Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror (23 page)

Renee wiped away tears. She should get back inside, call the police.

She stood, brushing snow from her knees.

As she exited the garden, Renee noticed the tracks in the snow. All led
into
the garden. None led out.

A chill raced up her spine, her stomach gyrating. All sense and sanity shrieked for her to run, but the sudden smell of decay halted her in her tracks. The beast emerged from behind a stone fountain, eyes glinting in the moonlight, black lips peeling back in a rabid smile.

Renee bolted.

She didn’t make it more than a few steps before the beast dragged her to the ground. Red ripped across her back, agony driving the breath from her lungs as she pawed at the snow, trying to crawl away. The beast bent its weight upon her, crushing her down into the soft, freezing white, its teeth and tongue scouring her back as it slit and tore, intent on spilling her.

Snow continued to fall, stars hanging cold and hard as diamonds against the utter darkness as her life seeped away. No angels descending from on high to raise her amongst them. She’d learned tonight that angels bled, angels
died.

And so would she.

Valerie D. Benko
is a Communications & Community Relations Specialist who resides in western Pennsylvania. She is a frequent contributor to
Chicken Soup for the Soul
and has also been published in
Patchwork Path
editions. You can visit her online at http://valeriebenko.weebly.com.

GRIZZLY POSSIBILITIES

D. M. SLATE

Your body jerks violently awake and your senses are on high alert. Your upper torso is frozen in mid-air—your tensed muscles hold it in place. You don’t dare breathe as you strain, listening for any movement in the thick, ink-like darkness of night. Your heart thunders several times, but you hear no other sounds. A laborious exhale shatters the deafening silence and turns your stomach into a quivering mass of Jell-O. The sound is only inches away . . .

Clambering backwards from the unknown threat, you only succeed in drawing more attention to yourself. Your eyes widen in fear. The unknown presence outside, presses ever closer. Your pupils dilate to their extreme, picking up the rough outline of shapes. The tent poles come into view, along with the outline of the zipper-front door. The massive beast presses its snout up against the thin, lightweight material of the tent. Even in the darkness, you can see the enormous openings of its flared nostrils. The monster inhales deeply, smelling . . .

Your head spins with vertigo, considering your limited options. The beast emits a deep
huff.
You retreat into the furthest corner of the tiny tent, trembling, doing your best to remain silent. But you know that it can smell your fear . . . even if it can’t see you. Tears cascade down your cheeks as the grim reality of the situation sinks in—you’re in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself, and no one expects you back for days.

Your thoughts are cut short as the towering giant pulls itself upright, onto its hind legs. The eerie luminescence of the moon radiates around its dark form, just enough to be seen through the polyester tent material. For a split-second, you think that the bear might actually go away—but the feral animal has other plans. It lunges forward, in extreme slow-motion, and you see it coming toward you—but there’s nowhere for you to go. You’re trapped inside your tent.

Your feet scramble fruitlessly as you press yourself into the corner, but the material begins to collapse around you. The bear’s massive paws smash the tent to the ground—the
snapping
of the tent poles echoes loudly in your ears. A blood-curdling wail tears from your throat, just before the beast bears down upon you. The brute impact of its weight crushes the air from your lungs, cutting your scream short. You realize, too late, that your arm has found its way into the fiend’s mouth. The
crunch
of bone sends jolts of electricity singeing through your entire body.

You recoil, rolling onto your side, and you struggle into a fetal position. The mangled tent wraps itself tighter around your body. You freeze, holding absolutely still, waiting for what’s next to come . . .

Danyelle (aka
D.M. Slate
) resides in Colorado, where she's lived for most of her life. She attended college at the University of Northern Colorado, where she completed a business degree. Danyelle is married to her high school sweetheart, and together they have a young daughter and son.

MOTHER HEN

PHIL BLEDSOE

I am not well-hidden.

My arms are chaffed from hanging on to the bundles of dry branches that made up the thing’s nest. The sleeves of my shirt have worn away hours ago. The muscles in my shoulders and back, once screaming in pain, have now settled into a low, continuous ache. I am too weak to climb back into the nest. If only I hadn’t shoved its eggs over the side into the chasm. But after what it had done to Kelly. . .

We’d been on the trail leading back to the cabin, just a little after sunset. Kelly had been cross with me because I hadn’t believed her when she claimed that she had seen a great, winged shape. I made fun of her, joking about dinosaurs and giant bats. The sky had just gone dark, in that sudden rush of dark purple that you only see up in the mountains. I had tried to apologize. I then resorted to lame attempts at humor to bring her around. She had just been starting to warm back up to me. I knew her mood had brightened as she reached for my hand. We’d left the woods and crossed the open ground that would lead us to the warmth of the big feather bed inside the cabin. I had plans for that feather bed.

It came down on us so fast that I hadn’t even heard it. Kelly’s hand was torn from my grasp so quickly that her nails ripped the skin off my palm. The first sound that told me what had happened was the ominous
beat
of those immense wings as the thing propelled itself back into the sky, carrying her. I was too shocked to react. I just stood there, staring after it until it came back for me.

It had dropped me in its nest. By the pale moonlight, I could barely discern what remained of Kelly’s body. Beside her still warm remains were three enormous eggs. Overcome with rage, I screamed and thrashed, and I cast those three eggs over the side of the nest into the bottomless darkness. It was only when I tried to climb over the side after them that I discovered the lack of footholds and became hopelessly stuck.

Now I can hear the beat of the mother’s wings, returning to her empty nest, followed by her inarticulate cries of fury.

Her head peers over the side of the nest.

