The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

At fifteen I fell in love with my best friend. Josephine, or Jo as I called her, lived across the street from me. She moved in when we were both ten or so and we hit it off pretty quickly. If you thought of a tomboy, she would most likely be the image you got. One could even be forgiven for thinking she was a boy with a short ponytail f rom a distance. Few would call her stunning, but over time I found myself seeing her in a different way than when we were younger and spent out time catching salamanders and cray fish in the stream. She loves sports, loves going on adventures and there are few things she wouldn’t try once. I loved her adventurous nature, one that I wished I had. She also had her troubles. Her mother left her father and her which was why they moved into my town, a shitty little mountain town in Pennsylvania. As our friendship grew I noticed that she was alone a lot of the time, spending hours in the woods behind her house while her father worked two jobs...

I recently started an intern position at a big company. The office building it was located in was pretty old and kind of run down. On my first day a co-worker who had been assigned to show me the ropes pointed out that there was no floor thirteen listed on the elevator panel– it goes straight from twelve to fourteen. I laughed about it (superstition, am I right?) and then didn’t think about it aga in for months. A week ago I volunteered to stay late and finish up some work in the hope that my intern job might turn into something more permanent if I showed enough initiative. By the time I finished it was eight o'clock at night and as far as I knew I was the only person in the entire building. I was pretty tired so when I got to the elevator I slouched against the wall and watched the little blinky light thing count down the floors: nineteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen… and then the elevator stopped. We’ve all seen movies or TV shows where an elevator get...

My wife and I; we just got married. We decided it was time to start a family, and she wanted to have a baby. Nine months pass and we have a baby, Rose. "She's amazing." my wife whispered to me. But she wouldn't stop crying. Banging thighs on the table, screaming, crying, keeping my wife up at night. I couldn't let her be like this. The next night, it was more peaceful. "Honey." My wife said to me at 2 AM. "Why is Rose not crying? I mean, she always does at this time of night" "I don't know. She's probably sleeping, it's alright" Next morning, I awoke to a scream. Our child was not in her crib, a note that said "it's better" in fine print was found in her bed. I think we'll be much happier, our baby buried in the yard.

There was something very wrong with the dog. For one, it never barked. All on it’s own, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. In fact, it might actually be seen as boon to its owners, the unfortunate Clyde family. But, you see, when Mr. and Mrs. Clyde really thought about it, they realized that the dog not only refrained from barking, but that it made no noise whatsoever. They had never heard so much as a whine coming from the canine. Now don’t get me wrong, the Clydes loved their dog. Little George Clyde would play with it for hours, throwing balls across the lawn for it to chase while Mrs. and Mr. Clyde watched through the sliding glass door of the patio. Then there was one night, not too long ago, when George found he could not sleep. He rolled out of bed, cringing slightly as the tender flesh of his bare feet met the cold wood of the floor. The slight discomfort did nothing to hinder his movements, however, and he quickly padded his way out into the hallway, down the ...

WARNING: LAGOON IS DEEP. CREATURES LURK HERE. SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. I had been fascinated with mermaids ever since my first trip to the sea as a little boy. One of my mothers had slathered me in sunscreen before letting me out near the water. She had sat back and read a magazine while my other mother had held my hand as I kicked at the sand and ran thro ugh the waves. Collecting shells in a bucket, I had waddled along the surf when I first saw her: the mermaid. She was a hideous thing: stringy, green, hair, with sallow skin and razor-sharp metal teeth. Her tail beat against a rock, brown and ugly. She noticed me and snarled before diving back into the sea. I found Mermaid Lagoon after years and years of research, on some obscure marine biologist’s blog. Her posts on the lagoon had stopped after some fifteen or twenty with just one line: I am moving on. I was disappointed; why had no one gotten proof of the existence of mermaids yet? And so I decided to get some pro...

Noel decided to try out pearl farming a month ago when he randomly stumbled across a dedicated subreddit. He had heard about pearl farming before, of course - it was a hot topic on social media, and it seemed like everybody knew someone who had tried it. Former pearl farmers in public campaigns advised against it: The money doesn't matter, kid. It' s not worth it. Get a proper job instead. Don't get involved in this shit. But online pearl farming communities told a different story. A single pearl could easily sell for as much as $800, provided it was at least half an inch in diameter. With the right approach, one could grow up to six of them in one go. Over one million subscribers enthusiastically exchanged hints and information about trusted buyers. Noel needed some money, and the promise of an easy profit was just too hard to resist. The instructions were easy enough to follow. Purchase conchiolin powder and nacre syrup, still legally sold in most states un...

