Scared and nervous wondering who could it be at this time of the night, I start walking towards my front door. As I am far enough with a weak voice I ask – who is it?
I hear no one reply to my question. I ask once again but this time with a loud and strong voice – WHO IS IT?
Hearing nothing makes me more nervous and I start contemplating if I should open the door this late at night?
Would it be wise?
What if someone was waiting for me to open the door?
With every passing minute of having no response I start to panic a little more. I gather my voice again to ask for the last time if someone was indeed standing outside.
“Is someone outside??”
I don’t get any response; nervously I head towards the side table near the front door and open the second drawer in the hope to find some candles.
It is pitch dark and I cannot see anything so I try and turn the lights in the room on but to my surprise there is no power. The fish tank in the room seems to be working fine as it lit the two gold fishes that were given to me by my grandmother.
With the limited light of the fish tank I try and find some candles in the drawers again but have no luck. I check the third drawer and find a torch. I switch the torch on and start walking towards the door to see what is causing the sudden door bangs and knocks.
As I unlock the door, the moonlight fills the rooms for a second or two before the dark clouds take over. I start walking outside the door flashing the torch to the right and then to the left to see if some is hiding away but there is no one around. I walk towards the balcony to see if there could be someone standing or walking out the ground floor.
As I see no one, my heart starts to beat a little faster and I start doubting what I could have assumed a knock or a bang could actually be the wind or a thunder?
Putting my thoughts to rest I raise my hand reaching outside for the clear sky to feel the rain and to my absolute shock the sky is clear and there isn’t a single drop of water on the floor or anything dripping from the rooftop.
I am pretty sure I heard heavy rainfall before I opened the door but as I look around and on the floor or at the sky – there is nothing. NOTHING.
I suddenly have chills running all over my body and a sense of fear starts kicking in. What is going on? I ask myself confused. Am I hearing things? This cannot be possible.
I am so sure I heard heavy rains, thunder storms and wind.
This is not real, this cannot be happening. Lost in my thoughts confused and scared I quickly walk inside my house properly locking the doors as quickly as I can.
As I start to walk away from the door I hear footsteps outside the door again and really faint noises as if someone was whispering. Confused and Scared I shout once again asking “WHO IS OUTSIDE? WHOSOEVER IT IS, IT IS REALLY NOT FUNNY!”
I get no response to my questions scared and worried I slap myself to see if I am dreaming but I am not.
Panicking, I walk to my room locking the doors; I go to the windows in my room making sure they are locked too. I sit down on my bed taking a deep breath to make sense of what was going on?
I get up from my bed to switch my rooms lights on but as I press the light switch nothing changes. It’s still dark and there is no power in my room. The table lamp in the room was still on but there was no power otherwise.
I started getting an unsettling feeling that something was really wrong and something bad is going to happen.
Pushing my slippers aside and putting the torch next to my bed I quickly jump back in bed and pull my quilt over my head.
As I stretch my legs under my quits, it feels like the sheet on the lower half of the bed is wet and it’s sticky.
At first I thought it could be something I stepped in the dark but when I move my legs around it appears as if the entire lower half of the bed sheet is wet.
Without wasting a second, I pick up my torch switching it on and flashing it towards the bottom of the sheet to see if the bed was really wet or could I just be feeling something that wasn’t there all over again.
As I flashed the light on the lower half of the bed sheet I notice my legs, feet and sheet covered with blood. I freak out at this point and jump right out my bed.
I instantly start feeling short of breath and I get a really bad feeling of something choking me. This is so insane there is no one in the room and I cannot explain what is happening to me.
I try and scream for help but nothing comes out of my mouth. My panic and fear takes over me as I frantically try and get out of the grip of whatever was trying to choke me.
I am shivering and shaking frantically as I slid down the bed trying to grasp for air and trying to make sense of what is going on. I couldn’t do either and all I could feel was something with a tight grip holding on to my neck and squeezing it.
Everything went silent, still and cold as I lost my vision.
I was woken up by a loud ring, I looked at my phone and I had missed a call from my friend with no intentions to call her back. I check what time it was.
It was just after 11am. I placed my phone down on the side table and sat up on my bed.
As I was trying to gather my thoughts it hits me – Wait!
Did something happen last night? Or Was I dreaming?
The last thing I remember was sitting across my bed on the floor when someone was trying to suck all the air out of my body.
How did I get back on the bed?
This was all so confusing, I looked at my side table and my torch light was resting right next to my phone. If this was all a dream how did the torch get here?
Struggling to find answers to what had happened was becoming difficult by every passing minute. As I walked into my bathroom and turned looking into the mirror – I instantly notice a couple big red marks on my neck. It hits me then, I felt like someone was trying to choke me in my dream, if that was a dream how the hell did I get these marks on my neck?
Having no answers to the what could have happened last night, I get dressed and pack a little carry bag to stay with my friend only to comeback when I could make a sense of everything.
