However.
For the past two years I've cranked out a short, hopefully unsettling, story for Halloween. These are 2007 and 2008's. 2009 I'm still having issues with, but I'll find it. Just have to keep ripping open crypts and digging up graves.
Enjoy.
2007
And all at once, I saw it.
A form, a shape, something that was real and yet unreal, beginning to appear from the inky blackness of the woods. It grew in density and brightness till there before me stood the fully realized vision of a man at arms, a solider of the olden times. My heart quickened, my mind raced, my only purpose to communicate, to send thought across the void. My words came out in a stammer.
“Hello, can you hear me? Do you understand me?”
The form turned slowly towards me and at once I saw that this was no kind specter, but a fiend out of Hell. White flames flickered where eyes should be and from its mouth uttered a sound like the compressed cries of a thousand damned souls. I recoiled from it, trying to flee and turned to face…
Another.
2008
Connie lay on the couch watching a horror film. An American remake of a Japanese film starring the latest batch of Hollywood 20-somethings. She was half asleep, barely aware of the television flickering when a noise brought her fully awake. It was the creaking of the stairs then soft footfalls on the carpeted steps.
"Melissa?" she called out, thinking it had to be her young daughter coming down from her bedroom.
"Mommy, come here."
She sat up on the couch and turned to face the landing of the stairs. Something in Melissa's voice, flatness…something was wrong.
"Melissa, honey, what is it?"
Connie saw the little girls foot step off the last step and then her daughter was facing her, barely visible in the flickering light from the TV. Suddenly the screen brightened and she could see her daughters face, deathly white. The paleness was set off even more by the red trickle of blood from the corner of the girl's mouth. Connie started to cry out, to rush off the couch. But the sight of what could only be described as a dead hand or claw reaching out of the dark to fondly caress the child's cheek stopped her. A scream rose up from her lungs but the horror of what she saw stopped it, strangled it in her chest.
"Melissa?" she called out, thinking it had to be her young daughter coming down from her bedroom.
"Mommy, come here."
She sat up on the couch and turned to face the landing of the stairs. Something in Melissa's voice, flatness…something was wrong.
"Melissa, honey, what is it?"
Connie saw the little girls foot step off the last step and then her daughter was facing her, barely visible in the flickering light from the TV. Suddenly the screen brightened and she could see her daughters face, deathly white. The paleness was set off even more by the red trickle of blood from the corner of the girl's mouth. Connie started to cry out, to rush off the couch. But the sight of what could only be described as a dead hand or claw reaching out of the dark to fondly caress the child's cheek stopped her. A scream rose up from her lungs but the horror of what she saw stopped it, strangled it in her chest.
"Mommy, come here. They want to play."
2009 to follow.
Later...
