Sweet Lindsay

I held my fiancé, my sweet Lindsay, in my arms. I clutched her to me. We sat in a clearing. The woods circling us.

"Please…" She whimpered. I know that she wanted us to run. The woods around us were filled with their glowing yellow eyes. But they had us surrounded. There was nowhere we could go.

"Shhh… It’ll be okay." I brushed her soft brown hair. She started to cry, my sweet Lindsay, as they drew nearer.

They were covered in dark fur. I saw hunger in their glowing yellow eyes. I could see their pinpoint teeth covered in slaver. I could hear their ragged breathing.

My fiancé, my sweet Lindsay, she was struggling, she wanted to run, she wanted to flee. But I held her. She couldn’t have gotten past them.

"Lindsay, stop, they’re all around us." I whispered as I pulled her closer to me, my sweet Lindsay.

"You’re my fiancé, Lindsay…" I cooed to her. I looked down at her, my sweet Lindsay, I could feel her tugging, twisting at my dark fur with her clutched little fists. "And i’ll be damned if I’m going to share you." I brought my pinpoint teeth down around her neck. Her blood… Just like Lindsay… She was always sweet… Maybe the next girl would be too…

—
Credits to: Maanta

Friend Me

I’m trying to quit social media. I really am. I’m tired of my friends’ vague pleas for sympathy (“guys im having THE WORST day”), tired of their invites for parties I never attend, tired of their successes too (“my bf is teh best <3 p="">
 I’m trying to quit but…something is happening.

My friend Matt is insufferable. He’s a “friend” solely in the Facebook sense of the word—some guy I only see when he’s latched onto my real friends like a fungus. He’s always posting his inane, half-baked political views (poorly spelled, of course) and complaining about his equally vapid girlfriend. I hate seeing his punctuation-lacking, rhetoric-drenched updates creeping down my feed and choking out news I might ostensibly care about.

I finally decided to block him. He’d never know. I was just a speck floating in his peripheral vision.

Still, the relief I felt at the sight of a Matt-free News Feed for a whole week was replaced with gnawing unease. I was invited to a house party that he was sure to slump into. The thought of him confronting me (“You ignoring me, bro?”) made me queasy and I considered not going at all. But I couldn’t let down Ian. And Chloe would probably show up.

Matt wasn’t there. I was so pleased that I didn’t notice my other friends acting strangely at first—not until we grabbed some beers from the fridge and went to hang in Ian’s living room. I took a seat in a folding chair and everyone else settled in. The best seat in the house (a large, plush armchair) was left empty and I watched as people opted instead to lean against the wall or plop themselves on the floor. I took a swig and didn’t think much of it beyond wishing I had claimed the armchair for myself.

We laughed and talked and bullshitted like usual, but sometimes there would be pauses when no one said a thing and stared at the empty armchair, looks of anticipation or interest on their faces. These silences were usually followed by bouts of laughter or exclamations (“No way, man!”). Or, most bafflingly, sometimes they asked questions, relevant to nothing, that seemed directed at the silent space.

I sweated and looked at my beer. I couldn’t be that drunk, not after just two. When the next silence simmered through the room—eyes on the armchair—I was gripped with an intense desire to leave. To be away from…whatever was going on. I took another deep pull of the beer, readying my excuses to be on my way. When the bottle lowered from my vision, as if this were some sort of cue, everyone’s gaze shifted from the chair to me.

“What?” I said, nearly choking on my words. Instantly, their eyes shuttled between me and the chair.

“He asked you a question, Eli,” said a lanky guy I didn’t recognize and he pointed at no one. Someone laughed nervously.

“Quit fucking with me.” I stood up quickly—my confusion had morphed into undirected anger. It was probably just one of Ian’s pranks, but my discomfort eclipsed any sliver of humor to be found. “I’m outta here.”

“We’re not fucking with you—”

I let my beer fall to the floor, not caring that it sloshed onto the carpet, and was across the room before he could even finish his sentence. I heard Ian call my name and a murmur of excited voices as I flung myself out the front door. I didn’t look back. I just wanted to get home.

