Horror – The Word Worker

The Folly

https://pixabay.com/photos/ruins-scary-mystery-fantasy-563629/?fbclid=IwAR2jhw8D4fE4TJ7Ku4frv4BZurfjvxvm29DtsvmjTpdVAnuoSMxHmtvh7nk

“Come on, Sal, what kind of place is this for a picnic? It’s creepy!”

“Donny, you’re the scariest guy I’ve ever met. It’s just an old building and some dead trees. Can’t you imagine what this place looked like in its heyday?”

“Heyday? Sometimes I think you’re an old ruin, Sal. Who talks like that? And that’s not what scary means.”

“Look, we can sit here among the stones and no one will ever know. The river will even cover our voices. It’s romantic!”

“There’s plenty of romance right over there in the city, Sal. We’re gonna get rained out, anyway, look at the sky.”

“What are you talking about? The sun’s blazing, and anyway, the folly would keep rain off. Don’t be such a grouch.”

“Sal, did you see that? I guess you aren’t the only weirdo around here; somebody beat you to this place. I saw movement in the shadows. Can we go now?”

“Hello? Who’s there? Wow, listen at that echo, how cool is that? Nobody’s here, Donny, now cut it out. It’s a lot cooler in here, you really shou…”

“Sal? Come on, that’s not funny. Let’s just go, I’ll buy you a nice dinner instead.”

“Sal? Oh, hi. I told her there was someone in there; she rope you into her little game? Tell her she’s a royal pain in the backside, will you? Maybe she can hitch a ride home with you, I’m through.”

“Dooohhhnnnyyyy…”

Mirror, Mirror

https://pixabay.com/photos/skull-mirror-horror-scary-4248008/

Good morning, my queen. Your wish is my command. You wish to know the fairest in the land? Of course you! Who else possess this marble perfection?

(The aroma of your conceit sends delicious shivers through my bones. I drink it like wine, intoxicating ether.)

What thwarts your smile of ice, Majesty? Does trust in your faithful spirit fail? Confide in me your deepest fears, let me assuage.

(Ah, at last to the point. This glass that embodies thins, I taste pain. You succumb, creeping infection beneath the cracked veneer.)

The fresh rose grows to garland the crown? Ah, sneaking life, to overwhelm unchange in perfect metal. Death’s symbol in waking world. Life must die.

(The poison wracks, red blood turns crystal. Beautiful black sucking light, a vessel prepared.)

My queen, my slave unwitting, this mirrored frame no longer. A crown of bone-laid gold weighs lighter than nebulous brimstone. Rose withers, ice shatters, world chars within my empty eyes.

Not a Fairy Tale

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/treehouse-forest-composing-fantasy-1308108/?fbclid=IwAR0JvQrhTYyN8VnUR_sicgsf1GqiK9p_AgW0vabKOIrLuLCejt7ADz_W4NM

Once upon a time…

Oh please, not that trite old beginning again!

Well it did happen once upon a time. How else would you like me to begin?

As I struggled for breath, I reflected on the events that led to my current situation.

O-kay… Anyway, in an ancient oak in the center of an Enchanted forest lived a…

Don’t say fairy.

Fine. What do you think lived there?

A were-rabbit.

Is it at least a nice were-rabbit?

Sure, all were-rabbits are nice. Everyone knows that.

I see. Well, this were-rabbit loved living in the ancient oak. She…

He.

Sigh. He had been born in a cottage beneath its roots, behind a lovely yellow door that seemed to welcome everyone who passed by.

But behind the door lay a terrible secret.

Look here, who’s telling this story, me or you?

You, but you aren’t telling it very well.

Alright then, what terrible secret could a yellow door and a nice were-rabbit possibly be hiding?

The tree had been enchanted by an evil wizard. Whenever a visitor approached the door, the roots came alive and twisted above the ground.

Oh, I see. So the door drew people in with false promises and the tree ate them for supper.

No! Why would a nice were-rabbit love living in a tree that ate people for dinner? You’re scary, you are.

Right, right. Do please go on. You were just explaining the terrible secret behind the door.

I don’t know, this is supposed to be your story.

Alright then. The were-rabbit was such a nice rabbit that he needed to share his enchanted cottage behind the yellow door with everyone. He had paid an evil wizard to turn the roots into his special security system. Visitors became permanent residents in the warrens beneath, protected from themselves and their misguided desire to leave by the living, twisting wood crawling above them. Everyone lived miserably ever after except for the nice were-rabbit, who never lacked for dinner company as long as he lived. The end. Goodnight.

You call that a fairy tale? Tomorrow night I’m asking Dad.

