Morbid Fascination

The blood which covered the road was already beginning to congeal.

Solidifying beneath the rays of sun.

The cat had managed to drag itself across the road despite the fact that the car which had hit it had crushed its black legs into pulp. As it crawled it left a trail of blood and pieces of mashed entrails behind until it finally found refuge in a shallow ditch by the roadside. It lay there helplessly, its body twitching as spasm of pain racked it mercilessly.

The child squatted a foot or so away watching the dying feline, running appraising eyes over the shattered body.

The cat had been penned in the back garden to prevent it from getting close to the main road, but somehow it had found a way out and had paid it price. The child watched as blood ran freely from the smashed lower body, gazing with fascination as intestines swelled and bulged from the torn stomach as if they were being pumped up from within. Here and there amongst the crimson mush, pieces of bone gleamed whitely.

The cat had been old, fay and bloated and now it looked as if its body had burst, such had been the impact of the car when it had been struck.

The child watched as half a dozen flies settled on the bleeding remains, feasting like so many gourmets on the reeking banquet. The cat made a low mewling sound and, as it did so, fresh blood ran from its mouth and nose. Its eyes were half-closed and the child realized that the animal was close to death. Did the cat know that it was dying? Did it realize that it was going to lie in this ditch until it stopped twitching and moved no more? The child wondered as it watched, eyes roving up and down the cat’s body.

The cat’s fur had been ginger but now it was covered by thick, matted gore which stuck to the coat like crimson glue.

The child moved a little closer, watching more intently as the cat continued to utter the low mewling sounds, lifting its head as if soliciting help, but even if it had been able to offer help, the child would not have done so for it watched the dying moments of the creature with fascination.

What kind of pain was it feeling? Could it feel the steaming coils of its own entrails attempting to break free of its torn belly like bloated, bloodied snakes?

The cat’s head flopped backwards for a moment and it laid still, only the scarcely perceptible movements of its chest showing that it still lived.

The child reached behind it and found a long branch, fallen from one of the tress that overhung the ditch. Gently, the child prodded the cat with the small branch, watching for any more signs of movement. The animal meowed loudly, a sound of pain which the child recognized. It discarded the branch for a moment, watching the animal writhing in agony. More flies had joined their companions, some of them actually wandering inside the cat’s riven body. The child looked on in wonderment, trying to count the black shapes against the vivid red of the cat’s blood.

The movement of the cat’s chest was slowing, its final breaths coming in shallower inhalations, as if the mere act of breathing was causing pain.

The child moved a little closer, listening to the rasping sounds that were receding into liquid gurgles.
Blood spilled more copiously from the cat’s mouth and its body began to quiver uncontrollably, its forepaws jerking as if suspended by invisible wires. Then its entire body seemed to shudder and its head flopped backwards.

The child watched for any further signs of movement, and when none were forthcoming it reached for the stick again and jabbed gently at the cat’s head.

It didn’t move.

The child reached out and touched the intestines which bulged from the hideous tear in the animal’s belly. They were still warm. The coppery amour of blood was strong in the air and the child inspected the gore which coated its hand, sniffing it slowly before looking once more at the dead animal.

One of the flies had crawled inside its blood-filled mouth.

The child looked, mesmerized.

---

Original Author: CreepyFreakyGeek

The Rotted Man

When I was a child of only three
The Rotted man came for me
late one night from my open door
he slowly crept across the floor
he took me by the hand and said
I’ll save you from this life of dread
we left the house in the early morn
and took his carriage of blackened thorn
we rode for hours through thick dense fog
to a darkened unlit swamp filled bog
where top-less trees with hanging moss
were shields from the unseen winter frost
the thick wet heat from the dense cool air
crept up your back and through your hair
he took me to his house of bones
on a path laid with cobble stones
upon his door hung a head
of a child with hair of fiery red
his hall was bathed in blood red tile
the walls were stacks of flesh in piles
He told me of his protective view
and begged that I should join him too
He smiled and through his rotted lips
I saw a thousand children’s fingertips
He promised me the world would pay
and told me that I could stay
Then we entered a smaller room
and the rotted man gave me a red balloon
Then I saw my mom through tinted glass
The man with her was talking fast
The tears were pouring from her eyes
The man then held her while she cried
Then the Rotted man did the strangest thing,
He sat down with me and began to sing.
A soft nice tune that filled my head
With puppy dogs and fresh baked bread
It was then I notice that the rotted man
Was simply old and had a tan,
And then my mom burst in the room
The feel of warmth, her sweet perfume
She hugged me tight and swore to me
From here on out, Dad would let us be.
No more bruises no more fights,
No more screaming in the night,
The rotted man had saved our lives,
By taking those who beat their wives,
And children that cry when they’re dropped,
And are beaten senseless until they stop,
I thank the Rotted man a lot,
And never have I forgot,
That the thing I feared, saved my life,
They had found my father with a knife,
There are real horrors on this earth,
Some are subjected to them at birth,
We were saved by a man made of rot,
I was lucky, but many are not.

---

Credits

Everything I Know Is A Dream

I've come to terms with the fact that everything I know is a dream.

As a preface, please note that this will probably be very long. I don't care if nobody reads it; everyone in the world could read it and nothing would change. I just need to voice my concerns for my own sake. Perhaps by organizing everything on a page I can make sense of things.

