Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror (17 page)

“Why would they want to visit you anyway?” she asked.

“I’m their dad–and it’s Christmas. Maybe I should go visit them.”

The voice of his dead wife taunted. “And when was the last time you left this place?”

William felt like strangling her. He turned back to the letter but it was gone. So was the table. His couch had been moved against the far wall.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Same as last year, darling. Did you forget again?”

William tried to remember. “It kinda feels familiar.”

“Of course it does.”

He shut his eyes and shook his head. “No, this isn’t possible. You’re not real.” He opened his eyes. His apartment had turned into a small room. A wall now stood where the window had been earlier and his couch was a single bed.

William pulled his hair. “I have to get out of here. I have to get to my kids.”

“You can try, but you’ll just come back to me,” she replied. “You always do.”

William stormed towards the door and pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge. He stumbled through the room, searching. “It has to be here somewhere.”

“Why do we have to go through this every Christmas? Do I have to watch this pathetic display every time?” she said.

William searched his clothes and, after finding nothing, tore them from his body. He scratched his hands across his naked skin and searched between his toes and behind his ears. His nails tore and dug through his hair and into his skin. “Where is it?”

His wife’s laughter flooded his ears and echoed into his skull, louder and louder until it felt like his head would burst.

He continued to bore his fingertips into his flesh until he felt a hard bump beneath his scalp. After pulling a piece of skin out of the way William pushed it, and the door clicked opened.

“You’ll be back!” his wife shouted. “You always come back to me you murdering son of a bitch.”

William stumbled into the hallway and laughed hysterically. He no longer heard his wife’s voice. He was free.

***

The night watchman shook his head and picked up the radio. “Orderlies to Ward C. Patient 137 has escaped his room again.” He put the radio down, slightly perplexed. “Every damn Christmas,” he said to himself. “How the hell does he get that door open?”

No matter, he thought, noting the time before continuing on his rounds. The call would go out and Patient 137 would soon be returned to Ward C.

They knew, as every year before, exactly where to find him.

Joe Mynhardt
is a South African writer and teacher. While having dozens of short story publications, Joe also tends to a tome of ideas scraping for a chance to be written. Read more about Joe and his creations at www.Joemynhardt.com or find him on facebook at ‘Joe Mynhardt’s Short Stories’.

INSANITY

ELLEN DENTON

Alan woke up screaming like a girl. It was the same nightmare; he was being devoured by hundreds of rats. Now, as he sat up in bed, he could still see their small, red, angry eyes and smell the disgusting, dirty odor of the ones that were on his face.

Weeks ago, when the bad dreams started, Alan had also begun hearing objects in his house whispering to him during the day. He still had enough presence of mind to know that they really weren’t talking to him; that would have been crazy.

He got out of bed, shuffled into the kitchen, pulled a package of ham from the fridge and got out a plate. He regarded the plate lovingly for a moment. It was one of four that his sister had earlier sent him as a gift from Mexico, where she was currently stationed as a translator. It had a beautiful, shiny, golden-green glaze on it. He placed the ham on it, then dropped it shattering to the floor, because the plate threatened to kill him if he didn’t return the five dollars he had stolen seventeen years earlier from his mother’s purse.

He pinched his arm to make sure he was actually awake. He was disturbed by this threatening, whispering piece of dishware, but it’s what he saw outside the kitchen window that froze him in terror. Two huge, amber eyes stared at him malevolently from a height taller than any human being could possibly be. The eyes lowered and moved closer, almost pressing against the window.

Alan knew that he was not going crazy, and that it was all really happening. He screamed and backed away from the window. He grabbed the phone to call 911, but the receiver turned into a hissing, giant spider as soon as he lifted it out of the cradle. He could feel stiff, little hairs on its body. He cringed in pure, agonized, spiritual terror and dropped it.

***

Bill, the mailman, knew what death smelled like. When he was a teenager, he found his grandmother dead on her kitchen floor from a massive coronary. To this day, he recalled the putrid, overpowering smell of her body, which had been rotting on the floor for days. This is why he knew what the smell was coming from Alan's house.

The coroner ruled Alan’s death by hanging a suicide.

It was almost a week after Alan’s body was found that his sister’s letter arrived from Mexico. In it, she had updated him on things there, and mentioned that he should never eat off of the decorative plates she had earlier sent him, because the glaze in them contained metals that could cause a barrage of serious physical problems, not to mention delusions, hallucinations and bad dreams.

Ellen Denton
has been published in
Underground Voices, You and Me, Things Japanese, Fed Caps, Animal Wellness
and
Greenprints
magazines with upcoming pieces in a Spruce Mountain Press anthology,
Vampires 2
, and
Underground Voices
. She has placed as finalist, runner-up and honorable mention in many contests, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

INFECTED

DONALD HAAS

I thought I was in the clear, but I found the scratch on my arm the next day.

The city walls and the patrols keep the hordes at bay. There hasn’t been a serious zombie sighting in years, but somehow that little undead cat slipped in and got me.

It was just after dusk. I was passing through the alley and heard the eerie growl. Then, the cat shambled out from beneath some boxes.

I always thought I would be more scared if a zombie caught me. But all I could think about was my mom’s shrill voice, nagging me to always make sure to be inside before dark.

