Nebulous Nightmares

"You all don't understand!" the man cackled, rocking gently back and forth.  "You don't know them, don't realize just how they are.  Ohh, they hunger, but for so much more than you ever can know!"

He didn't seem to see me, I noted, even though he sat directly across the metal table from me.  His hands were attached to a ring on the table via metal cuffs, but he ignored how the bracelets tugged at his hands when he rocked back in his chair.

"Doctor Angell," I repeated, waiting for the man to return back to a more lucid state.  "George, it's me, Francis.  Please, try and stay calm."

Dr. Angell's eyes briefly focused on me, but then they darted off again as he kept on rocking back and forth, now muttering indistinctly to himself.  He always did eventually come around, but as of late it seemed to take longer and longer.  His mind's grip on reality, the doctors at the sanitarium said, was slowly slipping away.

I didn't know how much longer I had before he'd lose that tenuous grip and fully slip away.

Morning Routine

I stumbled into the bathroom, blinking as I tried to rub the remnants of sleep out of my eyes.  My bare feet padded across the cold tile, and I vaguely wished that I'd had the forethought to pull on my slippers.

Entering the bathroom, my hand banged against the wall, searching for the light switch.  I found it, and the fan in the ceiling hummed to life as the lights came on.

Glancing up at my mirror, I blinked.  Where was my reflection?

A post-apocalyptic firefighter's call

The siren wailed, cutting through all other noise inside the firehouse.  Throughout the building, men and women paused in their current activities, their heads rising up like deer sniffing at the breeze.

In the break room, I cursed as I fought at the blankets on the cot that tried to ensnare me, wrapping around my limbs.  By the time I managed to fight my way free, I could already hear the rhythmic thudding of boots as the other firefighters hurried downstairs.

A Scrape in the Dark

I stared up at the ceiling, my eyes wide open and my brain feeling like a skipping record.

Okay.  Silence.  It's lasted a while now - it has to have been at least a minute.  Maybe that means that the sound has-

Scrape.

Nope.  There it is again.

The Heavy Darkness

There's a feeling, Elle considered to herself, that can come from darkness.

She clutched the slightly bent tire iron closer to herself as she tried to see further, blinking her eyes in a futile attempt to help her night vision.  All around her, the shadows grew deep and thick before congealing into a solid mass of impenetrable blankness.

Elle normally felt accustomed to darkness.  She was, after all, a creature of the half-dark, spending most of her waking hours prowling in the twilight.  It was always a delicate balancing act; she had to wait until the sun had sank down to kiss the horizon, to the point when most of the other bands of hunters would have already set up their camps and turned in for the night.

But Elle also knew that for each moment she waited, the sun grew a little dimmer, and her window shrank.  And if she waited too long, darkness would come sweeping over her like a crashing wave of surf.  That darkness brought its own terrors with it, far more ephemeral than the bands of hunters, but just as deadly.

Tonight, the darkness felt especially thick...

Unsettled

When I stepped outside, the squirrel raised its head to stare at me.  Even though I was close, however, it showed no fear as it watched me with unblinking eyes.

*

It wasn’t until the third turn of the key in the ignition, my heart pounding in my throat, that the engine finally turned over, coughing and sputtering to life.

*

I glanced down at my feet, only to see a winged shadow pass directly over me.  When I looked up, there was nothing in the sky.

*

She didn’t say anything, but I caught her looking at me out of the corner of my eye, a resigned frown on her face.

*

It wasn’t until I had closed my eyes and laid back down that I heard the sound again - a faint scratching from somewhere in the dark room.

*

As I felt my foot descend on nothing, panic blossomed in my mind.  There had only been twelve steps, I thought, not thirteen.

*

A smudge on my glasses, I thought, as the shape loomed at the corner of my vision once again - but then I remembered I was wearing contacts.

*

When I stepped onto the subway car, a dozen pairs of eyes scrolled over me.  One pair, however, seemed to linger far too long on my face.

*

Sitting uselessly in the waiting room, I stared blankly at the painting on the wall across from me.  Somehow, the face seemed to be sneering back.

*

A sudden, faint pressure against my skin made me jerk, as though I’d walked through a spider’s web, even though I stood in my own kitchen.

*

My eyes snapped open.  I was still in bed.  But for a moment, I felt as though the blankets were bindings, preventing me from moving even a finger.

A Prickling of the Skin

From the moment I woke up, I knew that something was wrong.

Ever feel that prickling at the back of your shoulder blades, that phantom sensation that just won't go away?  It happens when you've missed something, something important.  One time, I totally forgot about the fact that I had jury duty, and I walked around all day with this prickling in between my shoulder blades, sure that the Sword of Damocles was waiting just above my head, about to drop.

That was how I felt today, ever since I woke up.

Try as I might, however, I can't remember what could be wrong, what I could have forgotten.  I caught my bus as I hid from the rain in the shelter of the stop, went to work, put in my mindless eight hours of sitting at my desk and transferring files between spreadsheets, got on the bus again, came home, cooked the last pizza in my freezer (I need to get more food), and went to bed.

The next day, the prickling was still there.

Now, I knew that something was wrong.  That sense of unease was stronger, as if there was something right in front of me that I should be seeing, that my eyes were just skipping past.

I knew that something was wrong.

I just didn't know what it was.

I went to work again, putting up my coat to cover my hair against the rain.  I did my work, toiling away at those endless spreadsheets.  At home, I popped open my fridge, pulled out the frozen pizza (last one, I needed to go shopping), and tried to think as I ate.

