The Old House
As a child, I always heard whispers about the old, run-down house in the woods outside of town. Rumors of ghosts, ritual murders, cults and mass suicides floated between the mouths of chatty locals for as long as I can remember. Many believed the place to be abandoned, but there were those who told tales of strange shadows that sometimes danced in the windows. Others swore they heard voices echoing out from behind the walls of the dilapidated structure when they passed by. The story I’m going to tell you is about my experience with that place. I never saw specters frolicking in the darkness or heard the ghastly wail of some menacing phantom, but the events that unfolded that sunny afternoon still scare me just the same.
It was warm that day. The sun broke through treetops above our heads, scattering down to the forest floor, glimmering like golden confetti. I was twelve at the time. Peter was only nine, but even at that age my little brother seemed to be on a constant mission to prove his bravery to me – as if he felt it was the only way to validate himself in my eyes. We trudged through the last of the brush until we made our way into a clearing where the old house stood. We had both heard stories about the place before, but this was the first time either of us had ever actually visited it.
The derelict old building was an intimidating sight. Moldy rotten wood covered the face of the home like the diseased skin of a leper. Some of the windows had been smashed out while others were covered in a thick brown coat of dust. The house’s entire frame crooked off to the left at an angle so sharp it seemed as if it was going to collapse at any moment.
“There it is,” I told him. We stood at the edge of the clearing for what felt like an eternity, the two of us just staring at the time-damaged relic. “You don’t have to go in there, Peter.”
My younger brother sent a frustrated scowl in my direction.
“I’m not afraid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I’m going in there – all the way in the basement,” Peter said matter-of-factly. “And when I do, you’re gonna tell all the kids at school tomorrow how brave I am.”
He puffed out his chest and marched up the steps to the front door. I’ll never forget the look on Peter’s face when he turned back around and waved to me just before disappearing through the slanted doorway. He was so proud. I took a seat on the grass and leaned my back against a tree to wait for him. An hour passed and still there was no sight of him. By the time the sun had started to set and Peter still hadn’t returned, I could feel anxiety beginning to build inside of me.
What if the rumors were right?
What if a family of cannibals lived inside of that place and they were already preparing my brother for dinner? What if a monster was hiding in the basement, waiting to tear Peter to shreds as soon as he set foot inside? I wanted to check on him, but I was far too afraid to go into the old house myself. So I waited.
My brother finally emerged from the broken-down building just before the sun had set for the evening. Needless to say, I was relieved. I couldn’t help but notice the curious expression on his face when he approached me – almost as if he was sizing me up for the first time.
“What took so long, Peter?” I asked him. “I was worried you got hurt!”
“Sorry. I lost track of time.” His voice was flat and expressionless. Its very tone made me scrunch my face in discomfort.
I brushed it off and grabbed him around the arm. “Come on. We need to be home before it gets dark or Mom will ground both of us.”
My mother gave us a stern lecture about staying out after dusk when we got back. The night went normally enough, but Peter’s demeanor remained cold and distant. I had been curious to ask him about the house, but I didn’t want to do it in front of my mother and father. We shared a room so that evening when we were getting ready for bed I decided to prod him.
“So, Peter?” I said when I walked into the bedroom after I finished brushing my teeth. “You were in the old house for a while.”
“I told you. I lost track of time,” he responded.
“How?” I asked.
Peter sat up in bed. The blank expression on his face didn’t change, but somehow it felt even more removed than before.
“I was looking at stuff.”
I let out a nervous laugh.
“Well, did you see any monsters in there?”
I’m not sure how long it took for him to answer me. It felt like the silence lasted forever and a day. When he finally spoke again his answer was short, succinct and to the point. He simply smiled at me answered, “yes,” and then blinked his eyes. I spent the evening in my parents’ room after that, but I was too afraid to sleep.
In the morning Peter was gone. My mom and dad called the police. By the end of the day, they had filed an official missing person’s report. His face was on the milk cartons and billboards. There was a massive statewide manhunt for him. Investigators believe that he was abducted so of course the press had a field day with it – the little boy who was taken from his bed in the dead of night.
The thing is, I don’t believe Peter was abducted by a cat burglar. I think whatever happened to him in the old house is what led to his disappearance. It was my conversation with him before bed that cemented that idea in my mind – specifically when I asked him if he’d seen any monsters. His reply had terrified me more than words could ever describe.