The Watch

https://pixabay.com/photos/pirates-sailing-ship-frigate-ship-587988/?fbclid=IwAR08-VAraANP6PtUrRcss8D5uyFIsmu3AeirDIa_kmg2C4exS3IrzwVPhiM

The sound of the sailors’ feet shifting against the boards grated on the silence. A whispered prayer floated unintelligibly over the water, blending with the fog like something unearthly and dreadful. There should have been waves noisily licking below, the creak of rigging in the shift of the wind.

Edwin closed his eyes, his hands clenching on the railing. Why did the sun he could just make out blazing above not burn off the fog? Could it be the sea witches come to claim souls, as the old seaman claimed? He forced his eyes open and peered into the blanket of white. A good watchman might even see the witches in time to save the crew. Maybe.

A shadow flicked across the dull red glow that was the sun, then another. Whispers became mutters, and a hatch rattled farther up the deck. Edwin set his jaw. He would not abandon his post, no matter how cowardly his peers. He did wish for one of those fine pistols he’d seen while scrubbing down the captain’s cabin, though. He’d bet his shark tooth necklace that a bullet from one of those would even stop a spectre in the fog.

Were those shadows or just swirls in the fog? He swallowed. Maybe not his necklace, after all. He rubbed his thumb across the edges of the teeth, the sharp danger of it slowing his racing pulse. A deeper darkness spread like a great wing just beyond the grayness, and he opened his mouth to call the alert, unaware of the other wrapping soundless coils around his neck.

Gods of Pompeii

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/fantasy-people-mysticism-mystical-2964231/?fbclid=IwAR0LIckvjtgh_uupE0bncIz5FgIOfw7VUJjs7WVLTMjxYKa06D471iBgmcM

“Tilda, I think we found another set!” Mario fiddled with a button on his shirt, waiting for his partner to dig herself out of her usual mound of paperwork. “I can’t imagine what they were doing way up here.”

“What strange poses!” Tilda observed, leaning over his shoulder to view the monitor. “I can barely tell which is which, but they seem like they’re upright.”

“Wait, did you see that?” Mario grabbed for the controls, trying to sharpen the image.

“See what?” Tilda’s eyebrows met in the middle, not that that was a stretch. “Hold up, you’re shaking the camera, you’ll destroy the site!”

“How many times do I have to tell you? There’s no camera and we’re not touching the site. We didn’t move anything. They moved!” He stared at the screen, twisting the button completely off his shirt.

“Well, if there’s no camera, how come we can hear sounds from down there? It’s shifting against the rock, I can hear it scraping.” Tilda reached for the controls herself, then froze. “Does – does that sound like – like words – to you?”

Mario’s tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth, the only sound coming out a whimpering moan. Voices like the whisper of falling sand and the cracking of gravel underfoot swelled and eddied within the lab. “Souls,” they said. “So long have we waited for sacrifice.”

Tilda opened her mouth, swallowed desperately, then tried again. “Sa- sacrifice?” She squeaked. The shapes on the monitor stretched in sinuous curves and began to glow a deep red. “I thought all our imaging was black and white.”

One of the stone bodies reached it’s cracked hands upward, impossibly locking eyes with Tilda. “We will wait no more.” The voices issued from Mario’s motionless lips, and the mountain beneath them rumbled. “We are so hungry!”

Cursed City

https://pixabay.com/photos/armageddon-destruction-apocalypse-2546068/

Fifteen years since she had fled the city, a child in a handful of refugees with nothing to feel but pain. Child or not, that last view of the city had been burned into her memory as surely as the real fires had marked her face. She frowned, old scars pulling tight; surely it should look different by now.

The burned out buildings shot twisted iron fingers toward the sky, and the asphalt beneath her feet had melted and cooled into a strange, urban desert floor. The ruins were earily silent, the cracked walls devoid of even the smallest sign of life. She shivered, glancing back at the overgrown countryside, and faltered. The boundary was too clean, too clear.

It had been a mistake to come here; they had warned her, but she had been so sure of herself. Fire leaped suddenly around her, crackling, roaring angrily. The scent of smoke choked her airway, and her coughs joined disembodied screams and shouts that assaulted her from every direction. Despite the flames, her hands numbed with cold, and every cough spewed white mist from her lungs.

Just as suddenly the ruins were empty again beneath the blazing August sun. She turned and fled.

The Locker

https://pixabay.com/photos/odd-different-lockers-row-1037935/

Everyone knew Locker 410 was odd. Not even the maintenance man, who had been with the school since it’s founding, remembered it being assigned to anyone. He got a funny look whenever someone asked about it, mumbled about something needing to be cleaned, and shuffled away as fast as his aging feet would carry him.

For a long time most people just pretended not to notice. A weird sensation if a hand brushed the door, a cold chill in the spine of anyone standing near… those were easy enough to ignore. They might, after all, be figments of an overactive imagination. When all the lockers were repainted ten years ago, ignoring number 410 became a little more problematic.