“Eli!” It was Chloe. “Wait up!”

Reluctantly, I stopped my trudge across the lawn and turned to face her. When she reached me, I could see that her cheeks were flushed from drinking—a rosy pink that matched her lips. I felt my heart trip along faster. Like always.

“Eli, what’s going on?” she said a bit breathlessly. “Are you mad at Matt?”

“Matt? What are you talking about?”

“Um, I’m talking about you acting like Matt didn’t exist all night.” Chloe smiled crookedly but there was little joy in the expression. I could only stare at her, dumbfounded. She continued when I said nothing. “You totally ignored him. You wouldn’t even look at him when he was talking to you.”

“Where—where was he sitting?” I somehow managed to speak around my tongue though it felt too big for my mouth.

“Are you serious? In that huge armchair, right next to you.” Her eyes narrowed with a look of worry. “Hey are you feeling all right…”

I didn’t hear the rest of what Chloe said—my heart was pulsing too loudly in my ears. Matt had been there but I hadn’t seen him at all. Hadn’t heard him. I had blocked him out entirely.

I blocked him.

—
Credits to: _magpie_

Run

Here I am, again my friend.
When will it stop, I don't know.
My legs grow weak as I run.
I cannot stop, lest my soul it rend.


"What is this thing?" you ask of me.
"That chases you past, the twisting forest."
In my haste, as I flee.
I refuse to turn my back and look.


It conjures feelings never felt
It strikes such fear. My bravery is gone.


And as I feel, I may survive the chase.
I feel it's breath upon my back.


~Goodbye

This poem was found in a crumpled ball on the ground in the Black Forest of Germany. Surrounding the note were spatters of blood and rustled leaves. Two sets of tracks led to the scene. The first was an person of average height running at a high speed. The other set of tracks indicate a person of extreme height (at least 8 or 9 feet) who was moving at a walking pace. The body was never recovered.

The Smiling Man in Black

When I was younger, I lived with my father and his mother. I was the only child, a girl at that, and my father was very protective of me. My grandmother, on the other hand, hated me. At first, she would just yell at me and shove me around when dad was at work. It escalated, quickly after he started working longer house to make ends meet. I rarely saw my father at that point.

For 4 years, she did things I can’t even bring myself to really think about, not enough to write it. For those 4 years, I prayed and prayed for release. I prayed and wished for her to die. To God, to whoever would listen. My dad probably would have believed me if I’d had a chance to talk to him, but she’d made me feel as though I were an abomination over the years that, I couldn’t bear it anymore. After she killed my kitten and made me bury it, at the age of 13, I attempted suicide by hanging myself inside my closet.

Apparently, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and the bar in the closet that I tied myself to fell on my head and knocked me the fuck out. I pulled myself up and headed to sneak into the bathroom without the monster cunt to catch me and give me another beating. As I left my bedroom, I caught a whiff of something very fucking rancid, like vomit, burning flesh, and blood, mixed together, warm. I knew all of these smells fairly well, considering what my grandmother did to me, and I thought for a moment it might have been my imagination, or her making something disgusting for me to eat to torture me more. While I recognized the seperate smells in a way, I’d never smelled something like this.

As I got closer and closer to the stairs overlooking the living room, which was right across from the bathroom, I started to hear something. Faintly, I remember hearing it a few feet back, but suddenly it seemed so much louder. My head was pounding, my heart was pounding, and all I could hear was gurgle, smack smack, squish squish, RIIIIIIIIIP. The mere idea of peeking over the stairs and into the living room was suddenly so profoundly frightening that I almost just went back into my bedroom, but strangely enough, it was amazingly easy to just do it anyway.

What I saw in the living room will never leave me for as long as I live, in more than one sense.

