ten pages of horror

rattish

no more meanies

we can’t be alone, right?

the price that must be paid

scratched out of reality

never forgotten, stinking rotten

running out of air

the time devourer

mr. orwell’s record of royalty (beauty in bullions)

the nasty nummy monster…

rattish

Rattish says I can’t tell anyone the truth.

Rattish says soon we’re going to be like him.

Beady black eyes. Buck teeth. Abigail doesn’t want to be like him.

But that’s okay—I bit her, so she will be, and then she’ll understand.

I’ll bite my parents soon. Then they’ll look like Rattish too.

Beady eyes. Pink tails. Splotchy skin. Blackened, gnarled fur.

Rattish says the most important thing is to spread it, else we’ll lose everyone.

‘You got bit first and if you change without biting them, you’ll be all alone.’

‘You don’t want to be all alone, do you?’

Me and Abigail, we’ll bite everyone, ‘cuz if they bite everyone, they’ll be like us.

And if they’re like us, they won’t be mad about changing’ cuz we’ll all be together.

Beady eyes. Clawed-paws. Twitching whiskers. Wrinkly noses.

Mommy. Daddy. Big bro.

Mr. Millhouse. Mrs. Baker. Zoey, Jessie, Wally, Brody, Brady, Claire.

If we bite them, Rattish will be happy.

If we bite them, we won’t be alone.

If we bite them, they’ll be just like us.

Rats.

no more meanies

“They’re moving in,” my daughter said. “Who?” I said. “My Imaginary Friends,” she said.

It started with simple left-behinds: brushes, toys, mirrors, bracelets. I’d find them on the kitchen counter, the bathroom sink, sometimes on my bed. I’d laugh it off. ‘Just Sarah having some fun.’ Then I started noticing strange details. Engravings on the rings, names in the notebooks, blood on the clothes. I asked her about them.

She said: “That’s ‘cuz they took those things. They take a lot.” I said: “They took them?” She said: “If they did, it’s okay, ‘cuz they were Meanies.” I said: “But some of these things belong to your classmates!” She said: “Careful, daddy. Don’t be a Meanie.”

Again, I wrote it off. ‘Sarah’s a little thief’ and ‘Sarah has bullies.’ I spoke to her teachers. Had her see a counselor. After that, things got weirder: blonde, brown, auburn strands of hair clotted the drains. Torn toenails piled on the dining room table. Teeth fell out of the cabinets, eyeballs were jammed into the fridge. The dog, my little Charlie, bit Sarah. Next day? He was gone. Day after that? He was back—but only his head.

‘They took him,’ she said. ‘’Cuz he was a Meanie.’

Sarah changed. Her teeth sharpened into razor blades. Her fingers webbed into piercing hawk-talons. I banned her from leaving the house. That only accelerated the process. Feathers ripped out her skin. Goo drained from her eyes. ‘Soon,’ she kept hissing in a voice not her own. ‘Soon.’ My little girl was becoming one of them—imaginary.

One morning, I grabbed a fire-axe from the shed. This thing wasn’t Sarah anymore. I had to stop it before it hurt anyone else. She caught me. She shook her head. She giggled.

Then, a knock came.

It said: “You have to go with them, daddy. Then, no more Meanies!”

we can’t be alone, right?

“Alone.”

The Searcher sat at the console, punching the word in again and again.

“Alone”, and “alone”, and “alone”, and “alone.”

Because he was alone. All alone. And he always would be.

This journey to loneliness started decades ago with a question: where are they?

And if he had been alive to answer, he would have said: nowhere.

But he wasn’t. He had been born on this ship, had never seen Earth, had never interacted with humans other than those who raised him, and was committed to a faithful, fruitless cause—uncovering the unknown, the alien. His ancestors left Home decades ago, dreaming they would find something. They didn’t. Out here, in the vast nothing, were empty planets, that’s all.

Entire generations had lived and died on this ship, all with nothing to show for it.

As such, his life was now nothing more than a casualty of their curiosity.

“Alone”, he repeated. “Alone.”

Fifty years old. No mirror to see himself. Nothing to be proud of. A sister ten years his senior, freshly dead, cast out into the emptiness of space. Nobody to talk to except static signals that only buzzed back. The Searcher had lived an alien life and, thus, had become something alien himself—too far from a Home he never knew to return to it, too hopeless to go on, caught repeating the only chunk of the only phrase he could remember: we can’t be alone, right?

“Alone,” he punched in. “Alone.”

But only those dull static signals buzzed back.

the price that must be paid

The Capital City receded, as it did every day at supper. Doors were bolted, windows shut and latched. Folks draped their bodies in blankets and tucked into hideaways: cellars, basements, closets, armoires, even ovens. Anything to avoid being chosen for The Culling.

