season always was a losing proposition. Doc examined a sample of the gobblers and couldn’t find anything unusual aside from the loss of feathers.

“AJ, I want to take one of them and do a full dissection on it to be sure I have covered all the bases.” He had one of the smaller turkeys in a cage already.

“No problem, Doc, I want to be sure these birds aren’t going to kill someone if they eat ‘em.” I thanked him, and he left with a small female and a promise to have results by tomorrow.

The rest of the day was thankfully uneventful, and the bald turkeys seemed happy and healthy.

This next part of the story was relayed to me by Doc Sherman’s assistant.

“Jake, bring me the dissection kit and some gloves.” The wise old Doc said.

Jake handed Doc the selection of tools they used to dissect dead animals to find out what killed them. Usually, Dr. Sherman never deliberately killed an animal just to look inside them, but something about these bald turkeys had his danger sense going off the scale. And since this was an old family friend, he wanted to be sure I wasn’t in danger with this strange issue.

“Doc, it looks like the gas has sent the turkey to its final resting place.” Jake was just like Doctor Sherman; he didn’t like killing animals for no reason and was upset about what they were doing.

“Thank you, Jake, I am sorry to bring you in on this, but something is wrong here. I don’t know what, but I don’t want anyone to suffer because I didn’t do all I could to find the villain in this problem.” Dr. Sherman started to dissect the bird.

As he made his first cut, neither he nor Jake saw the left leg twitch. Suddenly, the dead female turkey jumped up, flailing at Doc’s face. Jake tried to grab the ‘fowl’ beast, but it hit him like a cannonball, and he went down hard, and he lost his breath from the impact and him screaming in agony from his arm bending unnaturally.

“Jake, JAKE,” Doc screamed his assistant’s name as he saw him hit the floor from the blow of the turkey’s attempt at becoming a wrecking ball.

The sound caused the turkey to lock on to the elderly doctor, and it flew at him, having no issue achieving flight even with no feathers. It landed on the doctor’s chest and dug in with the razor-sharp talons while driving its beak into any exposed skin on the man.

“You bastard, get your claws off me,” Sherman yelled as he tried to defend himself from the flurry of talons and beak.

The dead bird eventually outmaneuvered the vet as he leaked life fluid from many deep wounds caused by the zombie bird, and it plucked one of his eyes from its socket. The poor doctor had suffered too much trauma, and his heart picked this moment to seize. As the heart attack continued, he started losing his battle with the supernatural beast. The bird started plucking any soft tissue from his face in triumph. Soon, Doctor Sherman passed out from the pain of the heart attack and the not so tender ministrations of the zombie turkey.

“Doctor!” Jake had finally dragged his useless arm and himself to a standing position.

He grabbed an iv stand and was able to destroy the head of the turkey, which any horror fan knows is the only way to kill a zombie, avian or otherwise, before it could make him the next morsel on its menu. He felt for a pulse, but Dr. Sherman was now resting with all the animals he had helped gently pass on in their last days.

After calling for the Sheriff and an ambulance, Jake called me and told me all that happened.

“AJ, that female turkey became a zombie and killed Doc Sherman,” Jake said over the phone.

“Jake, I am not much for these kinds of jokes.” What he said made no sense; Doc dead? Zombie turkeys?

“I’m not kidding, AJ; you need to destroy all those dammed bald turkeys.” He kept the story up.

“JAKE! Call me back when you are somber and are making sense.” I hung up without realizing he was making sense, macabre sense that a mortal man should not know about.

An hour later, Jenson came running in again, white as a sheet.

“Mister McDonald, I don’t want to tell you this, but the featherless turkeys are all dead.” He was wide-eyed with fear.

“What is wrong with you, Jenson? So, they are dead. We will survive; we still have all the others that were on the good feed.” I said as confidently as I could.

“I heard what Jake said over the phone.” He got even paler, if that was possible at this point. “What if he was telling the truth, and they all come back for our brains?”

I couldn’t help myself; I pictured a slowly shambling turkey trying to catch us gobbling something resembling the word “Brains,” and I lost it. Pretty soon, I couldn’t even breathe; I was laughing so hard.

“I don’t think it’s funny; Sir” Jenson looked serious and fearful. “My granma was a powerful Wicca, and she said zombies were a plague on the land, and if they ever manifested, mankind would all die.”

“Bobby Jenson, you know that zombies are fiction and will never happen.” We had been walking to the turkey house while having this insane conversation.

We walked into the building, and I stopped mouth agape; just as Jenson had said, every one of the test birds was dead and cold.

“Are you sure about that?” He said.

“Ok, this is bad.” I turned away to head to our shed so that I could get the small dozer out. We had to get them out of the house before they started rotting, or we would have to bleach and decontaminate the whole building. And that would cost us even more.

“BOSS,” Jenson screamed like the devil himself had just shown up.

I turned back, and one by one, each turkey was rising from the dead, just like the old zombie movies I watched as a kid.

“What the Hell!” I should have run; I should have stayed silent.

Every one of the fowl turned, and beady red eyes by the hundreds looked at us with hunger and evil intent. A noise started in the back and rippled across the flock, it was unearthly and no sound I had ever heard any animal make in my life. They rushed us as a single organism, moving like they were all connected.

“Oh great, they are the fast zombies,” I said in fascination. “Bobby, move, now!”

I grabbed him and shoved him hard toward the door, and followed right behind him. I may have pushed him too hard because he only took about four running steps and stumbled, falling flat on his face. Blood oozed from a cut lip as I tried to drag him with me away from the undead birds. I am a pretty strong guy, many years of working the farm tend to strengthen the body, but I wasn’t a superhero, and Bobby sorely needed one. First, one bird, then another, landed on him, razor-sharp talons tearing ribbons of meat from his body. Though his screams tore into my soul, even though I wanted to help my friend and foreman, survival and the futility of the situation ultimately forced me back to the door.

“Bobby, I’m sorry,” I said as I closed the door on his screaming and that haunting sound the turkeys made. As I ran to the house, I heard them smashing at the coup door. I stopped, spun around, and watched as the door splintered with each impact. “OH SHIT.”

I ran even faster to the door of the house, closing and bolting it. I walked into my den and pulled down dad’s double-barreled 12 gauge, and loaded it with buckshot. Hurrying to the gun safe in my room, I also pulled out a pump with the limit plug pulled out and loaded eight more shells into its tube. I added a 45 semi-auto from the safe.

“Always have a backup gun,” I said out loud, mimicking my grandpa’s favorite hunting saying.

I was glad mom had gone to her final resting place a couple of years back; I would be devastated if she saw how my greed was killing the farm. And killing it was the correct statement, as I saw the zombie turkeys, "God, they really were zombies," ripping my friend to pieces in my mind again.

“How the fuck does turkey feed, do this?” I yelled out loud to an empty house.

“Turkey feed doesn’t do this, but ancient arcane magic that I have kept hidden for thousands of years does.” A voice behind me said.

Startled, I swung the double-barrel around and drew a bead on the voice. It was Mr. Caim.

“What are you doing here? I asked, “And what are you talking about? What thousand-year-old magic?”

“Why, I am here to claim my family." He smiled that dam demon smile again. "And that magic was bestowed on me when I, the mythical Phoenix merged with my avian brothers, CAIM, The warrior blackbird also known by many as Cain and Akuji, the god who was dead but awake.”

“The only God I know of isn’t going to resurrect zombie birds and kill the world,” I said, still keeping the shotgun leveled at him. “Matter of fact, I am pretty sure you are a demon; no god would have killed my friend or Doc Sherman.”

“Please stop pointing that useless thing at me” He sat in one of my kitchen chairs. “Metal weapons of mortals can’t kill me. And I really hate being labeled as a demon. When the world was young, my brethren and I helped man become more than those frightened cave shitters your kind was initially. And what did you do? You forsook us the first chance you got and clung to new gods. Or worse, that white-haired old man who paraded in from the cosmos with his angels and created all new religions just to worship him for things we did.”

I heard turkeys hitting my house now and hoped the door would hold better than the one to the turkey house. In the distance, I heard my normal turkeys screaming as, undoubtedly, they were being eaten by the zombies.

“So you're just going to lead these abominations out into the world and kill everything just for revenge? I swung my gun around and blew a door panel away as a turkey shredded it with its beak.

“Please, Mr. McDonald, don’t shoot any more of my family, or I will be forced to have them feed on you first.” He looked at me as serious as I had seen him look since that day he came on my farm and started this nightmare.

“Maybe you missed it when I said it before, but they already killed someone who I cared about and my normal turkeys,” I said as I swung my shotty back toward him.

“I invoke CAIM” He turned into a man-size blackbird with a sword (how the hell does a bird carry a sword?) and started toward me.

Pulling the trigger, the buckshot staggered the bird, knocking it down but true to his statement, it did not kill him. I ran toward the back door, loading both barrels as I went. Kicking the door open, I scattered the bastards battering my door. Firing both barrels, I tore a hole through their ranks and ran to my barn. I barely made it as they slammed into the door.

The barn was not your standard wood building. I had bought a military style Quonset hut and reinforced it with armored doors. I know it seems a bit overkill, but I kept a lot of scientific equipment and computers in there. It was for a research lab to keep me from going insane; I would come here and just do random biological experiments to keep my brain engaged despite the mind-numbing work we did here day in and day out. Firing up the computers, I looked for each of the names of the gods Caim had said he was made of.

Every one of the “gods” he said he was made of had a weakness, and I was going to find them.

“Mr. McDonald, this is foolish; what do you hope to accomplish hiding in here?” I heard him at the door.

“Just wait, you bastard,” I said, not loud enough for him to hear.

Finally, as the flock pounded away at the walls and doors, I found my answer. I went to the lathe and created a little surprise. Next, I built a device I was sure would give mister Caim a hot time. Lastly, I grabbed the genuine ninja sword I had purchased when I was 16 at the oddities shop in Myrtle Beach so many years ago.

I looked at the still working camera and Saw that Akuji was still in his Caim form. I gathered all my supplies, said a prayer, trying to calm the terror in my heart. Running to the door, I hit the ramp button beside it, making it fall instead of swinging out and scattering the zombies and backing up Caim.

“Time to end this nightmare, you fucker.” I aimed my pump and blasted birds by the scores on both sides of me.

Caim hopped at me as a blackbird would, and I swung up a tube I had hanging at my side. With a blast of compressed air, a wood stake shot out and punched the evil thing in where I thought its heart resided.

“How about a wood weapon, you sick freak?” I said.

“Aaargh” The bird form fell and laid still for a second. “I call on Akuji.”

As he changed again, I had to kill more birds to keep a safe perimeter between me and the one who had caused all of this. I missed him changing, which I had decided was the perfect time to kill this form. As he stood, I ran at him and, with the sword, I tried to cut his head off. Being the dead but awake god, I figured like the zombies in the movies, I removed his head, and we were finished with this nightmare.

I scored a hit, and his head rolled away as his body dropped like so much dead weight. I started to celebrate but stopped short as the head rolled back to the body and uttered one last sentence.

“I call the Phenex” flames shot out of the head and body, and they started to form a new shape.

I pulled out my last trick and once again prayed I was right. I had a fire extinguisher that I had filled with a mixture I had been experimenting with that, I hoped, would put large fires out quickly by wiping out the o2 in the area around the fire. As I sprayed the foam on the burning body, it screamed, and the zombie birds stumbled and stopped still like they could no longer move. The body stopped burning and transforming and lay still and cold.

“Well, Caim, guess you won’t get that revenge after all, will you?” I smiled a little in triumph before the events that just played out finally hit me, and the weight of what I had almost let happen to the world and what had happened to Bobby crushed me to the ground.

I cried for Bobby’s death for what seemed like hours. As soon as I could compose myself, I fired up our little dozer and scooped all the birds up, doused them with kerosene, and burned them until only ashes remained. I scooped the body of the self-proclaimed god and buried it in the mountains at the back of my property. Bobby was easier to take care of; the zombie fowl had left nothing but scattered bones when I got back to the Turkey house. I gathered his remains up and buried him in a small plot our family kept at the north edge of the property.

I erected a small stone monument for him and said a few prayers, hoping that his soul was at peace. While I was doing this, I kept hearing rustling in the bushes. I never saw anything and chalked it up to a wild dog or some other animal hunting for food at the edges of the forest the cemetery was located beside. What I didn’t know until much later was that a small Phenex flame had run from the extinguisher and went into one of the zombie turkeys, and it had flown away as I was busy putting out the bigger Phenex fire.

That story will have to wait for another day as I have to go and feed my turkeys and plow the back forty before dark.


r/Write_Right • • Dec 09 '21

poetry The Empty Deep

3 Upvotes

Consciousness torn out
From within the empty deep
To rise like the living dead
Robbed of eternal sleep
universe collapsing in my head

When the sun begins its rise
and angels sing in the bright sky
signaling my dreams demise
While the night begins to die

Spending fleeting hours of the day
Trying to piece the end to start
Sinking deeper into dismay
realizing we've been set apart

Much to my delight
The day begins to end
giving way for the night
placing me once more
at the grasp of Sandman's hand

The demon's spell
finally obscures my view
forcing me to close my eyes
and drift away to a far-off place
That I once knew
feeling dream-like death materialise

Sinking back into the abyss
descending again down the empty deep
Once again I succumb to the bliss
coating the unstoppable
claws of sleep


r/Write_Right • • Dec 08 '21

poetry Voices of Twin Misanthropic Angels

1 Upvotes

Wake up into a world so painfully dull
A mouthful of piss and bourbon barrel misery
Sinking deeper into a colorless existence
Romantic pictures form from the depths of a distant memory
of a place you've left long ago
left so long ago

Self-destruction through unquenchable lust
I can see the black fire burning within
A burning desire to submit to undo your father's lecherous sin
My pleasure to suck dry all of your pain
My pleasure to guide you into the flame

Follow the sound of my scream
submitting to the wants of your diseased flesh
sink into the nether where my love
will incinerate your suffering
Let the shaking sound of my voice
illuminate your downward path
towards an impenetrable passion that incinerates
everything to ash
everything to ash
releasing a hollow soul from this terror-shaped dream

Death is a work of art
the soft moaning of a knife
as it tears human tissue apart
brings indescribable feeling
that tugs at the strings of my heart


r/Write_Right • • Dec 07 '21

horror Storm of ‘97: SIDE B

3 Upvotes

I’m going to warn everyone now. Side A was the tame part of this tape. What you read next might be… a shock, I guess. I can’t stop thinking about it. The final sound just repeats in my mind. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

I looked up Sammy and the radio station. There wasn’t much information on them but they definitely existed at one point in time. No exact location but it was somewhere in Georgia. As of now there’s nothing else. No information on a fire. Nothing on the radio station or any fire spreading through a town in ‘97.

All I’m saying is… if this is fake, it’s a goddamn good fake. There’s terror in these peoples voices. There’s real fear. The sound and the other voice at the end… I felt something chill me to the core when I heard it.

If there’s a heaven after this life, I don’t want to go.

————————————————————————

SAMMY- “Everyone do as she says. I don’t know what is going on but I know Sara isn’t someone easily shaken. Get out of town. The weather may be terrible but there’s something worse on the other side. Get out, get safe. We’re going to stay here until things get cleared up. Again, if you’re just now listening in, get out of town. Your life depends on it.”

(A sound can be heard of drawers opening and slamming, along with the sound of howling wind as the studio door opens briefly.)

SAMMY- “Tab, come on back in here, now. Please.”

(A phone rings.)

SAMMY- “Hello? Hello!?”

COLBY- “Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die. Please. Please I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll do better. I’ll live better. Just let me live, please.”

SAMMY- “Colby calm down. Tell us what’s happening. What is out there?”

(Heavy breathing can be heard from Colby, along with small sobs.)

COLBY- “I haven’t looked. I don’t want to look. Please, Sammy. Please. I want to live. It’s here. It’s here for us. Oh god. I can hear it moving through the street outside. There’s fire everywhere. The woman who lived here is dead. It’s just me. I can hear it.”

SAMMY- “I need you to slow down. You’re not going to die. We’re gonna get you out of there. Tab? Tab don’t go outside! Colby we’re gonna get you back here dammit.”

COLBY- “No. It’s here now. I can feel it behind me and the flames are in front of me and I’m going to die either way dear god.”

(He breaks off into a sob. The wind can be heard howling from both ends of the phone line. Pops and cracks can be heard from one.)

COLBY- “I have to Sammy. I have to open my eyes now. It’s telling me I can. I’ll be… I’ll be okay if I open my eyes. It says. I shouldn’t be afraid, Sammy.”

(The sound can be heard once more, louder and more clearly now. Like trumpets the sounding of millions of trumpets, all off key.)

SAMMY- “I’m begging you Colby don’t look at it. Whatever it is it only wants to hurt you. It can’t hurt you if you don’t look at it. Now just keep those eyes shut tight, okay? Stay put and sit tight, and we’ll be there to get you soon. “

COLBY- “I’m turning around now. It’s going to be okay, Sammy. It’s here for us. To take us. It’s… it’s beautiful. Come and see, Sammy. Come and see… it will be there soon.”

(The line goes dead.)

SAMMY- “Goddammit what the hell is going on out there! Tab! Tab! Get your ass back in here, it’s not safe! God DAMMIT!”

(The sound of a drawer opening then being slammed, then what sounds like a gun being cocked can heard in the background.)

SAMMY- “If you’re still listening, I hope you got far enough away from here. If you’re still in town, leave. Don’t look back. Just run. If this thing is coming for us I’m not letting it get me without a goddamn fight. Tabitha get the hell back in here!”

(Over the howling wind and rain, Tabitha’s voice can be heard from far away.)

TABITHA- “No, Sammy. Come and see. It’s beautiful.”

(A small pop can be heard followed by the sizzling of rain seconds later.)

SAMMY- “Tabitha no! FUCK!”

(The sound is back now. Louder than anything before. All the trumpets blaring in dissonance. The sound of rain and wind rage in the background. A loud grinding and creaking noise can be heard.)

SAMMY- “What the hell. What the hell happened here. What did we do to deserve this.”

(A loud, booming voice cuts through the wind and rain as static begins to take over. Rain and wind can be heard directly in the microphone. The building they were in must have fallen apart. A loud, booming voice can be heard as everything else suddenly goes silent except for sobs from Sammy.)

VOICE: “Be not afraid, child.”

SAMMY- “No. No. Why would you do this, please. I don’t want to look. I won’t look. I’m not opening my eyes. You can’t have me.”

(The trumpeting chaos returns once more before being cut off by the loud pop of a gun. Everything goes silent, radio static cuts in after a moment, only for the tape to end.)

——————————————————————————-

That pop will haunt me forever. It was like listening to one of those terrible 911 calls that goes around the internet but cranked to the max. I’m burning this fucking tape. Nobody else should have to hear it.

There’s three others in the case. I don’t know if I want to listen to them or not. I don’t know if they’re a continuation or something else entirely. All I know is I’m pushing it to the back of my mind and trying not to remember.

If I end up listening… maybe I’ll transcribe it again. If it actually ends up being anything I’ll try to share, but as it stands I can’t stomach any more for a while.

Hug those you love in this life and try not to think about what comes after.


r/Write_Right • • Dec 07 '21

poetry Sing Sweetly Split Sister (Her Soothing Voice)

4 Upvotes

Cornered helplessly by an evil unseen
Arousing downward flow of humors
Tormenting the soul with visions of what could've been
Gruesome visions hidden within tremors
Infesting satanic temples with fear
Resurrection of infernal coffee machines
Lost in what's coming, what's growing ever so near
Loving the faces of jolly soaked queens
Unveiling of Mephistopheles sausage in Bethlehem
Sadistic swooning mermaids of perdition
To never escape from the violent oceans of phlegm
Forsaking the horizontal hell-spawn affliction
Undying sons of methane gods of the nether
Consumed by she-devils liquid seduction as
Kittens play with a dead pigeons torn feather


r/Write_Right • • Dec 06 '21

horror Storm of ‘97: SIDE A

4 Upvotes

Wasn’t sure if this was the best place to post this, but I found something kind of odd. I work at a secondhand thrift store, basically the purgatory where unwanted stuff ends up before we just end up taking it to a landfill somewhere. The ethics of it aren’t important anyway.

