Nightmare Fuel: The Ultimate Collection of Short Horror Tales Page 3

  When he came too, the room was moist but the water had gone. It just looked as if the walls and floor had been glossed recently. He brought himself up feeling dazed and confused, and stared in the mirror. He was glad to see that apart from a few scratches and scrapes he was fine, but he was completely naked. The silk pyjamas had been torn free leaving his bare flesh exposed. His dick was hanging limp and scrotum shrivelled to the size of two peanuts. He vainly admired his toned body and tanned skin, and thanked the Lord for saving his highness. Until his skin began to peel away, followed by his hair falling out in clumps. He screamed so loud the mirror cracked. He was being peeled like an orange by an invisible force. Soon he was nothing more than muscle and bone. Although his wrapping had gone, he could still feel the utter anguish from his skin falling from his body. Everything felt surreal and nightmarish. Especially when a man wearing a dark robe appeared in the corner, holding an axe. The Grim Reaper? Bruce slipped and thwacked his head on the sink, his mind looming and a loud pulse beating in his skull.

  “Time to pay for your sins Brucey,” the reaper whispered without moving his lips. Come to think of it, Bruce couldn't even see any lips!

  “Wh-what? I have no sins I am a God on this earth!” Bruce yelled, fear being overtaken by arrogance.

  “You know deep down, that what you have done to achieve your wealth and power is the sheer definition of sinful,” again, a strange whisper, but no vocal movements.

  Bruce went to speak and stopped, as he knew the reaper was right. But this didn't stop him trying to evade the Reaper. Bruce ran to the bathroom door and flung it open, racing to the bedroom and searching for his gun. He scurried to the night stand where he usually kept it in a hidden panel behind a drawer, but it was gone.

  “Looking for this Brucey?” the reaper was hovering at the bathroom doorway, the gun floating in front of him, barrel aimed and ready to shoot the billionaire.

  “Noooooo!” Bruce wasn't sure what he was thinking, but he ran.

  He continued to run and leapt out of the bedroom hole and dived into the air. He was so stubborn he refused to die at the hands of the Grim Reaper. Even though now, he was definitely going to die. No amount of wealth or power could stop him from meeting his demise after falling down from his penthouse. But even though he knew he was going to die, he felt some amount of joy at fleeing the Reaper. Until the ground loomed before him, and the Reaper was stood waiting, looking up at his naked, skinless body. The Reaper knocked the base of his large axe on the city concrete and a huge cavity formed. It showed rock and boulder under the city, along with lava, fire, and people chained to cave walls being forced to work until their bodies gave way. He screamed one final scream, took one final breath, and then felt his last human feeling: his mortal coil whacking the concrete with a sickening crack of bone, and the noise of squidgy muscle flopping on the ground before splattering into oblivion.

  “Wealth comes at a price Brucey,” said the Grim Reaper, before they were both swallowed by the dent and transported to hell.

  Someone's Had Their Crazy Flakes

  Anne's blonde hair clung to her pale, sweaty face with her tongue working on the window. Five years ago Anne had been diagnosed with a very uncommon mental disorder known as alcrucia. A disease that breaks down the brain cells until the person is nothing more than a drooling infant with the thoughts and feelings of a child, trapped in the body of an adult. Anne had suffered a serious injury due to a car accident shortly before the diagnosis, which had accelerated this illness with almost superhuman speed. First came the lack of speech, then the decline in motivation. Shortly followed by the dissolution of understanding and inability to act out a simple task without failure or distraction. Dr. Ambrosia had been the one to provide the original diagnosis, advising she be detained in a mental facility until her dying day. He very much doubted a recovery due to both the ailment and its rapid progression. But one thing that the well-educated Doctor did not know, was that Anne was hiding a deep-seated maliciousness in her psyche. But with the mind of a child, was clueless as to how to act on these impulses. She couldn't eat a meal without an orderly. So devising an intricate scheme to murder was far beyond her capabilities. That is until one day, something inside the brain of Anne Foster ignited. A passion and determination to kill Doctor Ambrosia.

