fiction
Horror fiction that delivers on its promise to scare, startle, frighten and unsettle. These stories are fake, but the shivers down your spine won't be.
Tick, Tick, Tick
Tick, tick, tick. The soft sound of my clock greets me, letting me know that I’ve woken up before my alarm has gone off. I open my eyes, praying that there’s no light streaming in through my window, the telltale sign that I still have a few hours of sleep before I have to get up for work. Thankfully I see nothing. Its pitch black. I can’t see the light from my router in the corner of my room, or the flashing beacon that is my smoke detector. No, I see nothing. This is not my room. Awareness has set in and I realize that these are not my sheets and that I’m still wearing the same jeans from last night. Last night. I went out with friends after work to celebrate the weekend. Relief courses through me as I realize that I must have made a drunken spectacle of myself and Vanessa probably took me home with her, to her new apartment that I was clearly too drunk to fully appreciate. As I come to my senses, I hear Vanessa’s hard breathing coming from the other side of the bed, though I don’t feel her next to me. She must have slept on the floor. How odd. It seems louder than her usual delicate breathing, but I attribute my sensitivity to sound to the migraine that is now making itself known. I’m sure I won’t be going back to sleep for a while, so I might as well get some aspirin and water and check out the new apartment. I push down the covers, hop out of bed and onto the cold floor. Cement? Surely, I would have noticed that my hardwood-obsessed best friend had rented an apartment with cement floors. I hobble about the room, searching for a wall, while my head pounds with a steady beat. I find a light switch and flip it. Fortunately for my headache, a dim glow filters through the door-less threshold of a small closet. On the shelf in the closet is a bag of pills, a single car key, and a clock. I vaguely consider how strange it is that Vanessa would have these things sitting in the closet and not on the nightstand. As I turn around to look for the door, I freeze. I can’t move. I can’t even scream. Every nerve in my body is ablaze and my muscles tense until I feel like they’ll tear. To my right, at the foot of the bed -that I now realize is just a box spring and a mattress with dirty sheets- is a body. It is naked, sitting in a pool of blood, and a chilling light blue color. The curly brown hair is matted and plastered across the unrecognizable face, covering the eyes and forehead. The cheekbones are crushed, the lips are swollen to at least five times their normal size and the nose is completely obliterated. Her chest and abdomen are covered in dark red marks, that can only be the product of a knife. I didn’t think that I could have feelings of sadness and horror so strong for a stranger until this very moment. It has taken me only seconds to process this scene as my attention is drawn to the form lying next to the woman. As I look at the man on the floor, I have a visceral reaction to the fact that it was his breathing I had been listening to just moments ago. His slack face looks peaceful, a stark contrast to the rest of him. Poking out of the collar of his shirt is a tattoo of a bull with beady eyes and black horns. His hands are bloodied, his light hair snarled, and sitting on his stomach is a knife, the knife, covered in dried blood. The steady rise and fall of his chest tells me that if I have a chance at all of getting out of here, this is it. I don’t have time to think about how I got here, why I am untouched, or who these people are. I need to think. Think back to the self-defense techniques that my dad taught me when I was younger. I look around the room, and find the door which is directly across from me, about twelve feet away. I have no choice but to step in the blood surrounding the dead woman, as there is so much of it covering the floor. I hold my breath as I step between the man’s legs. I decide it would be best if I had the knife and not him if he were to wake up, and so I carefully inch forward, and gently reach for the knife on the man’s stomach, keeping my eyes on his face, praying to God that he doesn’t wake up. I pick up the knife and glance at the woman for one brief moment. It is this decision that changes everything about the situation. I see, on the left side of her ribcage, just under her left breast, a tattoo. It is in very delicate script and it's marred by blood enough that I can’t make out the words, but I don’t need to see the letters to know what they say. They say “best friends”, and I know this because Vanessa and I got matching tattoos for her twenty-second birthday. I realize, a moment too late, that I am standing over a man, a murderer, who is over three times my size, and he is awake. I look into his dark brown eyes and a rage that I have never felt before comes bubbling out of me in the form of an unfamiliar screech. I take the knife and stab at him just as he reaches for my throat with his brawny hand. I see nothing but blackness as he slams my head into the concrete where he was