It wasn’t the grin he flashed before he answered. Though I found his smile disturbing, it’s not what had captured my attention. Nor was it his response confirming that had indeed seen a “monster” while in the house. You see, the thing that truly frightened me, that sent me running to my mom and dad’s room was what happened when he blinked his eyes. It scared me because when they closed, they shut the wrong way.
Freak Show
The carnival rides’ bright lights gleamed in the summer night like a sea of swirling, twirling, multicolored gemstones. Laughter filled the evening sky above the festive lot as adults and children alike took part in all of the fair’s amusing attractions. The smell of buttery popcorn danced in the air, pirouetting with the sweet aromatic fragrances rising up from the carts of cotton candy vendors. But amongst all the revelry and merriment, no one seemed to notice a young girl holding a pink balloon, and wandering through the crowd all by herself.
It was Elle’s first time at the fair. The little girl was only seven-years-old and had tagged along with her older brother and his group of friends. From the moment she arrived, she had found herself mesmerized by a myriad of enchanting sights and sounds. The place was unlike anything she had ever seen before and she wanted to experience all of it. Elle’s teenage chaperones, on the other hand, were only interested in flirting with every pretty girl they happened to come across so she snuck away when they weren’t paying attention, hoping to take in as much of the carnival as possible.
Finally free from her boring brother, Elle explored the lot, her pink balloon trailing behind her while she bounced from one spectacle to another. She rode on the carousel, watched a clown preform magic tricks, she even fed a sugar cube to a pony at the petting zoo. To Elle, the fair was the most magical place on the planet.
After an hour or so the little girl parked herself on a bench to rest her legs. She watched with a smile on her face as a group of thrill-seekers staggered off a flashy spinning ride called The Cyclone. It wasn’t until the last of them had stumbled away that a small tent caught her eye.
The nondescript little tent was easy to miss, sandwiched between two massive whirling rides decorated in dazzling lights. Curiosity beckoned Elle off the bench, taking her by the hand and leading her over to it. She stopped in front of the entrance and looked at the wooden sign hanging above her head. The words sent a shudder throughout the child’s body.
FREAK SHOW
Elle had heard of carnival freaks before, but never thought she’d get the opportunity to actually see one in person. Intrigue and fear waged a w
ar inside of the little girl’s head as she contemplated whether or not to go inside. When the dust had settled, it was intrigue that had won out. Elle pushed the flap of the entrance to the side and ducked into the tent, followed closely behind by her pink balloon.
The inside of the tent was darker than she had expected. Off to the left, a tiny candle flickered on a table providing the only source of light. It took a moment for Elle’s eyes to adjust, but once they did, she could feel the air escape her lungs as a sense of dread gushed through her veins. The little girl was staring at the most hideous boy she had ever seen before in her life.
He appeared to be suffering from some sort of terrible deformity that rendered his body a grotesque, tangled, bed-ridden mass of flesh and bones. His disfigured face, warped and misshapen, looked like a Picasso painting as the candle light flickered off of his malformed features. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a few raspy breaths escaped from his crooked lips.
“That means he likes you.” Elle spun around to see an old woman covered head to toe in tattoos. The hundreds of piercings in her face jingled like a pocket full of change as she continued to talk. “Oh don’t be alarmed. His name is The Human Pile and he’s a member of our little family. I know we’re not as pretty as you are, but we’re just people and there’s certainly nothing to be afraid of. I’m Tattoo Lady. It’s nice to meet you.”
“F-family?” asked Elle.
“Of course. There are more of us freaks than just The Human Pile and myself. Come on out everybody. The little girl wants to see you.”
Elle swallowed the scream in her throat as more horribly disfigured people slinked out of the shadows and into the light. The old tattooed woman pointed to a man with grey scaly skin. When he smiled at Elle she noticed that his teeth were as sharp as a carnivorous predator’s.
“That’s The African Snake Man,” whispered Tattoo Lady. “He joined our family two years ago. Travelled all the way from Syria to be with us. Do you know where that is?”
Elle shook her head. The old tatted up woman let out a chuckle. The piercings in her face clanked loudly as it mixed with her laughter, making it sound almost mechanical.
“That’s ok. Over there is The Tumor Woman.”