I’m still amazed that I was rational enough to grab a trash can lid and deflect the cat’s attacks. I half-scooped the cat up and tossed it into a dumpster, before latching the lid closed. I scribbled a warning on some cardboard and shoved the dumpster to the end of the alley. Then, I hightailed it home. If the patrols think a zombie even looked at you, you’ll be quarantined for a whole month. There was no way I wanted to deal with that.

The symptoms were clear enough, too–low fever, pulsing headache and a strong sensitivity to sunlight.

Going to the clinic was not an option. There’s a reason the receptionist there keeps a shotgun loaded with deer slugs on her lap.

I called in sick to work, taped some blankets over my windows, and considered my options. Telling anyone meant an instant death sentence, but I couldn’t call in sick forever. I’m not exactly the type to go and off myself, either. So, I figured I would play it cool and see if anyone caught on to my game. I could always try and make it out the city wall, if they did.

So, I started going into work early, and made sure I stayed late every night. It’s not like I ever get natural sunlight in my cubicle anyway. And I’m salaried, so my bosses don’t care how much time I spend there, as long as my work gets done and I don’t sexually harass anyone.

It worked for a month. Then, I noticed I had stopped eating food and the cravings began.

We zombies are simple. We want brains. It doesn’t matter what kind, either. It took a quick phone call to a couple of butchers before twenty pounds of beef and pork brains were delivered to my apartment. Some scrambled eggs and brains for breakfast, a brain sandwich for lunch and brains on crackers for an afternoon snack.

Living this way can get pretty lonely, though. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone to talk to, someone to give tips on where to find good brains. A group has a better chance of survival, don’t you think?

So, don’t worry. In a month or so, you’ll be just like me.

Oh, did I tell you about my connection at the morgue? He was the first I infected. So, I’ll have new friends soon.

Don Haas
is a writer living near Philadelphia. He spends his days doing this or that, but mostly trying not to get caught. At night he hones his super powers and tries to decide whether to use them for good or evil.

ABSORB

LANCE DAVIS

“Wake up.”

Something sharp poked Jerrod’s chest as he struggled to open his eyes.

“I said, wake up!” The old man croaked, jabbing again.

Pain cleared Jerrod’s vision, a sharp wooden stake coalescing from the nonsense.

“What . . . what are you doing?” Jerrod asked.

His arms ached, metal biting into his wrists and ankles.

“I got you shackled,” the old man warned.

Jerrod struggled to get his bearings. A barn, the smell of hay overpowering. A single, naked bulb cast its fitful light across various tools, including the shovel that was likely responsible for the pounding ache in his head. The old man, wild-eyed with fear or madness, pressed the wooden stake against Jerrod’s chest.

“I knew
your
kind would be here sooner or later.”

“My kind?”

“Yeah, your kind,” he snarled. “Been all over the news.”

The man limped to a radio sitting on top of a toolbox. Through the window beyond, Jerrod could make out a two-story farm house illuminated by a pole light in the front yard.

The old man turned on the radio, getting nothing but static. Frustrated, he knocked it to the groundand retrieved a hammer from the toolbox. “Looks like you got them, too.”

He stalked towards Jerrod. The look in his eyes was manic, murderous. Panic washed Jerrod’s entrails, tears stinging his eyes.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on . . .
please
. . .”

“Please
what?
You think I’m gonna let you do it? Let you come in here and suck the blood out of
my family
?”

“What?”

He pressed the stake to Jerrod’s chest.

“You’re making a mistake!”

The old man cocked the hammer back.

“Wait! Talk to me! What . . . what’s your name?”

“Nothin’ that means shit to you.”

“What would your family think of you killing an innocent man?”

Something in his eyes, barely a flicker, but
something
.

Jerrod pressed him. “You think you could knock me out that easy if I was one of them? Get me out of this . . . I can
help!
”

The old man dropped his toolsand pulled a key from his front pocket. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right. My wife and grandson are in the house. We got to
go
.”

He unlocked Jerrod’s restraintsand made for the door, but the stake pierced his back, as though his flesh was as soft as wet paper, and pushed clean through his bony chest.

Jerrod leaned close, hissing in the old man’s ear:

“We’re not vampires.”

Blood poured out, covering Jerrod’s hands. It didn’t stain, instead it
absorbed
into his young skin, which fast began to sag and wrinkle, his hair graying.

Jerrod flung the featureless body to the floor, searching its pockets until he produced a wallet. Ah! A driving license . . .

“Leonard Edwards,” he read. He stretched and turned, the name still echoing on his lips as he limped towards the house, and the family awaiting him within.

Lance Davis
is a thirty-something writer living with his wife, Kelly, and their two children in Huntsville, Arkansas.

I USED TO FIND THINGS

KEITH DEININGER

Once, I found a severed cat’s paw lying by a clump of sagebrush in the forest behind our house. A soft peach color; it belonged to Oscar, my mom’s cat. My mom said it was coyotes–sometimes you heard their howls at night–but I wondered . . .

There weren’t a lot of kids to play with in my neighborhood, so I spent a lot of time in the woods, wandering, exploring; waiting for the older kids who lived down the street so we could work on the tree house. I was too scared to climb the trees on my own, didn’t like the greasy feeling of them beneath my fingers. But most of the time, I was alone.