just lying. He sits all of his weight on my stomach and I cannot breathe, but I concentrate on the feel of the knife in my hand and I plunge it into his calf. His lips pull into a sickening sneer, exposing unexpectedly straight, white teeth. I realize that he isn’t feeling any pain, and that must be attributed to whatever the pills are in the closet. I stab him in the leg again, lower this time, making sure that I damage something important, his Achilles tendon. He picks me up by my hair and throws me onto the bed. He grabs the knife from my hand and rips off his belt, tossing it on the bed next to me, staggering as he does so as his left leg can no longer support him. He says something to me but I can’t hear it over the blood rushing in my ears. He grabs the hem of his shirt, and I know that I have to act now. As he pulls his shirt over his head, I grab his belt and jump towards him. I catch him off guard and we both crash onto the floor. I slam my knee into his head, and when it makes contact with the floor, I wrap the belt around his neck. I tighten it as much as possible and hold it. His shirt is still over his face and its now covered in the blood coming from what must be his nose. He flails and tries to grab me, but the combination of head trauma and drugs are clearly too much for him. After what seems like the longest five minutes of my life, I hear a gurgled gasp and his body goes slack. I stand up and run towards the door. I throw it open and see that I am in an abandoned housing complex. I run down the stairs, and across the parking lot. It’s dark out, but there are a few cars in the road in front of me and I run out into the road, waving my hands above my head. I run up to the only stopped car and the driver rolls down his window. I ask the man to help me and he tells me to get in. As I put on my seat belt, I look over to him to express my gratitude, but the words are caught in my throat. He is leering at me, and all I can see is the faded tattoo of a black-horned bull.
Captured and Bound
Her eyes flutter open, and she slowly regains consciousness. She lifts her head and her eyes immediately follow the single ray of light that falls into the room, she looks towards the window and realizes she is underground. Her thoughts are sluggish, and she feels sick, her first instinct is to get up and run, but as she tries to move, she finds that she is bound to her seat. There are chains on her feet, and her hands are tied to the arms of the chair, she pushes herself forward to find even her waist is locked down to the chair by a tight leather cloth. The stress she applies to get out of the chair is too much for her, and she has to stop lest she becomes unconscious once again. She takes a long deep breath only to find that the air makes her lungs burn and she coughs up a combination of blood and bile. She feels like screaming, kicking and crying but she knows she must remain calm.
Sanya SinghPublished 6 years ago in HorrorSea Witch
Kadriya woke to a stiff neck and foggy mind. Inwardly she groaned and awkwardly stretched her limbs despite their protest and her bound wrists. To gather her bearings she took a look around the small cell she shared with four other women.
Sutton FullerPublished 6 years ago in HorrorSleep
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my kinked neck as I wait for the video to load. It's been weeks and my sleep hasn't been refreshing me as it used to. When I wake up my desk is scattered with papers, my notes thrown out of order. I suppose it could just be the A.C. but my friend suggested I might be sleepwalking from stress, and she even helped me set up night cameras. It's the first time I'm watching and though I'm skeptical, I'm also a little nervous.
T.C. MariePublished 6 years ago in Horror'Simply Angelic'
She was beautiful; simply angelic. In my line of work, I see lots of different people in & out of the door. Everybody comes here: popular politicians of congressional importance, old ladies in Sunday dresses, fashionable teenagers in the prime of youth, middle-aged men with thinning gray hair & full beards, & even young children not yet old enough to ride a bicycle or tie their own shoes. All of them come here, but she was the first that held my glance so strongly.
Ronald G. BerkleePublished 6 years ago in HorrorSzilagyi/Tepes Reaction to the Movie
I would have done things differently. That Mira/Mirena character? Weak in ways I wouldn’t have been. When she cried and told the movie Vlad not to let her son be taken away? That’s what I mean. I wouldn’t have simply looked on after my son as he went off to fight for a country that had never done anything good for our country, our culture, our very way of life. I would have refused to let go of him until Vlad had fought them off or at least negotiated his freedom. Something.
Alexandra FPublished 6 years ago in HorrorCrimson Peak Reaction
You all know who I am. You all know who I am in this too, and I’m not who you’d expect me to be by my title, my reputation as such a baby-stealing, slut-favoring, sexuality and kink head. Yes, that’s who I am, and my womb is necessarily Purgatory as well. Don’t make me laugh.