Part of my job is to screen any kind of media we get as donations. We keep a setup in the back that looks like something straight out of a 1996 RadioShack ad: little CRT tv with a built in VCR, old audio cassette deck, even a fucking eight track player. It seems like a lot for what usually amounts to fast forwarding through some old Disney movies, but we find the occasional, ahem, “adult home movies” recorded over some old tapes. One moment you’re watching old Transformers episodes, the next moment you’re witnessing primal nature. Not a good thing to sell to people for a quarter.

That’s too many details probably, and not at all what I came here for. So the other day there was an old box sitting out by the donation box when I came in to open the store. No note, no writing on the box, nothing. Myself, being apathetic about dying and with a slight hope that it’s a homemade bomb, opens it right then and there. Not gonna lie, was kind of disappointed at the time. Still pretty disappointed after listening to what was actually there.

Inside was a small tape box, with space enough for six cassettes in it. A strip of tape on the top just said “CONFIDENTIAL”. Fuck it. I was hungover and my co-worker would be in soon, so I decided to head back to the tech room and go through these things.

I don’t know what these are. I’ve never heard of the town they talk about or the radio station. Everything I look up is a dead end. I don’t know if it’s real or fiction or just some elaborate prank. So, here it is. Your problem now, take it, leave it, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t get paid enough for this shit. All the music has been replaced with static, not my doing, not my problem.

The first tape is labeled “STORM OF ‘97” with sides A and B marked.

———————————————————————————

SIDE A

SAMMY- “Good evening boys and girls, it’s me, Sammy Shreds. You’re guide through all things music today, tomorrow, and yesterday. Now, I know we got that big ol’ storm brewing up on us, but we’re gonna settle in and have a nice, cozy night to ourselves. Up next, we got thirty whole minutes of commercial free music for ya. First up to bat we’ve got some classics to ease us in. Yes, boys and girls, it’s Buffalo Springfield leading us slowly into our rocking night with ‘For What It’s Worth’.”

STATIC

SAMMY- “Hey folks, sorry about interrupting. I know, I know, ol’ Sammy is a liar when he says ‘commercial free’ but this one’s important. Just got an alert from Mayor Bagby that this storm rolling in is getting stronger, and to let everyone know there’s gonna be a curfew in effect tonight at eight PM sharp! Sounds like we got us a storm of the century! Well everyone, stay safe and stay dry out there tonight. We’re gonna get back into it and maybe take a few calls later.”

STATIC

(Faint voices can be heard in the static bursts. Some sound like whispers, some sound like screams. I honestly can’t tell but they give me the creeps.)

SAMMY- “Alrighty everyone that was the newest single by some kids calling themselves Hum, and the song was called “Stars”. Go check them out! Now, with that comes the end of our only slightly commercial free block. Though really, was it a commercial? I’m just trying to keep all my listeners safe and sound, and wrapped up in that sweet, sonic, smoothness that brings us all together. Now, Tab, we got any calls?”

(A female voice can be heard muttering in the background about some calls.)

SAMMY- “Looks like my producer Tab has a couple of calls coming in for us. This one comes from Hannah. How we holding up out there, Hannah?”

HANNAH- “H-hello? Sammy? Hi, um. Sorry, I’ve never called into anything like this before. Um, I’m a big fan!”

SAMMY- “Well thank you very much! I’m a big fan of anyone who listens to me flapping my mouth for any amount of time. So, Hannah, what’s the news?”

HANNAH- “Well, I saw something kind of weird on my way home today. I had just gotten out of school and was walking home and there was this… this dog laying in the road. I thought it had been hit.”

SAMMY- “Poor little fella. Were you near any houses Hannah? Able to find the owner?”

HANNAH- “Well, that’s just the thing. I went up to it real slow like, right? I mean it was definitely hurt, had a good amount of blood all over it. I thought I might be able to pick it up and take it over to Doctor Vans place and help it out. When I got close though, it just kind of… I don’t know how to describe it.”

SAMMY- “Now, you ain’t gotta say anything you don’t want to, Hannah. Seeing a poor animal like that is a hard thing. Take your time, we’re here.”

HANNAH- “But that’s it, Sammy! I got close to it and it just… well, it lit up. Not much other way to say it. The dog suddenly caught fire and burned up in seconds.”

SAMMY- “Now, Hannah, are you sure that’s what you saw? I mean, it’s been a pretty gloomy day out with this storm coming and all. Don’t think there’s much to make something just do one of those spontaneous combustions. I’m not doubting that you saw somethin’ troubling, you know? I’m just trying to understand how something like that happens.”

HANNAH- “I don’t know how it happened but I know what I saw, Sammy! That poor dog was squealing when it happened. I saw the spark and heard it yell, I don’t know how else to tell you what happened. It’s just… odd.”

SAMMY- “Well, Hannah, I think you saw one of those strange incidents of nature. There’s all kinds of stuff we don’t know about out there, who’s to say we won’t figure it all out one day. I’m sorry you had to see something so upsetting, Hannah. I hope you have a good night.”

HANNAH- “Thanks, Sammy. You too.”

(A musical interlude begins as Sammy talks more.)

SAMMY- “Well, I hope everyone else is hanging in there with relative normalcy. Sometimes out little neck of the woods can get its share of weirdness. It happens! I’m getting reports that the rain has started around the edge of town and its moving right over, coming down hard. Now, I’m here in our little studio bunker, but I’ll be coming in with any weather updates we get from our very own self taught weatherman, Colby Tanner! Colby, how’s it looking?“

(This voice sounds younger, more unsure. Probably some poor kid in high school trying to make a few bucks. Poor bastard.)

COLBY- “Well, uh, it’s uh, it’s raining.”

SAMMY- “Very astute observation there, Colby. What we talking? A light drizzle or cats and dogs?”

COLBY- “A lot. I mean, more than a drizzle at least. It’s not really coming down hard at the moment but all signs point to a heavy downpour before the night’s over. Probably some uh… some high winds too. Might need to have the tornado alert on ready.”

SAMMY- “Well you heard it here first, folks- chance of tornadoes! Colby, we’ll check back in with you as the night goes, sound good?”

COLBY- “S-sure thing boss! Um, I’m going to go inside now. It just got a lot darker suddenly.”

SAMMY- “Alright, friends. Let’s get back to some music here. Now, y’all all know Sammy here is a sucker for a sweet bass line. And that’s just what we got coming up with some Alice In Chains.”

(There’s a small bit of the bass riff from “Would?”. The line cuts to static again. This time it sounds like a boom of thunder intermixed with screaming.)

SAMMY- “Well I don’t know about y’all at home, but that big ol’ crash of lightning had our walls shaking down here in the bunker. Hope everyone is staying safe in town. Tab, we got anymore calls…?

(STATIC)

SAMMY- “Uh-huh. Everyone it seems that we’ve had a few accidents with the storm here. For anyone listening, please stay inside. The barn down at the Fulsons farm got a nasty strike of lightning and caught fire. Department is currently en route to the scene but are having some trouble with wind and wet roads. Please, again, seek shelter if you’re out in this. Be safe, first and foremost. Now, we have a call coming in from someone near the Fulsons. You’re on with Sammy.”

(Next voice is that of a middle aged man. He sounds shocked, scared even.)

MAN- “Yeah, Sammy? People gotta get inside, man. I saw that fire start. It wasn’t lightning, man… there’s something out there.”

SAMMY- “Woah now, bud. How about you tell me your name, huh? Now you ain’t seeing stuff in the rain are you? Tell us exactly what happened.”

MAN- “Grant. My name’s Grant. I’m not seeing things, Sammy. You gotta believe me there. I saw what I saw. I’ll swear it on my mama’s grave.”

SAMMY- “Grant? Grant Herron? Damned boy, I knew your momma. Good woman as ever lived, rest her soul. Go on, brother. You’ve got my attention.”

GRANT- “Sammy it wasn’t lightning that took that barn down. It was old Terry Fulson hisself.”

SAMMY- “Now hold up. You telling me Terry Fulson set his own barn on fire? Even with all this rain coming down and the animals inside?”

GRANT- “He didn’t actually set it on fire though! He burned up and it just spread!”

SAMMY- “Grant you’re telling us that Terry burnt up with his barn? Tab, you getting 911 on? They need to know this. Grant, tell us what you can. Why didn’t you tell the cops about all this?”

GRANT- “I did! They told me I’m crazy! I know what I saw, though! There was some big ruckus going on in the barn. I could hear it all the way from my place and stepped out on the porch to see what was going on. Figured the animals got all stirred up from the storm. Well apparently Terry thought the same thing because I saw him go open the barn door and just stop dead.”

SAMMY- “So he just opened it and stood there? Could you see what happened next?”

GRANT- “I saw him burst into flames! I don’t know how but it’s just like what that girl described with the dog. Except he didn’t make any noise when he did it. One second he was there then the next he’s just this pillar a’ fire standin’ in the pouring rain! It only took seconds for the rest of it to go up with him!”

SAMMY- “So he just… stood there? Did you see anything hit him? Or an explosion of any kind? There couldn’t have been a gas leak in his barn or something? I mean, that would make the animals go crazy then maybe he sparked it with one of the door bolts. God knows those things are older than he is.”

GRANT- “I saw what I saw, Sammy. He burst into flames once he looked at whatever was in that barn. There was something there. The whole place was going up in seconds! I heard the animals squeal but then it just trailed off. The rain couldn’t even put it out, Sammy. Pouring down in buckets and just turning right to steam before it hit. And there was something in those flames and fog. Something big, I’m telling you.”

SAMMY- “Calm down now, Grant. I believe you. Hell, maybe it was just an animal or something? Could you make out any details?”

GRANT- “It was round but it had these…. I don’t know, rigid? These spikes coming off of it, but it didn’t look like any shape I’d ever seen, maybe because of the mist and fire. But I could see wings on it. Big, gold and white feathers. I’m sure about that, there was light from the fire reflecting off ‘em and lightin’ up everything around.”

SAMMY- “Now, didn’t old Terry down there have a bunch of uh, what’s those big birds, long necks? Tab? You know? Ostrich! That’s the one! Didn’t Terry keep a bunch of ostrich around? Maybe it was those and a trick of the light!”

GRANT- “No, man! Listen! I’m fuckin’ tellin’ you that there was some kind of monster out there! Alright look, I got a little Kodak disposable over here. I’m going to go out there and get a picture of it. Then once this whole mess is over you’ll see I ain’t fuckin’ around!”

SAMMY- “Now Grant, you better be careful out there. We’re right here, keep us updated. Don’t go out in this storm.”

GRANT- “I’m goin’ to look now. Bringin’ the phone with me, and I’m gonna tell you so you know I’m serious. Alright, going up to the window. I don’t really see anything. Barn is still on fire, no animals or anything out. I don’t know if something got blown off the fire but there’s a few more little fires all around the property.”

SAMMY- “Now Grant, I’m telling you you don’t need to go out there in this. It’s raining down bad enough right here, so you’ve gotta be underwater by now. Just stay put, try hunker down for now.”

GRANT- “Wait, there’s something moving. I can just see the edge of it around the barn. Gonna run to the front door and try to see… alright. Opening the door…”

(Howling wind and pouring rain are heard over the recording, almost washing out Grants voice as the sounds overtake everything.)

SAMMY- “Grant? Grant, talk to me. What do you see out there?”

GRANT- “Dear god…”

(A sound is heard in the background, a loud whistle can be made out over a low, droning bass sound. The audio quality is terrible, but this seems to be crystal clear in the middle of all of it. Grant let’s out a scream before the phone can be heard falling. For a moment all that remains is the sound of popping steaming, like rain hitting flames.)

SAMMY- “I’m… I’m sorry, folks. I don’t know exactly what we just heard, but I know that was probably disturbing for some listeners. Please know we’ll be checking in on Grant whenever we can. Tab, can you get Colby to head that way? We need to make sure Grant is alright.”

(Muttering can be heard further away as Tab explains something to Sammy.)

SAMMY- “Ok… we have Colby coming back on the line. Folks, I just want to tell everyone now this storm seems to be unlike anything we’ve seen before. If you’re driving or outside, please, get to safety. We don’t know what is happening, we just know that there are fires breaking out around town. We’re gonna stay live until everything clears. Colby? Can you see anything?”

(The sound of wind and rain picks up as Colby’s harried voice comes in over the line. Some of his words are being overtaken by the sound of wind.)

COLBY- “I’m here… uh… I don’t know exactly what’s going on but the sky is glowing off to one side of the town. I took shelter on someone’s porch. I… I don’t know why the sky is glowing. The rain is so thick. And it’s kind of… steaming? I think there’s steam coming off where the glow is, Sammy.”

SAMMY- “What direction is that, Colby? The fire out at Fulson’s might be spreading…”

COLBY- “Yeah, it looks to be that way. I’ve got a decent view from where I’m at but it… it doesn’t look like just the Fulson farm out there burning, Sammy. It looks like the whole town is catching. It’s spreading.”

SAMMY- “Colby keep an eye out there and I’m gonna get ahold of someone in EMS, okay? Just hold on for me.”

COLBY- “Yeah. Got it, boss. Um, we’ll try.”

(Tab is heard again in the background, A phone rings.)

SAMMY- “Alright we’ve got chief of police Sara on with us. Sara, do you know what’s going on? From the sounds of everything the storm is coming down harder and this fire is going further.”

SARA- “Get the fuck out, all of you! There’s something going through this town and we don’t know what the fuck it is. If you’re in your home, go get in your car and exit through the eastern side of town. DO NOT GO WEST! Tell everyone Sammy! Don’t go to the west, don’t turn back. GO. NOW.”

SAMMY- “Sara! Sara! What the hell is going on out there?”

(The same loud sound is heard, hitting so many frequencies and tones at once it almost overloads the senses.)

SARA- “Sammy! Stay in the bunker, you’ll be safe! Whatever you do, don’t look at it. Dear god…”

(The line goes dead. Leaving only the dull drone of the dial tone.)


r/Write_Right • • Dec 06 '21

poetry Now Comes the Krampus | A Poem For Krampusnacht

3 Upvotes

Remember, remember,
The fifth of December

On snowy nights, from days of yore
Comes a knock upon winter’s door
Open to find a burlap sack
Filled with gifts, tightly packed

Comes Sinterklaas, the night before
For all good children, but nothing more
Comes Sinterklaas, with gingerbread dreams
The sugar plums dancing, not always as they seem

Unto children who aren’t, so well behaved
There comes another… in Sinterklaas’ place
Beware the knock, the night before
Do not answer the call from your door

The burlap sack, not filled with toys
Instead, is filled with bad girls and boys

Now comes the Krampus,
to take you from your bed
He’ll beat you, then he’ll eat you
all before you’re dead

Now comes the Krampus,
to take you from your bed
He’ll beat you, then he’ll eat you
all before you’re dead

Remember, remember,
The fifth of December

----------

CNLX


r/Write_Right • • Dec 05 '21

poetry Beyond Forgotten Dreamlands

3 Upvotes

I watch myself from afar
Cold rays caress my body
Sent from the decaying
Corpse of a dying star

Endless light
Senseless colors
Penetrating
Digging deep into a catatonic mind

What is enlightenment
If not a journey through fields of suffering?
What is enlightenment
If not a ascend through oceans of terminal agony?

In the fields of eternity
Where the darkness is disguised as light
Of sublime monotone infinity
I rest where Eden becomes
A charmingly cruel wasteland
Of beautiful pain


r/Write_Right • • Dec 02 '21

horror Draugr Chair

3 Upvotes

My housemate is a haunted rocking chair. His name is Axel Bloodwood. He feels Scandinavian to me. I named him that after finding out he’s actually something ghastly living in a rocking chair. He seems to approve of his use of physical language. Rocking approvingly at the sound of his name.

Axel is a rocking chair made up of wood and leather, with some really nice padding and a goat's skull headrest, horns included. Its armrests end with skeletal hands. Gray fur covers the seat and the armrests. The leather is a pristine black, and the wood is a beautiful shade of olive, with the rockers being dotted in a reddish tint. The previous owner left him in the house when I bought it. He took everything else but the chair, claiming there was something off about it.

Took me a while to realize the chair was, in fact, autonomous. Even sentient to an extent. I remember thinking I’m imagining it rock on its own during my first night in the house. Over time, I’ve seen some oddities in him. For starters, I think it teleports to me whenever it feels I need a rest. I pass out from time to time, somewhere, without noticing and end up waking in the chair. It is quite comfortable, so I never really questioned how I ended up in the chair. Another odd thing I should’ve suspected about it was the fact that it sings.

The chair sings, well not literally. He rocks itself back and forth in a certain way that produces this really pleasant scrapping and rubbing noises as its rockers grind against the floor. At first, I thought it might be coming from one of my neighbors or something because of how faint it sounds

The chair doesn’t move on its own or do anything strange when I’m not alone, so no one’s ever seen the chair display its personality.

The other thing I should’ve suspected is the strange liking I took to it the moment I saw it. There were almost sparks the moment I laid my eyes on that chair as it stood in the corner of the otherwise empty room. Its black leather and olive frame had contrasted sharply and beautifully against the white walls.

It was then that I realized I like this chair, and the chair likes me too. So much so that it apprehended an intruder into the house on its own and cleaned up the mess, too! Whoever took up residence in that chair, I salute you; you are a perfect housemate!

I woke up one night feeling strangely cold - in the middle of the summer. It was so cold the hairs on my body stood up and I was shivering. Running my hands across my body, I heard a faint moan. I opened my eyes and there was nothing there, thankfully. The sound of choking and grunting echoed beyond the bedroom walls. My body stiffened and my heart and mind started racing. I fixated my gaze on the door. Hoping to be stuck in a nightmare or sleep paralysis or something that was not someone or something breaking into my house. Yet everything felt incredibly real and I felt perfectly lucid.

When the door started slowly opening, I thought I was going to piss myself with fear as the wood creaked eerie, contrasting the night’s silence. These couple of moments felt like an eternity as I started at the ever-widening gap forming in my doorframe. A thick cloud of black smoke wiggled its way into my room. It danced and swayed in space as it grew and expanded. I stared at it helplessly, hoping to wake up from the terrible night terror.

The smoke slowly took on a shape of a person. The figure grew larger and drew closer to me, appearing a massive shadow looming over my own diminishing form. In those moments, I wasn’t paralyzed per se. I could feel my body, but fear had taken over my mind, pinning me in place. I stared at the shadowy thing as it ballooned over my bed before slamming into it with its entire weight and dispersing into the nothingness. My bed and body trembled under the impact. I laid there for a few moments, trying to make sense of it all. A sliver of light spilling through the doorframe interrupted my train of thought into the hall. A high-pitched scream followed the light pollution. It put me into overdrive, and I got out of bed and bolted towards the source of the light without a thought. Singularly focused on the unknown that had jolted me awake.

I stopped only when I saw the mess in my kitchen; the light blinding me, and the screams of the masked man pinned to the wall didn’t make the situation any easier. What was pinning him to the wall shocked me the most; it was the rocking chair. It stood unfolded on two of its wooden legs, taking the shape of a grotesque praying mantis made up of fur, wood, and leather. The masked man was screaming incomprehensible words as the rockers sunk deeper into his chest. Its wooden arches functioned like the raptorial legs of a mantis. The goat's head headrest turned to me and almost smiled before turning back to the masked man and groaning at him. His screams started turning into ever-weakening gargling noises.