  Five years in a small white room, padded walls, plastic furniture, and mushy tasteless food had been the motivation for Anne to accomplish something other than eating a meal unassisted. To end a human life. But not just any, just the person that committed her to this wretched place. He came by once a month to check on any progress, but after five years saw it as a waste of time, but a part of his job nonetheless. He loathed her company. Anne would excrete in front of him, lick walls, expose her modesty, among other things. After years of personal meetings month after month, he came to learn that keeping a fair distance, and staying stood, stopped this insane behaviour. But today as he entered he witnessed something most unusual, she was sat drawing a picture that wasn't completely terrible. Normally the page would be filled with infantile scribblings, holes, and torn edges; not today. Anne sat, peaceful and content, focusing solely on one task. Doctor Ambrosia was astounded. Was she on her way to mental health? He had to approach with caution as to not hinder this miraculous event. The human mind was a delicate part of the body, temperamental and complicated. Too much stress or trauma and it shuts down. Too much change in a short period of time has the same effect. So he gently teetered over to Anne and sat opposite the table from her. Another unbelievable sight was the plate resting aside the crayons. The food had been eaten and wasn't spread on the walls. The cutlery hadn't been snapped but was neatly placed in the centre of the plate. What the hell was going on? In all his years he'd never seen such a fast advancement. There was no excrement piled on the linoleum, no rancid urine lingering in the air from a moist bed sheet, hair hadn't been yanked out, the white jumpsuit hadn't been removed, no spit was in globules on the window pane. Just when a smile spread taut across his clean shaven, but wrinkly face, he noticed something.

  He had initially believed the sketch to be that of a rose garden. But at second glance, he could see that wasn't the case. It was an illustration of a man laid on the ground, covered in blood. A woman was straddling him, wielding a pointed object coated in crimson. Doctor Ambrosia's heart skipped a beat when he saw the victim was wearing a medical coat, and in one hand held a wooden board with papers on. The other hand tightly gripped a pen. Both items he currently held.

  “W....w...what is that Anne?” Doctor Ambrosia stuttered nervously.

  He wasn't expecting an answer as she hadn't uttered a single coherent word in over five years. Anne did communicate through looks and facial expressions, though. Sometimes the expressions were difficult to read, but it was better than blankness. Today, Anne's expression was as clear as day. Her face was stiff and eyes were squinting hard. Doctor Ambrosia began to stand, maintaining eye contact. Anne's nostrils flared and teeth clenched as she leapt at him. The Doctor screamed like a banshee as Anne bashed into him, knocking him onto the floor. No sooner than his back hit the linoleum did a sting tingle at his neck. His eyes fell down upon a pen protruding from his gullet. Anne began to laugh hysterically, twisting the pen like a wrench. Red spurted from his neck as he gargled and choked on his own blood.

  “Son...”

  She yanked the pen out and let more blood flow freely.

  “Of....”

  Dark burgundy drizzled down and caught got in thick chest hairs.

  “A....”

  Anne lifted the pen behind her and grinned.

  “Bitch!”

  She brought it down and pierced his left eyeball. A squish bounced off the walls as it popped and let more redness drool down his face.

  Blood dotted the walls, screams echoed and rebounded from every surface, insidious giggling resounded, squelching reverberated. Yet the yells of the Doctor went unnoticed, all sound absorbed into the padding, ironically. Even Anne could appr
eciate the irony. Which made her giggles mutate into witch-like cackles that terrified the fading consciousness of Doctor Ambrosia. His vision blurred, being that of Anne wearing an inhumane smile and vengeful eyes. His one functioning eye blacked out completely and now everything was gone. The pain tapered off. But the sounds, the horrid explosion of noises, continued even as his other senses became void.

  Suddenly Anne decided it would be amusing to dress in the Doctor's clothing. So she peeled off his soiled attire covered in red stains and placed them over her patient clothes.

  “Judging by the hole in your throat and eyeball, I would declare you dead and I diagnose the treatment to be hell!” Anne laughed hysterically at her own joke, truly psychotic.

  She played doctor for hours until a hoard of workers rushed in and dragged Anne from the wet corpse of Doctor Ambrosia. Even though she was strapped into the electric chair and pounded with hundreds of volts, she continued to chuckle. The electricity sizzled and smoke filled the air, all the while Anne's laughter prevailed.

  Sleep

  Mike and Susan were both in the land of nod. Mike snored into oblivion, with enough force to blow their house down. Whereas Susan purred into the night gently. But this was no indication of the inner turmoil they were facing in dreamland. Mike's subconscious explored his deep ongoing financial concerns by having him drown in a pit of snakes. The slimy texture of their scales slithered around him as he sank deeper and deeper into the venomous pool. Whilst Susan dreamt of a plane crash symbolizing her fear of travelling away next month to see her family. The panicked cries of passengers, the whoosh of wind rushing by the aircraft as they plummeted from the sky and plunged into the ocean. As the nose of the aeroplane dove into the mystic blue waters and snapped the plane in half, Susan awoke. Perspiration was smeared across her face and tinkles ran down between her breasts, glistening light from the trails. The alarm clock showed two AM in luminous green digits, shining through the darkness of their bedroom. Susan brushed stray hairs from her face, and noticed something odd.

