Horror Super Short Stories

The forest was still. There was no wind, only the sound of running water from August Creek. Then from behind him a croaking sound, as of a man trying to breathe through lungs that were nearly dust, a horrid sound of a beast trying to speak.

Charles turned toward the sound. Before him on the path toward the bridge, were two glowing eyes. Eyes without feeling. The flames of hell twinkling red in them. He moved and the eyes followed. He stepped forward, past Robber’s Rock and the eyes never blinking, quivered.

He tried to speak, “Ba… Baa… Beggar?” He asked the night.

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There was another of those croaking, wordless replies and every hair stood on end.

“You… You have what is yours.” he pointed toward the tree stump where it seemed the ghoul was sitting, staring at him with its hellish glare, “It… It’s there, at your feet.”

He stepped toward the specter and the eyes went out! Disappeared!

Still there was that horrible croaking sound, sounding less and less like a voice trying to speak and more and more like a hungry predator about to pounce.

“Spirit.” he asked, “will you let me pass?”

The growl continued.

McGee gathered up his courage and started back toward the bridge. Passing the tree stump where he had last seen the specter and walking slowly away. He was nearly to the bridge when the growl suddenly became a roar, he turned and saw the fiery eyes coming toward him.

“Hey, what’d you bring?” Brandon asked.

“I swiped a beer from my dad and a couple of candy bars.”

Brandon didn’t know about drinking the beer. It wasn’t as if he was some kind of prude, but he’d heard all about what it did to Billy’s dad and if that’s how someone acted when they were drunk he wanted no part of it. He’d seen the bruises on Billy in the past and figured his dad must have done it during one of his benders. He’d asked Billy about it, but his face darkened and his had simply said that he didn’t want to talk about it. Why would Billy even bring something like that in the first place?

As they walked through the woods they came across an abandoned well. The weeds had grown over it, almost covering it up entirely, yet they could still see a bit of moss-covered stone.

Billy stepped closer to it and leaned down.

“Whoa, we could have fallen in that thing, Billy. What are you doing, be careful!”

“I want to look inside.”

As Billy pried on the wood covering the well, they both heard something inside. It sounded almost like a rustling noise with a slight roar to it.

“Dude, what if it’s a huge bug? There can’t be anything in there that isn’t a snake or a bug or something.”

Finally, one of the boards came off, knocking Billy onto his butt. Brandon laughed at him and then walked a little closer to see what was in there.

The creature they saw looked somewhat like a lavender colored lizard, yet it had wings that were golden. It was making mewling noises and looked like a baby of some sort.

I heard another sound, which seemed to be the mournful cry of some sad and pathetic creature coming from deep inside the jungle, sending chills pulsating throughout my body.

Yet, I continued to walk deeper into the jungle as if unable to control my body’s movements. It was surrealistic, and for a moment, I wondered if I might be dreaming. I passed through the jungle along the winding path without being accosted and eventually exited the massive wall of tall trees to find myself at the base of the extensive mountain range.

In the distance, at the base of the nearest mountain, I saw a large opening to what appeared to be a cave. I would have missed this had it not been for the eerie fluorescent blue glow emanating from inside, causing the opening to look like a giant pale blue eye against the blackness of the mountain face.

I walked toward the opening having no more idea why than I had when I walked through the jungle. Behind me, I could hear that unidentifiable mournful cry, which a chorus of similar cries had now joined. I felt as if they were trying to warn me against going inside the cave.

However, I knew nothing would stop me as I was drawn into the cave. Strangely, the glowing blue light seemed to calm me in a way I couldn’t begin to explain. Yet the closer I got to the iridescent opening, the louder the warning cries from deep in the jungle became.

I turned and saw hundreds of pairs of silvery red eyes glimmering in the blackness. I took a deep breath and passed through the cavernous entrance.

I was out behind the shed watering the tomatoes and the eggplant when I heard Charlie calling for me.

“Dad! Dad! Come quick!”