Several years ago, I was in a brutal car accident. I was parked in front of a train track, waiting for the train to pass by. I was the last person not to make it across the tracks. For visualization, there was a solid stream of cars on either side. If I had tried to sneak across, I would have rear-ended the person in front of me before successfully clearing them.

I could hear the train approaching, and the black-and-yellow bars lowered in front of me. I am fascinated by trains, so I was delighted to be so close, finally getting a front row seat. The train was about a quarter mile from the crossing when the driver behind me accelerated and nudged me forward a few feet. The bars bent and eventually snapped, and I was knocked joltingly onto the tracks. I panicked and threw the car into reverse, trying to back out. The other car apparently had more horsepower, however, and to my horror my car door aligned perfectly with the cattle guard on the front of the train.

I scrambled to get out of the car, but forgot about my seatbelt. I nearly strangled myself trying to get free. By the time I unlatched it, it was too late. One fraction of a second of the loudest sound I had ever heard, and then blackness and silence. I was certain that I had died. I didn't feel any pain, and certainly if I had survived I'd be in agony. I tried to open my eyes, but nothing would happen. I tried to make a sound, to wiggle my fingers, or do anything, but I couldn't. It wasn't that I was paralyzed; it was more like I didn't have a body to manipulate. I was just a mind submerged in a pool of nothing. The only sentiment I felt was that I had returned to that state after being gone for a long time; like forgetting how your parents' house smells until you visit home for the holidays.

Gradually, I started to have feelings of sensation. Passing waves of warmth and wetness finally allowed me to determine where the edges of my body were. Almost as soon as I became aware of my physical self, it began to ache. I felt as if every inch of me had been pummeled with a baseball bat--the heavy wooden kind. Even opening my eyes was a spectacular ordeal.

I was in a hospital. So I had survived after all. People moved to surround me. Faces that never fully came into focus hovered above my own, and sounds that vaguely resembled speech seemed to reach me through water. It wasn't long before I felt weak again and my eyes closed.

This fading in and out of consciousness lasted for what felt like a very long time, maybe months, though the doctors told me it was only a matter of days. After that, I worked on speaking and swallowing food, which seems silly, but it was actually a challenge at the time. Finally, as more and more casts were removed, I was allowed to sit up and turn my head, for which I was incredibly grateful.

According to my family and my then-girlfriend Sarah, all of whom were overjoyed at being able to speak with me, I was asleep for several days on end after the crash. I remember Sarah specifically saying she had missed being able to "stare at those beautiful eyes."

Time passed at an excruciatingly slow pace until physical therapy finally escalated to the point where I could be pushed around in a wheelchair. The doctors were surprisingly hopeful that I'd be able to walk again, but it was what they called "cautious optimism." Nobody wanted to tell me I could be independent again and then have to admit they were wrong later. Obviously I was very hopeful myself, though even transferring from chair to bed was a painful challenge. It was around this time that I noticed I never dreamed anymore. When I slept, I only felt the same nothingness that I felt immediately after the crash.

All the days blended together for a while after that. The next memory I can actually separate from the rest is the first time I tried walking on my own. There were staff members holding on to my arms and waist, just in case I fell, and with their help, I made it all the way across the room on my first try. The doctors said they had never seen such a rapid recovery. I was giddy.

Obviously I wasn't out of the woods yet, but soon I was allowed to live at home again with frequent PT sessions, and some weeks after that, I returned to work. Life was almost normal for a while. Except for a very slight limp in my left leg, the side that the train hit me on, I was feeling pretty normal. It was only after about a month of living in my own house that weird things started to happen.

The first thing I noticed was that I felt an occasional stinging on my right forearm, like a thin needle was puncturing my skin. It was a tiny prick, maybe twice a day at most. I figured it was just nerve trauma or something and blocked it from my mind. Feigning ignorance was harder to do when I started hearing things, though. While I was reading in bed one night, I thought I heard Sarah crying. I strained my ears to make sure, and I definitely heard her sobs, but very distantly, like I was submerged in a pool.

I made my way downstairs quickly, concerned that she had hurt herself or something, but she was just washing dishes in the kitchen. "Are you okay?" I asked cautiously.

"Yeah, why?" She asked nonchalantly.

"No reason."

I dismissed these oddities as best I could. After all, how could anyone expect to recover from being hit by a goddamn train without some lingering effects? Every so often, mostly when I was trying to fall asleep or sitting in a silent room, I would hear occasional sounds that I couldn't connect at first. Gradually, I determined that they were hospital sounds--stretchers being rolled across tiled floors, beeping from machines, rapid chatter between nurses and doctors.

Although I figured anyone who had suffered as much trauma as I had would experience some degree of whatever I was experiencing, I decided to bring it up with my doctor. He told me it was perfectly normal for someone in my circumstances, and he could prescribe me a sleep aid if I felt it was necessary. I told him it wasn't a big deal; I was just satisfied that a doctor could explain my symptoms.

The odd glimpses of what seemed to be my past only increased in frequency. When I slept, I finally dreamed again, but it was always the same thing. If I saw anything at all, it was a hospital room. Sometimes there were other people in the room, and sometimes I was alone with the machines.

There was one night in particular in which the dream was more vivid and gripping than usual. My eyes opened wearily to see Sarah asleep on the chair beside my hospital bed. "Sarah?" I croaked. She jerked awake.

"Henry!" She scrambled to my side, clutching my hand. At this point, it occurred to me that I was dreaming. I stared right into Sarah's eyes.