What could be wrong?  I felt my skin was a size too small, like I itched inside of it.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep.

The next morning, the feeling was even worse.  Prickling all over, pins and needles coursing through my entire body.  I could barely think as I stared out the window at the pouring rain.  I knew that I had to go to work, but I felt as though my thoughts were moving through molasses.

Dash through the rain to the bus.  Open up my spreadsheets - sometimes, it seemed like I wasn't even making any progress on them.  Eight hours and change later, I stumbled back into my apartment, going for the frozen pizza (last one) in the fridge.

I needed to go shopping for food, I thought blearily to myself.  I had a small pad of paper sitting on the counter, and I picked up a pen.  I noticed with annoyance that I was down to the last sheet of paper.  There was something written on it already, but I crossed that out and wrote "buy pizza" underneath.

I was already getting tired.  I collapsed into bed, but I knew that I was missing something.

I almost slept through my alarm the next morning.  Clamber up, pull on my coat against the pouring rain outside, and run for the bus.  Data entry.  Frozen pizza.  The prickling was still there.

I know something's wrong.

Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow.

The Roach

I just sat there, staring at her across the table.  Something was wrong, I knew it.  There was something off about her, something that just didn't feel right.

It all started a few days ago.  She had gone to sleep before me, as usual, turning in and crawling into the sheets on her side of the bed while I stayed up late, trying to finish the never-ending pile of work.  But when I finally stood up, rubbed my eyes, and headed to the bedroom, something wasn't the same.  Something was different.

I barely noticed it, then.  I saw her in the bed, curled up, and just felt uneasy.  Sometimes, when a roach crawls on my skin, I just barely feel it, something wrong moving about on me.  That's the best way I can describe the feeling.  Something about her wasn't right.

That night, I was too tired to think much of it.  I shrugged it off, crawled into bed beside her, and fell asleep without much issue.

But the feeling didn't go away.

For the next few days, it just grew stronger and stronger, every time I looked at her.  She wasn't the same.  Oh, she acted like nothing was wrong, smiled and joked with me, but sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I thought that I could see her expression melt away into blankness.

I began staring at her, watching all of her little habits closely.  The way she pushed back her hair - had she always done it like that?  Did she always curl her finger around the strands as she tucked them up behind her ear?  I couldn't remember.  But it wasn't right.  It was somehow off, different, a mocking imitation of what I remembered.

It crept into her speech, too.  When I asked her a question, something about our history, our past, I could see it.  For just an instant, she'd freeze before answering.  She almost looked like she was thinking.  Like she was recalling the answer.

But I could see that brief moment of total blankness in her eyes.

There was something in her head; I was sure of it, convinced of it.  Something on her brain.  Or in it, pulling all the strings to make her move like a marionette.

I began staring into her ears, into that hole of blackness.  It's such a big hole.  Any number of things could crawl inside of there, could invade through those open gates.

We went to the doctor, under the guise of a yearly checkup.  The doctor checked for brain tumors, at my request.  He saw nothing.  But I didn't feel reassured.

See, it's getting worse.  Every time I talk to her, I see that moment of blankness.  I've trained myself to spot it now, to see it whenever she tries to get near me.  She says she just wants to comfort me, to hold me in her arms like we used to, but I don't remember that.  It, that thing inside her, can't truly pretend to be her.

I know it's inside her.  When I look at her, I see a roach, a nasty little insect inside her brain, scuttling around and making her dance.  I shudder, I look away, but I still see it inside of her in my mind's eye.

I am positive it's there.

Please, you have to believe me.  I knew it was there, but I knew no one would believe me without proof.  If I could just find it, could cut it out and hold it aloft in triumph as I crush it between my fingers, I would finally be able to rest again, to sleep.

It's in here, somewhere.  I had to cut in, to search for it.  I know it's here.

I was careful.  I used plastic sheets, made sure that it had nowhere to escape.  It must be in one of these pieces, hidden away like a roach.

It must be here.

Three-Sentence Scary Stories

Horror is usually achieved through creeping suspense.  Can flash fiction successfully capture horror?  I think so!

1.
I hadn't realized how far the raft had drifted out into the lake; we seemed to be at the center, surrounded by inky blackness. My friend had jumped in a couple hours ago, promising to swim to shore to get help. She still hadn't come up for air...

2.
With a hiss, the shuttle detached from the space station. Inside, Davies breathed a sigh of relief; the virus had been contained before it breached the shuttle. But as the shuttle drifted away, something was still scratching at the outside of the airlock.

3.
Somehow, I seemed to have far more karma on Reddit than I remembered. I had definitely blacked out last night; had I posted something? It wasn't until the /r/gonewild comments started that I realized what I'd done.

Author's note: /r/gonewild is a place where people post naked pictures of themselves.

4.
Ironically, I'd been reading about aneurysms when the nosebleed started. "How annoying," I thought to myself as I reached for a tissue. But now the box is empty, and the blood isn't stopping.

5.
I stared down at my daughter.  She looked just how I remembered her, wearing the same pale pink dress the mortician had picked out.  "Daddy?" she whispered out of the darkness.

6.
I stared around at the people as they passed, spinning in circles on the crowded sidewalk.  No one else but me could see the demons, writhing beneath their skin.  I would have to burn them out.

7.
The man grinned as he closed in on her in the alley, a vicious and sadistic grin. She could feel her limbs already getting heavy; there must have been something in that last drink. "Now," the man leered as he pulled a knife from his pocket, "I think it's time to have some fun."