Attention: An event of unknown origin has begun in your area. In order to ensure your safety you must perform the following actions. Any deviation will result in loss of life. Open all external and internal doors. Open all windows. Do not attempt by any means to bar entry. When they enter, do not move, look at or acknowledge their presence in any way. Do not react. Small children, otherwise impaired individuals, and pets you cannot keep from reacting should be abandoned. Repeat, do not react. Leave your televisions or radios on to await the all clear. Good luck. --- source: by reddit user dannylandulf via reddit.com/r/ShortScaryStories

I've missed my family terribly these past few days, badly enough that I've begun to doubt my skills as a markswoman. Not that I've failed entirely. On the first day of the hunt, I did put a bullet in my husband's heart. But Wilhelm was a large, lumbering man, while Ernst and Greta are small and agile. They've proven to be quite the challenge, not that I'm complaining. There'd be no point to this were it easy, and I'm awfully proud of my little ones for leading me on such a chase. Of course, it's only a matter of time before I overtake them. The children don't know the darkest depths of this forest like I do. And I've harried them so relentlessly that hunger and fatigue will be hobbling them by now. No huntress has ever been as merciless in pursuit of her prey as I. I owe my children that. My efforts will be rewarded soon. Most likely, I'll return home, my true home at the heart of these woods, and place Wilhelm, Ernst, and...

When I was in high school, my friends and I had a peculiar pastime. Like any teenage delinquent, we liked to cause trouble. We weren't vandals, we didn't deal drugs, and we certainly didn't bully kids in school. No, we liked to scare the living shit out of new parents by "hacking" their baby monitors. We were insufferable little punks who thought we were too good to get caught, and that our little acts of mischief would go unpunished. One night; however, I learned my lesson, and realized that I wasn't quite as bulletproof as my tremendous adolescent ego made me out to be. Dimitri, Kurt, and I went to the same school, shared many of the same classes, and hung out almost every evening after chow time. We watched prank shows, played video games, talked about who had the nicest rack in school. One evening, we were trading scary stories at the park. Kurt shared the classic story about the single mother who heard a haunting voice on her baby monitor. Li...

I held the little guy in my arms, only three weeks old and sound asleep. My husband got the camera ready. Both of us were filled with excitement because we had a very special surprise for our little baby. He was so precious to us and without a doubt a blessing in our lives. “I’m almost ready,” Tom told me, smiling as he made his last adjustment before h e began filming us. “Too bad your parents couldn’t be here. I mean, I know they want to see the newest member of the family really bad.” “It's okay,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll see this video after we upload it.” “Okay, I’m filming, show him the surprise,” he said happily. I gently put down the boy who slowly woke up. He looked around the large glass tank he was now in. The heat lamp shined brightly in the infant’s face and it began to annoyingly cry. “Still not as bad as his Mom's whining when I took him,” Tom muttered. I just kept watching the tank. My baby flicked his cute little tongue and began to slither t...

Everybody loves a fat baby. You can't help but pinch their cheeks, tickle their tummies, and grab a toe to play "this little piggy". They give the most contagious jolly smiles that brighten anyone's day. My baby is skinny. I've tried to fatten him up but he fights me every step of the way, refusing to drink his new formula and seemingly met abolizing things faster than I can microwave a bottle. Nobody wants to pinch my skinny baby and play peekaboo. People walk right by and act like he doesn't exist. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't gain weight on purpose, just to rob me of my gleaming years of motherhood. I know that's crazy, and then I feel guilty and cry because all I want is for my baby to be healthy. My husband says I have post-partum depression. But he's even worse. He locks himself in the bedroom and never comes anywhere with me and the baby. He looks at me differently, and I worry that he no longer finds my body attractive....

David arrived home to a darkened house. It was now a little past midnight, and David knew better than to expect his wife, Laura, to wait up. As he walked down the hall, past his 14-month-old son Isaac's room, he could hear muffled sounds on the other side of the door. Isaac had been horrible at sleeping through the night since he was born, and David dreaded an other sleepless night... As David crawled into bed, he listened with a weary smile as Isaac formed his little words in the baby monitor. He has just learned how to say several new words and would delight himself for hours pronouncing them. David was almost asleep when Isaac's last word suddenly caught his attention. “Cut” “That's odd,” thought David. Most of Isaac's words up to this point had been simple things like “kitty” or “mommy”. “Maybe he heard it on one of Laura’s cooking shows,” David told himself, laying back down to sleep. “Slice” David sprang back awake. It wasn't so much t...

For most couples, the day their child is born is one of the happiest days of their life. That can't be said for me and my husband. Our daughter's tombstone wouldn't have years or even days engraved upon it, as she died in my arms a mere few hours after coming into the world. The doctors couldn't understand what had happened. Our baby had been comp letely healthy when she was born, perfect even . . . To everyone else, at least. To my husband and I, she had been a hideous thing. The wisps of blond hair and common blue eyes, traits neither of us had desired in a child. No, this child would not do. And while the doctors had no idea what had brought about her sudden passing, we did. You'd be surprised how easy it is to end the life of a baby and leave no signs of it having been killed, especially if you are as practiced at is as my husband and I. We'd just have to try again, as we have many times before. And we'd keep trying until we finally had t...

