Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror (22 page)

July 14–We passed the city and finally got to stop for a night. I took a bath in a cold creek in a stand of forest. I was
rank
.

July 16–The fucking chopper went missing today. We were using it to spot smash-ups before we got to them, and at around two, it set off again after refueling. The pilots were a black guy named Terry and an Irish drunk named McDermott. I think they went AWOL, just took the bird and went.

July 18–The tank ran out of fuel an hour or so ago, and we left it on the outskirts of a little town just across the Patricia County boarder. One of the pick-ups overheated because the dumbass driving didn’t put water in the engine—had to abandon it about twenty miles back. General Kurelko had the driver shot and hung from a street light in Faye.

July 23–Our vehicles keep dropping like flies. The road behind us is littered for at least twenty miles with RVs, trucks, a jeep, and one of the personnel carriers. We haven’t been in touch with Washington. The only thing we can raise on the radio is static.

July 25–We’re on foot now. Thirty-nine of us. A few guys deserted, and another got shot for disobeying an order. We’re going to Thomaston, in Georgia—there’s a base there. We can’t raise it, but it’s worth a try.

Joseph Rubas
is the author of over 150 short stories and many poems. A collection of his flash tales,
Pocketful of Fear
, will be released in 2012 by Firefly and Wisp Book Publishing. He resides in Virginia's Northern Neck with his family.

NIGHT SHIFT

TARA FOX HALL

“Pass the scalpel, please.”

Becky blinked, the world a gray haze before her eyes. Why wouldn’t they open?

“Is she under? Her eyelids fluttered.”

“She’s under; it’s just a reflex. You should know that by now . . . ”

Her surgery. God, she’d woken up in the middle! Frantically, Becky tried to move her limbs, to open her mouth and scream.

“Up the anesthesia slightly, Nurse Jordan.
Now
please.”

Becky tensed, fighting, then relaxed; gray haze becoming black nothingness. It barely seemed the space of a thought before she swam in the gray again.

“Only take three vials.”

Dr. Miller. Becky opened her eyes a crack.

“She’s strong enough for four—”

“No, Jordan. We need her alive.”

Jordan leaned over her, empty vial in hand. “We can’t survive on just ten vials apiece—”

“And I can’t have another of my patients die,” Dr. Miller hissed, baring fangs. “You’re going to blow our cover here—”

Nurse Jordan snarled, his own fangs bone white. “Some patients die in surgery. It’s routine—”

Becky managed a squeak, her eyes roving in panic.

“She saw us,” Jordan said, smiling. He connected the vial. “Now we have to.”

Please don’t, God, please,
please
. . . her heart beat like a trip hammer as she watched the vial fill.

“You’re right, Jordan. She won’t remember anything anyway,” Dr. Miller assured, tapping a syringe. He slid it into Becky’s arm, then depressed the plunger.

Their leering faces dissolved, gray smears against the deepening darkness.

***

Becky blinked, moaning softly.

“She’s coming out of it, Doctor.”

Becky opened her eyes, struggling to sit up. “It’s over?”

“Yes,” Dr. Miller said, patting her arm. “You did fine. We got the tumor out, but you did lose a lot of blood.”

Becky squeezed his hand, smiling in relief. “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, turning to the nurse who stood nearby. “Nurse Heather, please see she gets a transfusion as soon as possible.”

Nurse Heather nodded. “Of course. We’ll take care of it right away.”

As Dr. Miller watched her wheel Becky away, Nurse Jordan came up to him. “You’re needed in emergency surgery, Doctor.”

Dr. Miller took the proffered chart, Nurse Jordan keeping brisk pace as they made for emergency. “Brief me, please.”

“Accident victim; male; mid-twenties. Severe neck injuries. Emergency personnel had to cut him out of the wreck.”

“Is his family here?”

Nurse Jordan smiled. “They were all in the car, sadly. All D.O.A.”

“Is he conscious?”

Nurse Jordan shook his head. “No. It’s just you and me, Doctor.”

“Then my prognosis is he won’t wake,” Dr. Miller said, the tips of his fangs grazing his lower lip. “Let’s go to work.”

Tara Fox Hall
has numerous writing credits including nonfiction, flash, short and novella-length horror stories as well as contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chain-sawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target practice.

THE MAN IN THE CARNIVAL BOOTH

ERIC HOUGE

There was a man at the carnival, tall and pale, haloed by blue and pink knickknacks on the shelf behind him. He had a little booth between the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Ferris Wheel, which served mostly as a pit stop for the patrons from either ride, as they took a quiet moment to keep down their funnel cakes.

His sign was composed of blinking light bulbs. The sign read, between blinks, “Death Foretold.”

“Don’t you guys normally guess weight or something?” asked a teenager in a varsity jacket, whose name was probably Steve.

“Too vulgar,” said the man, spinning his straw hat with spindly fingers.

“How much is it?” asked the gently inebriated girl hanging on Steve’s arm.

“Fifty cents,” replied the man.

“Fifty cents.” She grinned. “That’s adorable.”

“It’s a scam,” said Steve.

“Aw, come on, it’s just for fun,” reprimanded the girl. “I don’t believe in this stuff, you know. I don’t make decisions based on my astrological sign or anything.” She paused to stare at the blinking sign above her head. “But it’s so quaint. And it’s only fifty cents.” She giggled inexplicably. “Two bits.”

It was four bits, actually, but the man didn’t correct her.

“Well, what do we get for fifty cents?” asked Steve, grudgingly fishing his pockets for loose change.