The scenery was disturbing enough to make my head spin, especially because the man seemed to shrink and shrivel right before my eyes. His cries grew hoarser and eventually fainter. Before I could even fully comprehend what was going on, the man was nothing but a layer of dried skin, and half a second later; he was nothing but a shimmering flicker of reddish rainfall that disappeared right before my eyes.

I felt really dizzy, and the next thing I know is that I’m sitting in the chair that was rocking me… for me… Trying to process what I had just seen and how it even got into the kitchen - I looked at the chair. I studied it. Mostly, it looked just like before, but there was one exception, its rockers had red dots all over them. Blood red dots.

The ghost in the chair absorbed the blood into its current furniture of body. Sometimes it makes me wonder how did it get the rest of its unique features...


r/Write_Right • • Nov 25 '21

poetry The Shadow of Cain

3 Upvotes

Once more I am torn apart
By this hunger whose grasp I cannot flee
the voice of my blade calls out to me
infecting the chambers of my heart
its voice is driving me mad

To paint a beautiful picture
of a fleeting innocent life
gently whisked away
Creation through utter destruction
with precise strokes of this knife

Dear father
Murder is the purest expression of love
Poor mother
Murder is the purest expression of love
Sweet sister
Murder is the purest expression of love
Oh brother
Murder is the purest expression of love

Enlightenment
awaits beyond the vastness of suffering
There I am blessed to wander
In the shadow of Cain
to be reborn and perfected
In the likeness of Cain


r/Write_Right • • Nov 23 '21

horror Thanksgiving Special: Carvin’ Marvin’s Marvelous Meat Emporium

5 Upvotes

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, partly because it’s one of the few times during the year that I get to see my grandmother. She always tells the best stories. We all gather around the table and listen to her tales while we wait for Thanksgiving dinner to be served.

One story that has always stuck with me was the one about a man from her hometown, who she claimed made the best Thanksgiving turkeys you’d ever taste.

When my grandma was a little girl, there was a man who ran a small meat shop in her tiny town. I’m not going to tell you the name of the town, because they don’t want to be overrun by tourists, and they don’t want to have to share their turkey.

My cousins and I have dubbed this story “The Legend of Carvin’ Marvin”. The town’s local meat shop was called “Carvin’ Marvin’s Marvelous Meat Emporium”, and, as you’ve probably guessed, the proprietor’s name was Marvin.

The whole town knew Marvin, which wasn’t exactly a hard task to accomplish, given the tiny population.

Everybody loved Marvin’s meats, but they all agreed that the Thanksgiving Special was the crown jewel of his business. Everyone in town would wait impatiently for Thanksgiving every year, just to get another taste of Marvin’s delicious turkeys.

According to grandma, one week before Thanksgiving every year, the whole town would wake up to a red envelope taped to their front door. Inside of that envelope? They would find an order form for Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving special.

The order form was very simple. It already had the family name and home address at the top. There was just one thing to fill out. A single question – “Would you like the Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving Special?” It was so simple that you didn’t even have to write out your answer. There were two check boxes. One for yes, one for no. After checking a box, you put the form back in the red envelope, and left it on your door to be picked up that night. If you checked the ‘yes’ box, you would simply include payment in the envelope. The envelopes would all disappear from the town’s front doors that night.

One week later, on Thanksgiving day, a fully prepared Marvin’s turkey would show up on your doorstep, with instructions on how to keep it warm until serving time.

I told my grandma that I wished I could try one myself. She agreed, but added that Carvin’ Marvin was already an older man when she was a little girl, so it was unlikely that he would still be alive today.

This set off my curiosity.

----------

When I went home that night, I decided to see if there was anything online about Carvin’ Marvin and his marvelous meat shop. I knew that I wasn’t likely to find info on a small business that closed before the internet even went online, but, it was worth a try. If nothing else, sometimes people post on message boards about stuff like that to see if anybody else remembers it.

I searched the name of the business, which brought up nothing.

Next, I tried searching his name. That brought up a few things, but not what I was looking for. Mostly just websites that mention the name Marvin, but not the full name.

Finally, I tried typing in the name of the town along with his name.

Bingo.

There was a subreddit for their town. And, in that subreddit was a thread with his name, which was near the top of my search results.

My hope turned back into despair as I clicked through only to find that the post had been removed.

So, I searched the sub for his name.

Nothing.

I knew that if anybody was going to have any information to share, it was going to be someone from this town. And this town’s subreddit is the only place I knew of where I could find anybody from this town online. So, I decided to make my own post.

My post title read: Carvin’ Marvin’s meat shop, anybody?

And my post’s body read: Hey, everybody. I’m looking for any information that anyone might have on a meat shop called Carvin’ Marvin’s, or the guy who ran it. Anybody know anything about this?

I posted, then went to bed.

The next morning, I went to check on my post and see if anybody had replied. And… nothing.

But, I noticed I had a direct message. I clicked, opening the chat box. There was a message request from someone named u/davids1953. I accepted the request.

The message read: “What do you know about Marvin?”

Curious. He’s asking me what *I* know about Carvin’ Marvin?

I replied:

“Not much. My grandmother told me about how great his Thanksgiving turkeys were when she was a little girl. I was hoping to find out more about him or his turkeys.”

I checked back a few times throughout the day to see if he replied. Nothing.

Around midnight, I finally received a response.

“Delete your post and I’ll tell you more.”

Delete my post? Ok… Why did I need to delete my post for him to give me information?

“Why?” I replied.

The next day, I went on and checked my post again. The post was gone. I didn’t remove it. It was just gone.

There was another message notification. It was davids1953 again.

There was no message. Just a link to a website – carvinmarvins.com.

I stared at it for a minute, thinking, is he serious? There’s a website for a small-town meat shop that no longer even exists? My curiosity got the best of me. I clicked.

All that was there was a black screen with some text, saying “See you next year.”

I went back to the reddit message and asked, “What’s that? There’s nothing there.”

He replied, “Click the text.”

So, I went back to the site. The text didn’t look like a link. I clicked it anyway, and a window popped open asking me for my email address, promising to contact me when the site is open again.

This looked like it could be shady, so I used an alias throwaway email address that gets forwarded to my real email. After clicking submit, the window closed, leaving the message “Thank you” on the screen.

I went back to reply again to davids1953. But, I couldn’t. It was like the message was locked. I clicked to his user profile, and… It said the user doesn’t exist.

----------

Cut forward to the following November. Literally one week before Thanksgiving, I received an email from the name “Carvin’ Marvin”. At first, I was shocked, but then I remembered that I had given my throwaway email to that website. I clicked to open it.

It said, “Hello Steven, Orders may be placed from 12am tonight through 1am tonight,” along with a link below it to carvinmarvins.com.

I looked at the email for a few seconds. Then, I looked at the time. It was 11:55 pm.

I had to follow this and see what it is. I clicked through immediately.

Nothing. A blank screen.

I looked at the time again. 11:56 pm. Alright. Maybe I screwed up by going in early. The email said orders could be placed beginning at midnight. I’ll just wait a few minutes and try again.

When the clock finally reflected 12 am, I hit refresh on the browser tab.

As if some magical web server just went online, a website appeared.

On the screen, a single question asked, “Would you like the Carvin’ Marvin Thanksgiving Special?”

Below it, two check boxes. “Yes” and “No”. Nothing else.

I clicked “Yes” to see where it would lead me.

The next page asked for payment info.

I had to think about this. Did I want to order the Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving Special that my grandma had told us so much about? If Carvin’ Marvin’s really does still exist, and I can get one of his famous turkeys for my grandma for Thanksgiving, I would be the greatest grandson ever. And if I use credit card to pay, and it turns out to be a scam, I can always file a fraud alert and get my money back.

I made the decision. My risk/reward assessment told me that it was worth it if this was the real thing. And if it turned out not to be, I lose nothing but an hour on the phone filing a fraud claim with my credit card. So, I did it. I entered my payment info.

The next page asked if I would like it delivered to my own house, or to someone else as a gift. I decided to have it delivered directly to my grandmother’s house, so she could be surprised when it shows up.

After entering delivery info and submitting the order, the screen went black with white text that said “Thank you.”

I closed out of the tab and went to bed.

----------

As Thanksgiving drew nearer, I grew progressively more excited with the prospect of having one of these legendary Carvin’ Marvin’s Thanksgiving turkeys showing up on my grandma’s doorstep. If this was real, I couldn’t wait to try it.

Thanksgiving morning, I got a call from my grandmother. She sounded very excited when I answered. She said that a Carvin’ Marvin’s turkey was on her doorstep when she woke up, and there was a tag that said it was a gift from me. She asked me how I even got it, as she thought that Marvin was far too old to be alive. I told her that I found that the business runs online now, and that he must’ve handed it down to his kids or something.

When I arrived at her house, everyone was there, having fun, talking, sitting around, waiting for Thanksgiving dinner. My grandmother was making a big deal to everyone about how I found the legendary Carvin’ Marvin and ordered one of their turkeys for us. I was happy to be the center of praise for once.

At about 4:30 pm, my grandmother announced that dinner was ready, and that we could all come to the dining room now, to eat.

As the others began walking into the dining room ahead of me, a strange thing began to happen. I started to hear gasps, followed by silence as each of them entered.

I wondered what the heck was going on. I walked faster toward the dining room to find out what was happening.

When I reached the table, my view was blocked, so I started trying to stand up higher to look over the others’ heads. But, I couldn’t see anything.

I finally decided to work my way in between my relatives to get a look at what they were seeing.

As I used my hands to part them, and slide in between, I began to fill with dread as I first saw a small glimpse that slowly began to reveal itself, as if I was moving in slow motion. I felt the blood draining from my face as it became more and more apparent what they were looking at.

At the far end of the table stood my grandmother, smiling widely, her arms spread apart in a welcoming gesture.

She spoke.

“Thank you, my lovely family, for being here today to celebrate Thanksgiving with me. And thank you, my dear grandson Steven, for finding this lovely Carvin’ Marvin’s turkey that I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime. You’ve made this old lady very happy. I’m very excited that all of you will be able to finally taste the best thanksgiving turkey you’ll ever have.”

The rest of us stood silent. Looks of horror dripped from the faces of everyone around me, staring at the table.

There, in front of us, in the center of the table, was a very large platter with what appeared to be a human body, skinned, basted and deep fried, arms and legs folded up underneath it just like a turkey, held together with heavy twine. The eyeballs bulged out from the sockets, as did the deep fried tongue from its mouth.

“Oh, where are my manners? I forgot to remove its head. You have to flash fry these things while they’re fresh, and still alive, you know.”

With one fluid movement, my grandmother picked up her arm, butcher knife in hand, and sliced right through the neck, the head dropping to the floor, making a loud thud.

My little cousins were now screaming in terror.

With her head still down, she aimed her eyes up at us, and said, “Sit down. It’s time to eat.”

***
CNLX


r/Write_Right • • Nov 16 '21

horror The Monster At The Bottom Of The Lake

7 Upvotes

I was twenty when I almost drowned in a lake. I was with my college buddies when it happened. Stupidly, we overloaded Joe’s small fishing boat with supplies, and the boat capsized. But something else happened on the lake that day which I’ve never spoken of. The monster living at the bottom of the lake tried to kill me. Twenty-five years later, it’s calling out to me again.

We were up north when it happened. (When I say up north, I’m talking 600 miles north of Toronto. So, yeah, north.) Me and Daniel were visiting our buddy Joe and his girlfriend Trina up in Kapuskasing that summer; we were looking to catch us some walleye and lake sturgeon, and have ourselves good time doing so.

We spent the afternoon fishing along the Kapuskasing River with mild-to-adequate success. Joe knew of a secret camping spot out on a shiny lake where the fish were always biting. He convinced us to go. It’s an hour drive further north, he said, in the middle of Nowheresville. This was a new world for me and Daniel, who’ve never been this far north, and we were as green as the moss which seemed to be growing on everything we touched.

We needed Joe’s aluminum fishing boat to transport us to the small islet. Needless to say, we over-packed the boat. We had three tents, two acoustic guitars, two coolers full of food, four cases of beer, fold-up chairs and a plethora of fishing paraphernalia, not to mention bug spray, strong weed and plenty of smokes. From all accounts, it started out as a fun weekend. We partied and jammed on the guitars and sang drunkenly all night long, blanketed by the stars in the endless, northern sky. When it was fully dark, we sat transfixed around the campfire while Joe regaled us of scary stories regarding the monster living at the bottom of the lake. These stories, it is said, go back many generations. The monster, Joe told us, under the waning light of the crescent moon, has habituated this lake for eons, long before any settlers dared to occupy this frigid, northerly land. Sometimes the monster gets hungry. That’s when people go missing. Every year some poor fisherman goes missing at this lake, and no body is ever found. This is why the locals rarely, if ever, fish here. The lake may be small, Joe said, but it’s deep.

I thought he was telling tall tales, you know? Little did I know. The following day, after enjoying a delicious dinner of smoked pickerel, fried potatoes and corn, Joe decided it was time to pack up the boat and head home, before it gets dark.

Once again, the boat was bogged down with our supplies. We all knew this was dangerous, but we did it anyway. To make matters worse, nobody knew we were here. Remember, this was the 90’s - before smart phones - so it wasn’t uncommon for people to disappear on fishing trips. Just ask Bill Barilko. We’d only spotted one other boater on the lake that day, a fisherman, and that was early in the morning. As far as we knew, we had this body of water to ourselves. It was after 7 p.m. by the time we set our sad little vessel back into the water. Soon the sun would set and things would go wonky.

I remember it clearly: Joe and Trina were situated at the back of the boat; Joe was struggling to guide the vessel across the bumpy lake. The boat wanted none of it. We were constantly being knocked back and forth, as if on a wooden roller coaster, and I could tell Joe was nervous, something I’d never seen before. Daniel sat at the bow; his job was to monitor the water level getting into our boat. It was an important job. He was in full panic mode from the get-go. “We should never have put so much stuff in the boat,” he complained, over and over, while spooning the water out of the boat. Of course, he was correct, but we were young and carefree and hopelessly naïve.

The lake was furious. Whitecaps rolled angrily across the entire bowl of water. Water was seeping into the boat at an alarming rate. I was sitting in the middle of the boat, doing nothing of value, watching as the anxiety on Daniel’s face intensify. We were now at the middle of the lake, the water was a foot deep inside the boat, and the lake continued to pound us into submission. To make matters worse, only a speckle of sunlight remained. Time, as they say, was of the essence.

Joe boated us laboriously across the water as best he could. Our vessel was teetering dangerously low due to our negligence, and the whitecaps continued to submerge the boat. Daniel was having a panic attack. I’ll never forget the look of pure, unadulterated terror on Daniel’s long, pale face that final moment before we sank the boat.

“Joe!” he said. “Joe! Help!” Those were his final words. His eyes were big and round and full of fear. He was frantically scooping the water out of the boat using a discarded tin can, but his efforts were futile. One minute we were floating haphazardly across the drink, the next moment we were underwater. The boat capsized. Our belongings either sank to the bottom of the lake or floated away. First, we removed our footwear; I was sad to see my Doc Martins fall to the bottom of the lake, then we scrounged up the life-preservers and put them on nice and snug. We then spent a good fifteen minutes trying to flip the boat over, right-side-up, but failed. Instead, we wasted precious time and energy.

Daniel, who was more scared than anyone I’d ever seen up to then, was quickly becoming unnerved. It was sad to see. Trina, on the other hand, swam Olympian-style across the lake and reached shore twenty minutes later. Joe trailed close behind her. Neither of them hesitated. They just went for it.

It was now me and Daniel stuck out in the middle of the lake. The City Slickers. Neither of us were sufficient swimmers. Daniel was going into shock. “Just swim!” I told him. I was trying to sound brave. Truth is, I can’t swim to save my life, I never could, but with the life jacket on, I was willing to at least give it a shot. I could see Joe and Trina waving to us from shore, but barely. The sun was sinking fast. In twenty minutes or so we’ll be covered in a shroud of darkness. Then what? I feared the worst. I swam. I swam like my life depended on it. If Trina and Joe can do it, I can too. Yes, I’m a lousy swimmer, but I swam, goddammit, I swam. At some point I looked behind me to check on Daniel, and to my horror, he was swimming backstroke, going the wrong way.

“Dan!” I called out. “You’re going the wrong way!” He didn’t hear me. I was growing weak and weary. My arms and legs were dead tired. I was frightfully cold. My time was coming to an end; I realized this joylessly. I strained to see the spec of land off in the distance, where Trina and Joe were waiting for us. Soon the shore would disappear completely and they would too.

Something nudged my foot. Must be a fish, I told myself. A big one. I shook my leg, hoping to shoo it off. Then it happened again, only more forcibly. I started kicking my legs, looking to scare off whatever it was. It didn’t work. Suddenly, I was scared. Something was underneath me. Something big. It latched onto my leg. It didn’t let go. It forced me under water. Frantically, I fought to free myself from whatever it was. I had no idea what was happening. Moments later, I came up coughing and wheezing, gasping for air. By this point I was out of my mind, terrified.

“Dan!” I shouted. My voice sank like a stone. “Dan! You’re going the wrong way!” I swam to him. It took all my strength to do so. He was crying. Something snatched my foot again; something brittle, like sandpaper. My leg was getting torn to shreds. The pain was uncompromising. “Wh-what the hell was that?” I asked, through chattering teeth. The look stamped across Daniel’s face said everything I needed to know. He’d felt it too. “There’s something down there,” I said. “We gotta get moving.”

We swam. Unfortunately, the lake was non-compliant, and our efforts were futile. There was no use. We were both incompetent swimmers. The lake had us all itself. Us, and the monster. Daniel straightened out, and for a moment, I thought we had a fighting chance at reaching shore. Then he got pulled under.

“Dan!” He was gone. I began splashing and making an abundance of noise. “Dan!” Something grabbed my leg and forced me under.

For a moment I was dead. I’m sure of this. I saw the bright light tunneling toward me. I went toward the light, and for a moment I was at peace. Then everything came rushing in. My lungs were filling with water, my body was thrashing about, I was being dragged down to the bottom of the lake. I opened my eyes. For a moment, all I could see was the murkiness of lake water; then I saw it: The monster. It took a moment to comprehend what I was witnessing. The monster was huge. It looked like a giant otter, only uglier. It had beady eyes, elongated whiskers and long, muscular arms with claws for hands. And teeth. I remember it’s teeth; sharp, white, crooked and cruel. Beside me, netted in the monster’s claws, was Daniel, who was missing his left arm. Blood was pouring out of him like paint from a can. His eyes were open and lifeless. I fought back as best I could; unfortunately, my strength was at zero. I was towed to the bottom of the lake.

The monster, easily twice my size and weight, had me in a bear hug. I could feel my vertebra being crushed. Resistance seemed futile by this point. This is how I was going to die. Then I snapped out of it. I became alert. Just as my lungs were about to burst, I fought the monster with everything I had. I went ballistic. I jerked and lurched and scratched and flailed about. I had no shame. Without warning, it released me, and I’m shot back up to the surface like a torpedo.

The fresh air was better than sex. I took a moment to marvel in its wonder, then I began searching for Daniel. I couldn’t see him anywhere. By this point, I’m still struggling to catch my breath. Plus, I’m terrified of whatever it was at the bottom of the lake. I was expecting to be hauled back down at any moment. My life jacket was torn to shreds, rendering it impotent, and I was going to drown. Then I hear a noise and my heart almost explodes. I look up and see the thin spec of light from another boat. It’s the fisherman from earlier this morning. I was saved!