My grandmother was lying on the ground. There was someone wearing black kneeling over her. They were both covered in blood. The person’s head was moving rhythmically over its hands, which held what I the relized was some organ in her body. The person didn’t look up, and I was scared silent.
There was so much blood. So, so much blood.

The sound of gnawing, the smacking mouth, the snapping of her organs at they were ripped from my grandmother’s body (what was left of it), the brutally grotesque sight of her chest cavity having been torn open, of her body being consumed little by little filled me with terror I had never known before. I didn’t know what to do. It ate her body, slowly, seeming to enjoy every bite it took, its body swaying and moving so unnaturally that I couldn’t even think it was human.

I couldn’t stop watching, I couldn’t run away, the sheer terror of it choked the scream I would have let out. It stopped, I stopped. It looked up at me after what seemed an eternity, releasing the contents of its mouth. Gorey pieces and blood, some brown at that point, covered most of its face. What I could see of the face, it seemed to be male, very pale in patches. Where eyes were supposed to be were black pits, pits that seemed to dilate, expand and retract. He had no lips, but his mouth twitched, like some kind of hologram going in and out, slowly smiling, the smile expanding beyond normal human ability. I vomited and fainted.

I woke up, my father was home and worrying over me. My grandmother’s body was gone along with all of the blood. “Where’s grandma? Where is she?” I kept asking him, until I had to stop, from the look in his eyes. He told me her heart was bad, and she was “in heaven now”. I couldn’t believe it. That was impossible, right? Did I imagine that whole thing?

At her funeral, on the way to her burial site, I saw the man again. He looked more human, but I knew it was him. I remembered that smile. That day, I smiled back.

I still have dreams about that man, sometimes I think I see him in public. Even when I don’t see him, I can feel him there. He’s always there, watching me.

The Pursuit Institute

Two years ago, a bunch of my friends and I went on a school sponsored trip to Alaska set up by the Pursuit Institute. I was placed in a group with nine, no, ten other students, and two adult chaperones. Another group was also made up of similar numbers, and each group would start at one location and then we would switch places halfway through. The trip would consist mostly of hiking and backpacking in Denali where we would camp in tents and then hiking near the Kenai Peninsula where we would stay in a cabin.

We arrived in Anchorage at about 2:00 in the morning, but it was still light out as Alaska never really got dark that time of year. Our groups parted ways after claiming our baggage, and my group began our trip by driving to Denali National Park where we would be spending the next several days. We all had a great time and before we knew it, it was time to meet up with the other group and trade places for the second half of our trip.

We converged in front of a supermarket and the two groups swapped stories and shared some laughs. It was all fun, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was … wrong with the other group. Their stories would be incredibly vague or they would just stop halfway through as if they caught themselves from mentioning something without even realizing it.

It was all incredibly eerie but no one but me seemed to notice. When I tried to question them further or go into detail about their trip they would simply become dazed and say that it was really all just a blur. Then, getting defensive, they would ask me details about our trip so far. I scoffed and tried to remember a specific event only to find that … I really didn’t remember much either. In fact, as I began listening to my groups own stories, we were being just as vague as them! It was all so strange that no one, not even I, immediately noticed that the other group was short one kid.

Suddenly though, it hit me.

“Where’s Josh?” I asked the group. Everyone turned to face me, their eyes seemed glazed and cloudy as their faces reflected my own confusion right back at me. What they said next made my blood run cold.

With such genuine seriousness that it couldn’t have possibly been a joke, one by one, they asked, “Who the hell is Josh?” Even the adults looked puzzled.

Giving a nervous laugh, I turned to my own group for support only to see that they were looking at me with the same expressions. Confusion was plastered across every one of their faces, looking at me with blank eyes. Then, suddenly, confusion turned to laughter as if they realized that I had been joking.

“Haha! Nice man! You had me goin’ for a second there!” Matt said as the mood quickly lightened back up. I laughed with them and pretended that it had been a joke, but all I felt was a horrible sickness rising up inside me.

That’s when a kid from the other group said, “Haha, but seriously, what’s with YOUR group? You guys are acting all weird and … where is Sarah?”