"I'm asleep right now."

She seemed concerned. "No, Henry. You're finally awake. I'm right here. It's been so long."

"Of course you would say that. You're a part of my dream." I smiled, amused. "I'll probably wake up any second." But as I spoke the familiar soreness caught up to me all at once. It practically knocked the wind from my lungs.

"Henry, no." Her distress was now evident. "I don't know what you're talking about. Stay with me, Henry. Stay awake. Look at me." I shook my head defiantly and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was back in my own bed. It was about 3:00 in the morning. I sat awake, pondering what I had just seen. I thought I heard Sarah crying again, even though I could see her sleeping beside me.

When Sarah finally woke up, she rolled over and laid an arm across my chest. "Good morning, big guy." She smiled groggily.

"If I was asleep right now, would you tell me?" I asked.

"What?" She chuckled. "That's kinda heavy stuff to drop on a sleepy person."

"Just bear with me. If I was asleep right now--dreaming, you know--would you tell me?"

"Well, I feel pretty real," she noted, patting different parts of her body. "Do you think I'm not real?"

"Of course not," I said. We got ready for our day. I couldn't stop thinking about my dream, though. I noticed that when I tried really hard to space out at work, and listened closely enough, I could hear the hospital sounds more clearly. I was naturally concerned about this.

That night, I went to bed early, and just as I thought, I was transported immediately to the hospital bed. I felt the thin sheets beneath my fingers. I opened my eyes, and Sarah was reading a book in the same chair as before. I just looked at her for a long time, trying to discern if she was real. She certainly seemed real enough. She turned pages with the same flourish that she always had, and chewed on one of the temples of her reading glasses.

Eventually, she looked up and met my eyes. "You're awake again!" She gasped. "Victoria! Paul! He's awake!" My parents entered the room moments later, looking excited.

I talked with them all for a long time. Of course, my parents, too, denied the fact that I was asleep, but that topic passed quickly. Instead, we discussed my condition. I had been in a coma for almost three months with little response. They had been slowly losing hope for my recovery until my brain showed signs of activity. Since that time, they had been visiting me frequently, hoping that I would wake up. It seemed a pretty convincing story.

After many hours of talking, I had to stop; I was legitimately sleepy. Of course, they all understood and I fell back asleep. Only this time, I didn't wake up in my own bed. I woke up in the same hospital bed a few hours later. I had to think about it for a very long time, but eventually concluded that I must have imagined my miraculous recovery, and had been in a coma the whole time after all. As you can imagine, it was hard to accept at first.

Since then, I have been making a second recovery, which has been slower and less successful than the first. That's why, for a long time, I was mostly convinced that I'm really awake this time. Nobody walks after getting blindsided by a train, at least not without lots of hard work. I've still only left my wheelchair on crutches, and it's been six years.

It probably sounds like a bittersweet ending, and at one point I agreed. I was prepared to live happily-ever-after in my wheelchair, and maybe even graduate to crutches someday, except for one thing. When I'm getting ready for bed, after I turn off my lamp and my head hits the pillow, I can still hear them; the faint sounds of a busy hospital.

I know that many of you will say "But I'm real. This is real life. Of course you're awake." But that's what you're supposed to say. Nobody's going to tell me "I'm fake. You're dreaming, wake up." I'm still asleep, and I've learned to deal with it. I know that nobody I meet during the day is real, but I'm tired, so I just pretend, and that will have to do.

---

Credits

I Saw It Coming

This isn't a confession. You can't prove a damn thing, so don't even try. I'll deny it to my grave. I'm on my third drink for the evening anyways. You can't trust the word of a drunken man.

That's when I start to feel anything these days, the third drink. Sometimes it takes four, but usually three will do. It's the same cycle every night for weeks now, I drink, then I start to feel, then the fear comes over me, then I drink some more until I pass out.

Wake up, slog through the day. Keep my head down, keep my chin up, don't draw anyone's attention. Go home, repeat.

One night a few weeks back there was a man at my door. I answered it, wondering what in the devil he was doing there at that time of night. I live at the end of my street, and there's no one around for quite a ways, and even the evangelicals that comb the neighborhood rarely make it all the way out to my house.

“Help me,” he gasped, his blood-flecked lips quivering in the rain. His forearm was badly broken, bits of bone sticking out through the skin. He was pale and drenched, the rain and blood dripping steadily from his haggard frame, pooling on my porch beneath him. “There's been an accident, I need help,” he winced. “Can you help me?”

I nodded, dumbly, shocked at his state, then ran inside looking for my cell phone. But by the time I got back to the door with it, he was gone, the only sign of him a trail of splattered red leading down my front steps and out into the front yard.

I stood there, shocked for a moment. And then I put the phone away, slammed the door, and locked it. I don't know why, I was just scared, frightened by the whole affair. And some part of me, some damned selfish part of me, kept saying it's ok, it's someone else's problem. He's gone, forget about it.

So I poured myself a drink to ease my nerves. And then another. A few drinks later, I had forgotten all about him. And a few drinks after that, I'd drunk myself to sleep.

I woke up with my head throbbing. I'm not a heavy drinker. Well, used to not be one anyways. I stepped outside and noticed that there was no blood on my porch and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the rain washed it all away, I thought. Or maybe it hadn't happened at all. I went to work nursing my hangover, but I made it through the day. Came home, tried to relax.