Well, I didn’t go there quick. I didn’t even move. I was tired. Dog tired, actually, after working at the plant all day spray painting the doors to Dodge trucks and then off to work at the feed and seed store at 4pm and just got home a half hour ago at 7:45…I was done running for people.

Charlie came running to the garden screaming: “Dad! There’s a hole in the ground! Like in the movies! The ground is moving! The ground is moving!”

I swiveled around slowly to face him, the water hose blasting the plants, the lawn chair, and finally Charlie. He laughed as he tried to defend himself from the spraying water, yelling for me to cut it out. I dropped the hose and asked him what was so important he had to interrupt the only enjoyment I get the entire day.

His response: “The earth might swallow all of us up!”

I blinked.

“Including your mother?”

“Dad! Yeah!”

“Even Gosomer?” He was our Blue tick hound who had little patience for squirrels, passing cars and generally anyone walking up the drive, including me.

“I said everybody, damn it!” Charlie immediately looked down at the ground and apologized.

“Alright,” I said, removing my hands from my waist. “I’ll look at your moving earth, Charlie Cole, if it will humor you.”

“Dad,” Charlie said with a scoff added at the end. “I wish you’d stop saying if it will humor me, usually when I’m serious nothing will make me laugh.”

Huh. I had to smile at that. Barely twelve and the boy already has his mother’s biting wit.

“Okay, okay. Where’s the hole.”

Popular imagination, I judge, responded actively to our wireless bulletins of Lake’s start northwestward into regions never trodden by human foot or penetrated by human imagination; though we did not mention his wild hopes of revolutionising the entire sciences of biology and geology.

His preliminary sledging and boring journey of January 11–18 with Pabodie and five others—marred by the loss of two dogs in an upset when crossing one of the great pressure-ridges in the ice—had brought up more and more of the Archaean slate; and even I was interested by the singular profusion of evident fossil markings in that unbelievably ancient stratum.

These markings, however, were of very primitive life-forms involving no great paradox except that any life-forms should occur in rock as definitely pre-Cambrian as this seemed to be; hence I still failed to see the good sense of Lake’s demand for an interlude in our time-saving programme—an interlude requiring the use of all four planes, many men, and the whole of the expedition’s mechanical apparatus.

I did not, in the end, veto the plan; though I decided not to accompany the northwestward party despite Lake’s plea for my geological advice.

While they were gone, I would remain at the base with Pabodie and five men and work out final plans for the eastward shift.

In preparation for this transfer one of the planes had begun to move up a good gasoline supply from McMurdo Sound; but this could wait temporarily.

I kept with me one sledge and nine dogs, since it is unwise to be at any time without possible transportation in an utterly tenantless world of aeon-long death.

All people who sat within the Palm Grove were hushed, watching Bimi Tal. Fat hands fanning powdered breasts; silk handkerchiefs wiping ox necks; sweat beneath armpits. Still heat. Far away thunder. The stars going by.

Music swelled. Beneath its discord sounded a steady drumming rhythm. The arms of Bimi Tal waved about her head. She shouted for joy of life.

The pale eyes of Dirk, basking in mystery, gleamed into fire, blazed up in fury and hate undying! His dry lips opened. I saw his teeth.

. . .Through the breast-high grasses surge on the two marching men. Their boots sough in the muck. (Softly strums the bass viol.) Something waiting in the marshes! Something with golden eyes and swaying head. Hark! The rattle! Beware, for death is in the path!. . .

And, long before he understood what this sound was, it had stirred in him the centers of pity and alarm. He listened intently, though at first in vain, for the running blood beat all its drums too noisily in his ears. Did it come, he wondered, from the lake, or from the woods?…

Then, suddenly, with a rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a sound of weeping; Défago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his mouth to stifle it.

And his first feeling, before he could think or reflect, was the rush of a poignant and searching tenderness. This intimate, human sound, heard amid the desolation about them, woke pity. It was so incongruous, so pitifully incongruous—and so vain! Tears—in this vast and cruel wilderness: of what avail? He thought of a little child crying in mid-Atlantic…. Then, of course, with fuller realization, and the memory of what had gone before, came the descent of the terror upon him, and his blood ran cold.