“Haha, very funny.”

“Yeah real original.” Members of both groups snapped back at him, almost in unison. No one named Sarah had even been in our group, and even I was pissed that he was making fun of me. That is, until I saw the look on his face.

When no one took him seriously, his appearance was bleached to a deathly pale tone and his eyes widened, shifting from side to side nervously. Then he looked at me. Our eyes met and we both knew that something was horribly wrong. Although we couldn’t really be sure that the other was telling the truth, we both seemingly knew someone who was now forgotten. We simply stood there for what felt like forever, staring at each other.

He looked horrified, I’m sure I did too. Before I got a chance to talk to him however, we were shoved into our separate cars and were on our way to our new destinations, their group to Denali, ours to the Cabin. I doubted talking to him would’ve done any good anyway though. What could either of us have said? He didn’t remember Josh and I sure as hell didn’t know anyone named Sarah.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to convince myself that it must have been a joke by everyone to screw with me. A group joke that everyone was in on except for me. Josh was probably just hiding in the car, laughing his ass off. I felt like such an idiot for believing that that another kid had experienced what I had when he was really just flat out mocking me in front of everyone! I buried my face in my hands. Part of me was angry, but I was mostly relieved. It certainly made more sense to think that it was all just a joke on me. I was actually impressed that they’d got the adults in on it too.

But, overall, I was still pretty pissed and I decided that the next time I saw the kid who mocked me; I would punch him straight in the face! How dare he mess with me by making up someone! Sarah Duffy, yeah right!
My mind froze … Duffy? He had never said a last name. Where did I get that from? And why did it sound so familiar?! What startled me was that I even had a face to put with the name! My mind suddenly exploded with pictures and memories.

Sarah! She was my best god damn friend! How the hell did I forget about her?! I was clutching my head and gasping for air as everyone in the car looked at me and began yelling for me to calm the hell down. I couldn’t calm down though, my mind felt like it was being smashed with a sledge hammer and the more my memory cleared, the worse it got. Pain, the likes of which I had never experienced before, racked my body as I curled into a ball shivering and straining to maintain consciousness. The memories continued rushing back into my head, threatening to split my mind in two until, suddenly, it was over.

I sat up, and, bleary eyed, looked around me. Everyone stared right back at me, terrified.

“Guys, Sarah! Sarah Duffy! Please, dear God, tell me you remember her!” I practically screamed.

Their faces once again switched to anger.

“God damnit John!” One of the adult chaperons yelled, “We thought you were having a seizer or something! If you pull one more stunt like that for the sake of a joke, we’ll send you straight home! Are you okay? What the hell was that?”

I began tearing up, “You guys don’t know Sarah? She- … she was my friend! She was YOUR friend for Christ’s sake!” I began searching for a specific memory. “Kevin, you made fun of her goofy hair right when we got off of the plane in Anchorage!” I cried, “Please, for the love of god, tell me you remember that!”
No one said a thing. They all just stared at me with judgmental expressions.

“That joke has run its course.” Kevin said coldly.

Not a one of them showed any signs of recognition, but I knew she was real! Or had been anyway. What the hell had happened to her? I strained and tried to remember the last time I had seen her, but any recent memories were still illusive and blurry.

No matter how hard I tried, all thinking about it did was bring back the headaches and pain. Finally, I was forced to stop or everyone would begin to seriously worry about me again.

I just sat in the car for the next several hours of the drive and stared out the window at the bleak, grey surroundings, as rain ran down the glass. It had been raining since we arrived in Alaska, and it showed no signs of letting up for the next couple of days at least.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance to the trail that would take us to the cabin the other group had stayed at. We unloaded our packs, strapped them on, and set out on our 7 mile hike to where the secluded lakeside cabin lay. It was about 2:00 in the morning, but since it never really got dark out, our plan was to hike in immediately and get there by 5:00 so as to have a full day ahead of us.