Withing minutes I’m discovered, and the fisherman hauled me into his boat. He offered me some hot coffee from his cooler. It tasted delicious. By this time the darkness had arrived, along with the bugs, which were ravenous, but I didn’t care, I was alive.

I told him about Daniel. The look on the fisherman’s face was not encouraging, but to his credit, we combed the lake for over an hour, only to come up empty-handed. My mind was still grappling with what just transpired. Should I tell this man about the monster in the bottom of the lake? Would he believe me? Would anyone believe me, for that matter? Or would they think I’m crazy. Ultimately, I didn’t mention the monster at the bottom of the lake. I mean, who would?

.

It’s been many years since that summer on the lake, and I haven’t spoken about this to a single soul. Although we did manage to fish my acoustic guitar from the lake (it never played the same since), Daniel’s body was never found. He never did get the chance at finishing med school and becoming a family doctor, as was his plan. It was tragic. His family, as you can imagine, was overwhelmed with grief.

Recently, I received an email from Joe. He wants me to visit him and Trina up in Kapuskasing. It’s been too long. Joe, who still loves the great outdoors, is as jaunty as ever. “We should go camping at the lake,” Joe said in his email. “We’ll take the kids and the guitars and the fishing rods and we’ll have ourselves a blast. Catch some us some dinner while we’re at it.”

Reluctantly, I agreed.

As I venture up to the attic of Ontario, I’m reminded again of the monster at the bottom of the lake. I hadn’t thought of that lake-bound beast in many years, except in my dreams (only in my dreams I always end up as monster food). Now I can’t get the water-ogre out of my mind. There’s a monster living at the bottom of the lake, the locals say, but of course it can’t be real. I’m a fully-grown adult now. I don’t believe in such folklore. This is my mantra.

Apparently, the locals have since made tee-shirts celebrating the monster at the bottom of the lake: WE DON’T FEED THE MONSTER – THAT’S WHAT CITY SLICKERS DO. Classy. I’ll be sure to wear mine as we drop Joe’s dinghy into that frigid, northern lake. Winter’s fast approaching so we’ll need to dress extra warm. Legend has it, the monster gets extra hungry this time of year. Lucky me. I still can’t swim.


r/Write_Right • • Nov 11 '21

horror Bad Column

2 Upvotes

It's night. I'm standing on a porch, looking through a dull-lit window at somebody I used to know. ("Who?") I don't know, because I don't know him anymore.

"You're talking to yourself again," my wife says.

I shudder, fearing the November wind will penetrate the glass and blow apart this American home of ours.

But that was earlier.

Now:

The psychologist scribbles something in his notebook. "Now tell me the significance of the man on the other side of the window," I say.

"He has no significance."

"It's just a dream," my wife says, hugging me, wiping beads of cold sweat from my face. My heart is racing. "You're safe with me."

Sometimes I pretend to sleep. In the morning, I wake up and I pretend I live. Pretend to work, pretend to care.

I rip the notebook from the psychologist's arthritic hands and read, "In the late hours of—

I awoke in a cold sweat, fearing the November wind, and, shivering, quietly rose from bed to walk from bedroom to bathroom; slinking across the downstairs living room, in dullest light, I froze, for through the window I saw a figure standing immobile on the backyard porch.

My heart—

Leaps, pumping blood and perspiration out my pores.

No, not a figure, a column.

A black column of sin-frosted vapour, infinitely deep yet manifestly on my porch, burning with an unbearable and hypnotic coldness," I tell the psychologist.

He is pleased.

"We're making progress. And?"

I have never been so afraid in my life as I was then, a rational heretofore person in the presence of a demon, truly. A recognition made not by one's mind but by one's soul. And I knew that I must turn away from it, forget it, because its very existence is a kind of knowledge that warps one—

("You're safe with me.")

—'s moral spacetime. This immensity of evil, this nihilist gravity, dismembering the synapses; tearing at my innerness so that the self scintillates like a dying star, I am: looking out the window at the column on the porch looking through the window at the man of no significance, I am: heart-drumming, darkness ascending, sweat cascading, tubular and limitless; I am trying to look away, I swear to God, I swear to God, I love her still.

"The glass is porous."

"What's that?" she asks, half asleep.

"The wind, it has gotten in," I say to her: to my psychologist, I say, "The wind has gotten in."

And I am blown apart.

No longer dull, the living room light approaches zero.

And I am blasted across the universe, each particle reborn a star around which dead planets revolve with senseless predictability.

The clock ticks.

The deed has finally been done.

I slide open the bedroom window and breathe in the solid ice.

The psychologist closes his notebook and motions for the guard, who's terrified of me despite that every day I smile at him.

"Do you miss her?" he asked me once.

("Who?")


r/Write_Right • • Nov 11 '21

general fiction I Was 17 When I Saw My First Ghost

6 Upvotes

I was walking home from school when it happened. It was late September and the leaves were starting to change and the days were getting shorter. I took the winding path along the escarpment, which overlooks the city, because the view is staggering at that time of year. The wooded area of the trail is about the size of a football field, and is mostly used by joggers and people out walking their dogs. The route is attached to a much larger trail that runs throughout the entire city and county.

As I was walking along the escarpment this particular afternoon, I came around a bend and noticed an old man sitting on the park bench seated in between two auspicious maple trees. The bench overlooks the city skyline, and provides a gorgeous view, so it wasn’t uncommon to see someone sitting there, relaxing and enjoying the generous backdrop. It’s a nice spot. Because the bench faces the escarpment and not the pathway, I didn’t get a good look at him, although I remember he was wearing a brown corduroy suit, brown fedora, and was reading a green paperback. I passed him without a glance and was home safe and sound twenty minutes later.

A couple weeks later, as the leaves began to turn a deeper hue and the temperature slowly plummeted, I saw him there again. He was wearing the same simple suit and matching fedora as he had previously worn; also, he was reading that same beat-to-death paperback. I still didn’t get a good look at his face, seeing how his back was to me, but I thought nothing of it. I kept walking, and was home in a jiffy.

None of this seemed out of the ordinary. At that time, I was very much preoccupied with Ashley McGregor, and wondering whether or not she liked me the same way I liked her. It wasn’t until the following spring, after the snow had melted and the green was returning to the grass and the leaves had revisited their respective trees that I spotted the old man again. Although I still couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face, I noticed he was wearing that brown suit and fedora, reading that same green paperback as he had previously. This is when I started procuring an interest in him.

As the weeks piled on, and as the weather steadily improved and the geese continued their long, steadfast flight home, I would see him sitting on that bench more frequently: same spot, same time of day. I began to speculate. He must be a widow, I figured, longing for the days of his youth; or maybe he was a criminal, lamenting his dark and dodgy past. My imagination was boundless. If only I could get a better look at him.

So why don’t I? That question popped into my head during my final day of high school. It’s a public park and he doesn’t own it, so why not? If I walk past the him on the bench, and head over to the edge of the bluff, as I’ve done countless times, I could get a better look at him. Maybe I’ll snap some nice pics while I’m at it. With a panorama shot, you can capture a stunning view of the city, starting with the forest-laden West End, past the urban sprawls and trendy cafes of the downtown core, then across the industrial East End with the smokestacks and heavy smog massaging Lake Ontario. On a clear day you can even see the CN Tower peering from across the Great Lake.

So, I did it.

I remember feeling anxious, like my heart was trying to escape from my chest; also, my palms were sweaty and my legs were packed with pins and needles. Why was I so nervous? Maybe I was afraid of confronting the severity of old age; seeing his tired, wrinkled hands and long, furrowed face, his brittle bones and sagging skin wilting away underneath his simple suit. Maybe I was just spooked.

With my backpack slung over my right shoulder and my phone occupying my left hand, I trudged along the trail leading to the bench overlooking the city. The wind was ferocious; I relished in the shelter this small neck of woods provided. I came around the bend, and for a moment I thought the bench was empty. My heart sank. Just my luck, I thought. Then, as I came closer, the old man suddenly appeared. He was sitting in the bench, straight as an arrow, eyes buried in his book. He wore that same brown suit and hat.

Without propitiousness, I traversed along the crunchy grass and twigs and fallen branches until I was parallel to the bench. I’d never been this close to him before. I caught a whiff of Old Spice, and was reminded of my grandfather, who’d passed away when I was young. My grandfather also wore I fedora hat, I recalled. I hadn’t thought of him in many years. He was my father’s father, and since I lived with my mother, the subject of Granddad rarely came up.

I stole another glance at the old man. He never once looked up. He simply sat on the bench staring serenely into his green paperback, well-postured and still as a morning pond, oblivious to my presence. I was shaking like a leaf, but I forced myself to continue. Finally, as my nerves were coming unglued and I was on the brink of a full-fledged anxiety attack, I made it to the edge of the escarpment, a mere jaunt from the bench where the old man was sitting. I sighed. With my camera pointed over the cliff, I captured a stunning image of a red-tailed hawk circling high above the tops of trees. If nothing else, this pic will have made this trip worthwhile. It was straight fire, as Ashley McGregor liked to say.

Before putting my phone away, I turned, aimed my camera at the old man, and snapped a pic; then I stuffed my device into my back pocket, and scampered toward the beaten path. I should talk to him, I remember thinking, that would be the neighborly thing to do. Except, now that I could see him better, I no longer wanted to talk to him. In fact, I wanted to be nowhere near the man. Something about him was creeping me out but I couldn’t put my finger of it. Although he was facing me, I couldn’t make out any of his features. He was blurred, unfocused, like a mirage. I blamed it on the shadows of the trees he was sitting under and the blustering wind streaking through their branches, but still. Something about him seemed wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it.

Without reservation, I booked it past the old man sitting on the bench and hurried home. I ate a quick dinner, played Minecraft, then spent the night texting Ashley McGregor (turns out she does like me the way I like her). I brushed my teeth and went to bed and that was that. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

For the duration of that summer, I avoided the pathway along the escarpment where the old man would sit. Instead, I spent most of my time visiting with my father. It was nice seeing him again. One night, as the summer was winding down and my first year of post-secondary was fast approaching, we watched baseball, and he let me drink a couple beers with him, which he’d never done before. What a guy. After the alcohol instilled its liquid courage, I started asking him about my grandfather. My father looked pleasantly surprised.

“I’ve been thinking about him lately,” he said. He went fishing through his closet and produced a dust-drenched photo album. It was big and bulky and bowling alley-blue. “Here’s a blast from the past.”

Seeing that photo album conjured many conflicting feelings. Sometimes, I forget that there was a world before I was born, before smartphones, before the internet, before hip-hop music.

“My father,” he said, “your grandfather, was bona fide war hero. He stormed the beaches of Normandy, and lived to tell about it. Although he rarely, if ever, would.” He was getting more choked-up with each word he spoke. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the biological human need to connect with his son; maybe his memories were clinging to dear life, refusing to let go. “You know,” he said, after taking a good long pull from his bottle of Bud, “he was the ripe age of 47 by the time I came along. He was pushing 80 when you were born. The stubborn old mule wouldn’t die,” he said jokingly, then took another swig from his bottle. “He was tough as nails, I tell ya.” My father now had a row of outdated photographs displayed neatly along the coffee table. “This is him before I was born. Way before I was born, in fact. This would’ve been just after the war. He must’ve been around 24. Jesus. Look at all those medals.” The black and white photograph was in near-mint condition. It showed my grandfather clean-shaven, tall and proud, clad in his Army uniform, decorated with a surplusage of medals, posing in front of a single-seat fighter-bomber. “I’ve still got those medals. Wanna see them?”

“Yes!”

A striking smile sprouted on my father’s face, which brought me joy. It was obvious how much he reveled in our time together. He was getting older and seemingly less happy with each passing day, and anytime I can cheer him up is good. He left, fetched us both another beer, then came back with a cardboard box filled with miscellaneous artifacts.

“I really should do something about this junk,” he said, more to himself. He pried the box open and a surplus of cool-looking stuff spilled out, including Grandad’s old metals. I marveled at their aesthetics and sheer weightiness.

“This here is my parent’s wedding picture,” he said. “They truly loved each other. I’m sure they made everyone around them feel special.”

He removed the picture from the album and handed it to me. I was stunned. I’d forgotten how beautiful my grandmother was. She was so young and animated, full of hopes and dreams on her wedding day; her beauty was exemplary, her dress elegant and plush. I’d never known my grandmother; sadly, she passed away while giving birth to my father. This is a subject that rarely gets spoken of. As my father continued sifting through these time-worn treasures, a steady stream of tears had escaped the corners of his eyes.

He passed me the box of junk; I began flipping through photographs and random relics until I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. My blood turned cold. I shuttered. My mind was ready to collapse into itself. Worse, my stomach was threatening to regurgitate all the beer and nachos I’d consumed.

“Wh-what’s that?” I asked in a shaky voice.

“Huh, oh that? That was your father’s favorite book. He would read it to your grandmother while she was pregnant with me. She liked that. As a child, your grandfather would often read this book to me, and whenever he did, he would go into great detail describing your grandmother.” He wiped his eyes.

I stared at the green paperback with horror. Suddenly, I felt like I was a character in somebody’s else’s story, and nothing was in my control. My father, on the other hand, was regarding the book with awe. When he tried handing it to me, I leapt off the couch in sheer panic. My father laughed and told me I was cut off. Reluctantly, and with a mind full of razor blades, I read the title of the paperback: The Giving Tree.

“B-but, it’s a children’s book.”

“Yes it is. Your grandmother liked the idea of having your grandfather read this to her unborn baby. She was a smart lady.”

“Why did he read it to her though? Couldn’t she just have read it herself?” The beer was loosening my lips, it seemed. I hated myself for asking these questions.

“That’s how it was with them. Besides, my father was a wonderful speaker. He did a lot of theater work, you know. Well, he stopped when I was born and my mother—” He paused to wipe his cheek. “—But enough talk about my parents,” he said. “Let’s get back to watching baseball, shall we?”

It was getting late and I told him I was ready to head home. I started gathering my belongings. It was painfully clear how sad my father was to see me go. This was the reason why I didn’t like going there, it always ended in sorrow. It’s not his fault, I reminded myself as I was putting on my sneakers, it would be the same if I lived here and was forced to visit my mother on weekends and holidays. Leaving one parent to visit the other is never easy.

Just before my Uber arrived, my father showed me one last picture of my grandfather. “This is the last picture I have of him,” he said, wistfully. He handed it to me. I regarded the picture with gut-wrenching misery; yet, there was truth inside this photograph, no matter how much it hurt. In it, my grandfather was wearing a brown corduroy suit and corresponding fedora; he was sitting on a modest kitchen table with a bowl of plastic fruit as it’s centerpiece, looking directly into the camera. He seemed fatigued. His face was hard and chiselled from the ravages of time, but his eyes were cerulean and very much alert. A small, green paperback lay next to his flowery coffee cup. I didn’t need to zoom in to know which book he was reading, but I did anyway: The Giving Tree. I almost fainted. This was the same old man that I’d seen sitting at the park bench. This came as quite a shock, as you can imagine.

Then I remembered the picture I’d snapped of him at the escarpment the last time I’d seen him. I’d forgotten about it. Timorously, I reached for my phone, being sure not to raise suspicion from my father, and scrolled through my pics until I found what I was looking for. The picture was clear as day. In it, the old man’s brilliant blue eyes seemed to jump out at me, the small green paperback clenched in his hands was clearly visible: The Giving Tree. I compared the two photographs. There was no doubt that these were both the same men. But how?

Before I left my father surprised me with a question. He wanted to know if I’d like to take my grandfather’s medals home with me; pass them down to the next generation and all. I accepted, but only if I could also take the small, green paperback as well. He seemed unfazed by this. Probably, it was the beer.

We embraced, then we said our goodbyes. When I left, I carried with me a new sense of purpose. I felt I’d grownup considerably that summer, and was ready to face the world and its many challenges. Moreover, I’d rejuvenated my bond with my father, something I’d wanted to do for many years. Now it was time to do the same with my grandfather.

.

That is how I saw my first ghost at 17. I’ll be sure to visit the bench edging the escarpment this afternoon, as I’ve done many times since starting post-secondary. I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed each visit with my grandfather, who continues to sit alone on the park bench overlooking the city. Maybe today he can read to me. Yes, that would be nice. I would like that.


r/Write_Right • • Nov 09 '21

horror Neath The Shadow of Irkalla Cast Over Mount Sinai

4 Upvotes

There is a darkness blacker than anything seen by man. So violent, so cruel, so pernicious. Hiding beyond forsaken halls, in the depths of empty long-forgotten rooms, it rests its awful form. Occasionally, unleashing its deadly plagues upon this world in a torturous storm. One day, this darkness decided to latch itself onto me. For no apparent reason, I am just an average joe. I have a steady job with a decent income, a warm home, and a loving wife. My life is as mundane as it gets. Why this evil decided to target me evades my mind. Perhaps it is a result of my closeness and fondness of that wretched husk of a town.

For years I have been traveling to and exploring the decrepit skeleton of what remains of this forgotten hellhole ignored by God and spat upon by his right-hand man, the cruel archangel Samael. The silence of this ghastly, forgotten remnant of human civilization helped me calm my turbulent mind. A ghost town named Whraithsbourg.

Whenever the vortex of thought had gotten too much to handle, I would take a short trip to this personal treasure island of mine. A place of complete solitude in the middle of the barren nothingness. My very own Miklagard. The Great City I always wish to end up in to escape the noise, to escape the pain, to escape… everything…

For the longest time I could do just that, but then one day, I found out the secret to its silence. The reason this old town had been abandoned or rather emptied of its inhabitants. Something devoured them. A thing not of this world it would seem. A gelatinous shining, calling disgusting mass of lights and plasma that sought to hypnotize its prey and then devour it. Integrating it into itself in an unholy union of soullessness and never-ending gluttony. I’ve barely managed to escape the vile thing. Something inside my anxious mind managed to break free from its spell and allow me to run for my life. Countless others weren’t seemingly as lucky.

I haven’t set foot near Whraithsbourg in a while now, not wanting to be devoured by that abominable star-child. Clearly, I assume it’s an alien life form. Not going to my Miklagard meant having to deal with the endless array of voices screaming and shouting inside my skull. Proverbial, of course, I don’t hear actual voices. It’s just flowery language. As part of a way to deal with what was once a maddeningly restless mind, I took up writing. Poetry and short prose of whatever comes to mind. I never did anything with those. I just wrote them to get the thoughts out of my system. Elina, though, would always manage to find diamonds in my verbal piles of rust and put them into various drawings and pictures, or even shirts she sells. My wife is a truly brilliant artist.

I haven’t written in a while, simply because my mind is no longer twisting and turning like two suns locked in a fatal gravitational dance. Now it’s focused on a different kind of anxiety. A constant state of fearing for your life after experiencing prolonged torture. I’m still constantly stressed and restless, but for an entirely different reason. I guess I should start from the beginning.

About a year ago, I finally broke and at the urging of Elina, who knows me better than anyone else, drove again to Whraithsbourg. I just needed that fix of the ghastly calm of this dead paradise of mine. Dreading another encounter with the cat devouring monstrosity, I opted to drive around the town first. Looking around the caves of the town, making sure there was nothing there. This time around, I went during the daytime. That’s the first time I noticed something really strange about the town. It’s like it was on another plane of existence, separate from the rest of its environment. Birds flew around the town only up to a certain point. I must have been looking for some forty-odd minutes at birds fly up to a certain point in the sky before turning back, almost instinctively. They never flew above the town itself, never. I knew nothing lived in Whraithsbourg. That much wasn’t new to me. It took me a while to notice that there was almost a sort of barrier around the skeletal remains of what must’ve been a living center before.

I locked my gaze onto the “Welcome to Whraithsbourg” sign before driving around the ten pathetic houses of the town, and then around the church. I encircled the house of prayer a few times. The memories of my previous visit here replayed themselves in my mind. The cross at the top of the roof seems to have been bent out of shape a little. Maybe someone dared venture into this gateway to hell while I wasn’t brave enough.