“Défago,” he whispered quickly, “what’s the matter?” He tried to make his voice very gentle. “Are you in pain—unhappy—?” There was no reply, but the sounds ceased abruptly. He stretched his hand out and touched him. The body did not stir.

Suddenly the door in front of him opened, and he heard a familiar voice saying crossly, yet anxiously, “What on earth are you doing out there, Bunting? Come in—do! You’ll catch your death of cold! I don’t want to have you ill on my hands as well as everything else!” Mrs. Bunting rarely uttered so many words at once nowadays.

He walked in through the front door of his cheerless house. “I went out to get a paper,” he said sullenly.

After all, he was master. He had as much right to spend the money as she had; for the matter of that the money on which they were now both living had been lent, nay, pressed on him—not on Ellen—by that decent young chap, Joe Chandler. And he, Bunting, had done all he could; he had pawned everything he could pawn, while Ellen, so he resentfully noticed, still wore her wedding ring.

He stepped past her heavily, and though she said nothing, he knew she grudged him his coming joy. Then, full of rage with her and contempt for himself, and giving himself the luxury of a mild, a very mild, oath—Ellen had very early made it clear she would have no swearing in her presence—he lit the hall gas full-flare.

Deborah Oakdale woke in her bed in a panic, her vivid dream burnt into her waking memory. A dream of being caught in a grave as mangled, dirtied and bloodied arms reached out to her; a dream she’d been having often lately. She peeled her sweat soaked nightgown from her chest, swung her legs to the side of the bed, and sat there as she rested her head in her damp, trembling hands.

Deborah ‘s parents owned Oakdale Cemetery and it was here Debbie had grown up. But, even through all the funerals in the fields, wakes in the chapel,  and corpses in the preparation room, never once had she been scared of the bodies. Sure, she hated them for what they’d done to her life. They’d made her a social pariah at times and at others kept her away from fun to deal with the family business of death, but she had never been scared before. But when that grave opened up and she fell in, she felt like she was being pulled in, like the old dead in the east field knew she hated them, and they hated her in return. Like, they wanted her to feel the way they felt, nothing and to be nothing. Years she had helped her mother and father transport the bodies, passed bodies while they played in the old parsonage, but now, the thought of seeing one again felt like it would be the end. She felt like she was running and to put herself within their grasp again would give up the game. Give up her ghost, to theirs.

“Slave girl,” Queen Farah levied her voice over the clearing of the dishes from the royal table. “How long have you been in my royal keep?”

I didn’t know how to answer that question. I dare not raise my voice above a whisper nor any lower than a breath. “Only a fortnight, my Queen.” If I spoke any louder, Farah would be insulted, any lower and she would mistake me for one of her many wives.

“Come here,” she demanded. I paced myself toward her. “Stop!” She screamed. “No further,” her voice trembled. “You look like a girl who has haunted my nightmares. Would you press a blade to your Queen’s throat?”

“No, my Queen. I haven’t a murdering bone in my body.” I said calmly.

Pain. He knew nothing but pain. Until he opened his eyes. At that point he also knew confusion.

He was on his back, spread-eagled, with each limb tied firmly to stakes in the ground. It was a hot summer day and he could see the leaves of the corn stalks swaying around and above him.

His entire body ached as if someone had punctured him thousands of times with wooden golf-tees. God, he missed playing golf. Maybe after starting the new job out west, he’d be able to afford to play again. He could feel that he was bleeding all over but he couldn’t lift his head up enough to see. He was too weak from loss of blood.

He remembered pulling over on the long and nearly deserted two-lane road as he drove across Iowa to take a piss. He vaguely remembered seeing a strange statue, next to the corn rows, shaped like a rooster with two-heads and four wings. It had strange symbols carved on its chest. Symbols that had made him angry, even though he had no idea what they meant. He remembered pissing on the statue to show his disgust.

He had no recollection of what happened after he finished emptying his bladder but, as he heard the sound of angry clucking, he knew he had made a mistake. A very serious mistake.