That being said however, the constant rain and low-set clouds made for poor visibility and the hike in was a struggle to say the least. Through the thick fog, it was near impossible to even make out a tree branch before it struck you in the face, seemingly out of nowhere. Being mindful of possible grizzly bears, we took care to keep our group loud so as to scare them off. About an hour in, we were all singing “Journey” at the top of our lungs when I suddenly fell to my knees, and then collapsed to the muddy ground, clutching my head. I had once again been trying to remember when I had last seen Sarah when it all came flooding back in a horrific wave of grotesque images and unimaginable terrors.

There we were, at the Denali campground. The torrential rain pelted down and the sky was so dark that for the first time since we had been there, it actually seemed like night. Everyone was settling down under the tarp around the campfire, and many people were already asleep in their tents. That’s when Jenna asked if anyone had seen Sarah as she still hadn’t washed her dishes.

“I’m pretty sure she went to bed already,” I said, “I don’t want to be creepy, but I’ll go check to be sure.”

I reluctantly walked away from the warmth of the fire and into the oppressive darkness and driving cold rain. As I approached her tent, I could tell that she wasn’t inside as it was unzipped with the door lying wide open. I immediately ran to close it.

What an idiot! I thought to myself, the tent is completely soaked inside now!

That’s when I heard her muffled, agonizing scream. It came from somewhere in the woods surrounding the campground and I, without thinking, immediately ran off into the forest after her. After shoving my way through thick spruce and willows, I reached a clearing where I could barely see Sarah’s body on the ground as some … thing, which was mostly obscured by trees and underbrush, was ripping her open. She was screaming with all of her might but the thing’s bony hooked hand was covering her mouth. Its long fingers curled almost all the way around her head. The sound of her death was horrendous as bones snapped and skin was peeled away. I wanted to help, but couldn’t bring myself to move.

Sarah was long dead by the time I realized that the creature, was beginning to … wear her. It had hallowed her out and was now sewing her lifeless corpse onto itself. I was still paralyzed with fear when it suddenly turned towards me.

Sarah’s grotesque, shredded carcass was now horribly reanimated, and it began crawling towards me like some kind of broken marionette as her dead eyes looked straight ahead, yet saw nothing.

I finally broke out of my trance and began frantically sprinting back towards camp. Sarah’s corpse could’ve easily caught me crawling, but the thick underbrush forced it to stand up awkwardly and begin a demented walk in which everything moved all wrong. This fortunately gave me enough time to reach the safety of the campfire, although, when I arrived, I had no idea what I had been running from … or really any of what I had just done.

No one asked me if Sarah had really been asleep, because none of us knew a “Sarah.”

And that thing, pretending to be her, cringing at the light of the fire, slowly slunk back into the dark of the forest.

I bolted upright to people yelling, cursing, and struggling to their feet. I had been near the front if the group, so when I feel to ground, many people behind me tripped over my body and then tripped the people behind them.

“Oh God! I’m sorry you guys!” I cried, “The uh, the ground is really slick here!”

Grumbles were heard and several insults flew my way but we all eventually got up and continued moving. My mind was racing. The fact that I could remember Sarah when no one else could must have had something to with seeing the creature before it stole her skin.

For me, it must have just been the initial shock that caused the lapse in memory. It was for this same reason that I could remember Josh while the other kid didn’t.

My blood froze. He didn’t remember Josh because his memory had blocked the horror from him … because he had seen Josh being taken in the exact same area in which we were now hiking! And our bear calls were bringing it right to us!

Breathing heavy, I slowly turned my head around to look behind me.

Sure enough, following from quite a distance, and just barely visible in the bleak grey fog, I could see the silhouette of some sort of fucked-up human impersonation; grotesquely stumbling along just behind our group … wearing the decaying face of Josh. Its limbs swayed and bent in directions impossible for a human to imitate, and there were seams where the skin split away and was held together with nothing but a few fleshy strands. When the creature saw me looking, it darted away off the path, but I could tell that it was still following us. It was waiting for something.