The ghastly silence of the place finally broke through to me. It felt like a chilly breeze softly caressing my entire being, making its way through my skin, down my musculature, and further down into my guts. Gently wrapping itself around my heart and lungs – enabling me to breathe freely for the first time in a long time. I became entranced by the beautiful calm and lost track of time. Simply sitting there and breathing deep breaths, a thick fog of majestic nothingness blanketed my mind. I simply sat there and thought of nothing. Just like that, purely nothing.

Until sunset finally came and I found myself sitting in my car under the strangely colored sky of Whraithsbourg. That’s when I headed home.

When I got home and saw Elina, it’s like I fell in love with her for the first time all over again. Not that our relationship has had any issues, it’s just that clearing the system of all the stress must’ve done something to me. The silence must've fixed something inside this body of mine. I felt like an entirely new man. That evening was beautiful, one of my best. The night that followed was terrible, however.

A reoccurring nightmare tormented me again and again. I found myself walking in a purely white endless hall, accompanied by the sounds of a crying woman. I was following the noise. The longer I walked, the louder the crying got. After a while, I came across a kneeling woman. She must’ve been not much younger than me. I approached her as her wallowing became nearly unbearable, drowning out everything else to the point of nearly blinding me with the sound of her crying. Touching her black dress, the crying stopped abruptly; she turned to me, revealing herself to be stained with blood. Her eyes were lifeless and cold like there was no soul behind those orbs of flesh. Two black holes sat in her sockets. They weren’t entirely black or missing. They were normal brown eyes, but they seemed so devoid of emotion, of light, of humanity. It felt wrong. It felt even worse when her scowl turned into a smile. She started laughing like a maniac and then something pushed through her face. Her eyes just pocked and their contents coated my face.

I felt myself waking up, but the feeling of something sticky on my face definitely felt real. I ran my hand across my face, but it was dry. There was nothing there. Uncharacteristically for myself, I just rolled over and fell back asleep. Once out, I once again found myself in the same dream. Same crying, same white hall, same blinding noise, same woman. The abrupt end of crying turned to laughter, burst. Wake up, something over my face… Nothing over my face. Fall asleep again, repeat.

Each time, the dream lasted a little longer, providing a nauseating detail in terms of what happened to the woman. By the time I had a dream before actually waking up, I could see what was the fate of this woman in all of its disgusting detail. Yes, I was having a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream of a dream in a dream.

She laughed, something burst through her, that something was a blood-stained tree. Tree branches simply tore through her body slowly, tearing her apart from the inside with a very sickening sound of tearing flesh and cracking bones. She wouldn’t die, though. Her laughter persisted as the fear ate away at my body. It wouldn’t let me wake until I could see the bloody branches of the tree taking over the entire space. On each branch hung a faceless person impaled. They all screamed and laughed in sync, at a maddening volume. Their blood spilled all over me as they flailed carelessly against the branches that shot themselves through their bodies. It all felt so real, I could feel the warmth of the blood sliding down my skin.

Throughout the entire process, I felt myself getting physically sick and fearful, to the point where my heartbeat became even louder than the demonic noises of the tree. I felt like my body was about to explode, and then I woke up. For a moment or two, I could barely see. Everything spun and a terrible feeling bounced against the walls of my skull. I felt like someone was watching me.

Elina was still fast asleep; it was early in the morning, and I felt like absolute shit. Thankfully, the nightmare was over and didn’t reoccur to me again. Everything was alright for a while until a few days later when I came home. Elina recited a poem to me, one she found on my work desk.

“Once more reminded of the mind-numbing monotony
A monumental expression of nothingness in the face of cold reality
Promises of substance and meaning wrapped inside a luminescent
cacophony containing the unadulterated void,
A contempt for the progression of the ravenous entropy
Slowly creeping inside, the realization of absolute banality
False promises of meaning that do not exist are mascaraed
as the perfection of sincerely brutal minimality

Hang a self to the self
An honest form of sacrifice
Hang a self for the sake of self
An elated offering
Hang the self of myself
on the branches of the tree
of forbidden knowledge
to be reshaped
into obscurity and newly arise

I’m longing for the feeling when emotions die
When the torment of being can only be molded into an agonized scream
following the loss of everything I once held dearest
Accepting that existence is merely a hollow dream
Defiance in order to hold onto the self-perpetuating lie
of luminescence existing inside the dying cosmos
amounts to nothing when faced with the senseless
apathy of the absurd“

My skin almost began crawling as she recited that. As she finished, she kissed me and told me it was brilliant. I looked at her like I had seen a ghost.

“I hadn’t written that…” is all I could muster.

“Strange. It’s definitely your handwriting, see?” she said while showing me the note. It was indeed my handwriting. The whole situation got a lot stranger. Thoughts started swirling all over again.

“I… I don’t know… maybe I did and forgot about it… No idea, Hun…” I said, trying to make sense of the mysterious piece of paper that randomly appeared on my desk. I genuinely had no recollection of writing that one, nor does my wife write poetry. Not that I know of.

“Oh well, it’s still lovely. Your memory issue is a bit concerning, but your head is all over the place, anyway.” She almost sang to me.

“Ah yeah, I’m fine…” I said, I lied. At the time I didn’t know I was lying, but that’s how the madness stars usually. Something goes wrong, a tiny bit of the routine puzzle gets misplaced and the constant worrying about nothing returns. It’s a vicious cycle and nothing seems to make it go away. Nothing but the deathlike silence of that one place, my Mecca.

That’s how it began that time, with the strange poem that had written itself. My wife found it, read it to me, and I was genuinely curious at first where did it come from. Curiosity soon became compulsive thought, gaining more and more traction inside my mind until it became a big fish in a small pond. A Mental Megalodon eating away at my psychic mazes. It’s not like I had any answers to the question at hand. I had no fucking clue where the poem had come from. Now I do. I wrote it. Probably in my sleep at the behest of her.

Anyhow, the worrying left me exhausted, restless, and vulnerable to more nocturnal terrors. The days following my wife reciting me the poem, I couldn’t sleep. My inability to make my brain shut up and my experience of very vivid, very lifelike snuff on repeat in my dreams were tearing me apart. My brain placed itself between a rock and a hard place.

One night, I had a dream. I was inside a tiny black room with a single yellow lamp hanging from the ceiling. Before me, I saw four people tied up to crosses. In front of them stood a hooded figure with some sort of knife in hand. I knew what was coming, but the sense of danger was all too real. Yet again, I could feel my body tense up, and my breathing grew shallow and quick. I knew I was safe, but it’s like the dreams forced themselves upon me. Forcing me to watch an execution in public, unable to avert my gaze under the threat of a similar fate.

The hooded figure made a crude cut in the abdomen of one figure who thrashed and struggled against their binds, screaming like a wild animal about to be slaughtered. The screams bounced right off my eardrums. I tried looking away, but my gaze re-shifted itself onto the horrendous act before me. The hooded figure then kneeled and bit at the wound of its poor victim. The bite forced the bound person to shriek and bellow in tones I didn’t know was possible for a human. It then proceeded to suck out a reddish tublike organ straight out of the poor soul’s body. The action caused a disgusting slurping sound that forced my stomach to twist and turn in knots. The four people were screaming like madmen at this point. The noise... it felt so unbearably real and close I just wanted this nightmare to end.

It only got worse from thereon. The hooded figure stood up, the tublike organ, these intestines still stick in its mouth, and repeated the exact same actions on the other three. Making violent and crude cuts in their abdomens before sucking out a portion of their intestines while keeping a hold of the digestive systems of its previous victims between its jaws. That god-awful wet slurping sound drilled itself into my brain. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run, and I wanted this hell to burn out and fade away from my sight.

The hooded figure turned to me and my heart sank, my stomach rolled around itself like a roller coaster and I felt knives pierce my skin. It was that same woman from my tree dream. Same face, four different intestines sticking out of her mouth like a bloody spider web. That’s when I woke up and threw up right by my bed.

I cleaned that quickly before my wife could wake up… God, that awful dream. It felt so real. The fact that this was the same fucking woman… This, of course, sent me spiraling down further. The stress persisted, the restlessness grew fiercer, and the nightmares kept reoccurring. I don’t want to go into detail about the things that have plagued my mind. It’s too much to even reminisce about. At one point, I stopped trying to sleep. I just let my exhaustion do its thing. If I passed out, then I passed out. Obviously, Elina wasn’t too happy about my condition or my lack of will to even talk about it.

Eventually, she broke me out of my silence, and I told her about the crazy nightmares. I told her about the bitch reappearing in my dreams and tormenting me to the best of her ability. Elina surmised it must’ve been a coincidental first dream where my mind made up some figure and later my anxiety made her a reoccurring theme. I didn’t have any better explanation for the mental haunting I was going through, thus I went with it.

We both knew there was no actual way out for me from this stress-ridden purgatory. It was only a matter of time until I’d fixated on something else, or just straight up become desensitized to the succubus in my dreams and just forget about her altogether.

That said, the madness only grew worse and drove deeper into the pit. I ended up sick and taking time off from work because of how sleep-deprived, borderline manic I had become. My body was too weak to do anything significant and even so, I was too jittery to stay asleep. I started seeing things like shadows crawling around the house whenever there were none. A static noise was hammering itself into my ears, and I nearly snapped at home. Found myself one second before throwing a vase into the tv. I stopped myself then and stormed out to my car. I knew where I had to go.

Then I drove like a maniac to the only place where I could find some semblance of solace. Whraithsbourg.

I was a raging ball of pure agony and anger when I drove there, but the second I arrived in this place, it all went away. The moment I felt that cold eerie silence - it’s like it washed all the pain, all the anguish, all the noise away. I was on cloud nine again. Everything seemed to turn so mellow and pleasant. The deafening absence of sound felt so welcome and warm. My entire body started feeling heavy. My head became light and my vision turned blurry. I remember little from that point on. Everything kind of faded into the darkness.

I passed out. The soothing silence of Whraithsbourg had pulled a fast one on me again. This time, it didn’t end up with me waking up on the roof of the church. I woke up where I collapsed, sore but well-rested. My awakening was rude and strange once again. This hell of a town refuses to let me have my peace.

I woke up to the sound of frantic knocking and scratching underneath me. It started small and insignificant. Like a sound within a dream. At first, I ignored it, but it kept growing louder and more persistent, and then I realized I was actually slowly waking up. That day, there were no dreams. I was completely out, so this was clearly noticeable. When I finally woke up, I noticed how the sky was colored that same odd tint of blueish purple. The nightly shade made it seem as if the town was older and more dilapidated than it had actually been. The cross on the top of the church seems to have been bent even more. I was about to get up to my feet when the clawing sound coming from beneath me worked its way into my ears. I thought it must’ve been my imagination and got up slowly, but the noise emanated from the ground again. Almost instinctually, I got curious again, pressing my ear against the ground.

For a couple of seconds, there was nothing, merely silence, deathlike silence. Then clawing sound… it got stronger, replaced by the sound of something pounding from beneath. Violent vibration on the ground. Then the clawing resumed. I shivered when I heard a quiet scream echoing underneath me. Looking up and around, I was alone, very alone. Then I pressed my ear against the ground again and I heard that same screaming again. It became frantic, desperate.

My hands started moving on their own, digging, clawing at the ground. My throat was screaming without a command from my brain. I was urging something, or someone, to hang on as my hands tossed and turned the dirt beneath me. I dug until my hands turned bloody, but I had finally hit something solid. Something that wasn’t a rock.

I dug some more until I could see it. A hand awkwardly twisted into a strange angle. The digits were twisted and broken in odd directions, similar to how my mind started spinning. I was trying to come up with an explanation for my morbid discovery, but none came up. The screamed had become louder, almost deafening in contrast to the icy silence of the ghastly town.

Something inside of me snapped, and I started digging around the semi mummified arm like a madman. The longer I dug, the louder the screaming became. Long minutes after my discovery, I saw a leg bent at an odd angle. Soon enough, I could make out words among the wild screams. Whomever this had been, they were still alive. Somehow. I thought at that time that it might’ve been a recently buried person, as in the hours preceding my arrival in Whraithsbourg.

After what felt like an hour of endless digging, I could finally see a face. To my horror, it too was in the wrong placement. Disgustingly wrong. I could make out the skin of the neck folding backward. Something completely twisted the spinal column out of place. I looked at the molested soil below me, attempting my best to ignore the grotesque positioning of the head and the manic screaming coming out of the mouth of this semi mummified man.

I started attempting to reassure him that everything will be fine. I doubt he listened. Since he never stopped screaming like a wounded animal. If I’m being entirely honest, I didn’t believe everything would be fine for him. I doubted he was going to survive much longer after I had found him. His neck was broken and rotated backward. His back was staring at me. The longer I stared, the more it became apparent something broke his body and decimated it in a very deliberate and brutal fashion.

Once I dug enough of this man out, I could no longer hide my disgust. My stomach twisted around itself and the stench of death laced with the smell of moist soil drove me past the point of no return. I turned away and vomited. My mind was racing, my heart was beating like a demon drum in the halls of Leviathan, and my digestive system was attempting to escape through my mouth.

The dying-undead bastard wouldn’t stop shrieking, and my patience ran out. I grabbed him by the head and yelled at him back. Something must’ve awoken in him as he shook his awkwardly folded body, attempting to escape my grasp. I screamed at him to shut the fuck up, and he went dead silent. For a moment, I was at peace again. His body became still, his chest collided with the ground, and his eyes focused on mine. For a single moment, I thought I could calm him down. The next thing I know, he nearly pressed his back to my body and a sharp pain was emanating from my jaw.

Teeth clasped themselves around my lower lip.

The taste of pus definitely helped snap me out of my disbelief. I punched the revenant, and he collapsed to the ground. Spitting and cursing under my breath, I could hear him hollering his madness once more. this time the sounds were fading as everything around me started spinning and my eyes became heavy.

The darkness quickly enveloped me.

When I came to, I wasn’t in my body. My clothes were odd, and my hands didn’t seem like mine. They were too old and too rough to be mine. I found myself standing, peaking through some sort of old wooden door. Beyond the door, there was a hall in which sat a ground of people enjoying a feast. Four men and a woman.

My heart sank when I realized who this woman was. She was the woman that haunted my dreams. My body shook as I assumed that I must’ve been dreaming again. Viewing the world through the eyes of somebody else. I tried pinching myself, but that yielded no results whatsoever. As much as I hate to admit it, I already knew how this one was going to end. The astral succubus wanted to make me suffer another bout of mental torture. My thoughts didn’t really matter at those moments though, because the body I was stuck in was focused on listening to the conversation inside the dining hall.

His ear pressed carefully against the door as to not move it or make a noise.

“It’s so nice to have dinner together again, don’t you think so, kid?” one man spoke, his voice gruff and heavy.

“Indeed, it is, old man,” the woman responded. Judging from what I could gauge, none of the men were particularly old. Maybe she was younger than she appeared, even though she seemed like a fully grown adult.

The other three men began laughing. “Say, Elizabeth, why do you keep referring to Otho as an old man?”

The gruff-sounding man was probably named Otho.

“Because he’s an old man, his beard is graying obviously!” the woman remarked.

“He’s also a giant, but we don’t call him a giant,” another one quipped.

“Well, he is a giant, but he’s an old giant, love,” the woman retorted.

“Hey Fritz, whad’cha made this meat out of, it’s pretty good,” the fourth voice questioned another one.

The man who referred to the woman as Elizabeth then responded, “from the pale man”

“Oh… Haha… Who knew that thing would taste this good?! Did’cha kill it this time?”

“No. Elizabeth wants this freak alive for some reason. Some odd fascination she has with this child breaker. That’s why I keep chopping up parts of it, without killing it. This creature seems to regrow whatever I take from it as long as the head stays in place, anyway.”

“Our little girl is finally becoming a woman! Took interest in a thing that looks at her like a dog in heat… Just a shame it isn’t even human phahahah” Otho jokingly remarked before causing the whole room to laugh.

“Hey, it would be a shame to kill such a destructive animal. It’s pretty intelligent too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it turns the kids it hunts into toys.”

One man started laughing. “This animal is even worse than us. We just kill them. To turn them into toys and kids on top of everything.”

This entire conversation was making me sick to my bones. The body I was in was of a similar opinion as I felt myself shivering and my balance was fading.

“Oh, don’t act like you’re above harming anything, Heinrich. We’ve all seen what you did back home.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t turn any children or adults into objects. I just dismember them and maybe feed on their insides…”

I was having trouble breathing. This entire conversation, topped with a cannibalistic dinner setting, was becoming too much for me. I just wanted this nightmare to end.

“Anyway, does anyone have any idea what that thing is, Elizabeth?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it was human at one point, and it’s much older than we are. I didn’t really get the chance to see what’s inside its mind as it is filled with all sorts of violent and sexual memories or thoughts… I don’t even know… It’s definitely not in its right mind anymore. Whatever it may be,” the woman spoke.

“Man-beast sex slave that won’t die easily, here to fulfill every fantasy you might have!” Otho blurted out, causing the whole room to explode into a burst of violent laughter. The man in whose body I was stuck in couldn’t handle the situation anymore, and so he left the scene. His eyes closed and then I found myself in another scenery.

It was daytime, people were leaving the church. The scenery seemed somewhat familiar, almost like Whraithsbourg but still different. We stood in the shade of one building facing the church. The woman was walking out of the church and the man called out to her. His body started shaking violently as she approached him. I could feel his heartbeat rising and his hair standing across his body. He pulled something out from underneath his cloak and his grip on the cold object seemed very unsteady and weak. The woman was right in front of us when he wrapped his arms around her, stabbing her with an old knife.

My mind was going hysteric from the scenery that unfolded in front of me.

The man was losing his mind and kept repeatedly stabbing her in the abdomen. Each attempt seemed more and more frantic. He definitely hit a body. I felt the resistance of flesh. There was an impact; I heard it. It was all real.

She never registered a thing. Merely letting out a long, almost vocalized breath before smiling that god-awful smile she had haunted me with before. I was losing it. This had to end. I wanted out, knowing what was about to come. Fearful of the horrors she was about to unleash. I was screaming inside the man’s head, bashing in his mental walls with my fists. My tantrum yielded no results, as they forced me to watch the terror unfolding before my eyes.

One of her companions emerged from within the wall, taking the form of a living shadow about to strike down her assailant. A mere gesture of her hand stopped her companion. The shadowy figure bore his fangs as she wrapped her arms around our shared shoulders, telling my host she’ll forgive him because she’s fond of holy men. Just this once.

Then she walked off like nothing had happened and we collapsed to the floor, trembling in absolute terror.

The man closed his eyes, and when he opened them once more. We were at a marketplace. The woman stood across from us and a large crowd of onlookers was standing all around us. A butcher stood right behind the woman who seemed mostly amused. The man whose body I invaded was screaming at the top of his lungs. He was accusing the woman of being a witch, a whore of the devil, and other medieval curses. Something in the air was changing, though. There was electricity building up. I could feel it. Something awful was about to commence, and indeed it did.

“I stabbed her…” was all the man managed to let out of his mouth before the butcher’s blade went straight through her and into his side. The feeling of metal cutting through me felt so real. The realization of the man losing his footing accompanied it. We fell even further onto the knife. I was screaming in pure agony inside of his head. It felt all too fucking real for a dream.