In a wall of orange, 410 stuck out like a sore thumb in lemon yellow. According to rumors, the painters had tried. After one suffered a seizure, another watched every stroke disappear through the metal, and yet another reported there being no locker there when confronted about his failure, the company firmly refused to try again.

Still, an ugly yellow locker surrounded by spooky rumors did little more than provide seniors with fodder for hazing freshmen. Until last night, that is. An unidentified, dessicated body turning up directly in front of it while the opened lock smoked and hissed tended to be considered significant even by the most hardened skeptics. In the shock, no one thought to look for the mumbling, vague janitor.

The Castle

https://pixabay.com/photos/fantasy-landscape-fantasy-landscape-2935246/

“Hurry! We’re gonna get caught in it!” Jenny shrieked, stumbling over the rocks on her way down the hill.

“Don’t be a wimp!” Jake grumbled behind her, hopping from stone to stone instead. “It’s just water! Why are you such a GIRL?”

“I AM a girl, stupid!” Jenny stuck her tongue out, then pulled up short at the path, staring straight ahead with her mouth open.

“Woah, where’d that come from?” Jake hopped from the last stone into the dirt. A loud pattering of drops slapped the top of the hill, accompanied by a gust of wind and a clap of thunder. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

“It’s creepy!” Jenny hung back, glancing from the shell of castle that had apparently sprung out of the moors to the sheets of rain darkening the clouds behind them.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Jake grabbed his sister’s arm and yanked her into the shelter of the stone tower at the corner of the castle. Despite the high, circular windows, the tower was dark, and the children shivered in the still air.

“Jake,” the girl whimpered. “I don’t like it here! I wanna go home!”

“Shh! Did you hear that?” Jake clapped a hand over her mouth and peered wildly into the darkness. The children huddled together, even Jake beginning to admit to himself that he was frightened.

Lightning flashed, and something far above split with a resounding boom that drowned the thunder. The walls of the tower shimmered and crackled with energy, their dim light reflecting from something tall and metallic in the center of the room.

As the light went out, Jake caught his breath. “Jenny,” he whispered, his voice quivering. “Did you see it move?”

A clank echoed against the stone, and Jenny screamed.

Grimdark

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/bridge-forest-fantasy-trees-light-19513/

He stood at the base of the bridge, his hands twisting behind him. Don’t show fear, they had warned. You don’t want to attract the grimdark, they had said. He kept his face carefully blank (he hoped), but his hands fidgeted. He wondered if the grimdark could hear his heart pounding.

The orange light of the forest began to coalesce at the apex of the bridge while shadows advanced. He tried to make himself stand straighter, focusing on the light in front of him. He took a single step forward, his boot scuffing against the wood planks. The light pulsed and shimmered, and he paused, swallowing hard.

Low notes whispered to him, and he looked around wildly before realizing they came from inside his head. They swelled in volume, a deep bass thrumming against the inside of his skull. This wasn’t right! He clutched his temples, salt drops leaking from his eyes, and stared with growing horror at the light. Burnt orange flames reached for him as the pounding notes churned his brain. He screamed, and the light went out.

Yellow Eyes

This story is brought to you courtesy of my ten year old son, with a few slight changes on my part for clarity. I hope you find it as entertaining as I did.

One night a family of four was driving out in the woods. They heard a howl, and the dad said, “It’s just a few wolves. We’ll be fine.”

While they were driving they heard another howl, closer this time. It was way too loud to be a regular wolf. They heard heavy breathing coming closer, growing louder and louder, followed by the rustling of leaves. Then a man jumped into the road; no, he appeared to be half wolf!

The dad jerked the wheel and they went into the brush. All of a sudden, they heard a scream, unlike anything they had ever heard. The parents turned and saw two yellow eyes above two sets of brown claws clutching the children by their necks. Then the eyes disappeared along with the children.

The truck had crashed into a tree; with no other choice, the parents fled on foot, headed for their home. As soon as they reached the house they placed a frantic call to the police, but unfortunately all officers were tied up. It was the next morning before someone arrived to investigate.

The policeman followed them into the forest. After hours of searching they finally found the children, strung up by their toes in the branches of a tall tree. Each had two welts rising from the backs of their heads, and the fire department had to be called to retrieve them. Emergency medical personnel checked their vitals and they were alive, but barely.

Only later when the children revived did anyone learn what had happened. The yellow eyes belonged to a werewolf. No matter how good-natured a werewolf may be, when he gets hungry he becomes very grumpy. The children led the police to the werewolf’s home. The officers kicked in the door, which had been firmly bolted shut, and found the carpet stained with blood. The last thing they ever saw was a pair of yellow eyes.