I doubted it would attack us with such a large group and I was sure that no one would believe me, and so I was forced to simply continue hiking.

Finally, we reached the cabin and everyone tried to get some last minute sleep before we started our day. Everyone but me. I KNEW that thing was sulking around in the darkness of the woods surrounding the cabin, waiting for one of us to go out alone.

Morning came and everyone quickly prepared for our hike of the day. We would be hiking up a mountain which required some intense bush-whacking just to reach the base thus realistically making the trip at least 4 hours both ways. We packed our lunches, consisting of nothing but protein bars and water, and zipped up our raingear as the weather was still nothing short of a downpour. The sky remained a depressing grey and light thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance.

That’s when someone said what I had been dreading. The worst case scenario.

Ashley stepped forward and apologetically said, “Sorry everyone, but I feel … just terrible, I think I’ll stay behind on this one, you guys go on ahead, I’ll stay here at the cabin.”

“No!” I cried, “You have to come with us! We have to stay together!” Everyone turned and looked at me.

“Jesus John, if she’s not feeling well, let her stay.” Pam scorned.

“Ah,” I stammered, “That’s not it! I just … Uh, fine! I’ll stay too!”

“You don’t have to do that John.” Ashley said, “I’ll be fine here alone.”

“No you won’t!” I wanted to scream, but I had to calm my nerves. “Naw, I didn’t wanna go on this dumb hike anyway.” I laughed, “You guys have fun though!”

Everyone looked at me weirdly, and then glanced at each other, before shrugging and heading off into the woods. I wasn’t sure if we would be any safer with just the two of us, but what else could I have done? We would just have to buckle down inside the cabin and hope for the best. As soon as the others disappeared out of sight I turned to Ashley and said, “Alright, we need to get inside the cabin now.”

“I appreciate you staying with me and all … but you’re kinda freakin me out.” She said.

“Haha, sorry,” I awkwardly laughed, “It’s pretty damn wet out here though, we should really inside?”

“Yeah, that’s a good plan,” She stated slowly, “I better lay down for a bit.”

That’s when I saw him, or … It … standing twenty or so feet behind Ashley. Josh’s decaying corpse; horribly stretched and disfigured in order to cover whatever thing was wearing it. Ashley saw me looking and turned around to let out a strangled squeak. “Wha … What the fuck is that?!” She screamed. I said nothing and simply grabbed her arm, taking off running to the cabin, slamming the door behind us. The thing didn’t run after us, rather, it began slowly walking towards the cabin. It knew we had nowhere to go. I locked the door and scrambled to barricade it with anything I could find.

Now there was nothing to do but watch its demented impression of a person as it crawled ever so slowly towards the door. Its hands dragged along to muddy ground and its fleshy skin hide swayed ever so softly as it staggered.

“What the hell is that?” Ashley kept repeating over and over between her ragged breaths.

“I don’t know,” I stammered, “I just don’t know.”

“What does it want?!” She screamed as it reached the door and tried the handle.

“I assume, it wants a new … Coat.” I said through clenched teeth.

She drew a breath and fell to the ground before looking up at me, horrified. The thing moved away from the door and now stood a few inches behind one of the windows, staring in at us. Its cold gaze could be felt from behind the dead eyes of Josh’s face and we could hear skin widening as it smiled. It was messing with us.

Ashley broke down and began weeping, “Leave us alone!” She cried, “Get the hell away!”

The thing did nothing and simply stood there motionless. Then, it slowly lifted up one of its hands and began lightly rapping on the window.

Knock, knock, knock. A slow steady rhythm.

It had no intention of breaking the window or anything. It just wanted to let us know that it was there.

Not that we needed the reminder. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. This continued for several hours as the sunlight slowly faded and the rain and wind picked up. Soon the sound of it knocking was almost drowned out and I was having to strain to see it in the dim light. Heavy sheets of water whipped around and obscured its form. At one point I let my eyes wander for too long, and when I looked back, it was gone. The knocking had stopped. I bolted upright just in time to barely catch a glimpse of it disappearing around the side of the cabin.