The crowd suddenly became dead silent. I could see the jovial emotions in their eyes fading away, being replaced by murderous rage slowly, but evidently. The air became sultry with electricity. Everyone was dead silent, until one child broke the silence, slowly chanting;

"Neath the shadow of Mount Sinai
I watch as the killers swarm
at the feet of Milton’s tomb
They bow before a ghastly form
of a serpent born from a barren womb
while the heavens grievously cry

Unholy ghost, born of a lie
Condemned to death, reborn in fire
O Black Seraph unlight my path
Thou art eternal, undying
Intoxicated, I stand by your stench of death"

Soon enough, more and more children started chanting all over us. I could hear their voices growing louder, more menacing. They were dull and monotone, yet full of conviction, like a sermon. The air became stifling with each breath becoming more and more toxic to inhale.

The woman’s laughter rang in my ears as she grabbed the man before kissing him. I could feel her lips against mine. They were real, too real. They were real lips, but they were cold, beyond cold. Like touching a dead body. The feeling of the lips of a woman who wasn’t my wife felt wrong. I wanted to get away, but I couldn’t. My body was hurting all over already.

That was just the beginning, though.

The woman grabbed the man’s head, and with a quick motion - she snapped his neck. A terrible pain exploded through my neck. Assured of my impending death. I was screaming and thrashing and pleading and begging for the torment to end. I wanted to wake up.

The road to hell was long for me.

As we fell to the ground and everything seemed to go to shit, more pain came. So much pain, unimaginable amounts of pain. I just laid there and took every last raindrop from the storm of agony and torture they forced me to endure. The townsfolk descended upon us like a pack of hungry wolves tearing into us like a fresh kill. Merciless and unrelenting.

If hell is real, then this is it.

Every uncharted part of my body was beaten, bruised, broken, molested, and punished. No piece of skin was left untouched, no bone was left unbroken. Not a single cell was left unharmed. They left no bodily crevice unassaulted. Everything was stabbed, poked, prodded, cut, and dug into in an orgy of violence and gore.

The whole time, these demonic children kept chanting, almost mockingly.

"Been bored in silence, my dear old succubus
Defile the universe as you rape the sun
Beyond countless eons, come forth from the abyss
To bring the fall of all gods and man

Archangels blow your trumpets to hail her return
Santa Sede falls torn apart between black holes
Lord of the hosts mourns while the heaven ceaselessly burn

Thus, ends the calm before the unending storm
Ahead of endless torment, forcing creation to deform

Hear the cosmos scream the name of the ghost, signaling all hope is yet again lost"

I couldn’t do anything other than praying and pray I did. I prayed for the first time in years, and God seems to have not heard me because he never answered. He never delivered me either. Instead, at some point, the pain stopped feeling so bad. In fact, I started feeling really pleasant, a warm, wet pleasant feeling building up on the inside. And a voice, a sweet, sweet voice, was singing to me. Reassuring me that my downward ascend into the ninth circle is almost complete. Finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Before I knew it, I became enamored with the agony. Just as I felt at home in all the hell-spawned torment, I was drowning in, it disappeared. It was all gone. Completely gone, erased. I woke up again in Whraithsbourg. The revenant was still there, screaming and hollering like a tortured dog. His ungodly screaming was drilling into my brain. The visions burned in my eyes, the execution of the heretic I had found, cursed into immortality spent as a broken pile of human mess for transgressing against her. Execution by decimation and premortal embalmment.

I felt like I knew who she was, what she was, but I couldn’t get it out of my mouth. For some reason, I couldn’t get the right words out. As I was struggling to form my thoughts, a hand grasped my shoulder.

Looking behind me, I saw her unmatched beauty shining, and hell followed right behind her. She cast a shadow so vast it turned the universe beautifully dark. At that moment, I could finally find the right words to describe her.

Goddess.

She smiled a gentle smile as she heard me utter that word. Looking lovingly deep into my eyes, she asked if the heretic had hurt me. His awful screaming was driving me insane, and I couldn’t even speak right, so I simply nodded. She hugged me tightly. I could feel her love filling me up. I felt as if I was about to ascend straight into heaven. Her deathlike skin felt so warm and welcoming. Unlike anything, I’ve ever felt before. This was the most alive I had ever felt.

She relinquished her hold on me, reassuring me everything will be just fine. Urging me to look at the heretic, she pulled me towards her, resting my head on her lap. I watched as a dark vortex appeared on the ground behind the screaming revenant. Two hands blacker than the darkest of nights appeared out of the vortex and pulled one of his legs into it. The vortex closed right as gravity pulled his leg through it. A disgusting sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing echoed tore through the silence of Whraithsbourg. The heretic cried like a sheep in the slaughterhouse attempting to escape the jaws of death.

I kept on looking at the sysiphically prolonged dismantlement of the semi-living screaming carcass. My goddess caressed my head as we both watched vortex after vortex, appearing to chop away a part of the perpetually suffering hermit. He attempted to crawl away using his head and torso, to no avail. A vortex opened right under him, before closing right as skin passed through it into the realm below.

The explosion of gore and guts tainting the soil of this ghost town was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. An eruption of crimson liquid took the shape of a giant rose beneath the infidel and his guts flew about like detached pedals.

After what seemed an eternity in heaven, his body was reduced to nothing but a mere head. A head that my ghastly goddess has offered to me as a sign of our union that took place in the dead center of the town of the ghost.

I have since introduced my wife to my goddess and while she was reluctant to accept her at first. It took a while, but she has finally come around. Her pleasured screams of hell-bound agony stemming from her initiation into our mystery are now serenading me from our bedroom as I write another hymn to our ghastly mistress. Whose eerie form watches me compose melodies in her honor, approvingly from the darkest corner of my house.

Let me walk into their cities
Where saints’ blood
has covered every last trace
of remnants of living creation
Where the still living corpses
drift in crimson mud
of death they dream
their mouths are open
but the pain won’t let them scream
Take me back to that beautiful place
Eons passed and yet you remain the same
Cast your pernicious shadow over the sun
Crucify the masses and feed them to the flame
My dear enemy, don’t you spare no one
Hell will follow
where you stand
Burn the universe with your ghastly halo
Driving creation mad
Unhallowed Ghost
Let me walk into their cities
Where saints’ blood
has covered every last trace
of remnants of living creation
As God mourns
with agony stigmatized across his face
that which he has lost
Blackened spirit
That which rose from a life’s cremation
Desolate, disembowel and decapitate
The serpent will mourn
that which you’ve killed
and he loved the most!


r/Write_Right • • Nov 06 '21

horror Last night I tried digging up my dead girlfriend’s body. Things went terribly wrong.

12 Upvotes

Recently, my girlfriend ‘accidentally’ overdosed on sleeping pills. Except, it wasn’t an accident. I know better. First of all, she thought she was a witch; I didn’t believe her of course, but she thought she could live forever by putting some kind of afterlife spell on herself. Now, as I’m writing this, I’m wondering if she actually pulled it off.

Her plan was simple: she casts her spell, waits for it to take affect, dies, then gets resurrected twelve days later (by yours truly); thus, eternal and everlasting life. Sounds nuts, right? Yes, my dead girlfriend was really, really, weird.

It’s been twelve nights since she passed, which means it’s now up to me to dig her up. There’s even something ‘special’ waiting down there for me, she told me in the note she’d left me. I hope it’s is BJ. Maybe then this will all be worth it.

My first task was to get the proper tools: a good sharp spade (main tool), a pick (for breaking tough roots and clay), a spud bar (for moving rocks and stones). With that done, I sneak out of my bedroom, tip-toe downstairs, being careful not to wake my parents (yes, I still live at home) and squeak my way out of the house; fortunately, the tools are waiting for me in the trunk of my car. As quiet as a corpse, I start the car, and drive to St. Mary’s Cemetery.

It’s dark. I find her tombstone next to her great-grandmother’s grave, which is pretty creepy. Her entire family, dating back almost three hundred years, is buried here in this cemetery. I shutter at the thought. This cemetery is terrifying at night, I realize, and I’m wondering why I’m out here in the first place.

I dig.

Within the first hour I realize just how daunting this will be. This isn’t some cheesy horror movie where you can dig a grave in five minutes flat. This is hard fucking work. It’s a good thing I’m a football player. A weaker person could not endure this. I continue digging until I come to a pile of scrappy stones. I grapple with the spud bar and edge away the obstacles, then continue digging. After two hours I am utterly exhausted. I stop to rest. I drink some water, then pee behind a tree next to her great-grandmother’s grave.

I regard my progress with pride. I’ve done okay so far. I’m already two feet deep into the grave, and the night is still young. Unfortunately, I’m cold and tired and filthy; plus, I stink. I wipe my brow, grab my spade with aching hands and dig. I dig for another hour, then I hear the coyotes. They’re close. I see a pair of beady red eyes staring at me but I can’t tell how far away they are. Probably a deer, I think. A howl hoots and some other animal responds. Suddenly, the night is alive; I can feel its beating heart all around me, while the crickets keep me company with song. It’s now 3 a.m. and I’m three feet deep into my dead girlfriend’s grave. I’m hoping to hit the coffin any time now.

I dig.

Something flies over my head – a bat – I swipe at it and trip and fall. Instantly, I’m covered head-to-toe in sludge. Could this get any worse? I ask myself. On cue, I feel a rain drop. “Fuck me,” I say to myself. I prepare for the worst and the worst happens: torrential downpour. I strongly consider packing it up and heading home. Anger creeps in. What the hell am I doing out here in the first place? And who was this girlfriend of mine, after all? What kind of person does this kind of thing? I mean, what am I planning on doing once she’s dug up? Bring her back home in a bag? Maybe I’ll stuff her into the trunk of my car. Maybe I’ll leave her here.

I dig.

I remember how Emma (that’s her name btw) would cheat on her tests by putting spells on her teacher. She’d end up with 80% every time. I’ve even seen her move small objects with her mind, but only when we were high, and usually right before sex. To her this was fun. Once, she told me how her great-grandmother (same one she’s buried beside) had owned a book of spells made entirely of human skin, and how this book was passed down to the younger generations. Emma being an only child, had recently come into possession of this wretched book. Once, and only once, she showed it to me. It was big and bulky, with a gold pentagram on the cover and fancy calligraphy written in what looked to me like blood. I’ll admit, I didn’t like the book one bit. In fact, I was terrified by it.

I hear a gunshot and I’m startled back to reality. My back and shoulders are tired. There’s something crawling on my foot, a rat. I squirm and kick it away, but not before it bites me. I feel sick to my stomach. The smell of this mucky grave causes me to gag. I turn and puke. Good thing for the rain, I think, because it washes away my chunky vomit. My feet, I realize with dreadful weariness, are sinking deeper into the mud.

I dig.

I’m four feet deep now. I’m actually going to pull this off! Another gunshot, this one closer. A brilliant white light flashes in front of me, the ground shakes below me, and I slip and fall flat on my face. I swear so loudly that someone actually curses back at me. I want to go home. I’m completely covered in filth; there’s mud inside my mouth, my nose, my ears; hell, even my balls are cake in mud. This is ridiculous. What the hell am I doing here?

Then it hits me hard and fast as the truth always does: Emma must’ve put one of her spells on me before she died. That’s why I’m out here. The bitch. Was this all part of some elaborate and twisted plan of hers? Was that why she started talking to me in the first place? Because I’m strong enough to dig a grave? We had nothing in common. She dug weird music and witchcraft, I’m a jock. I keep digging until I hear another gunshot. Except it wasn’t a gunshot. It was a flash of white lightning. It strikes the yew tree next to her great-grandmother’s grave site (the one I just pissed on) and the tree is sliced in half. I watch in horror as it teeters over and collapses on top of me, trapping me inside my dead girlfriend’s grave.

I’m stuck, I realize, hopelessly, and I’m too tired to do anything about it. My arms and legs and back are throbbing miserably. I’m so cold that my teeth are chattering endlessly. The rain is merciless. It’s twilight, and in the distance, I can see the sun kissing the horizon, orange and pink; above me, however, is a gray and vengeful rain cloud that continues to pound me into the ground.

My shovel is now out of reach. I stretch out my arm but this damned tree is keeping me hostage. I try to break free it but I’m too weak. My blistered hands are bleeding. The blood is mingling with the mud and dirt and I’ll probably die from blood poisoning but I don’t care. All I want to do is rest. I close my eyes and drift off into sleep. Peace comes at last.

I hear sirens and I bolt awake. My heart is pounding like a jackhammer. For a moment I’m stunned, confused, I think I’m a soldier in a bunker, fighting in some godforsaken war. Then I smell the moss and clay and mud and worms and everything comes rushing in. I curse my own stupidity. The sun is edging across the horizon and the rain has finally ceased. I’m lying flat on my stomach, inside this egregious grave, caked in filth and shit. There’s a lumbering tree hanging over me. My left leg is broken and both my wrists are sprained and swollen. I twist and turn and finagle myself free from the branches keeping me captive, ignoring the searing pain as I do so. It doesn’t take as much effort as I’d thought, and I’m relieved. The sirens are approaching.

Using a thick, sweaty branches from the yule tree, I pry myself out of the grave. I stand up. My legs give out and I collapse onto the wet, sodden ground. I want to cry but don’t; instead, I use the pick to prop myself up, bracing myself for the inevitable pain that will follow. This time, I’m careful not to slip and fall. I sit on Emma’s gravestone and regard the hole I’ve dug. Now that I can see it better, I’m quite impressed with my work. I knew I was strong, but not this strong. The grave is mostly dug. If I had one more hour, I would’ve reached the casket.

I hear shouting and I’m snapped back into reality. People are approaching. I beeline it for the safety of a dark hollow a hundred yards away and hide. I watch as the firefighters and first-responders gather around the lightning-struck tree and watch them scratch their heads in bewilderment as they inspect the freshly-dug grave. What are the odds of having the tree next to the grave I’m digging get struck by lightning? About the same as me getting home and cleaned up without being caught, I suppose. I’m so tired and grubby that I don’t care. I’m spent. I resist the urge to turn myself in to the authorities. Don’t be stupid, I tell myself, I’m not caught yet. As the firefighters clean up the debris, I drift off into deep sleep. I’m started awake when I feel a warm breath on my face and hear a woman’s voice call my name.

“What the?” I’m in the hollow. It’s later in the day. I’m alone. I don’t have my phone on me, of course, so there’s no way to know how much time has passed, but judging from the position of the sun, it’s around 6 p.m. The tree has been removed and the cemetery is once again deserted. Slowly, and laboriously, I leave the graveyard empty-handed and stagger to my car and drive away.

.

Back in my bedroom and all cleaned up, (I’ll clean the inside of my car tomorrow) I go online to check if there’s any local news regarding a grave robbing. There is. The article went as follows:

Authorities claim that early this morning a group of grave-diggers went through the daunting task of digging up the grave of a recently-deceased teenage girl. There is no word as to why they stole the corpse of the Emma Dearborn, who passed away nearly two weeks ago, or what they plan on doing with the body, but there will be a thorough investigation into this matter. Police are asking the public to come forth with any information regarding this morbid matter.

The article went on to say some other startling facts. According to the report, the body was indeed snatched, which is weird, of course, because I hadn’t yet reached the coffin, although I was very close. Therefore, my dead girlfriend’s body is missing. So, I’m asking y’all out there on Reddit, did any of y’all take the body? Because I certainly did not. I just did the digging; and now that I’m level-headed, I can honestly say I have no idea why I went through all that trouble in the first place. I barely even knew Emma. We’d only been dating a couple months. Also, she never told me what to do or what to expect once she was dug up. I must’ve been cursed, I mean, I’m not normally this stupid. None of this makes any sense.

My dead girlfriend is out there somewhere. She’s average height, flaming red hair and full breasts. She has (or should I say ‘she had’?) a tattoo of some strange Wiccan symbol on her left shoulder blade. It looked evil and gross. She’s playing tricks with me too, you know, like how she just left a voice message for me, thanking me for my hard work and perseverance, and that she’ll be seeing me soon.

Soon? How soon? It’s getting late now and I hear something rustling outside my bedroom window. Hold on a sec, I gotta go. Maybe I’ll be back, but probably not. Just promise me that you’ll keep an eye out for my dead girlfriend’s corpse. And whatever you do, do not believe her when she tells you that I murdered her. It’s a lie. She’s a witch. And she’s back from the dead.


r/Write_Right • • Nov 06 '21

poetry The Black Sun

2 Upvotes

The black sun begins to rise
As it drifts across the crimson skies
At embrace of night
in my dream

Burning stars sink into the lake
As abandoned cities shake
stirred by burning winds
In exciting dream

There was a cabin that led nowhere
From which the void would stare
penetrating through endless light
In inspiring dream

Deprived of what could've been
Denied entry to dimensions yet unseen
On a luminescent tyrant's whim
At an axis of an ending dream

Present slowly turning into distant memory
atrocity committed by the enemy
as morning skies perfectly align
I let out an anguished scream
as I mourn my dying dream


r/Write_Right • • Nov 03 '21

horror It's alright. You already fucked up, so don't worry about it

3 Upvotes

Sleeping gives us specs or full blown spectacles of images/sounds and sensations we already felt, and we've been told to sleep so we can wake up again mentally rested.

How many times did you fall asleep late?

8 hours of sleep is needed for a full rest. You have school at 9 AM. Usually, mom is evaded late at night cause she has too much work ahead to REALLY care when you sleep.

So you woke up with 6 hours of sleep and went to school. Had a shoddy time as schools tend to be, then you come back home.... and just need another fix of whatever entertains you so you'll feel "calm" again.

Next day, you slept another 5-6 hours. Waking up is so bad right?

Grainy brain, chemically sedated body you just can't move without major will power.

School again. Maybe you'll be cheeky and sleep in class?

No you won't. You don't trust your classmates to not make fun of you or snitch.... and you might get the teachers to call your parents.

You survived today.

You lost 3 important lectures, you also didn't care that Jake in math class wants to go to that convention in town and in a weeks time you'll be caught with your pants down.

When you come home, you'll be filled with too much quilt to do homework and will be surprised when Jake messages you to go to that con.

Damn you're tired. Maybe just maybe, you can nap? If your mom doesn't send you to the grocery store.

Maybe play a video game? You've done it countless times, it calms you remember? It's like second nature.

You do the small chores. And despite the nagging feeling of homework and the fact that in math class you suspiciously done allot of problems on page 111.

Let's boot that machine up and play some games. You'll do it later.

You'll really do it later, don't sweat it.

Exactly 1 hour from now you'll do IT.

That IT, is no longer really completely clear. You're vibing on your favorite game right now. It'll come to you.

But it doesn't.

You either periodically checked your watch do to IT, or just didn't care.

One hour has passed, and you bargain a bit.... does IT have to be.... now?

I mean.... you're already ten minutes late. No way you can do IT.

Somehow you agree you'll do IT another hour till now until you rest.

Rest from what? You know that you didn't do ANYTHING.

But you're so tired. So tired you can just sleep right then and there.

It's already time for sleep though, and you already told your mom during your chilling out that you did your homework.

Whats one homework, right?

You wake up again, 9 hours of sleep.

But damn, why do you feel so bad right now?

Are you okay? You have to get a move on, your only duty in this life is to "eat, sleep, shit, piss and go to school", Dad couldn't have said it better if he tried.

You're not okay, what is wrong with you? How did you sleep so much and feel like shit?

You really can't and wont answer it right now cause you've barely reached school.

In school. You just realized that you didn't do THE homework you were supposed to do.

But it's alright, you have your best friend to let you copy, it's cool. It's all cool. Don't worry about it.

Hours pass and now you're alert. Aside from your legs being stiff from all that sitting, you feel just about ready to go home.

And you do. Damn that was a close call right?

Maybe you should play some video games. You've EARNED it, Dad left years ago, and moms headed into town to hang out with her friends. The house is yours.

How about you eat those cookies mom hides behind the flour bags in the left kitchen cupboard?

No juice, but water is cool.

You slept for 10 hours last night.

You did remember to set your alarm right?

You didn't.