This is a true incident, I cannot figure out what had happened to me that night. I saw several witch doctors and priests and all they could tell me was that something bad was following me. I never went back to that apartment and I got my friends to help me get packed and moved to a new place. I haven’t had any other incidents since that night.
© 2016 Priya Bhardwaj
The Class of Miss Griselda Sparrow
By Chris Raven
Griselda Sparrow looked up from her book. The irritating bastards were still there, heads down in study. How the hell did she end up with this bunch of studious, well-behaved swots?
"Miss?"
That was Penny Dumfries, the worst of the whole bloody bunch, red faced and excited, arm bolt upright, hand stretched wide. She was actually wiggling in her seat.
Miss Sparrow pulled her horn-rimmed glasses down along her thin, slightly crooked nose and stared at the irksome little schoolgirl before sighing, "what is it dear?"
“I have the answer Miss.”
“Of course you do dear.”
Griselda Sparrow missed her old school, a rundown inner-city comprehensive. Granted, the kids were rude, unruly and rebellious, but they were also challenging and most of all, they were interesting.
“Do you want to hear my answer miss?”
“Yes dear, if you like.”
Griselda had transferred to Limehill Grammar about two months earlier. A move she soon learnt to regret as the weeks stretched laboriously on into months. Had she really needed that pay rise? Not really, her needs had always been quite simple, but after the incident with that poor unfortunate pupil four months earlier, she had felt it was as good a time as any to move on.
She remembered the interview she had with the grammar school's head, a tall scrawny looking man who reminded her of dust. He had been particularly impressed by her views on
discipline, and when she started at the new school, he had given her the most troublesome class to work with. They were considered a big problem at the time, a handful of gifted but difficult students, who had run rings around their former teachers. Pah! Look at them now, sitting quietly, eyes down, fixed on their work. It hadn't taken her long at all to lick them into shape. That was something she regretted now, she should have taken more time and savoured the process more, but she was keen to impress her new head. Too late now.
Griselda listened to Penny’s perfect, if dull, analysis of the problem she had set the class.
“Very good dear,” she told her when she had finished and slid her glasses back up her nose If only one of them would speak out of place, she thought, lie, shout, laugh even, anything to break this monotony of good behaviour and endless perfect scores. She had done her job far too well.
Griselda glanced at her class, a sea of heads, all silent, all looking doggedly down. All that is, apart from Penny Dumfries. She seemed blissfully unaware of being the only student in class who ever dared draw attention to herself. She chose to ignore Thomas Bradshaw's hissed whisper from behind her, urgently telling her to look down. It was unusually brave of Thomas, so it amused her. Unfortunately, Penny hadn't done anything to warrant discipline yet, but that was only a matter of time.
Griselda thought again about her useless colleagues back at the comprehensive. She had no doubt whatsoever that they had celebrated after she had left. They would have been both relived and jealous about her new job, especially in view of the ‘incident’. It had been all over the local newspapers for weeks, it even hit the nationals briefly. The local community spent days searching, there were televised appeals, a reconstruction and the teachers and pupils were questioned again and again by the police. And yet, they never did find that poor missing child. Any one of her old colleagues would have been over the moon to have taken her place and get some distance themselves from the depressive cloud of fear and rumour that now hung over that particular failing school.
They're all welcome to this job, Griselda thought, the whole bloody bunch of them. Not one, she suspected, had been the slightest bit sorry to see her go and that didn't bother her at all. She knew she was difficult to get on with, stern and abrupt to the point of rudeness, and this didn't bother her either. Despite her sixty plus years, she was still a formidable woman, with an unnerving presence in her dark old-fashioned dresses, tattoos sometimes just visible beneath the cuffs, and a trademark stare that could unsettle a bear. It had caused many a child and more than one teacher, to breakdown in tears. She was rumoured to own over twenty stay cats, which was not quite true, as she only had the one black one.
Miss Sparrow held Penny in her gaze for a long time and was still looking at her when she nervously looked up again. Seeing Miss Sparrow still staring at her, Penny gave a short almost inaudible squeal and quickly looked back down again. At last, she's finally getting it. The rest of the class looked at Penny in horror and quickly returned to their work. Griselda's gaze panned the room once again. Nope, they never did find that missing child did they, what a shame. They never will of course, she thought as her eyes drifted back to Penny again. She should really learn to keep her head down, she thought, licking her lips, thinking about it all again has made me feel quite hungry.
© 2016 Chris Raven
The Birds in the Sky
By Charlie Dee
The birds in the sky, the wisp in the wind,
Awakens the man, in fear of his sin.
He lays in the mud, his hands are clenched tight,
In sorrow and grief, his last tragic night.
Knows he won't make it, he has to be quick,
How should he do it, a stone or a stick.
He cries and he weeps, has he become mad?
Wife with no husband, a boy with no dad.