The King, clad in gilded armor befitting of a god, shielded his face as the sobbing girl was yanked into his chamber. Like everyone in the Capital, she was dressed in silk robes and adorned priceless gems. Luxurious. Yet she gnashed her teeth and threw her fists at the royal guards as they dragged her to the post at the edge of the balcony, hoisted her up, and tied her to it. Before leaving, the King simply said: “I’m sorry, but this is for the good of everyone.”

“Please.” Her anguished, echoing wails flooded the silent streets. “Please, no.”

Pleading wouldn’t spare her. The Capital’s sins were too heinous. When the clock struck six, these sins manifested as an amalgamation of the innocent, poor, sickly, and weak—the slaughtered. It was vengeful, a mangled monstrosity whose body consisted of sliced chests, severed limbs, bashed skulls, and screaming mouths. Each step tortured the creature, ripping its flesh and showering the lavish buildings with fresh blood.

Upon reaching her, the behemoth ripped the post free and brought the wealthy girl to its rotten lips. A rush of necrotic breath came through its cracked teeth as it unfurled a tongue eaten up by pustules, clotted with brain-matter. Down its throat, a thousand eyes leered at her, wrathful at the life she had gotten to enjoy, mourning the life they had taken.

One sacrifice a day for every soul you took. That is the price that must be paid.

With that, the beast fed.

scratched out of reality

Everything I write turns to: _____

In every picture of me, I look like: _____

When I speak, my words sound like _____ and when my friends, family, and teachers speak, their words sound like _____ too.

I didn’t use to be _____ . I used to be _____ . I was _____ years old and I liked _____ . I lived in _____ with my _____ and my _____ . I had a crush on _____ .

Then it all turned to _____ .

I turned to _____ .

_____ said God was scratching me out of reality before _____ became _____ . _____ didn’t really believe that. He laughed. But I do. The voice in my head says “ _____ , come home.” “ _____ , come home.”

Every day, God takes more from me. _____ is all I see. _____ is all I hear. Soon, I will be stuck in a world of _____ . _____ will be all around me. _____ will be all I am. I will live _____ in a _____ world whether _____ like _____  or not.

I _____ being _____ out _____ reality.

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story was originally intended to have special formatting that doesn’t translate as well online. The _____ were originally intended to be actual hand-drawn scratch marks but the images didn’t cooperate. Oh well!

NEVER FORGOTTEN, STINKING ROTTEN

We slither across the cellar floor, circled by flies, stung by mosquitos. Most of us can’t walk. None of us can talk. All of us can bite. We scratch, dig, kick, and squeal. We are barely alive, left to die. Some have—Three and Four and Nine and Twenty. Their flesh keeps us going. Tastes good. Better than outside cats. Too many fleas, too much hair. Yuck.

New ones join us every night. Father throws them down all at once. Most live, some don’t. All are messed up in some sorta way. Some have extra heads. Others, no fingers. Many, no brains. If they live, friend. If they die, food. Father wants us to be like Master, but none of us are. Master is the Original. He stays down here with us, in the Box. Master is rotten and melting and dead. But when alive, Master was strong.

When Father brings Master back, he will be just as strong.

But False One wants to stop him. False One looks like Master but is not. False One is weaker. False One has different stink. False One claims Master ‘can’t come back’ and calls Father ‘crazy.’ False One wants to ‘know what’s in the cellar’ and is going to ‘call the police.’ Father says False One ‘doesn’t understand.’ When they yell, we hide—if False One finds us, he will stop Father. If Father is stopped, he can’t bring Master back. If Master doesn’t come back, we have no purpose.

So tonight, we break rule: we leave cellar.

Tonight, we slither, scratch, dig, kick, and squeal through house. Tonight, we save Father. Tonight, we feast on something better than outside-cat or each other.

Tonight we feast on the False One.

running out of air

The man was running out of air.

He was a researcher, underwater to study coral going in the caverns.

A wrong turn separated him from his colleagues. A few more, he was lost entirely.

He discovered a gap the water hadn’t reached. Enough to steal a few breaths.

But he couldn’t stay there—he could wriggle in but barely wriggle out.

It was like being a tightly packed sardine. A fish trapped, desperate to be eaten.

So he left the gap. He traversed the caverns. They were sprawling, complex.

He counted the coral, imprinting them in his mind as landmarks, and swam till sore.

But he didn’t need to retrace his strokes.

Every couple minutes, no matter where he went, he found himself back at the gap.

And eventually, he shimmied back into it, gasping for breath.

He couldn’t go, no, because he was running out of air.

But he couldn’t stay, no, because…

…in the darkness of the gap lurked…

A dozen eyes.