The tattooed freak pulled a pocketknife from her waistband and pointed the blade towards a woman in a sundress. Monstrous cysts were growing from her unsightly face. She waved a swollen hand, covered in lumps and growths, at Elle, causing the little girl to wince.
“I think I wanna go home now,” mumbled Elle.
“Nonsense!”
Tattoo Lady jabbed her pocketknife above the little girl’s head. A loud POP boomed throughout the tent. The ribbon attached to Elle’s balloon went limp in her hand. Her balloon was now nothing but a mangled piece of pink latex lying in the dirt at her feet.
“Come now,” said Tattoo Lady. “There are more members of our family you must meet. Over there is The Lobster Boy.”
A sneering teenage boy around the same age as her brother waved a pair of claw like hands in the air. The little girl could feel her heart beginning to race.
“And there,” the old tattooed woman put her arm around Elle and pointed her knife at a man whose body was completely covered in fur. “They call him The Mongrel.” A crooked smile crept its way across the old woman’s pierced lips as she spoke again. “Now there’s one more member of our family. Her name is The Little No Face Girl.”
Elle shifted her eyes around the tent, but couldn’t figure out whom Tattoo Lady was referring too.
“B-but there’s nobody else here?” stuttered Elle. “Where is she?”
The old tattooed woman placed the edge of her blade at the top of Elle’s hairline. A trickle of blood ran down her brow.
“Don’t worry, child,” she snickered. “The Little No Face Girl will be here really soon.”
The Stranger’s Debt
'Knock Knock'
The knock on the door startled Marie. It was too late to be expecting visitors. She had just put her son to bed. Her husband, Eric, was hunched over at the sitting area in the foyer with a glass of thirty-year-old scotch in one hand and his head in the other. He had seemed uncharacteristically distraught as of late. Marie loved her husband, but she realized she hadn’t been very attentive lately. Between running her charity, attending social functions, and playing on the country club’s tennis team she hadn’t gotten the opportunity to ask Eric what had been troubling him. She knew his company had recently dropped a couple of points in the stock market so she just assumed it was a money issue. To her, a little bit of cash was nothing to fret over. After all, they had come from practically nothing and now they had plenty of it. They would be fine.
The knock came again.
'Knock Knock'
Marie tugged open the heavy oak door to reveal an ominous looking stranger standing behind it. He was so tall that he had to duck his massive head under the oversized door’s 10 ft. tall frame as he entered the room. His skin was pale; almost snow white, a stark contrast to his intense shadowy eyes – two dark pieces of coal buried deep into the sunken sockets of his face. The stranger wore a long black trench coat buttoned down from his neck all the way to just below his knees. His hands and feet were massive – nearly twice the size of a normal man’s. When he smiled at Marie she caught a glimpse of his teeth. Jagged and pointed, they looked like they belonged in the mouth of a mangy dog. The stranger turned his monstrous head towards Marie's husband and began to speak. His voice was low and gravelly, but so powerful she felt it rumble through the room’s walls and her body alike.
"Eric Wallace. I have come to collect my debt."
It was at that moment Marie understood what was going on: The success of Eric's Internet startup, the big house in the hills, the fancy cars, the charity, and most importantly the horrible, giant, inhuman looking man who had just entered their home. Eric had made a deal with the devil. She flung herself to the demon's feet.
"Please! You can't take his soul!” she cried. “There has to be another way!"
The stranger reached out a long bony finger and caressed her wet, tear-soaked cheeks.
"Oh, my dear,” he began. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. Your husband didn’t sell me his soul. He sold me yours.”
A Novice Killer
I killed my wife last night.
I did it because she was cheating on me. Ok, so I didn’t have any tangible proof, but every time she came home I could smell the cologne of other men on her. Try putting yourself in my shoes, slogging through the door after a hard day’s work, and giving your wife a kiss only to inhale the scent of another man on her clothes. I mean, so what if she worked in the cologne department at Macy’s? That’s not an excuse! She was cheating on me, I tell you! And I had enough of it! Nobody cheats on Phineas P. Woldsworth! That’s not my name, but nobody cheats on me either! The point is, the bitch had to die.