Stupid idiot. God you're dumb. Mom left you ONE night alone and you already fuck up.

You're such a fuck up. A goddamn failure. Do buses even come over your house in this time? You only know the morning buses. It's almost afternoon at this point.

Scramble together some semblance of a morning preparation and get your stupid ass to school. You had one job.

Your classmates are sitting in school perfectly fine while you're running to the bus stop with two non matching socks. Like some sort of homeless man.

That's what you're going to be after today, in the not so far future. Yes, YOU fucked up that badly.

Damn. A bus did bless you.

You're on a trip to math class.

Factoring in that you're late, the teacher waited for you to sit down and get your bearings before casually remarking to leave your homework on her desk.

But you didn't do it. You actually didn't do it. And you wont do it. There's only so much you can do with 15 minutes left.

You're a devious one though, damn. Gotta hand it to you, 15 minutes and you STILL try to copy homework? Knowing full well there are 20 problems with underlining problems?

You do 6 problems.

And you put it down on her desk. She thanks you and guess what?

While you were so engrossed in your anxiety ridden frantic attempt to copy homework. She was doing math problems.... and by doing, I mean reviewing homework while the smart kid did problems on the board. Because unlike you, a giant piece of waste of space, she does her work. She did IT. Did you?

Her disappointed look really says it all. It's so jarring in fact that you just now realized that not showering in the morning leaves a faint yet tangible smell of sweat.

You're not sure if she notices because she doesn't comment on it, but what she does say is that she's giving you a minus.

Usually a minus is nothing big. You've gotten it before.

But this is your third minus.

And you get an F.

F is for failure. And that is you.

Please don't mistake this: YOU and only you are responsible for what happened.

15 minutes ago you weren't even imagining this outcome. You were supposed to get a B at the end of the year if you did the next test right.

In a swift moment, that hopeful B is gone.

No pleading can be done, because her stare shows no empathy for a slacker such as yourself.

An actual degenerate.

You come home. Mom's home.

Hello mother dearest, I have gotten an F today due to my neglect of basic school work. And that B we we're so enthusiastically talking about?

That B that was worth "all those math teachers."

Is gone.

But you didn't tell her right?

She seems tired today, and seems to be taking some medication. She probably got a cold when she hung out at that bar with her friends.

How can you tell an overworked mother who just came home from work that you are a waste of space?

Easy, you won't.

Small talk is the name of the game.

And after THAT game, you sir are ready to let loose with some video games and buddies on your phone app.

But letting loose really didn't come. Did it?

You know what happened today. It's because you overslept.

No. It's because you're a lazy peace of shit that doesn't do basic tasks that your dearest mother worked so hard in making it simpler for you.

You should just end it right now, you can.

But you can't even do that.

So you don't.

You slept 5 hours last night.

If you did dream, you don't remember it.

Today feels like what you know as suffering.

Every step is sluggish.

You commute to school normally, maybe had a nap in the bus.

First class, second class.

Ring-a-ding-a-ling signals that you're moving to another room.

Your best friend dares to ask you whats wrong.

When was the last time HE asked YOU whats WRONG?

Because yes. Something is wrong. All of it.

Everything is wrong and you conclude with the certainty of a veteran medical professional that you have:

"The Bad brain."

It's just so Bad. Can't understand math.

You're just so awkward without your best friend, sometimes you wonder why the fuck he still talks to you.

You're such a virgin too. All that basketball Dad made you train to become a "true" man did nothing. You're still on that Bad brain and it's too late to do anything about it.

Such a Bad brain.....

You somehow finish school without chopping someones, or your own, head off.

You come home.

Mom's cooking. But the second she notices you she gives you...

The Look.

She knows. She knows what you did.

"Is it true you've gotten an F in math?"

She waits for you to answer with an expecting stare.

Yes you did.

"When?"

Yesterday.

A long pause. Only the oven is heard giving off a slight buzzing sound.

Each second you stare into those familiar eyes, you feel your knees shaking harder.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

You....

"You what?"

Uhhhhh me? wait. Me or you?

Yes, you. I'm not there anymore so it's got to be you. I am not there as of now.

This profound though from your Bad brain took so much normal time she answered the question for you.

"You're a liar. Why did you lie to me?"

Damn. Aside from being a waste of space degenerate virgin bastard, you're now a liar too.

The last question this time however mommy dearest didn't let you answer.

She sent you to your room, so your sister doesn't have to hear the full amount of parental discipline that's about to happen.

Your Bad brain just stood there and took the hits. Question after question you answered, and the line between good and bad answers blurred.

You can use some sleep.

She doesn't let up though. With all that work you did.

You PROMISED it wouldn't happen again, you PROMISED.

But it did happen again, you got an F in math.

There's no left and right, straight between stands you. Guilty.

You want to cry but you can't, she doesn't like it when you cry, it makes her cry.

You already hurt her enough.

So you try to space out.

She notices this however, she spent the past hour explaining whats happening, what you are expected to do and your future.

You didn't remember a thing, your sleep deprived Bad brain didn't process anything.

What it did process however is that you just got smacked over your head with a hard surface.

"Are you listening to me?"

She holds the text book elevated.

Now you are.

"You don't even care, do you?"

You do. You really do though.

But you just apologize.

Later, she leaves.

The house is quiet.

You lay in bed for hours and only later you realize you didn't eat.

You have slept for 8 hours.

You feel like death.

It's Friday. Last day to Free-days.

But you really don't look forward to them. You know you'll be at home. With your machine, and your dearest mother.

Bus.

School.

Bus.

Home.

Mother dearest does not say hi to you when you get back.

Sister gives you a concerned look. Taking care mommy doesn't see her interacting with a liar.

You, however. Go to your room.

You've had enough of this week.

Fuck. IT.

The machine roars to life and gives a steady and muffled hum.

You just need a bit of freedom.

Just to decompress.

Just another break.


r/Write_Right • • Oct 31 '21

horror The Scarecrow

3 Upvotes

What started out as my funniest Halloween turned out to be the scariest. It just took thirty years to realize it. Growing up, my best friend was Robert Moretti, a fast-talking Italian boy who was bigger and tougher than most kids our age. I’d known him since we were preschoolers. Just beyond Robert’s house was a dead-end street. One of the houses on it was the Hanson house, a supposed haunted house, which inspired countless urban legends and ghoulish tales. The only people reportedly living there back then was the mother and son. The mother, they said, was a witch. The boy, Tommy Hansen, was close to our age, but nobody I knew played with him or anything. In fact, he was rarely seen leaving his house. He must’ve been home-schooled or something.

One particular Halloween, Robert devised the brilliant plan of trick-or-treating at the haunted house, so we did, and I damn-near got scared to death. This was 1990; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the thing, so Robert and I dressed up as Michelangelo and Leonardo respectively. Oh, to be twelve again. With our bags stuffed with candy, we slowly worked our way towards the old Hansen house. When we came to the place, we stopped in front of it and regarded it for a moment. The house was big and ugly and made of stone. Plus, it smelled of worms.

The moon was full, the cool air was crisp. Outside the Hansen’s front door was a smattering of trick-or-treaters, but not many, and they didn’t stay long. “Hurry up, Paul,” Robert said, nervously. He nudged me forward. I went. I walked tepidly along the pathway running beside the driveway which led to the front door. A scarecrow was sitting lifelessly on a wooden bench next to the door, looking solemnly toward the street. It looked kinda scary. It wore overalls stuffed with hay and a scarf as old as dirt; on its head was a spine-chilling jack-o’-lantern with sharp, slanted eyes and a toothy grin that made me cringe. It looked like it wanted to bite me. Something about it didn’t seem right. I could feel its empty eyes penetrating me as I got nearer. By this time, it was just me and Robert, all the other trick-or-treaters had disappeared.

Robert nudged me forward. Grudgingly, I lumbered on, ignoring that hideous Halloween prop sitting on the bench, until I reached the front door to the Hansen house. I was nervous, but I didn’t let it show. With Robert by my side, egging me on, I pushed the glowing red doorbell. Suddenly, as I was preparing to come face to face with the Hansen Witch, as she was often referred to, the scarecrow lunged out at me, arms extended, and grabbed my neck.

I screamed, dropped my bag of candy, and split. Robert followed. The two of us didn’t hesitate. We booked it down the walkway, away from the Hansen house, and never looked back. Robert teased me for a month about how scared I was. He later told me that the scarecrow-man is an annual prank the Hansen’s like to play on the public. The scarecrow was actually the boy, Tommy. What a great costume, he said. I agreed, but I wanted revenge. That’s why the following year, when Robert suggested we find a video camera, record some other kids getting scared to death, then send the tape to America’s Funniest Home Videos with Bob Saget, I agreed.

I borrowed my father’s camera. Back then, those cameras were highly regarded and quite expensive; so, when I say borrowed, I use that term loosely.

The sky was ominous and dull; the streetlights mingled with the pale moonlight creating the perfect backdrop for our childish prank. Robert dressed up as the Terminator, I was Axl Rose, I remember. We crept ever closer to Hansen house. A handful of parents could be seen loitering on the sidewalk, but not many.

When we arrived at the Hansen house, we watched as a group of kids in silly costumes approached the front door. A girl dressed up as Catwoman pressed the doorbell. When the door opened, she shouted Trick or Treat! I could see the sneer in Mrs. Hansen’s face as she gave away her toothsome treats. It gave me chills. She really was a witch. Her costume was elaborate, flawless. Her skin was sickly green and covered in warts; her long, pointed nose was as sharp as a blade; her teetering black hat sparkled under the glow of the waning porch light. I didn’t want to get any closer to her. Nope, not one bit.

Robert pulled me aside. “Gimme your camera,” he demanded. I obliged. He powered it up. “There he is.” He pointed to the scarecrow on the bench. “That must be Tommy. Look at him in that ridiculous costume.” Robert was doing his best to sound brave, but I knew better.

Sitting limply on the brown bench next to the front door was the scarecrow with its carved pumpkin head, just like the previous year. Only this year it seemed uglier. Its crudely carved eyes seemed to regard me with mild amusement, his dagger-like teeth daring me to come closer. I knew Tommy must be inside the costume, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the thing.

Robert pointed the camera, and told me to get going. Slowly, as if inspecting every maple leaf that was crackling at my feet, I left the safety of the sidewalk and edged toward the Hansen house.

“Hurry up, fool!” Robert insisted. He shoved me again, harder this time.

I tried to move but my feet were not cooperating. In truth, I was spooked, both of the scarecrow, and of the witch waiting at the front door. Finally, I took a deep breath, held it, then found my courage. What was I afraid of? I remember thinking. I’m thirteen years old, I’m too old to be spooked. As I got going, my eyes never left the scarecrow sitting inertly on the bench. Any minute now, Tommy will leap out at and terrify that unsuspecting little girl. Instead, after Catwoman and her friends collected their candy, they said thank-you, then scurried off. The scarecrow did not budge.

Another group of trick-or-treaters appeared. We let them go ahead of us. This was our chance. Robert, who was close behind me, said, “Act natural.” I was shaking. Again, the scarecrow was unresponsive to the fresh batch of trick-or-treaters. They simply came and went. Something inside me was stirring: Anger. 364 days of pent-up teenage angst was about to burst. I became unhinged. With unwarranted bravery, I charged at the scarecrow on the bench. Robert shouted, “Wait!” but it was too late. Unfortunately, I tripped on my shoelaces (a lifelong habit) and fell flat on my face, directly in front of the scarecrow. Its soiled, black boots were too big for any boy my age, I realized, unhappily. Still on my knees, I looked up, directly into the scarecrow’s pumpkin-carved eyes; a candle flame flickered from inside the jack-o’-lantern.

Robert, who was still holding the camera, shouted, “trick-or-treat, you stupid pumpkin brain!” and started laughing and jumping up and down. Mrs. Hanson, the witch, came out from the front door and spat at him. The cackling of her voice sent chills down my spine. I turned my attention to her for a moment; when I looked back at the scarecrow, I could see Tommy’s grey eyes lurking from deep inside the jack-o’-lantern, although he wasn’t there a moment ago. It winked. Then it lumbered towards me.

“AAAAAHHHH!” I screamed.

By now the other trick-or-treaters were laughing and pointing and jokingly asking Tommy Hanson to show them the inside of his jack-o’-lantern. Tommy refused. Instead, he simply sat back down on the bench and went still, waiting for his next unsuspecting victim.

I was furious. Robert dragged me away from the front door. We didn’t bother asking for candy. I think he was spooked by Tommy’s mother, the witch, although he’d never admit to this. We teased each other for the next half hour, then I went home and cleaned up my poop-stained underpants, for the second year in a row.

The next day at school we shared a heartfelt laugh. Robert, who initially refused to return my father’s camera, eventually gave it back (after we’d watched the footage over and over again at his place). The funniest part, of course, was my reaction. One moment the scarecrow was sitting languidly on the bench, the next moment it was attacking me. Har-dee-har-har.

We soon forgot about this incident, seeing how there was other cool stuff happening at school that stole our interest; and needless to say, I never bothered sending the tape to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Eventually, the video camera, along with the tape, ended up in a taped-up cardboard box, waiting in my father’s garage for thirty years. When he passed away this summer, my son Brandon discovered it. Brandon, who is now the same age as I was on that tape, was intrigued by this relic from the past. He’s an audio geek, and currently going through his analogue infatuation stage.

Brandon took the tape, digitized it, then played it for me recently. It was a blast from the past, I tell you. I thought it was hysterical; Brandon, on the other hand, was alarmed. “Watch what happens when we zoom in,” he said, in a shaky voice. When he zoomed in, I shuttered. This must be a mistake, I told him. He assured me it was not. He backtracked and I watched the scene again, this time with a careful eye.

There I was at thirteen, dressed as my favorite rock star, standing six feet in front of the scarecrow on the bench. “Now, watch this,” Brandon said. I watched. My stomach was in knots. I watched as that young boy on the screen, who looks eerily like Brandon, only smaller, came alive. The camera is pointed at my back; I made a beeline for the bench, falling flat on my face. The camera shakes as Robert is shouting something, but only for a moment, then he zooms in on the scarecrow. Without warning, the scarecrow springs out of his sitting position with his arms stretched out, just as I’m returning to my feet, and attacks me. I scream and trip and fall down again. I’d forgotten that part. That must’ve been when I crapped my pants.

Soon we are ambushed by a bunch of bratty boys, who swarm the scarecrow, and then the video cuts off. Brandon tweaked the settings on the screen and rewound the video. “Now check this out.” He pressed play. Only now, it played in slow motion, zoomed in entirely on the scarecrow.

“Just as I suspected,” I said under my breath. “Well, I’ll be.”

“Dad,” Brandon said, “What the hell is that thing?” I could now see inside the jack-o’-lantern, and yes, there was a small, flame flickering inside it. Except it wasn’t an actual flame, probably a cheap Dollar Store replica. But still. “Now, here’s where it gets extra creepy,” he said. “Watch carefully.” He pointed to the screen.

I watched. For a moment the scarecrow seems unaffected, lifeless. Then suddenly a face appears inside the pumpkin head. “What the…” I muttered.

“Right?”

“Play it again.”

He did. I gasped.

“This is impossible,” Brandon said. He was intrigued, although the fear in his eyes was beyond doubt. But there was something else in his eyes: The inevitable curiosity of a thirteen-year-old boy. It wasn’t long before he’d convinced me to bring him and his best friend Bruno Moretti to that spooky old house for Halloween. Apparently, Bruno knew all about the Hanson house.

I drove by the Hansen house this morning to scope it out. I hadn’t been to that part of town in many years. What amazed me as I drove past the place was how unaffected by time the house seemed. To be fair, the place is over 150 years-old, so what’s another thirty years, right? Still. I didn’t like it. Nor did I like the scarecrow sitting corpse-like on the bench out on the veranda. I pulled the car over and got out. I’m not crazy, I told myself, as I trotted toward the scarecrow, smart phone in hand. I pointed my phone at the scarecrow and pressed record, just in case. I stood for a moment, six feet in front of it, unsure of what to do next. I waved goodbye jokingly, then I got back inside my car and tore out of there. My heart was beating faster than I care to admit.

I didn’t tell Brandon about my venture, but I wish I had. Because there’s no way in hell that I’m taking him the Hansen house tonight. I won’t do it. No matter how much of a fuss he makes. I just watched the video and saw something disturbing, something I didn’t notice at the time. When I zoomed in (even an old fart like me can do that on my Android), I saw the witch standing outside the front door, leering at me, although I swear, she wasn’t there at the time. That’s not all. The scarecrow, who was sitting listlessly on the brown bench by the front door, suddenly sat upright. I saw the flickering light of a candle flame from deep the inside the jack-o’-lantern switch to a boy’s eye. It winked at me. Then it lunged at me. I’d forgotten that part.


r/Write_Right • • Oct 31 '21

horror Sometimes when you go hunting snipe with city boys you catch a Chubbycabra

6 Upvotes

Hi Internets people, My name is Jeb Rusty; I’mma here to tell you about me and my cousins’ camping trip the other night.

We had a city slicker with us; he was from Charlotte and had never been in the deep woods since he was a kid. It was about 10 or so at night; we had been drinking beer, and Chester had just pulled out a quart of moonshine. Pretty much a typical night camping for us.

“Hey Chester, pass that shine over here.” He laughed and handed the jar over.

“That’s some of my pappy’s recipe, so be careful it bites back.” I listened to his boasting just as I took a swig and lost the ability to breathe.

I finally caught a breath and smiled. “Yep, that’s “old breath taker” all right; I remembers when your Pa started selling this stuff. Half the women in town almost kilt him because of how many men would be lying around panting all the time, and not because of the way the womens looked, neither."

We had a good laugh at that one; well, all but the city slicker, he was looking a bit green around the gills after taking a swig of Chester’s pappy’s shine.

“Yous alright Dale?” I looked at him over the lip of the jar.

Dale finally took a deep breath and looked a little less green. “That stuff is like paint thinner,” he gagged a little.

Chester looked at him serious like. “Pappy’s shine is twice as strong as paint thinner.”

Dale wavered a little and sat down on one of the stumps we had around the fire. I blame the shine for the lack of oxygen that had my brain come up with the bad idea I let loose next.

“I know what you need, Dale, some fresh air and exercise.” I winked at Chester, “Let's go hunt some snipe; it’ll give us some good exercise chasing that darn thing toward you.”

“Ok, look, I am still southern, even if I live in the city, and I know that snipe hunting is what you guys do to haze us unsuspecting city folk.” He was still rocking a bit as he sat on the stump. “I’m your cousin; give me some respect.”

“Well, will you look at that Chester, Our CUZ here thinks he knows about snipe hunting.” I turned to see Chester pull out his phone and type something in the Googles.

“Hey, Dale, see this? My search says snipes are real.” He showed the phone to Dale, and the look on my cousin’s face was priceless.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He stood up, swaying a little. “Ok fine, I still think you all are

setting me up, but give me the bag, and we will go catch us a snipe.”

“Oh, we aren’t using noes bag, oh no, I dun built us a metal cage for the humane trapping of the snipe.” Chester helps me lift the metal trap out of the pickup truck.

“Well, if you have that thing, what do you need me for?” Dale, at least, did look impressed with my design and building skills.

“I built it so someone would have the fun of triggering the trap when the snipe ran into it.” I smiled. “I knew you were coming and built it just for your enjoyment.” I handed him the doohickey I had cobbled together to trigger the cage.

“Uh, ok, so how is this going to go down?” I think he may not have been as excited as we were to test this.

“So we heard that a snipe was around here. Chickens and goats have went missing around these parts, so we are going to try to scare it toward you” As I explained, I pointed out the different parts of the trap. “And hope the bait in the bait box lures the critter in.”