I'd slept poorly the night before and my day took what energy I had left, so I decided early in the evening to call it a night. I was just about to go bed, when there was another knock at the door.

I froze, looking over to it. My heart raced. I tried to laugh off my rising fear. It was just someone at the door, nothing to be afraid of. But as my hand reached for the knob, I heard his voice, the same quaking shudder of a voice from the night before. “Help! I need help!”

I stood stone still as he pounded on the door. “God, it hurts!” he shouted. “Please! Why won't you help me??”

I put my back to the door, bracing it, squeezing my eyes shut. This isn't real, I thought. It can't be. And after a few seconds, the knocking stopped and it was quiet.

I flung open the door, but there was no one there, no trace of blood or sign of his presence.

Unsettled, I shut the door, locked it, and reached for a bottle.

And so it went, for four more days, each night the same, the knocking, the horrible man at my door, the cries for help. And each night, I secured the door and waited until it stopped, then drank myself into oblivion.

By the seventh night I'd had enough. I made a stiff drink as soon as I got home, and then another after that one. I had thought of nothing but the events of the previous week that day. So naturally I was anticipating the knocking when it came again that night, confirming my paranoid fears. I was waiting for it.

I threw open the door upon the first knock, and there he was, battered arm hanging limp at his side, pale face twisted into a grimace. But before he could say anything, I leveled my shotgun at his face and pulled the trigger. His head popped like a blister, and I fired a second time, blowing his arm clean off and leaving a hole in his torso.

Covered in his wet viscera, I shut the door. I want to say I was in a trance, that I was on auto-pilot and out-of-my-head, but that's not true. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was trying to make a point to myself.

See, I'm a level-headed man. I don't believe in ghosts or the supernatural or anything like that. We live in a rational world. And I damn well wasn't going to sit back and let my head play tricks on me without fighting back.

They say blood is hard to wash off, but it's not true. His blood washed right off of me. One shower later, I was good as new. So when I finished cleaning up and calming down and went back to the front door, I likewise expected there to be nothing there, as there had been no trace of him left from the previous nights.

I couldn't believe it when I opened the door and his remains slumped inside like a sackful of meat. I reached down and poked the corpse. It was solid. The porch was covered in blood and gore. Once more I panicked, and this time I did go into a sort of trance. The hours passed in a blur as I drug the body around to the back of the house, dug out a shallow grave, cleaned off the porch as best I could, and took another shower.

And then I made another drink. Tomorrow, the knocking would come again, I was sure. I hadn't just killed a man and buried him in my backyard.

When I got home the next evening, I sat and waited anxiously. Any moment, the knock would come, the man would again be at my door, waiting for me, asking for help. Maybe tonight I'd laugh, invite him in, ask him if he wanted a drink, I thought, sipping my own drink nervously. The minutes stretched out, and it felt like I'd waited an eternity when it finally came. The knocking.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I rushed to the door, but it wasn't the man from the previous nights. It was the police. A car had gone off the road the night before. They wanted to know if I'd seen anyone. Maybe it was my drunken state that allowed me to lie so convincingly, but after telling them I knew nothing of it, they bid me a good evening and left.

My pulse pounded in my head. This couldn't be happening, I thought. It wasn't real. The thoughts piled on, one by one, and all I could do to quell them was keep drinking until I lost consciousness.

I called in sick the next day. I checked my backyard, and sure enough, the grave I'd dug was still there, still fresh. I dug him up, burned the body until it was ash. When I was done, I went back inside the house and numbly sat down.

And since then, I can't feel anything. Not until I drink. Usually three, sometimes four. And it's only then that I start to feel it – the fear.

See I'm not afraid of ghosts. I don't believe in them. I've never believed in them. Probably in part because I was raised by my heavily superstitious mother. She made her living as a psychic, telling fortunes. She claimed that she had “the sight,” that she could see a person's fate before it happened, and she had a steady stream of gullible clients that kept a roof over our heads and food on our table. So I didn't make a big deal out of it, but like any kid, I rebelled against her and her beliefs. And when I left home, I found plenty of support for that rebellion.

Psychics aren't real, right? No one can see the future. Right?

Cause now I'm afraid my mother wasn't faking it, that she really could see the fate of all those people who came to her. And I'm afraid, I'm so terribly damn afraid, that now I can see it too.

---
Credit to ioptah

I'm At Your Bedroom Window

A warning for my fellow travelers: if you ever have a layover in Philly over night, don't spend the night at the "Economy Motel." And if you absolutely must, steer clear of room 103.

I was heading south to visit some family members for a few weeks, and unfortunately the only flight available included a 7 hour layover in Philadelphia. Not wanting to spend those hours huddled outside the airport, I rented the cheapest motel I could find, and took the shuttle over at about 11 PM. The place was just about the shadiest looking motel I'd ever seen, but it was a bed, right?

I checked in and headed to my room- 103. Exhausted, I immediately collapsed on the bed. A bit lumpy, but not terrible. Not bothering to take my contacts out, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander.

I was yanked back to reality by a loud grumbling from my stomach. Right. The airline hadn't fed us. Annoyed, I dug around in my bag for one of those microwaveable soup cups, which I tossed in the room's microwave. As the microwave rattled away, I noticed a piece of paper wedged underneath it. I yanked it out and unfolded it. There were two words scribbled on it hastily- "Don't look." Huh. Whatever. I tossed it aside and retrieved my soup.