“I predict your death,” said the man. “Year, day, hour, right down to the second. I tell you how and where and what you’re doing.” He smiled. It was eerie. “And, if that’s not enough, I will also guess your weight. No extra charge.”

“No extra charge,” repeated the girl, giggling again. “I like your hat.”

Steve scowled, as he handed the money over to him. One quarter, two dimes, five pennies. Even his change was determined to be difficult.

The man nodded graciously. “Will it be yours or hers?”

“Hers,” said Steve. “She’s the loony.”

“All right.” The man touched his flimsy cane to the ground and leaned forward, catching the girl’s wavering glance. He stared into her eyes so intently and for so long that she giggled again, this time nervously.

“You will die,” he pronounced, “in sixty two years, nineteen days, three hours, and forty-one seconds. You die peacefully in your sleep. And you weigh one hundred twenty two pounds.”

“Wow,” said the girl, eyes flickering into momentary sobriety. “He’s right. About the weight I mean,” she added, when Steve stared at her.

“Fine,” said Steve. “Can we go now?” He half-led, half-dragged her away from the booth. She followed placidly.

It was a few moments later that a car on the Tilt-a-Whirl derailed. The momentum threw the car into a guardrail, hurtling an axle pin through the girl’s eye and into her brain. The mother and daughter in the car suffered minor injuries. The girl was dead.

Steve stared at her prone body for a long moment before saying, “What?!”

“Hmm,” said the man at the booth, stroking his chin. He turned to Steve. “I guess you get a prize, then,” he said, indicating the shelf behind him.

Eric Houge
lives in Chicago and states that he runs the least commendable horror blog on the Internet, “In the Garden of the Death Orchids”. He has also contributed to
Hair Trigger
magazine.

HOUSE ON FREDRICK'S WAY

REBEKAH GALAS

I had heard the rumors, grown up with them even, heeding their every word when I was young. But, for reasons which escape me now, I decided I was too old to be afraid of the house on Fredrick’s Way and took on a dare to spend the night there.

Stupidest mistake I ever made.

I went up to the large, Victorian house with my shoulders squared and a smirk on my face as if challenging the house to do its best.

You see, everyone believes it to be haunted and that none who ever entered after dark came out alive. These paranormal stories would be one of the two reasons the town’s folk won’t tear it down. That and it’s old enough to be considered a historical landmark.

The windows stared down at me with a malice I refused to let sink in, the chill of the autumn twilight kept at bay by my thick jacket.

Without any power going to the house, I figured I was in for a cold night and hoped my flashlight would last me through.

The door opened with an ominous
creak,
and a chill that sent a shiver running down my spine blew from inside.

I paused in the doorway, my friends’ taunts about me being a scaredy-cat reaching my ears and making me puff up defensively like a blowfish. I wanted to prove them all wrong.

That thought marked the beginning of my end.

Turning on the flashlight, I went through the house, jumping at the slightest sound.

Finally, about an hour later as I sat in the old, dusty living room, I turned off the flashlight and got ready to call it a night.

Then a cold breeze swallowed me, and I was sure there was someone else in the room. I turned my flashlight back on and a scream stuck in my throat.

Standing there, half transparent, was the form of a boy a little younger than myself. I recognized him as the boy who had gone missing about a year back. No one could figure out what had happened to him and his case was closed when the cops declared him a runaway.

Shakily, I stood and backed up, running into a wall.

“Easy now,” the figure said, his soft voice echoing menacingly as he glided silently towards me. “This won’t take long.”

Before I knew what was happening, a rusted sword that had been mounted to the wall fulgurated towards me. I didn’t have time to react, and the next thing I knew the stupid thing impaled me.

“You,” the boy said, “will replace me. Find someone to take your place, and you shall be set free also.”

And that’s how I died, my body to never be found and,
surprise, surprise
, I was declared a runaway, too. I’ve been here for over a year now, waiting for someone to come and replace me. Waiting . . . always waiting . . .

Perhaps that someone will be
you
?

Rebekah Galas
is an 18 year-old who was born and raised in Nebraska. She aspires to be a well-published author and poet and is planning on studying creative writing when she starts college. She enjoys reading fantasy and medieval history and works on honing her sword fighting and archery skills.

MURDERED ANGEL

VALERIE D. BENKO

Snowflakes swirled in lazy spirals to the frozen ground, their crystalline forms shimmered like diamonds in the moonlight. But all Renee saw were ruby red drops staining the white, and the broken wings of a murdered angel.

“Lola?” She shivered, tears stinging her eyes, though whether from cold or fear she couldn’t tell. She pulled her zipper higher as icy, unseen fingers ran across her collarbone.

She sunk to her knees besides the body, seeking signs of life, but Lola’s brilliant blue eyes were vacant as a china dolls. Her friend lay on her stomach, head turned to one side, blonde hair splayed around her, expression frozen in surprise.

White angel wings, the wires that supported them snapped and twisted, lay crushed to either side of her. Regular crimson trails ran back and forth across Lola’s back.
Like claw marks.

Renee’s mind went numb.

Both women were models for an up-and-coming fashion designer, booked to work a show that evening at the prestigious Hotel Delpar. The show was in full swing now, the hotel lit up bright as a Christmas tree.

No one knew she’d left the building.

Hours earlier, the pair had arrived in their dressing room to prepare. Lola was modeling lingerie and swimsuits, bedecked in angel wings made from genuine bird feathers, in keeping with the season. She’d been so happy about the costume, barely able to go a minute without remarking on its beauty; like a child come Christmas morning . . .