Psychological Horror Super Short Stories

When the man came up to the counter, the clerk had just started smelling himself. He was wearing the chain’s vest with the red and blue patch and had left his name tag on the bed. He’d forgot to wash the vest because he started watching a comedy on Netflix, then watched a second and stayed up until midnight. The vest’s armpits got soaked in sweat the day before when he was unloading the truck. When the man walked up, he was thinking about having to wash the vest that night. The man put his things on the counter and started yacking like a hedge trimmer.

“Seen him move over onto the yellow median and I’m thinking he’s going to make a left, but he didn’t make a left. He kept inching along the median. I slowed down because I was afraid to pass him on the right. Me, afraid. I’m following him and he keeps driving along the median, and I’m thinking, son of a bitch, he’s getting me irritated. I kept watching the car and getting more irritated. Red Taurus. And he wasn’t drunk. The car wasn’t moving like a drunk was driving it. So, what I was saying—it moved like he was looking for an address, slowing down, speeding up, like a zoo animal. You seen a polar bear at the zoo, what they do? They pace. They pace and they tear fur out. You see what zoo polar bears look like? It looks like it has some kind of disease, but it doesn’t. Well, it does, I take that back. It’s a mental disease. They all look like that from tearing their fur out with their teeth.”

“Brenda, this obsession of yours has gotten way out of control.” Herbert Weinstock said to his wife. He was standing in his living room with his briefcase, ready to head out to work. He looked about the room with a combination of disgust and frustration.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Herb,” she replied.

“Jesus, Brenda. You’ve gotta be kidding me! It’s this obsession you have with collecting all this Barbie crap! For God’s sake! You’re fifty-seven years old. Why the hell are you still collecting these ridiculous dolls?”

Herbert pointed to the hundreds of boxed Barbie dolls that lined the shelves on almost every wall. He had known his wife collected everything Barbie-related when he married her thirty-five years earlier, but back then, her collection had been relegated to a small extra bedroom in a seldom-used area of the house. Now, Barbie paraphernalia was found in abundance in every room.

Brenda replied, “You just don’t understand Herb. You never understood. The world of Barbie isn’t simply about collecting dolls; it’s so much more than that. The thing about Barbie is it’s a… well, I suppose it’s a lifestyle.”

“Lifestyle?” Herb shouted, “More like a cult of mindless idol-worshiping minions. That’s it! It’s idolatry; that’s what it is. Brenda, you’ve become an idol-worshipping pagan!”

I might as well get this out of the way from the start. I’m not crazy, no matter what you think after reading this. The truth is, I’m a world-famous author. Many of my books have been adapted to screenplays and have become major motion pictures, royalties from which have made me wealthy.

In my early days, finding someone to publish my work was impossible. As a result, I collected a stack of rejection letters probably taller than the five-story tenement building where I rented a one-bedroom flea-bag apartment paid for by an assortment of part-time jobs.

It’s often been suggested I have an attitude problem, a sense of superiority. But how difficult is it to be superior to what we think of as the general public? In my opinion, most of the people out there are barely human.

The concept of what constitutes humanity is paramount to what I’ve learned and what truths I’ll reveal to you soon.

Once I was done crying, I apologized.

“Why are you apologizing?” He asked.

I didn’t know, actually. “I don’t know. For wasting your time. I’m so tired. Recently, I haven’t been sleeping.”

“You haven’t wasted my time. You told me what you saw on the recording. What was the date your camera recorded this . . . incident?” he said.

“The actual murder? Two nights ago. At 3:08 AM. They were all at 3:08.”

“All? What do you mean all?”

He still hadn’t written anything down, so I half expected him to stand up and walk me back out to the front.

“There were several recordings of the man, both men really, before the murder.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and send all of the recordings to me when you get home. We haven’t had an unsolved murder in our district since early February,” he said and stood up, indicating our meeting was over.

“Sure, Yeah. But that’s the weird part.” I hesitated and he didn’t speak. “It doesn’t look like it was filmed in front of my house.” I didn’t mention that the blood squirting from Bald Man looked fake. He could make his own judgement when he reviewed it.

He looked behind me and nodded, likely responding to a detective behind him rolling his eyes at what I’d just said. Nonetheless, he ushered me out, handing me his card with information to send the recordings on the back.

Once home, I sent the recordings, but wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear back. Then, I ate cereal for dinner and laid in bed without brushing my teeth or removing my makeup. For the first time in months, I slept through the night.

Johnny’s vision was like the contrast-gray of a television as the power shuts down. He stumbled back landing on his ass and hands, the stinging pain giving him a burst of adrenaline. As the world returned to his mind’s broadcast he quickly remembered his situation. Scared shitless on the floor of the library bathroom. His eyes darted to the shadow behind the door. There was nothing there.

The flickering lights created long shadows along the hall. Johnny’s fear caused a stark vignette, zeroing in his sight to the corner where he had seen the reflective eyes.

He slowly scooted back, back the way he came, back toward the exit sign.

The hall was silenced under a heavy weight. The only sounds were the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the white noise of the room. But in it, in the silent din he could hear scratching. He looked to another corner and quickly found his focus pulled back to where he saw the eyes. But the scratching, the scratching was closer now. He looked to the now closed bathroom door. He saw nothing as his focus darted between shadow pockets and the black shadow where the initial sighting occurred.

Would he make it if he ran?