“This is bad.” I said, “I think it’s tired of waiting.”

Ashley let out a squeal and buried her face in her hands. I wasn’t sure if it could get in from somewhere else but it clearly knew something we didn’t.

“It’s ok,” I said, thinking fast, trying to pep talk myself more than anything, “all we need to do is wait for the others to get back! They should be here any minute now!”

“Who?” Ashley asked.

“The rest of our group!” I said, “Kevin, Lauren, Pam? Those guys! Remember?”

“I- … I Don’t know who you’re talking about.” She stated, looking at me puzzled, “It’s always been just the two of us.”

My heart practically stopped, and as I sunk to the ground in despair, I began to hear knocks … all around the cabin.

—
Credits to: Liam Vickers

There’s Something in My Mirror

There’s something in my mirror. I saw IT six days ago. My roommate was gone, I was home alone. Brushing my teeth, ready for sleep. I bent over, spit, raised my head. In the mirror IT stood there, behind me. Two eyes, a dark body, head skewed to the side. I blinked and it was gone. Perhaps IT was a trick of the light, I thought to myself…just my imagination.

Five days ago, I saw IT again, this time early, before dawn. Right after my shower, I was wiping the steam off the mirror in slow, twisting circles, and then, IT was there again. Behind me to the left. I knew I saw IT this time, a gaunt face, hollow eyes. I spun around quickly, my heart pounding out of my chest, yet I was alone.

My roommate was still not back four days ago, when I saw IT again. This time in daylight. I was washing my hands, looking down, away from the mirror, when something flickered in my peripherals. One quick glance upwards and I saw IT. This time ITS arms were raised, menacingly, holding something above ITS pale head. I ran down the stairs, and fearfully dialed 911. The cops came and searched the place, while I stood, nervously rubbing my hands together. Of course they found no one. “You look like shit,” one said to me “Are you getting enough sleep?” I shook my head and they left my house. How could I sleep with IT on my mind?

No mirrors three days ago. Every mirror in my house I covered with a cloth, hoping to keep IT from my sight. My house looked dark and lifeless, like it was in mourning.

When I got to work that day I was immediately sent home. “Take a day or two, you look like you need some rest.” I tried to refuse, but the boss wouldn’t let me stay. I lay in bed the rest of the day, alone, too anxious to eat, praying for sleep to come. A faint stench hung in the air around me. Perhaps due to humidity, I thought, as I struggled to fall asleep.

Two nights ago, IT returned, this time in my dreams. I could see ITS face fully this time, ITS mouth twisted in a crooked grin. In ITS hand it held a knife. I woke up drenched in sweat, gasping for air. I lay the rest of the night with the lights on, one thought circling through my head—Where had I seen that face before?

Yesterday I didn’t get out of bed. The stench was stronger, sluggishly hanging around the house. My body screamed for sleep, but I resisted. By nightfall, my head was pounding. I took aspirin, then tylenol, but nothing worked. Slowly, my body gave in to the sleep, I fearfully tried to resist, but it wore me down and took me over.

Last night the dreams were vivid. IT was there, in my basement with a knife. IT was holding someone down, stabbing them as they screamed for help. I watched helplessly, as IT turned ITS head and smiled at me, still stabbing the victim beneath IT. I woke with a scream.

I lept out of bed, as my adrenaline took over, widening my eyes, dropping my stomach. The smell was almost unbearable as I crept downstairs and approached the basement with dread. I hovered at the edge of the basement unsure of what I would discover down there. My roommate? IT?

With a sweaty hand, I turned the doorknob, flicked on the light, and went down.