What would they say, when they lay him to rest?
A diamond geezer, was one of the best?
Life of the party, a man about town,
His job and family now lay on the ground.
Fell to bad business, ill fate and trouble,
Karma hits hard, but so does a shovel.
Along comes a man, he screams at the sight,
A man has lain dead for more than a night.
Spots something shining, among the dead leaves,
A knife blunt and rusty, his little boy grieves.
A knife in his chest, words carved on his skin,
Regrets run so deep, now that I have sinned.
© 2016 Charlie Dee
The Night Surely Can’t Last
By Chris Raven
Left in the dark, the night surely can't last,
The shrieking wind and wet footsteps since dusk,
Fear stalks my thoughts, is my fate really cast?
The floorboards creak, I can smell decay's musk.
The shrieking wind and wet footsteps since dusk,
The night is long, and darkness cold and stark,
The floorboards creak, I can smell that sweet musk,
I strain my eyes, staring deep in the dark.
The night is long, and darkness cold and stark,
My hunter stalks me through old mouldered halls,
I strain my eyes and stare deep in the dark,
Hearing claws scratch along old panelled walls.
My hunter stalks me through old mouldered halls,
This beast is ancient, or so I 've been told,
I hear its claw scratch along panelled walls,
And catch a glimpse of its eyes, dead and cold.
The beast is brutal, or so I 've been told,
Panic wells up as I stifle cold fear,
Catching a glimpse of its eyes, dead and cold,
There in the dark, as it creeps ever near.
Panic wells up as I stifle cold fear,
It comes this night, which may well be my last,
Here in the dark, it creeps on ever near,
shuffling towards me, my fate's surely cast.
© 2016 Chris Raven
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ray Foster
Dani J Caile
Chris Raven
Priya Bhardwaj
Charlie Dee
Ray Foster
I was born in North Finchley and the places mentioned in this story are real. Back then both boys and girls were taught, in the first year of school, how to sew and embroider. Usually napkins but at Christmas it would be doily’s. So this piece of fiction is laced with a touch of autobiography.
Dani J Caile
After a lifetime of reading clones and a decade of proofreading coffee table books, Dani J Caile began writing in 2011 and has written many books, including 'Man by a tree', 'The Bethlehem Fiasco', 'The Rage of Atlantis', the infamous 'Manna-X' and his latest 'How to Build a Castle in Seven Easy Steps', published by Line by Lion Publications.
Chris Raven
Chris Raven was born in South London just over 50 years ago. He originally started out in Theatre in the 1980s but he became side-tracked by health and social care, where he has made his living for the past 25 years or so. More recently he has found his way back to the creative arts by contributing a number of short stories to the Indie collaboration's series of free anthologies.
He has also contributed illustrations to other author's works and has been coordinating a shared writing project with other new writers called 'Tall Stories'.
Priya Bhardwa
Priya is living and working in Auckland, New Zealand from last 4 years. She is originally from Haryana, India. She has previously been a Choreographer and a Dancer. Her love for writing started at the age of 16 when she first wrote a poem for her mother and her best friend.
Loves Listening to Music, Watching Movies, Reading and is a big tech geek. Despite having varied interests, she enjoys writing and dancing the most. She has previously written for University Magazines, Blogs, newspaper columns, journals and university newspaper, now wishes to write her solo novel
s.
Charlie Dee
Charlie Dee has been writing poetry and inventing strange worlds since she was 8 years old. She can also be found in The Indie Collaboration’s Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tales.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY
THE INDIE COLLABORATION
TALES FROM DARK PLACES: THE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION
A selection of chilling stories from some of the best indie authors on the market. We dare you to venture into these pages of spine chilling tales and stories of ghosts and goblins. Freely donated by the authors themselves, these dark passages are a great example of their various, unique styles and imaginations. This is the first of a series of free topical collections brought to you by The Indie Collaboration.
YULETIDE TALES: A FESTIVE COLLECTIVE
A diverse collection of stories showcasing some of the best indie authors on the market. Filled with heart-warming romance, mysterious humour, sinister, supernatural thrills and tearful sorrow, this anthology has something for everyone. So snuggle up with a warm glass of mulled wine and join us for the festivities, while we lift your spirit, tickle your fancy and rattle your bones.
KISS AND TALES: A ROMANTIC COLLECTION
Another collection of free original tales brought to you by The Indie Collaboration. This time we present a chocolate box selection of love stories. Some are romantic, some funny, some sad and some mysterious. Whatever the style, there will be a story in here that will melt even the most hardened of hearts.
SNIPS, SNAILS & PUPPY DOG TALES: A CHILDREN'S STORY COLLECTION
Another collection of free poems and stories brought to you by The Indie Collaboration. This time we take you to a world of dreams. To far-away lands of magic and wonder, where ducks and children have adventures and learn about the world; where heroes help their friends and elephants get lost.