Serrated teeth.

A sickening, twisted smile.

He couldn’t go back, no no, because he was running out of air.

He couldn’t stay, no no, because there was something there.

the time devourer

My name? Cornelius Finch. My Occupation? God-Wrangler.

What does that mean? Well, it means my job is important. See, eons ago, when the universe was in its infancy and the cosmos were still bursting into being, primordial beasts came into existence, known as Divinities.

The Divinities took a blank universe and gave it shape and substance. They created galaxies, filled them with planets, and surrounded them with stars. The problem? Their inspiration never faltered—they endlessly painted over their own canvases, smearing everything together into a jumbled mess. Thankfully, I solved this problem by sealing them away. Who am I, you ask? No, you don’t.

To clean up their…creativity…I created The Time Devourer, a monster with a simple task—eat it all up! And it did, for a little bit. Then, it escaped.

Now it rambunctiously leaps across the timelines, gobbling the life off people, de-aging them, and tearing the years off cities, reducing them to barren plots of land. Across the eras, anguished cries ring out—people from the present are being thrown into the past and people from the past aren’t thrilled.

I know what The Time Devourer’s goal is, because it is what I would do, and such a beast cannot come into being without giving it a piece of yourself—it is searching for my past, hoping to eat the knowledge, and wisdom, of many years lived straight off of me.

If that were to happen, all hope would be lost, and so I need to do something unthinkable and, most importantly, irreversible: I need to free the Divinities.

To save the cosmos, I must plunge them into the chaos of infinite creation.

I’m sorry.

mr. orwell’s record of royalty (beauty in bullions)

SIDE A: ‘Good evening. I am reporting live from the estate of Mr. Orwell Roberts, artist behind paintings such as “Serendipity”, “Girl at the Park”, and “Warm Embrace”, as he again adds to his magnum opus, “Beauty in Bullions.” “Beauty” is not merely a painting, but a record of royalty—with it, Mr. Orwell plans to capture the grace of the princesses, and today’s subject is heiress Audra Greely. Space has been made for her next to the stunning Princess Eliza and the magnificent Princess Lorelei. Hundreds, including myself, have gathered to watch such a marvelous display. Oh, here, he is starting now! With the first-stroke of gold, meant to illustrate Audra’s shimmering locks of hair, he has begun!

SIDE B: The roar of the raucous crowd drowned out Audra’s wails of agony.

She was obscured from the masses, hidden inside Mr. Orwell’s private chambers. He peeped through the cracks in the wall, dissecting her with each brush-stroke. The first few tore hair from her scalp, flesh gummed to them like bait on a lure. The next few painted away her brain matter. She watched him; he plucked out her eyes. She screamed; he ripped out her tongue. She listened as his attendants whispered that her father sold her, that her legacy is being immortalized; he snatched the bones out her ears, then took the skin too.

With each brush-stroke, he stole a piece of her humanity and gifted it to the world.

Soon there was nothing left of Princess Audra, the person.

All that remained was Princess Audra, piece of “Beauty in Bullions.”

the nasty nummy monster…

Gather ‘round, children, and let Grandma tell you something, something important, real important, something worth listening to. You hear that outside? That thump-boom-ba-bump? Most would have you believe that’s thunder, but it isn’t, my sweeties. No, let me tell you the truth: that is the Nasty Nummy Monster.

What is it? Why, Grandma doesn’t know everything, dearie. And some things, whys and whats and who’s and hows, are better left a mystery. What I do know is it is pure evil and would gobble you up in a heartbeat, that’s why you gotta stay with me. See, the Nasty Nummy Monster, he isn’t little. No, he is big as any building you ever seen, with claws sharp enough to unroot any tree, and teeth…well, teeth made of children just like you.

Because see, the Nasty Nummy Monster doesn’t eat children. No, it collects them. Picks them right off the street, stuffs them into its gums, and then uses them to help lure other innocent little boys and girls in. Isn’t that frightening? That’s why it’s Grandma’s job to save them before they get caught. If Grandma doesn’t, who will?

There’s another child out there who needs my help. A little boy. He is all alone, and what does that mean? He is in danger. But you’ll help me get him in here, won’t you? In here, where it is safe, not out there, where the Nasty Nummy Monster lurks around every corner, watching, waiting, hungry.

Help me, children, and never-mind his screams—he sees the Nasty Nummy Monster, he thinks it’s going to gobble him up, but we won’t let it. Once he’s in here, we’ll wash away his fears with our smiles, won’t we?

‘Cuz in here, there’s no Nasty Nummy Monster. Just Grandma and her children, who all love each other dearly.

Thank you all for reading—HAPPY HALLOWEEN!