Feeling lonely, I hopped online to see if anyone was on. I was in luck- my long distance boyfriend happened to be on Skype. I called him up and we chatted awhile, trying to keep our voices down. Eventually, though, he said something that made me laugh, and I heard a muffled curse come from upstairs. Feeling guilty, I said my goodnights and ended the call, with the intention of getting a bit of rest before my next flight.

As I lay in the now dark room, I noticed a thin stream of light coming from where the curtain didn't close completely. Annoyed, I got up to close it. I was almost at the window when I heard it:

"I can see into your bedroom."

The voice sent a chill up my spine. It was very quiet, and high pitched, like a child's. It was so soft, I wasn't sure I hadn't just imagined it. I shook my head and reached for the curtain.

"I know you can hear me. I'm at your bedroom window, and I know you can hear me."

I jumped back as a shadow crossed the stream of light coming into my room. I definitely hadn't imagined it that time. There was a voice, directly outside my door. Someone was out there, looking in. I jumped back into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

"I'm at your bedroom window... I know you can hear me. I can see in your bedroom. Are you listening to me? I know you can hear me. Come, take a look. I'm at your bedroom window..." the taunting went on and on, rattling into my thoughts and leaving me paralyzed in fear.

Suddenly I heard the tenant upstairs moving around again. Footsteps stomped over to the door above, and I heard muffled shouting.

"Hey, shut up down there. This isn't funny, I have work in 4 hours!" The door upstairs slammed, and there was silence. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the pillow, determined to get some sleep.

"I'm still out here... Come look out your window."

I sat straight up, heart pounding in my ears. The voice was back. It whispered on and on, repeating it's mantra over and over again. I put my hands over my ears and rocked back and forth, trying to block out the sound. It was no use, the longer I sat there, the louder it got, until I could hear it so clearly, it sounded like it was right next to me.

Frantic, I picked up the phone and dialed the police. Stammering and stuttering in fright, I managed to give them the information- where I was, what was wrong, please help, I'm scared. I didn't care if it was a prank at this point, my mind was reeling in terror. The officers assured me they'd be over shortly to see what the issue was, I thanked them and hung up the phone.

As soon as I did, silence descended over the room. It wasn't just that the voice stopped- no, utter silence filled the room. The air conditioner stopped, the street noises outside ceased, even the faint hum of electricity from the tv and lights went away. It pressed on my ears with a tangible heaviness that sent shivers through me.

Next to me, my phone rang. The caller ID told me that it was the police station, calling me back. Cautiously, I picked it up and answered.

"He-Hello?" I whispered.

"They aren't coming." growled the voice.

And every light went out, plunging the room into complete and total darkness.

In the dark, I fumbled for my bag. I might not have had a flashlight, but I did have my video camera, which had a weak light on it. Besides, I can’t deny I wanted to film this, if only to prove that I wasn’t going insane. Finding it, I turned it on, casting a dim light over the room. Even with this light, the shadows still consumed the edges of my vision, making me jump at every perceived motion I caught in the corner of my eye. Shaking, I forced myself to focus on the camera.

Carefully, I stood up from the bed and walked toward where I thought the curtain was. The thin light from the camera only served to give a vague outline of the curtain and door, as though the darkness that had swallowed the room was even now working against the light from my camera. carefully I reached out and touched the curtain, pushing it closed all the way. Whatever was out there couldn’t look in now.

As I did, I heard a loud clicking sound next to me, like a latch turning in the door. Panicked, I whipped around to look at the door. Inexplicably, it had opened on its own. The latching sound I had heard, however, was the door getting caught by the extra security lock. I could see nothing through the crack, just more inky blackness outside.

I slammed the door shut again, double checking the locks and latches. Everything was in place. I breathed a sigh of relief- that’s when I heard it.

A sort of scuttling sound, coming from the back of my room. Somewhere in the direction of the bathroom. Cautiously, I moved slowly toward the noise, trying to keep my hands from shaking too badly. I knew whatever footage I got was going to be a mess of wobbly camera, but my videographer skills weren’t exactly my top priority at the moment. I approached the source of the noise, but found nothing there... except for another piece of paper, wedged partly behind a wall length mirror next to the closet.

I fumbled to open the folded up scrap, trying not to tear it in my haste. When I finally got it open, there were only two words:

“Turn around.”

I was not about to do anything of the sort. Trembling, I slowly looked up at the mirror, while pointing my camera behind me at the same time. To my horror, the light from the camera illuminated a faint silhouette of something behind me. All I could make out was a vague form, no taller than the height of the bed- and it was moving toward me.

I broke out of my paralysis and dove into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Quietly sobbing, I leaned against the door and slowly slid down until I was sitting on the cracked tiles, the door firmly closed and locked behind me. Whatever it was scrabbled a bit at the bottom of the door. Then came the whisper:

“Let me in. I’m out here, in the dark. Let me in.”

“GO AWAY!” I screamed. The voice stopped abruptly. I shivered and let out the breath I had been holding in tightly. I still clung to my camera, unwilling to let go of the one thing that was keeping me tethered to reality.

I sat there until the rays of early sunlight began peeking under the door, and I knew it was safe. Carefully, I cracked open the door and peeked around. The coast was clear. In a rush, I grabbed all my luggage and raced out the door. The hotel manager looked at me kind of oddly, but I wasn’t going back in that room.

I spent the next hour waiting for the shuttle in the lobby.