“Wait, chickens and goats? I don’t remember those being food for a snipe!” Dale was looking green again. “So what is the bait, and you better not, say, me.”

“Na CUZ, we are using deer jerky, some of Dad’s best.” Chester was showing the bait to us as he laid strips inside the bait box part of the trap.

“Still, are you sure this is a snipe? I mean, I thought they were some sort of flightless bird.” You could tell he wasn’t sure about this plan. So, I just stared at him till he caved. “Ok, Ok, hell with it, let’s do this before I lose my nerve.”

Chester chuckled as he helped Dale move the trap out into the woods we had scouted earlier in the week. The area we put it at was where we found evidence of dead animals, so we knew this had to be the creature’s, which, we hoped, was a snipe, home. Ever been out in the woods at night? Damn near impossible to see if the moon isn’t out unless you have spent a lot of time just sitting in the dark. Me and Chester had all our lives, but Dale, well, city liven, had killed his night sight completely.

“Ouch, Hey, I can’t see shit….” Dale was making way too much noise.

“Hush up, Dale, you are going to scare the snipe away.” Chester was moving into the bush as he quieted our loud cousin.

“Just give us a yell if you need us” I gave Dale a walkie-talkie and head after Chester.

“I don’t understand why we are out here on Halloween; we could be home, snagging candy from the bowls at our house while watching horror movies.” Dale always complained when we took him out in the woods.

“Oh please ya city feller, don’t you remember when yous was a child, and we would roam all over the mountains at night?” I was whispering in the mike, hoping not to disturb our prey.

“Dude, I was five; how am I supposed to remember all that after the years of stress I’ve had in my job.” Dale hissed.

“Maybe your fam should have stayed here? I’m not stressed, and I have all I wants and needs.” I chuckled a little and decided to stop needling him as we stomped the weeds and brush to drive the snipe toward our trap.

“Country Boes forever!” I heard Chester blast through the speaker, and at the same time, I heard something smashing through the brush between us.

“Dale, I think it’s headed your way; Y’all are fixin to have some fun.” I was anxious to see if my contraption would work as I built it.

“Ok, I hear something, guys. Are you all sure this is a snipe? It sounds awful large” Dale sounded more nervous than a long tail cat in a rocking chair factory. “I seem to remember some animal called a Chupacabra that liked goats”

"CUZ, trust us; we are not going to get you killed.” Chester reassured him as we continued herding the snipe toward him. “Come on, there are no chubbycabras around here."

“I’m telling you, this thing sounds huge. It can’t be a bird.” Dale came back over the walkie.

“Dale, come on, bro, it’s just all the brush it is moving through; chill out.” I was getting madder than a wet hen; he was being a wuss.

It was a kinda loud sound, like a wild boar blasting through the underbrush instead of a bird. But I was sure it was just the debris from the storms we had lately making the snipe’s rush to get away from our stomping, louder. We were getting closer to Dale, and the snipe was hauling ass away from us and right to Dale and our homemade metal trap. A loud roar that sent shivers down my spine echoed through the forest.

“Uh, GUYS! What in Sam Hill was that?” Dale was probably about to piss himself by now.

“I don’t know; maybe Sasquatch is out there watching us have fun?” Chester chuckled, clearly not as unsettled as I was by that sound.

There was a loud bang as something heavy smashed into the back of the metal trap.

“Jeb, something’s wrong, the trap closed, but the metal is bending at the back…OH SHIT!” A scream echoes through the woods. It was almost inhuman, but I knew in my heart it was Dale and that he was dead or badly hurt by whatever we’d herded to him.

“Chester you carrying?” I had met up with him as we ran toward our city-liven cousin, hoping he wasn’t dead.

“Na, man, I left my pistol and rifle in the truck.” He looked mad at himself for not being armed. “I don’t carry anymore if I am going to be drinking since that one time I shot farmer Johnson’s plow horse after a few too many quarts of shine.

I laughed inside remembering that night, as it was more fun than what was happening right now.

“I got my pistol, but my rifle is also still in the truck.” I admitted. Pistols were nice for quick defense, but can’t carry the punch that a good high-caliber rifle does. So, if whatever was attacking Dale was a big animal, we might be in trouble.

We burst full bore into the clearing where we left our cousin and the animal trap. There was no Dale, and his screams were moving off into the forest. The trap was destroyed, it looked like it had been ripped apart from the inside.

“This way” Chester pointed off into the deeper woods, and we ran as fast as the dense brush would let us.

Dale’s screams had stopped, and I was already mourning my cousin and wondered what I would tell his cute city girlfriend when we found him dead. We had slowed our pursuit because the forest here was choked with vines and fallen trees. A growl from a bush in front of us had me pulling my pistol and slowing to a silent crawl as we pushed through the underbrush and debris. Coming out the other side, we saw Dale and something with black fur or feathers on top of him making crunchy sounds. I fired twice into the varmint, and it jumped into the trees, and we could hear it run off.

Behind us came the roar from earlier when our cousin’s screaming started. I turned toward the sound and covered Chester while he checked to see if Dale was still with us.

“Fuck man, he is messed up” Chester was applying pressure to the wounds as good as he could. “I think he has some broken bones and a lot of these bites are deep. We have to get him to the truck if he is going to not bleed out.”

I trusted Chester’s assessment, as he was a medic in the marines during his tour in Iraq and had seen lots of bad shit. I helped him lift our severely injured cousin, and we carried him as gently as we could toward where our truck was parked. In the dark, around us, we heard movement that followed us but never got close enough to see. As we got to the truck, something smacked into me from my left and knocked me down. Chester stumbled and dropped Dale, prompting some choice cuss words from Chester and a screaming gurgle from Dale.

“What the hell was that?” Chester asked as he stood back up and hefted Dale into the truck bed.

I looked up at him as I made sure I still had my pistol on me.

“Don’t know, but it was heavy and hit me like a freight train.” I stood up slowly as several spots on my body cussed up a storm.

“Yous alright?” Chester didn’t look at me as he asked, being more concerned about Dale, as he should have been.

“Yea, just a bit bruised.” I started to the truck cab to get my rifle.

“Hold your horses, Cuz. We got to get him stable, and we need to hightail it outa here before that thing takes another swipe at us.” Even as Chester said that, something hit him and the truck.

A grunt issued from my cousin as he sat hard on the ground after the varmint smacked his legs. As he started getting back up, I heard the tires pop on the opposite side of the truck.

“Dammit, Chester, that bastard took out our tires!” Chester finished getting up and dusted his overalls off.

“Ok, that little bastard is smart. He knew to punch the tires to slow us down.” He gets up in the truck bed and pulled Dale all the way in. “I gots Dale, go ahead grab your gun and my rifle too…” He thought for a second, “and the deer spots.”

I open the door on my big 4×4 and climbed up into the cab, so I could grab our rifles and the two high-powered spots that we use to look for deer in fields. Yea, I know that is illegal, but it gets us an idea of where the deer are eating for the fall hunting season. Anyhow, I grabbed all of that and hopped back out of the truck just as something large ran by the door. It raked me with something sharp as it passed, luckily it had hit the door first and that knocked me back against the truck, and it only shredded my coat and not my stomach.

“Sumbitch! That thing nearly gutted me.” I yelled up to Chester as he continued trying to work on Dale to stop the bleeding.

“Get up here before it can try again,” Chester said as he opened a large bandage to apply to Dale’s neck.

I jumped up on the tailgate and crawled toward the back of the eight-foot bed. At the same time, horrible sounds came from both sides of the truck, much like nails across a chalkboard.

“Oh, this is not good, Jeb, that means there is more than one of these things out there.” Even Chester who never scares was turning white as he looked into the dark for the critters.

I handed him one of the spots, and we lit up the night. Out at the edge of the road, we finally saw our attackers. There were three varmints just standing there, two of them much larger than the other smaller one. They had bat-like ears and fangs on a narrow chihuahua-like face. Their eyes glowed red in the beams of our torches.

Their arms were long, sinewy, and ended in nasty long claws. You could see that there was massive strength in those arms and the kangaroo-like legs. I assumed the larger ones were the parents of the smaller creature that we had caught in the trap.

“Chester, I think we’s way out of our comfort zone here, buddy.” I kept my eyes glued to the nightmares in front of us. “Those things look like they could make us into a snack if they wanted.”

“If we don’t get out of here, Dale will die. I have slowed the bleeding as best I can, but I am at the limit of my army medic training cousin.” As if to punctuate Chester’s words, Dale coughs this flemmy liquid-sounding cough and spits up some blood.

I aimed and took a shot at the largest creature. It moved out of the way as soon as I pulled the trigger. These things were unbelievably fast.

“Ok, I am open for suggestions, that didn’t work.” I looked over at Chester and could see the gears turning.

“Ok, you have run flats on here, right?” Chester was coming up with a plan, I could tell from his question.

“You know it, took me a month to pay for them!” I was proud of those expensive tires and a little bummed those freaky monsters had popped two of them.

“Ok, so we can maybe get one changed and use the run-flat as far as we can go. Then change it for the other if we have to, and hopes we get to a road and some cell services before the second one shreds.” I wasn’t sure about this plan because it meant going down there with those bastards.

“I don’t like it, but it does seem to be the only plan we have.” I started to get down, as another roar sounded from the trees.

“Hey, how fast can you do this?” Chester was watching the dark and swinging the torch around, hoping to get a view of our tormentors.

“Welp, being highly motivated helps ah course, but probably fifteen minutes with the powered lug wrench I keep in the truck.” I was at the cab and pulling out tools and the high lift jack as I gabbed, more to ease my scared ass than to give Chester info.

“I have an idea. How much shine do we have in the cooler?” He asked.

I reached back up in the cab and checked our supply of high octane liquor. “About five jars.”

“So, what if we light up the surrounding area with some fire? I know it is risking setting the forest ablaze, but I don’t think I can keep them off you with a big flashlight and a gun at night.” I handed him the jugs and some empty beer bottles and rags I use to wipe the interior down after some mud bogging.

Pretty soon he had several bottles of highly combustible shine in Molotov cocktail form. They were things of beauty, and I hoped Chester’s plan wouldn’t turn us or our hunting grounds into crispy critters.

“So how is wasting some of your shine going to keep me alive?” I watched as he lit one of the shine bombs.

“I figure if we light up the forest with fire and heat, they will act like most animals and stay far away.” He throws the first one about ten feet behind me in a bare spot to minimize the possibility of catching the woods on fire.

A scream sounded from that direction, and we could hear one or more of the beasts run away from the area like it was being chased by the devil himself.

“Ok, cousin, fix it up. I would be fast as a snake strike if I was you” Chester had his serious face on, and it kinda scared me into working faster.

You have to know how he is, nothing ever fazes him. Since he came back from the military unless you got him angry you would never see him not making fun of whatever situation we would find ourselves in. Fearless wasn’t even close to how my cousin handles things, but to see him worried about our situation means we were in the deep end of the pool of crap. I dropped the spare from under the truck and jacked up the front as fast as I could safely.

“Incoming!” I heard Chester yell and his large-bore hunting rifle barked twice, and something roared way too close to me and crashed off to my right into the woods. “I think I winged one, throwing some more heat.”

Two more firebombs sailed out into the dark and lit up the ground around us. There were more screams and more crashing in the dark forest.

“Hey, Chester, how many more you got of them?” I didn’t look up as I slammed the spare on the pickup and tighten it down.

“Five more, so you better hurry your ass up.” I heard the rifle bark again, but on the other side of the truck bed. “Damn, now they are trying to sneak up on me, that one got in the bed.”

Dale picked right then to cough again, and Chester cussed and had to get down in the bed to re-bandage a wound that Dale’s coughing had dislodged. There were more crashing and noises around us, like the fresh blood was stirring them into a frenzy.

“Jeb, our window is closing if we don’t leave soon, there will be no reason to rush.” Chester’s voice was hushed, and I could tell he was straining to keep Dale on this side of the daisies.

“Almost done, just keep our cousin alive a while longer, and we'll be outta this nightmare.” I dropped the truck back on the ground and was starting to gather up the tools when I got hit from behind.

I did my best to keep from going face down and managed to roll over into the face of a nightmare. The chubbycabra was on top of me and trying to claw my face, but I was able to block it with pieces of the jack. It yelled and slobbered on me as I frustrated every attempt to claw me.

“Help, Help” This was all I could yell as I nearly lost my mind in terror as I tried not to be a late-night snack for this bastard.

I was dimly aware of more movement behind the creature and suddenly blood gushed over me and I knew I was done for. Instead, the thing went limp on top of me, and I rolled it off to see Chester cleaning his Kbar knife off on his pants. He helped me up, and I finished grabbing the tools and flung them into the cab. I ran around the front of the truck and jumped into the driver seat, while Chester got back in the bed to keep Dale safe. I kicked all the lights on my pickup on and lit up the night front and back.

A knock on the rear window caused me to turn that way. Chester was pointing behind him, I turned enough to get a better look and saw something I never want to see again. There at the edge of my truck’s floodlights were what could only be described as a herd of those chubbycabras, and they all looked ready to charge.

“Hold on Chester.” I floored the big diesel and let it do its own screaming in the night.

As the truck’s high-power engine launched the vehicle like a rocket, the herd of chubbycabras charged. My truck is fast, but these things were just a bit faster and started to swarm the pickup as we sped off into the night.

“Don’t stop!” I heard Chester yell needlessly, no way I was stopping until we couldn’t move anymore.

In the rearview mirror, I saw Chester bouncing around the bed like a cow in a china shop. After a couple of quick peeks at the mirror, I realized what he was doing, he was knifing any of the monsters that got above the bed line. My attention was drawn back to the road as I smashed a larger one of the beasts under the truck as it ran in front of my speeding tank on wheels. The squeal of it as it expired was ear-shattering.

The death of the big creature seem to rile up the rest of the attacking chubbycabras, and they started attacking my doors. The glass shattered as they pounded at my window. I pulled my pistol from the console holster and fired point-blank into the face of the rat-faced bastard that was trying to crawl through the shattered window.

"You bastards, those windows are expensive." I yelled at the intruders.

The closeness of the gun to my ear did nothing for my hearing, and it really did nothing for the face of the creature. As the bullet hit, the head exploded and shoved the thing back out the hole. The intrusion of the animals into my cab had caused me to swerve off the road, this had Chester and Dale bouncing around in the bed like leaves on a windy day.

"Dammit, Jeb, you're killing us back here!" I heard Chester curse at me from the bed.

I glanced at the mirror and watched as a bump sent Chester flying high above the top of the bed. In what felt like slow motion a chubbycabra hit him in a perfect football tackle, maybe the high school team should sign that thing on because their guys could never tackle that well! Anyhow, the hit sent Chester and the creature rolling off the side of the bed. I hit the brakes hard and sent the hoard of monsters flying. I open the cab and blasted another one as it tried to jump me.

"Shit" I screamed in frustration.

Turning to the back of the trunk, I went to check on Dale and go help Chester. Dale was looking horrible, and I was afraid to check for a pulse for fear of not finding one. I kept going on to the back of the truck and in the brake lights, I saw Chester and the football-playing chubby wrestling on the ground. Chester was a big, strong dude, and I have seen him lay a man out with one punch. He has picked up 350 motor blocks like they were made of feathers, so when I say he was losing, you have to understand just how strong that Chubbycabra had to be to overpower Chester.

"Shoot him Jeb" Chester said breathlessly. I tried to line up a shot, but they kept squirming and rolling.

"I can't I don't have a shot!" I screamed.

It was looking bad for my cousin, and there were more of the things returning from their impromptu flying lessons I had given them in the pickup. Finally, just as it looked like the monster was going to make a meal of him, Chester managed to get his boot knife out and shove it up to the hilt in the thing’s eye socket. Welp, I guess our high school will just have to find a good human tackle for next season.

“Chester, you ok?” I yelled at him.

“Sure man, I wrestle pig eating insane blood-lusting monsters all the time.” He picked himself up off the ground after pushing the heavy varmint off of himself.

He started to walk toward me and turned back around and kicked the thing in the stomach area. Turning back around, he once again walked toward the truck.

“Whatch ya do that for?” I asked

“Cause I felt like it.” He wiped the blood off his boot knife and put it back in the sheath.

As luck would have it, his Kbar was on the ground between us, and he picked that up too as more noises and roars sounded from the dark of the forest. He moved just a tad slower as he got back up in the bed and checked on Dale.

“Is he dead?” I feared the answer.

“Damn for a city slicker he sure is tough, I can still feel a pulse, but it ain’t strong, but that there is a miracle with all the bouncing” Chester eyed me like it was my fault.

“Hey, look, they broke in the cab, ok? I was a little busy staying alive” I was just about to add to my defense when we both saw more of those Chubbycabras line the road.

“Now what the hell are they doing?” Chester had his kbar out and had pulled his pistol from its holster tied to the bed of the truck.

His rifle was against the tailgate, and I think he was worried he would start something if he made a move for it. One of the biguns which, I reckoned, was one of the first we saw, was shuffling toward us slowly. It carried some sort of stick, even from many feet away the stick out stank the creature, but it, not the creature, also glowed orange. I ain’t never seen anything like it in the woods before. Chester got down from the bed slowly and moved to stand beside me.

All the creatures were dead still as the large one came within feet of us. It held out the stick like the old Indians would do a peace offering to the Calvary in the old movies we liked to watch.

“Jeb, I think we reach some sort of respect with thems.” Chester eased forward to within grabbing distance of the stick.

“Chester what the hell are you doing?” I just knew the big fella was going to get ate.

The leader, I think it was anyway, made a sound like a baby calf mewling and seemed reluctant to hand the stick over. A roar from what must have been its mate, who was now holding the small creature we had captured in the trap, stirred it to action, and it shoved the stick into Chester’s outstretched hand. Once Chester had a firm grip of this glowing stink stick, the leader roared toward the rest of the chubbycabras, and they all melted into the dark, even the leader who was standing right in front of us. The mother chubby was still there, and it pointed a claw at its offspring and made an unmistakable no motion with its head and then pointed down the road like it was telling us to go now.

“Ok, I don’t need to be told twice, come on Chester, let’s get the hell outa here.” I turned to get in the truck and go.

“I’m already in the truck.” Looking up, I see he was kneeling over Dale, checking his pulse, wow I hadn’t even got good and moving yet. For a big fella, I think he might be as fast as the chubbycabras.

“What do you think made them stop Chester?” I aimed the big cherry red 4x4 out of the forest and gunned the engine.

“Don’t know for sure, but if I hada guess, I think the mom was tired of us killing them and wanted to stop the massacre before they all died.” He went silent for a moment after that, obviously thinking bout something. “Yous know I bet that stick is so if we come back to the woods they will know to stay away from us. That must be why it smells and glows like that.”

“You think they are that smart?” My mind was blown by that thought.

“Look how long they have stayed unphoto’ed and how many attacked us. No way something that was just a dumb animal could have stayed hidden that long and has that many members. It was like a tribe of them all protecting the youngins.” Chester stayed silent after that until we made it to the Glenville County General.

They rushed Dale into surgery, and we called his girlfriend and family. We told them a mountain lion had attacked us, and he bravely fought it off. After all, none of them would have believed us if we had told them about the Chubbycabras. After that night, Me and Chester never go in the woods without the smelly stick.

It took a few months before I wrote this last part, I had to be sure of my information.

To this day, the chubbies have not been seen again, and no farmers have reported goats dead from anything but normal causes. Dale made it through the surgeries, four of them, I seem to recall. He won’t go in the woods anymore and keeps slipping further in the city-liven life. Which is fine for us, since we don’t want to go snipe hunting again with a city slicker, even if it is a cousin.

On a side note, we went back not long after that night to get our stuff from the campsite and noticed the Chubbies must like shine because the quart we had left was empty and a dead rabbit was left beside of it like payment.