We’re even.

Phil Bledsoe
is a working author and freelance copy writer from Kansas City. He is the creator of Blaze Bing the Rodeo King for Decoder Ring Theatre and his own self-published pulp hero, the Scarlet Saint at bledsoep.hubpages.com. He likes to box, collect comics, and watch zombie movies.

STITCH

DAVID HORSCROFT

I’ve been looking at my right hand for about fifteen minutes now. To be fair, there isn’t much else to look at in this badly lit room. The white, tiled walls are bare except for a collection of hacksaws, each suspended on its own separate hook. I got bored of their suspicious brown stains long ago.

My hand is interesting for three reasons. Firstly, it’s tightly clenched. Secondly, it seems to be a sickly grey. Thirdly—and possibly most intriguing of all—it happens to be on the other side of the room, attached to someone else’s arm. I think I’m supposed to feel pain, but instead I want to laugh. It’s almost comical to see my signature birthmark-tainted appendage stuck to the wrist of what seems to be a bodybuilder, upon the shoulders of which sits a disproportionately small head bearing limp pigtails.

I have no idea how I got here. My clearest memory is of a blurred face looming above me, covered almost entirely by a surgical mask.

All the while, I find myself convinced that I should be scared; that I should try to get up and run from this collection of horrors. Instead, I feel dizzyingly euphoric. Without any stricture of pain—despite the fact that I clearly should feel a modicum of agony—I find myself unfettered and giddy with joy.

I begin to laugh. An ephemeral, ghastly rasp insinuates itself through my ears—faint to the point of silence, but it is unmistakeably there. My grotesque display of humour only exacerbates the hilarity of the situation, and the hacking sound becomes minutely louder.

Another sound invades my senses, and the pneumatic hiss of a door opening muffles my own laughter. Seconds later, an old, familiar face hovers above me. Decked out with a surgical gown and a white mask, his eyes are a crisp, calculating blue. They are staring at me with obvious disappointment. Raising a tape recorder to his mouth, he begins to speak.

“Construct: Alpha-Twelve. Major parts taken from adult male subjects: forty-two, six and thirty, and child subjects: seventeen—male—and fifty-three—female. Construct result: overall failure. Unlike the previous constructs, Alpha-Twelve exhibits minor motor function in the eyes, throat and lungs. Eyes seem to track movement, and a laboured breathing is heard. However, no signs of full motility or volition are present. Refer to crematorium.”

I giggle—it comes out as more gruesome rasping—and look the scientist in the eye. I try to tell him that I’m perfectly aware of what is happening—but nothing save for a congested hissing leaves my mouth.

The man pushes my gurney out of the room and into another, this one outfitted with a large steel furnace. As my body slides into the large oven, I laugh harder. I’m going to burn—my body will scorch and soon I shall be nothing.

My ghastly hacking gets even louder as I suddenly realise the most amusing aspect of this scene:

I died at least two weeks ago.

Born in 1992,
David Horscroft
is currently studying genetics and computer science in Cape Town, South Africa. An avid gamer, reader and scientist, he spends most of his time writing strategy articles, playing around with corrosive chemicals, immersed in books, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable.

BLOODY PERFECT

VINCENZO BILOF

We’d finally succeeded in piecing together the ultimate killing machine, and it was neither dead nor alive. Eyes closed, I can still hear the echoed screams of Doctors Burns and Heckfield as they’d met their untimely demise at the masterpiece they’d helped me create—an unplanned test of our son’s capabilities.

I cowered beneath an office desk until the noise died down, then ran down the hallway, nearly slipping on the blood and viscera of my disemboweled associates. They’d been helpless at the wonder and the terror that was Prometheus. Doctor Burns even arched his back and exposed his stomach to get a better view as it skewered him.

I was afraid that it might hear my shaking hands because we’d equipped it with extrasensory abilities, and I was a bit anxious to see if those abilities worked. I held my breath against the thundering heart in my chest while sweat soaked my white collar, and licked my salty lips as I began to creep towards the command center.

All of the security cameras were still functioning in our officially non-existent laboratory, and I could see the corpses of the men who’d been assigned to guard the facility. When I turned up the volume, I could hear screams mingled with gunfire, but guns couldn’t stop my creation; it could regenerate wounded tissue.

A recently posted transmission suggested that THEY’D been alerted about what was happening, and were watching the video. But they weren’t going to send help until the “test” was complete. Everyone would have to die before they would attempt to apprehend my son.

Euphoria overcame fear, and I retreated to my quarters, satisfied that the inner sanctum was locked down and Prometheus wouldn’t be able to get in, though his interest in my flesh was clearly weak, since he’d left me live.

While I sat awake in the darkness in my bed, I had the eerie sensation that I wasn’t alone. Feeling like a terrified child melting beneath the blankets, I wanted to turn on the light but couldn’t bring my limbs to move. Angry with myself, I stared at the closet door, listening closely . . . certain that I could hear him, my son, breathing.

No. Not in the closet. The perfect killer, a hunter, equipped with the killer instinct of a master computer with a twisted sense of irony instilled in it by Doctor Burns. I told him to leave out the humor.

The closet door opened and my breath caught in my throat. Tall and powerful, flexing well-muscled limbs pieced-together from the corpses of dead heroes. It breathed through the gas mask that was its face, rhythmically inhaling and exhaling while I trembled in fear.

I made him. He lives. He walks among you. He let me live because he wanted me to warn you. He wanted you to feel the terror in his coming. Such is his power. He wants you to feel fear.

He’s perfect . . . so perfect.