The flight to my aunt’s house was short and uneventful. I spent the flight running over what had happened over and over in my mind. Could it have been a prank? Who could have done that?

It didn’t matter. It was over. I was out of that insane place, on my way to family and friends. I tried to put the whole thing behind me, and just enjoy the ride.

I’ve always loved flying. Watching the world fall away behind me is one of the most incredible feelings- the patterns beneath you, the rivers, and ponds, and winding roads, spotted here and there with cottony clouds, shadowing the land. This time, however, I just couldn’t enjoy the scenery. I was too on edge from the previous night’s events.

The plane finally landed, and I just about ran to meet my aunt and cousins. Finally, I could start my vacation and get back to a normal state of mind. I hugged my aunt and my little cousins so tight, just to be sure they were real. We all laughed, and packed up the car with my luggage to head home. I didn’t tell them about the motel.

That night, my aunt made my favorite- pan-seared salmon, dripping with lemon and butter. Since she lives so close to the beach, it was fresh from that day’s catch. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything so sweet and fresh. Sitting here, with my family, I could almost laugh off the event’s of the night before. Almost.

Silence descended upon the house as night fell upon us, bringing with it a thick fog. The little cousins toddled off to bed, yawning and rubbing their eyes. My aunt and I sat quietly in the living room, her reading, me silently recalling the night before over and over. Finally, exhausted, I got up and announced that I was heading to bed early. A bit surprised, my aunt wished me good night, and I headed to my room to collapse.

Once alone, however, I felt unease creep in around me.The only lamp in the room was the bright overhead- too bright to sleep with. And with the fog as thick as it was, no light came in from outside. As if that weren’t unsettling enough, at the foot of my bed was a large window, and there was no curtain, only a venetian blind. I shivered and turned on my side so I couldn’t see the window. Slowly I fell into a fitful sleep

I woke up sometime around 3 am to an odd squeaking noise, like nails running across glass or tile. Confused, I sat up and looked around. Blinking, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. Still, I could see nothing that could be making a noise. In fact, in seemed to be coming from somewhere outside. My heart rate quickened as I stood up and approached my bedroom window with apprehension. With shaking fingers I reached for the pull to open the blinds.

I yanked down with one swift tug and the blinds flew open. Nothing. I let out the breath I had been holding in in a rush. I had only imagined it.

Or had I? As I glanced down, I noticed the long, slightly smudged mark near the bottom of the window, as though some grubby hand or paw had run along the glass, looking for a way in. I dropped the blinds, dashed back to bed, and pulled the covers over my head, desperate for some sleep. It seemed impossible that I’d ever get back to sleep after that, but eventually I drifted off, dreaming of strange noises and small, scuttling creatures hiding just at the edge of my vision.

I woke up in the late morning, head wreathed in fog from a restless night. My phone was buzzing next to me. Squinting, I glanced at it to see that I had 5 unread messages, all from my aunt. I shook my head, not wanting to bother with it at the moment, and fell back against the lumpy pillow.

Something was wrong.

My eyes flew open and I sat up. No. Even without glasses or contacts, I could tell I wasn’t in my room at my aunt’s house. But no, I couldn’t be- I wasn’t- no!

I was. I was back in the motel room from the night before. I tried to scream, but only a choked cry escaped my lips. I looked back at my phone- every message from my aunt was a variation on “Where are you?!” Still in my pajamas, I ran to the door, threw it open and dashed to the office. In a panic, I ran in and immediately started begging the manager for help. He looked up, startled- not at me, but at the door I had just come in through.

“That door again? I thought I fixed that damn thing...” Without a single glance at me he walked over and shoved the door closed, giving it an extra push with his shoulder. He hadn’t even seen me.

Later, I returned to room 103, numb and confused. As I sat on the bed, I heard the voice one last time: “You’re mine now,” it taunted. I didn’t care. I couldn’t even muster up emotion anymore.

I’ve lost count of the days I’ve spent here by now. I don’t think I’m dead, just not quite synced up with the rest of the world. These days, I’m the one leaving the notes, warning travellers not to look out the window. Most of them laugh when they see my scribblings, but I don’t worry too much. It’s the people that dwell too long on my message that worry me. They’re the ones that listen too closely to the voice in the window. They’re the ones that might end up like me someday.

There’s a young couple staying here right now. I’m sitting outside now, waiting for them to quiet down and go to sleep. I’m trying not to think of how life was before I ended up here. I mean, I’ve tried leaving, but I can’t get past the parking lot entrance. The only knowledge I get from the outside world now is from my phone and the occasional news program I watch during what passes for a “continental breakfast” at this motel.

I think the two inside have fallen asleep. Well, he has at least. I’m not worried about him. His girlfriend- or fiance, or whatever- I’m concerned for her. She’s still up, eyes darting around. I know she saw my note, and she’s definitely upset. She’s a perfect target.

Excuse me now, I’m going to go huddle in the closet, with my hands over my ears.

The voice is going to start soon.

---

Credit

Hide and Go Seek

When I was a kid my parents would sometimes bring me down to my aunt and uncle's place to stay for the weekend. Mainly I'd spend the time playing with my two cousins, who were around the same age as me. They lived on a small farm with plenty of open space, and we could run around doing pretty much whatever we wanted.