I’ve never murdered a person before. I guess I always pictured it would go more smoothly. In the movies when someone gets their throat slashed they bleed a little then usually die a neat, instantaneous death. Quick and clean – that’s how it was supposed to be. I snuck up behind her after she had fallen asleep on the couch watching Real Housewives of Timbuktu (or some other vapid reality show) then opened up her throat with a kitchen knife – she gushed like a geyser. You should have seen it! I didn’t know a person’s body could hold so much blood! I’m not ashamed to admit, I got a little light headed from the sight.
Well, it certainly wasn’t a neat kill…and it wasn’t a quick one either, for that matter. My wife fell to the floor after I sliced into her neck and began to wildly thrash her arms and legs. I’m sure she would have been screaming too if I hadn’t done a number on her vocal chords. It took about a dozen more stabs to her windpipe before she finally stopped moving. I was kind of disappointed when I realized that the knife I used was a wedding present from my late Aunt Carl
a. She was my favorite Auntie and that damn thing held a lot of sentimental value to me, but now I had to get rid of it. There was no way I was going to keep the murder weapon in my house! That would be crazy!
Once I was sure my wife was finally dead, I looked around the house to survey the damage. Both our bodies and half the living room were completely coated in blood. I dragged her into my bathroom and dumped her body in the tub. The mess took hours to clean up, but I think I did a bang-up of a job. I got that living room looking like something you’d see Martha Stewart bedazzling throw pillows in. All I have to say is, thank goodness for hardwood floors! It would have been a hell of a lot harder if we had laid down carpeting like my wife insisted when we first moved in. I patted myself on the back for putting my foot down and nixing that idea.
After I was done cleaning, I went back inside the bathroom and tried to figure out what to do with her cadaver. I always do my best thinking on the can so I popped a squat next to her and began to make a number two. What? I didn’t think she was going to mind?
I was just beginning to breech when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Her stomach had begun moving – heaving up and down at an alarming rate. It startled me so much I nearly fell off the pot. Was she breathing? I felt a wave of guilt begin to wash over me. How selfish of me not to turn on the vent! A second wave smacked me in the face, but this time it was fear.
How could she be alive? I thought to myself. She must have spilled enough blood to fill a dumpster!
I tried to reassure myself that it wasn’t what it looked like. I remembered once reading in a magazine that gas can escape a body, sometimes hours after death. This can give the appearance of breathing, but does not actually mean that the body is doing so.
Just as my heartbeat was beginning to return to its regular cadence I could have sworn I saw her fingers twitch. The sight made me want to get up and sprint as far away from the house as possible – turtle head poking out of my crack and all! A scene from an old television show jogged my memory, allowing me to collect myself. In it, a crime scene investigator explained to a plucky young police officer that even though a person’s brain may be dead, their body’s muscles can still twitch for a little while after they pass.
See? I thought to myself as I pushed a little harder, trying to coax the chocolate bunny from its hole. There is always a logical conclusion for these types of things.
Sometimes things can't be explained though. I realized that when my wife turned her partially detached neck towards me and opened her eyes. The look of rage on her face made me want to scream, but I was too terrified to make a peep. She opened her mouth and I’ll never forget the sound of her gurgling voice as it reverberated off the bathroom walls.
“LIGHT A MATCH!”
PLOP
What Would You Do?
I suppose I always pictured myself curling up with my loved ones in a moment like this; tears trickling down our faces while we assured each other we would all be together again on the other side. For a second I wonder where my parents are and what my sister is up to.
As thoughts of my family fade away into the ether, my focus once again turns to the man, whose face I’m currently stomping into a bloody pulp. I can feel his cartilage and bones crunching under the heel of my boot. No one tries to stop me. Hell, there are about a half dozen other murders going on in the street at the same time. It’s amazing how only six days ago people were shuffling through this intersection, briefcases and designer purses in hand, on their way to work. Now the street is alive with people fighting, screaming, looting – even fucking. I peer up towards the night sky and wipe some sweat from my brow.
It looks bigger than the moon now.
I marvel at its majesty as I drag my foot along the ground, wiping brain across asphalt as if I just stepped in dog shit. The eggheads at NASA are predicting that it should pierce our atmosphere and make impact within the next half hour. Experts are expecting it to wipe out 98% of life on Earth, but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that when a rock the size of Australia collides with your planet, there’s not much of a chance for survival. My eyes scan the scene, looking for someone else to kill or fuck. Who cares right? We’ll all be dead soon anyways. Hey, don’t judge me. Deep down you know you’d do the same.