There was blood everywhere. Dark, pooled, fetid blood. I gagged and covered my mouth and turned. In the corner was my roommate. Bloated, rotting, with 17 red holes in his shirt. Bile rose quickly to my mouth and my vision blurred. I stumbled to the bathroom, slammed the faucet on, and splashed my face with water. A flutter of movement materialized above me as a piece of cloth fell lightly into the sink. I slowly turned my head up, staring in the now uncovered mirror. There IT was, bloodless, ashen, with its empty eyes. It stared with a smile as my mind screamed with recognition.

There’s something in my mirror… IT’S me.



—
Credits to: photofreecreepypasta

Be Careful What You Choose to Read

I’ve been sick for weeks. When I cough, I taste something wet and bitter, crawling up my throat. My chest aches from the congestion. In sporadic fits, hacking and wheezing, my vision darkens. I see silvery stars spinning from the corners of my eyes. I hug my sides, squeezing, as if my ribs would burst open. I hate it. I cannot suffer this cough much longer. I just want this illness to end.

I have had all the free time I could ask for, bunkered down at home. Wrapped in a heated blanket, I can hear cold winds howling outside. Snow keeps falling. My neighbor shoveled the sidewalk for me yesterday. I’m in no condition to face this dreadful weather, not with this horrible cough. I can’t even speak a full sentence without erupting into a choking spasm.

But I have to tell somebody. I have nowhere to go, but here.

I love reading horror stories. That’s why I frequent this site. Stretched out in my recliner, I huddled over my phone for days, looking for good stories.

Yesterday, on a whim, I searched for survival horror games. I scrolled through several titles, but one of them caught my eye. An interactive fiction app, with an icon of a white-eyed zombie reading a red book. Its grotesque face seemed familiar, somehow. I was excited to play this. A story that I can control. Or so I thought.

"The floor is cold. You wake up, trapped in a school, surrounded by the infected."

It felt like I was really there. The story played ambient music, enchantingly creepy. It was dark in my bedroom. The only light came from the face of my phone. Haunted by the narrative I read, I lost track of time. I got very little sleep.

This morning, over breakfast, I heard whispers. The voices were soft and airy. I held my breath. All was still, quiet. I could hear my heartbeat. It was just a flash of a moment, but it unsettled me. Something felt wrong. I swallowed some cough syrup, popped a few pain pills, and ran a hot bath.

Hot steam rolled over the edge of the tub. I felt a cold chill, shooting up my spine, as I undressed. Through the frosted bathroom window, I could look out over the snowy suburb. I reached for my toothbrush. The surface of my mirror was dark. Leaning in closer, I studied my face. I blinked, staring at my glassy eyeballs. Each iris was milky, clouded over. Like two smooth white stones, glossy and dead, my eyes were empty.

I gawked at myself, my mind racing, wondering how this feverish flu had erased my eyes. And then I heard the whispers again. The voices echoed, not from the hallway, or anywhere outside the bathroom, but inside my skull. Muttering without words, they spoke from inside my own head.

Frantic, I grabbed my phone to make a call. My doctor, the ER for an ambulance, 911, anybody. The whispers hissed, as my phone lit up with the survival horror game, still running in the background. The game was still in play?

"You reach for your phone, uncertain. The voices demand action. You know what you must do. You muster the resolve to commit the murders, to silence them all."

My pulse pounding, I killed the app, and without pause, deleted the game altogether. The whispers subsided. But as the icon faded, I recognized myself, ghoulish, not that white-eyed zombie, reading the red book. I swear, it was me. I know what I saw.

My hands are still shaking. My nerves, unstrung. I left the bath water running, retreating into my bedroom with my phone, seized by a coughing fit. I had to get out of there. I pulled a shirt over my head, catching my reflection in the mirror mounted on my dresser. I looked spooked, but the color had returned to my eyes. I was fine.

So now I am questioning my sanity. Maybe the medicine made me loopy. But I cannot believe that I simply imagined it all. That was me, in the icon for that app. I know it was. I searched for the game again, just before I sat down to type this out, but it’s not there. I cannot find it. I am done with scary stories for now. I never expected to be drawn into a real one.

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Credits to: photofreecreepypasta