If we thought we could get away with it, the three of us would sometimes cross over to the neighboring farm about half a mile away. It had been abandoned for decades, with a scattering of derelict buildings and other structures still standing on the property, just begging to be explored. This was, of course, a goldmine for three adventurous young boys such as ourselves, especially after my cousins told me stories about how the place was haunted. It was pretty classic fare – man goes crazy, axe murders his entire family, hangs himself, returns every night as an angry spirit looking for new victims. Good, grisly stuff. Even at that age I knew they were probably making it up, or at least embellishing old rumors. But seeing as how the setting lent itself so well to such tales, I allowed myself to buy into it.

One afternoon we decided to play hide-and-seek. When it was my turn to hide, I ran off for a flimsy brown barn that had living quarters on top, and climbed the stairs looking for a good spot. There was still furniture inside, musty and rotting, and personal belongings lay scattered across the floor. I maneuvered over broken dishes, tattered clothes, and crumbling books, eventually coming to a small bedroom with a closet. Jackpot. There were even long black dresses still hanging on the rod that I could hide behind.

I stepped inside and managed to force shut the folding door. My only illumination was a slit of sunlight that shone through the crack in the door from a nearby window. I crouched down with knees tucked into chest and waited. Some time passed, and there was still no sign of my seekers. I waited some more, debating if and when I should give myself up. After nearly an hour, this was starting to get boring. My head drooped.

I awoke with a jerk. It was pitch-black. Drowsy and confused, I forgot for a minute where I was or what I'd been doing. As it slowly came back to me, the realization that it was now night, and that I had been abandoned here, filled me with a sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. I tried to get up but a sudden cramp in my calf kept me grounded. I squirmed about, waiting for it to pass when I heard a door slamming shut downstairs, and instantly froze. One of my cousins? There was a brief period of silence, then footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. But not just footsteps. A thud too, after every other step.

These weren't the footfalls of a child. They were slow, heavy, deliberate. I held my breath, praying they would go away. They did not. The noises continued to ascend.

Step...step...thud

Step...step...thud

They reached the top of the staircase. After another moment of silence the walking resumed, this time along with a steady scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged across the floorboards. The footsteps made their way through the debris and wandered aimlessly through various rooms. I thought I could smell something faintly putrid. The constant scraaape sent cold shivers coursing down my arms and back.

My worst fears were realized when the steps reached the bedroom doorway.

They got closer and closer, and finally stopped directly in front of the closet door. I couldn't see a thing. After an agonizing pause they continued on, over to the other side of the room and out the doorway again. They faded away down the hallway.

Scraaaaaaape

I waited for what seemed like an eternity. There were no more sounds now, and I was trying to build up enough courage to open the door and flee. Three things happened simultaneously just then: I was bombarded with a smell I can only describe as fresh roadkill. I heard raspy breathing behind me in the dark closet. And I felt hot breath against the nape of my neck.

That was enough for me to hurtle myself out of the confines of that nightmare space, relying on memory and scant moonlight to navigate through the darkened house. All the while I heard footsteps chasing behind me, closing in with terrifying speed.

Step-step, step-step, stepstepstepstep

It was a clumsy, tortuous escape, full of trips and bumps and blind stumbling.

I never looked back, at least not until I had burst out the front door and into the country night. And when I did turn around, I saw – absolutely nothing. There were no more footsteps, and nobody was chasing me. That didn't stop me from running though, all the way back to my aunt and uncle's house.

There was a police car in the driveway when I got back. My parents were there too, worried sick. Everybody demanded to know where I'd been. Apparently, when my cousins still hadn't found me by evening, they'd returned home to tell their parents. Eventually the police were called in, and informed me they had already scoured every building on the farm. The insinuation that I was lying about my whereabouts didn't go unnoticed. None of it made any sense.

It wasn't until years later that one of my cousins filled in a final piece of the story. He and his brother had spent hours searching for me, like they said. But the part they didn't tell anyone was that they thought they spotted me in the window of the bedroom I was hiding in. When they got closer they saw that it wasn't me.

A young boy neither of them recognized was smiling and waving down at them, and gesturing for them to come upstairs. That's when they ran back home.

All this, while I slept in the closet.

---

Credits

Ickbarr Bigelsteine

When I was a small child, I was terrified of the dark. I still am, but back when I was around six years old I couldn’t go a full night without crying out for one of my parents to search beneath my bed or in my closet for whatever monster I thought was waiting to eat me. Even with a night light, I would still see dark shapes moving around the corners of the room, or strange faces looking in on me from my bedroom window. My parents would do their best to console me, telling me that it was just a bad dream or a trick of the light, but in my young mind I was positive that the second I fell asleep, the bad things would get me. Most of the time I would just hide under the blankets until I became tired enough to stop worrying, but every now and then I would become so panicked that I would run screaming into my parents room, waking up my brother and sister in the process. After an ordeal like that, there would be no way anyone would be getting a full nights rest.

Eventually, after one particularly traumatizing night, my parents had had enough. Unfortunately for them, they understood the futility in arguing with a six year old and knew that they would be unable to convince me to rid myself of childish fears through reason and logic. They had to be clever.

It was my mother’s idea to stitch together my little bedtime friend.