  Mike's head was the only part of his anatomy not surrounded by snakes. Hissing, thriving, squirming. Although he yelled as loud as possible, no sound escaped his mouth. Until he came face to face with an anaconda, the largest, most vicious snake known to man. Its eyes full of hunger, and fangs protruding from a huge jaw ready to swallow Mike whole. Then something tapped at his shoulder. A snake was head-butting him. But as his current nightmare blurred away and reality came into focus, he realised it was Susan prodding away. Mike, like Susan, was also covered in sweat. Cocooned in liquid proof of terror and anxiety, his chest hairs matted and tangled. Breaking from his dream, he asked Susan what was the matter. To which she responded, 'Who is that man at the end of our bed?'

  Mike jerked forwards as blood rushed to his face. Below their double bed, just beyond the mahogany wooden frame, stood the shadow of a large man. The bedroom door was wide open, bringing in moonlight from the hallway and giving the figure an ominous glow. Nothing could be seen but his outline. But one thing that unnerved and confused the scared couple was that this entity was completely void of movements. No breathing, no subtle motions, nothing. It was as if the shadow of a statue was intimidating the two of them. In a petrified haze Mike hit the lamp at his bedside and brought a painfully bright light to life. The bulb struck through the obscurity. Mike was reaching under the bed for his trusty gun, when he hesitated for a second. The person was gone. In the flash of light, quite literally, the man or thing had vanished.

  “Wh....” Susan stuttered, now both horrified and perplexed.

  “Where'd he go?” Mike asked, still half asleep, golden crumbs filling his corneas.

  Susan cautiously sat, rearranging her silk pink nightgown that was glued to her flesh. “I don't know,” she shrugged.

  Then their question was answered when they heard a scratching coming from underneath their bed.

  Susan gasped and slapped Mike's tensed bicep. Her eyes wide open and full of fear as she pointed down and mouthed, 'He's under the bed.'

  Mike retrieved his gun and crept over the bed and gradually lowered his head. Like a spider declining from a web, he dropped slowly to see nothing under the bed. He pulled up and sat back near Susan. “There's nobody there,” now sounding more confused than fearful, pushing irritation with a short stick.

  “Did we both imagine it?” Susan asked, now feeling silly.

  An outburst of laughter broke the expanding tension as they both let a huge sigh relieve them of worry.

  “Let's get back to bed,” Mike smiled and kissed his wife goodnight.

  As he switched off the lamp both of them gawked at the bottom of the bed. And as the light went out, there was no threatening black shape there anymore. But Susan screamed loudly as she looked behind Mike. Mike rolled over to see the shadow was now stood aside the bed, with red eyes, a mouth full of fangs, and clutching a long knife. “Sweet dreams,” the demon whispered eerily.

  There's Something In My House

  This short story is also featured in a ground-breaking horror collection titled 'Journals Of Horror: Found Fiction' available from Amazon in print or digital format.

  I have never been one to write journals or diaries; I have always felt they were slightly self-indulgent, and severely pompous. Or in contrast, immature. People who write accounts of their every day existence were one of two people: melodramatic teenagers expressing the emotional pain of adolescence and the transitions one has to go through to become a mentally stable adult. Or an arrogant, self obsessed and neurotic individual who adores talking about their magnificent life that sparkles with perfection.

  But this is neither. This is a real account of the pure horror I have experienced since living here, in this house. This is a warning to future inhabitants of this property, and if after reading this you still wish to stay here, then good luck, you'll need it.

  Basically, I moved in around a month ago. I am a single man in my twenties, dark hair, slightly chubby, and I work for a bank as the head of sales. I have very little family and like to keep to myself. I have no pets, and my only hobbies are crime/mystery movies, novels, and architecture.

  I was dazzled by this house, its sheer splendour. A generously sized building with several impressive and desirable features; my architectural flare was burning bright. Wooden floors throughout, several bedrooms, study, conservatory, screening room, five bathrooms, and a gigantic garden that was comparable to a miniature island. I had dreamt of a house like this my whole life. I was bursting at the seams with excitement when my real estate agent told me it was available.

  I wasted no time staining paper with scribbles of ink, and there I was, the official owner of this palace.

  It wasn't until a week after I had moved in that my suspicions arose as to the very possible reality that this superb dream house was... haunted. In today's modern society real estate agents are legally obliged to divulge everything about the property that may affect your purchase, such as: deaths, accidents, faulty electricals, or foundation related problems and if it would eventually turn into a money pit. I trusted my agent. So I felt that these problems were simply me becoming accustomed to my new house. There were several incidents when I experienced fear. And when people say fear, I truly believe that they have no idea what this means; but now, I do. The true definition has corrupted my soul.

  I moved in on a weekend, and a week later I was sat in the living room eating a takeout pizza and watching some crime show, which was my tradition to end a week. Sometimes I would add a nice glass of Merlot, or throw back some rum. But I had absent mindedly forgot to buy some from the store. So I sat captivated by the car chases taking place on screen and the blurry cop cars skidding across asphalt, when out of nowhere I heard a scream.