Down here in Jamestown there are a bunch of stories about the old Pine Haven school. One story I heard creeps me out and makes me glad I’m a girl. They say one day a geeky boy went into the boy’s bathroom alone. While he was washing his hands one of the school bullies walked in and decided to play a little game. He and his buds snuck up behind the boy and pushe d him, hard, into the mirror. They never planned on what would happened, but when the kid’s head bashed into the mirror, a piece of glass went into his neck. He turned to face the boys, grasping his bleeding neck and slowly slid the to the floor. The bullies watched in horror as the gurgling sound stopped and the boy died at their feet, his blood mixing with the running water. They didn’t want to get caught, so they tore up the floorboards under the sink where the kid stood and stuffed his body in a hole and covered it up. The school is abandoned now but you can still go tour it. If you go in the boy’s bathroom...

My grandmother told me when she was in high school an old math teacher in his 60’s named Harold Davidson was teaching math and one of his students wouldn’t stop tapping his pen during class.  The teacher went berserk and lost his mind. He snatched the pen and attacked the kid, lodging the pen down the child’s throat while his classmates looked on screaming. While struggling, the kid kicked the teacher in the chest with the little energy he had left. The teacher collapsed and they both died at the same time. When school was back in session and math class began with the new teacher, the class noticed that a weird symbol appeared on the chalk board. The symbol had lines inside of a circle. All the lines within the circle were the common math symbols = + x and division.  If you outline certain parts of the symbol it looks as if a pacman shape has a line going through its mouth or maybe a head getting choked with a pen. The teacher asked who drew it but no one came f...

Jesus, did people love zombies for a while. Something about hordes of mindless, shambling corpses moaning in the darkness just appealed to the general public. Maybe it was because people saw them as a threat, but not an unbeatable one. Like, they could envision themselves as a hero of sorts gathering a group of people and asserting their self-importance which they lacked in day to day life. I don’t know. I do know we were wrong. That virus everybody was so interested in was a lot smarter than we gave it credit for. It didn’t want an army of mindless drones passing it along. No, it wanted people for what we treasure most about our species: intelligence. It wanted our cunning, our deceit, our selfishness. The effect of the virus was surprisingly and elegantly simplistic, leaching off of one of our biggest flaws to further its own propagation. It gave us an addiction. The first patients didn’t even realize what was wrong with them. The media thought it was some new widesprea...

“Now, what kind of ceremony did you have in mind? Did you want a traditional burial or a reawakening?” The two women, mother and daughter, exchanged a look. “We’re very traditional people,” the mother, Elizabeth Reed, said. “I think we’ll just go with a burial.” I nodded. “I understand,” I said, keeping my voice soft and even, trying not to show how desperately I needed this to work out. The rising of the dead had not been easy on my business. After the cemeteries had opened, sending the dead staggering out onto our grounds and destroying the property, most of the family had left. Once, we’d been Walters, Gambol, and Sons. Now, it was just me, Rebecca Gambol, not even one of the sons. It figured. “I understand,” I continued, “but I have to tell you a little about the burial ceremonies before we proceed. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you should know the truth.” I stood. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you what I mean.” Elizabeth and her daughter, an attrac...

I flung myself through the door and vaulted the toppled, long-dead refrigerator that served as an ineffective barricade in front of me. My legs propelled me through the room and into the small hallway on the other side. I couldn’t stop to eat the expired contents of the fridge, appealing to me despite their stench after several days without food. The shrieks of pain and cries for mercy around me spurred my body onward and filled me with unexpe cted energy in spite of my hunger. We were at war. I came to a halt in front of a small bathroom. A noise. Something behind the shower curtain. My fear heightened and images of the enemy flooded my mind. Merciless beasts wearing human skin, devouring indiscriminately, accepting no pleas and respecting no argument. Zombies. It had begun as we expected, with a virus. The original infected were almost a cliché. There was no humanity left in them. Just mindless rage, twisted bodies, and some primal urge to consume others. Our generation ha...

He stumbled. He knew the way, or at least he was reasonably sure he did, but he had a hard time staying on track. He fell. He decided to just stay there for a minute, and catch his breath. When he got up, a moan escaped his lips; he didn’t hurt, exactly, but he was frustrated. He looked up at the afternoon sun, and didn’t remember it getting so late. Where did the time go? He just shrugged and walked it off. Home. That was his thought process; I have to get home. He’d been drunk before, of course. There were times where he couldn’t remember events from a night of revelry, but he’d never had a substantial blackout before. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what had happened between doing shots at the bar and stumbling around now, at least sixteen hours later. Was he asleep? Where were his friends? Why did he have only one shoe? He thought about asking the woman sitting in the park bench. Asking her what? He forgot. He was so confused, but he felt that he could...