I’ve always loved horror. Movies, books, podcasts; you name it. The sicker, the better. My friend from work, Spence, however, doesn’t. Didn’t. Whatever. From the moment he found out about my obsession with horror, he was disgusted. Every time we saw each other, he would ask me questions like, “What enjoyment do you get out of it?” and “How can you like to watch other people suffer?” I came up with some bullshit answer about how we’re all fascinated by our own mortality, but the truth is, I don’t have any idea why I love it. I just always have.
Anyway, as time goes on, I introduce him to a reddit page called TwoSentenceHorror. For some reason, this sparks an interest in him. He starts writing these two sentence long horror stories. Imagine my disbelief when Spence, who hates horror, starts writing his own short horror stories on reddit. He even mentions that his wife is grossed out by his stories. I laugh and don’t think too much of it because my wife jokes about how I come up with my own horror stories.
His stories become increasingly disturbed. I mean some real sick stuff; Cannibalism, child endangerment, suicides. I supported these because I mean, it’s horror, you know? But I guess this is the point where I should’ve realized that this was like hypothermia of the mind. You can’t go from one extreme to another so quickly without some unintended consequences.
Spence suggests that we keep writing short horror stories, but that we make them work together as a longer story. So, he starts it off and posts a short story about a guy who is secretly planning to murder his friend from work. This first story is dark, and mainly follows the main character as he follows a friend home and watches his family from the street. He fantasizes about how he might kill them all. I post the next installment, where the guy actually moves into the backyard and kills their dog.
This is where the real trouble begins. I wake up the next day, and my fucking dog is gone. I can’t find him anywhere. He sleeps outside when it’s nice out and he’s never run off before. I find his collar thrown on the ground near the gate, and I’m immediately spinning thinking about my latest installment in the horror series.
I get to work and instead of outright accusing Spence, I mention that my dog went missing last night, to see his reaction. There’s no doubt in my mind that there was a twinkle in his eye when he expressed his concern for my dog. I didn’t talk with him the rest of the day.
Here I am now, about to go to bed, scrolling thought reddit. And my heart stops when I see a recent post from him. I open it and I’m shaking at this point. I read aloud the first sentence. “Tonight, I finally got into the house.” And I hear a faint creaking sound of the stairway.
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