Max Mercer
Stories (2/0)
The Face
He always said his blood was full of stars. Maybe it would explain the cold. Maybe it would explain what happened after he died, because he’d always been curious, and he’d always been mildly terrified of the vast, endless void of sheer, unadulterated uncertainty. When his brain stopped firing off those synapses, those sparks of biological electricity that had never made much sense to him, what would become of his soul? When his blood spilled out onto the ground and seeped deep into the earth’s flesh, where particles of his DNA would forever remain and inevitably immortalize him, would he become the stars inside his veins? Or would he just... stop..?
By Max Mercer 4 years ago in Horror
The Gun
Imagine a gun. You don’t have to imagine it, it’s right here in the kitchen, lying on the counter, painfully naked and exposed beneath the dying golden light of the setting sun. The gun looks brand new; black, shiny, unscathed - a classic Smith & Wesson build, almost too perfect. The magazine, full of bullets, lays next to it. You don’t really know where it came from or how it got there, but you can’t find it in yourself to care, and you reach forward to wrap your fingers around the handle. As you lift it off the marbled surface of the counter you revel in the comfortable weight of it in your hand, and it fascinates you to no end. Your finger brushes against the trigger, gently, tentatively. Slowly and deliberately, your grip closes more firmly and you raise it to eye level, the barrel pointed squarely at a framed picture of your parents on the opposite side of the room. It’s well-balanced. You think you might shoot some cans and bottles out on the porch the next day. This is a handgun, but you also have a sawed-off shotgun in the shed, and a semi-automatic rifle hanging above the mantelpiece in your living room, like it’s your most prized possession. Occasionally, you go game-hunting; you think of it as a rewarding and stress-relieving activity.
By Max Mercer 4 years ago in The Swamp