Alexandra FPublished 6 years ago in HorrorA Trip Down Memory Lane
I am 24 years old, and five years go today I was diagnosed with narcolepsy. A condition where I feel tired constantly and have "sleep attacks" which is when I suddenly and unexpectedly fall asleep. No matter how much caffeine I inhale. But the case with me is I can either never or at the most hardly remember the last 10-15 minutes. Even if I am only out for a couple of seconds. This is why I have someone attached to my hip every moment of my life. It was not my idea, my parents believed that it was a smart choice and there was no was I was arguing out of that situation. Over the 5 years that I have had narcolepsy, I have had three different people to watch over me.
Bingo Bango BongoPublished 6 years ago in HorrorA Dance With the Devil (WIP)
I could only hear them whisper. After all, whisper is all they could do. “Celestine”, “Ceellestiine”, “CELestine”, “CELESTINE”.
James/Jamie PhillipsPublished 6 years ago in HorrorVampires as Nooses, as Vampires
Have you ever felt the need to belong? To be like everyone else? Not have to hide who you were and have someone who would except you for you, with absolutely no conditions? It's a common teenage thing to want to "be normal" but not every teenager was had that feeling for over a century. Life does put certain obstacles in your life that seem like all levels of hell to get through. Most of the time people end up giving up. It's not that simple for me. Even if I wanted to give up, that would be an obstacle in itself. I've traveled the world searching for... absolutely nothing. I've lived around most places people would only dream of visiting. I've had money and love but never have I truly belonged. Not even when I was... alive.
Andrea MarcusPublished 6 years ago in HorrorThe Doe
It started out any other December night, just laying in bed and talking about work. She was a writer and I was a general laborer, as she got to stay in the warm house, typing down words, I worked outside in the elements pushing and pulling train cars. Even though we were both different in styles and opinions, it didn't matter any because we both loved each other. Even though I didn't know it, my heart was about to break with the ringing of her phone. When she got finished and hung up the phone, she had informed me it was her father inviting us to Christmas at his place, it wasn't often we got to see him as he was always on the road. It was just a few days' notice, and a distance we had to go, I told her we should go, and we will pack the following afternoon.
Natasha DennisPublished 6 years ago in HorrorThe Story of the Doll
“Mommy, Mommy I want this one!” Little Sally Fling field was given some money to go get what she wanted. When she ran to the register and asked to buy the doll she wanted, the man at the counter said “sweetie, are you sure you want this one? This isn’t a very nice dolly.” Little Sally looked up at the man with big brown eyes and said in a small squeaky voice “I want her. She’s pretty.” The man blew out his cheeks. “Ok sweetie, you can have her, but there is one thing you should know. Never and I mean never leave her on the first step of your staircase before you go to sleep.” How’d you know I had stairs?” Sally asked in wonder. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” With a crooked smile on his lips, the mysterious man leaves Little Sally alone with her new toy. About to explode with excitement, Sally quietly sings to her new friend on the way home. Mommy I’m in the kitchen, Mommy I’m on the floor, Mommy I want more, Mommy I’m hungry, Mommy?! Feed me!” As soon as they get home Sally run’s upstairs to play with her new doll. Around five-thirty Sally has eaten her dinner (with the company of the doll) and taken a bath, now she sits still while her mom attempts to tame the wild forest called hair on Sally’s little head. Looking at herself in the mirror Sally goes over all the freckles that her daddy calls angel kisses. There are a couple surrounding the outline of her thin yet very red lips. Then there is some creeping up her button of a nose. Following them with her eyes she sees a big puddle of them going onto her eye lids. Sally stares at her eyes noticing for the first time how pretty they were, a light brown with a hint of hazel sneaking up from the corners. She then focuses on her very curly, poofy, bright red hair that her mother is trying to put into braids. With a grunt of frustration Sally’s mom ties off the end of the braid and pats Sally’s head to let her know that she is done. Before heading off to bed Sally races down stairs to say goodnight to her daddy and older brother Nathan. Nathan, who is sixteen, absolutely adores his five year old baby sister. He sweeps her up in his arms and smothers her in kisses. Sally, giggling very hard, is handed to her daddy to say goodnight. As soon as her dad pecks her cheek Sally is lifted into the air by her brother, once again. She is rushed through the air like an airplane back up the stairs. At the top of the stairs her mother awaits to tuck her in. Distracted by all the excitement sally forgets her new doll in the hallway.
Eli CarterPublished 6 years ago in Horror