She collected a large assortment of random pieces of fabric and her sewing machine and created what I would later refer to as Mr. Ickbarr Bigelsteine, or Ick for short. Ick was a sock monster, as my mother called him. He was made to keep me safe while I slept at night by scarring away all the other monsters. He was pretty damn creepy, I had to admit. Honestly, looking back on it all now, I’m still impressed that my mom could think of something so strange and disturbing looking. Ickbarr had the stitched together look of a Frankenstein gremlin, with big white button eyes and floppy cat ears. His little arms and legs were made from a pair of my sister’s black and white striped socks, and the half of his face that was green was made from one of my brother’s tall football socks. His head could have been described as bulbous, and for his mouth my mom attached a piece of white fabric and sewed in a zigzag pattern to shape a wide grin of sharp teeth. I loved him at once.

From then on, Ick never left my side. So long as it was after dusk, of course. Ick didn’t like the sun, and would get upset if I tried to bring him to school with me. But that was okay, I only needed him at night to keep away the boogeymen, which was what he was good at. So every night at bedtime, Ick would tell me where the monsters were hiding, and I would place him near the section of my room closest to the spookiness. If there was something in the closet, Ick would block the door. If there was a dark creature scratching at my window, Ick would be pressed up against the glass. If there was a big hairy beast under my bed, then under the bed he went. Sometimes the monsters weren’t even in my room. Sometimes, they would hide in my dreams, and Ickbarr would have to come with me into my nightmares. It was fun bringing Ick into my dream world, as he and I would spend hours fighting off ghouls and demons. The best part was, in my dreams, Ick could talk to me for real. “How much do you love me?” He would ask.

“More than anything.” I would always tell him. One night in a dream, after I had lost my first tooth, Ick asked me for a favor.

“Can I have your tooth?”

I asked him why.

“To help me kill the bad things.” He said.

The next morning at breakfast, my mom asked me where my tooth went. From what she told me, the “tooth fairy” didn’t find it under my pillow. When I told her that I gave it to Ickbarr, she just shrugged and went back to feeding my little sister. From then on, every time I lost a tooth, I would give it to Ick. He would always thank me, of course, and tell me that he loved me. Eventually though, I ran out of baby teeth, and I was beginning to get a little too old to still be playing with dolls. So Ick just sat there on my bookshelf collecting dust, slowly fading away from my attention.

Over time the nightmares, however, became worse than ever. So bad that they even began to follow me to the waking world, terrorizing every dark corner or rustle in the bushes. After one particularly bad night biking home from a friend’s house where I swore a pack of rabid dogs were chasing me, I got home to find something strange waiting for me in my room. There, on my bed, standing fully upright in the soft glow of the moon light from my window, was Ickbarr. At first I just thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again, they had been all evening, so I tried to flick on the lights. Another flick of the light switch. Then another, and another, with no change to the darkness. It was then that I started to get nervous.

I backed away slowly towards the door behind me, my eyes never leaving the shape of Ick’s silhouette, my hand awkwardly outstretched behind reaching for the doorknob. I was just about to get my ass out of there when I heard the door slam itself shut, locking me into blackness. In nothing but shadows and silence, I stood frozen in place, not even breathing. For how long I can’t say, but after what felt like a lifetime of cold fear, I heard the shrill, familiar voice.

“You stopped feeding me, so why should I protect you?”

“Protect me from what?”

“Let me show you.”

I blinked once, and everything changed. I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore, I was somewhere… else. It wasn’t Hell, but the comparison wasn’t far off. It was some sort of forest, a horrible, nightmarish place where partial embryonic abortions hung from the canopy, and the ground swarmed with carnivorous insects. A thick fog wafted through the air and with it the stench of rotting meat, while chartreuse lightening flashed across the night sky. In the distance, I could hear the agonizing screams of something not quite human. My head throbbed like it was about to explode, the pain forcing out a river of tears. In my mind, I heard his voice again.

“This is what your reality would become without me.”

I felt earth shaking footsteps approaching fast.

“I’m the only one who can stop it.”

It was behind me now, huge and angry, hot breath across my back.

“Bring me what I need, and I will.”

I woke up before I could turn around.

The following day I raided my parent’s closet for my brother’s baby teeth, giving them all to Ickbarr. Almost immediately the night terrors ceased, and I was more or less able to go on about my life as normal. From time to time, I would have to sneak into my little sister’s room and snatch what was meant for the tooth fairy, or strangle one of the neighborhood cats and pry out its sharp little incisors. Anything to ward off the visions, anything from a shark tooth necklace to a cavity ridden bicuspid. I also began to notice that Ick would move about my room whenever I left for any length of time, rearranging my stuff and hanging additional curtains. He was even beginning to look more lifelike, somehow. In the right light his teeth would glisten, and he was warm to the touch. As much as he creeped me out, I couldn’t work up the courage to just destroy him, knowing perfectly well where that would leave me. So I went on collecting teeth for Ick throughout all of high school and college. The older I got, the more things I would learn to fear, the more teeth Ick would need to keep me safe.

I’m 22 years old now, with a decent job, my own apartment, and a set of dentures. It’s been almost a month since Ick’s last meal, and the horrors are starting to crowd around me once more. I took a detour through a parking garage after work tonight. Found a man fumbling with his car keys. His teeth were stained yellow from a lifetime of cigarettes and coffee. Even still, I had to use a hammer to get out the molars. When I got back to my apartment, he was waiting for me. On the ceiling, in the corner. Two white eyes and mouth of razors.

“How much do you love me?” He asks.

“More than anything,” I reply, taking off my coat.

“More than anything in the world.”

----

Credit To: Stephan D. Harris