Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror (26 page)

Can’t blame him—his creators likely had just as cold of a response to this unfortunate blunder.

I am so far away that it is easy not to consider me a person, only an instrument in another SNAFU mission. Maybe now they’ll stop trying.

Though time loses its meaning out here, I believe you will receive this message on Christmas Eve. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Kiss Erin and Richie for me and try to decide what story you will tell them about their long-lost father. Erin may remember my face but I am forever a ghost to our beautiful baby boy.

Don’t make me into some invincible hero; remember my faults as well. I can only hope the good outweighs the bad. Please don’t hate me for volunteering and putting too much
gung ho
faith in this program. I did what I thought was right.

The probe rotates in a ceaseless dance through the expanse of space and time. I only know two kinds of illumination now—pitch black or blinding white, depending on the particular cosmos which surround me.

I will live a very long time unless I take action to end my life, and Vinnie will likely be quite aggressive in his efforts to thwart such attempts.

I must stop typing and transmit this soon for I am moments away from The Fringe. I will attempt another transmission but I assume the Com Disk will suffer the same rapid deterioration as that of the Achilles before me.

Maryanne, I love you and will see you again someday, when we behold the truth that lies beyond this short frail existence we now know.

The Fringe is right before me. It is beautiful beyond our wildest dreams, more stunning than even . . .

END TRANSMISSION

George Wilhite
has been an aficionado of the horror genre since discovering Poe and Lovecraft as a child and coming of age during the renaissance of American Horror in the late seventies. He has over a hundred stories published in print and online. For more information, visit: www.authorsden.com/georgewilhite.

NOTHING LEFT BUT FAITH

ERIC POLLARINE

There, in the darkness of the bedroom she kneels.

She cries out to God.

A thunderclap shakes the house—destroying the message, and in the stillness that follows, there is only her breathing and the sound of footsteps left. The moonlight makes her skin like alabaster. Her hands are porcelain; smooth like a doll. She folds them into a trembling steeple.

“Our Father who art in Heaven,” she pleads, she begs.

“Hallowed be thy name,” she says.

“Thy kingdom come,” she stammers.

“He’s only footsteps, outside the door,” she mutters.

“He’s only footsteps behind the bed,” she fades.

“He’s only footsteps, he’s only, he’s only . . . ”

She screams.

His hands are sure and like a topographical map, adorned with fissures as she strains, and in the distance, the sounds of discarded faith echo after raindrops the size of pennies.

And further still, in the moonlight and lightening he walks the street as a silhouette.

Letting her breath wash away, he says, “Thy will be done.”

Eric Pollarine
is an author and freelance writer, who lives, works, writes, smokes and drinks far too much coffee in beautiful dreary Cleveland, Ohio. You can contact the author through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and stay up to date with other goings on, through his website www.unlikelyconvergence.com.

OF WHAT IS HIDDEN IN THE BLOOD

STEPHEN GRESHAM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They would awaken.

And there he would be.

A boy thirsting. A boy hungering.

A boy who promised a life of always.

A boy hidden in their blood.

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

PRIMAL WERE

TIMOTHY P. REMP

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

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

He leaned back on his spread haunches.

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

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

He slowly rocked back and forth, murmuring to himself.

“S-s-sorry. S-sorry.”

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

“Sorry. S-s-s-sorry.”

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

QUESTION MARK

ROBERT WILDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

RESIDUE OF DECAY

RANIA HANNA

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

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