Tag: writing

Three Questions (Part 2)

Sketched TextLeave a comment

Despite my success, my mother was still the target of my father’s anger. Every trip outside the house was scrutinised, every phone call monitored. On the rare occasions that he left the house, my father would often sneak back into our home quietly, trying to catch my mother in some act I didn’t yet understand. I know now that she stayed because she believed it was best for me. She couldn’t take me away until I knew fully how to use my power, and she couldn’t leave me alone with him.

I was eleven the night that I heard my parents’ arguing stop. Read More »

Three Questions (Part 1)

Sketched TextLeave a comment

It took me decades to realise that my childhood wasn’t normal.

My father knew how to raise the dead. With words, wards and symbols he could cause the soul of any deceased person to appear before him. Rising from his spell, he could command the spirit to answer any three questions that he put to them, truthfully and completely. Answering the questions of the bereaved was his trade and he was paid richly for his services. A ceremony could only be carried out once with each spirit, and could only be asked by the person who summoned them, so the three answers were all that the client would ever receive  from the deceased in this life.

He never operated in front of a direct audience, instead summoning the spirit behind a curtain. It was certainly the more pleasant option for clients. Spirits are always recognisable, but something about them is wrong. It’s something in their eyes. They have no desire to hide the truth, and appear completely dispassionate towards the living. No matter how loving the relationship, they have no interest in their former loved on any more. Some spirits were even outright hostile to my father, but they were always carefully bound inside the summoning circle. They could not escape, and had to remain within it until they answered the three questions my father put to them. I would observe from the side of the room, to make sure that the client was paying attention, and that they did not approach the curtain. My mother waited outside the locked door, waiting to unlock it and usher out the client once it was all over.

Clients were always instructed to have three questions. It didn’t matter if only one was what they needed. A man once very rudely insisted that he only needed to know where his mother’s will was, and that he didn’t give a damn what else my father wanted to ask the old bitch. As I sat to observe that ceremony, I wondered why my father didn’t insist on getting two more questions. I soon found out.

Read More »

Three Sentence Stories (Part 2)

Sketched TextLeave a comment

I sit perfectly still on my bed, cradling my infant son. It’s just me and him in this house, since his mother passed. From the baby monitor on my night-stand I hear a familiar woman’s voice, weeping and calling for her son, and I hear the floorboards creak in the hallway outside my door.

Everyone stopped talking three days ago. One morning I awoke from a dream of horribly twisted creatures hissing truths and, half dazed as I walked outside, I could see in my neighbours’ eyes that he had seen the same. It is a terrible secret we all bear now, and no one is willing to be the first to break the silence, to acknowledge it and to live in the world where we know that God has no love for us.

The walls in my house are moving in my sleep. Every time I wake up it takes me a little longer to figure out how to leave, and every time I fall asleep I awake in my bed again, wherever it has been put. It’s been days now, and I am tired beyond belief but I am sure I’ll find the front door soon, before the walls close in.

 

The Last Locked Door

Sketched TextLeave a comment

They’re almost through the door now.

I think they might actually be savouring this, which makes sense. They’re tired after killing all the others. And I’m the only one left alive.

The drugs were only meant to cause temporary effects: heightening the reflexes and strength of the participants. But the drugs also sped up their metabolism and caused a horrible form of pica: participants ate anything nearby. One choked to death on their own pillow stuffing. Another chewed their own limbs down to stumps. The strongest ones ate everything that moved slower than themselves.

I was moved to my room and strapped to the bed after the first “reactions”. I think most of us participants were. Which made the sounds of the other doors being broken much more horrifying.

The last person I saw alive was a nurse. She locked my door hurriedly, fumbling with the keys. I saw the panic on her face as the door closed, and then heard her start running down the hall. I didn’t cry to her for help. I heard her cry for it only seconds later.

There was a lot of screaming after that. And crashing. And running. And horrible wet noises.

It eventually quietened down, and I think they formed a hunting group. I could hear the doors down the hall being broken into, one by one.

The worst ones were the locked doors. When they’re unlocked, it’s over quickly. The locked doors aren’t impenetrable, but they hold for long enough to hear the… participants… getting louder and more enraged as food draws closer to them.

The last one was my next-door neighbour. I heard the door splinter, the inhuman screams increase. I heard the sound of something hard striking flesh, splintering bone, crushing tissue, and then hitting floorboards.

They’re almost through the door now.

I wish I could talk to them, make them understand me. I wish I’d never participated in this madness. But after my “reaction” I chewed off my own tongue and lips. I really wish I could tell them that they were right: the effects are temporary.

Two Sentence Stories (part 2)

Sketched TextLeave a comment

The knocking was louder now, more insistent and accompanied by a friendly voice asking to be let in. I silently push another chair in front of the basement door.

After he put the fresh battery in, the first thing Harry noticed was that the stopwatch was going backwards, counting down from some random number. Disgusted at his foolish purchase he threw it into the bin, not noticing that the numbers counted down faster as he angrily took a drag of his cigarette.

“Help me, Mum. I don’t know where I am but it’s really dark and cold. Can you come get me? I’m scared”. Marsha was so tired, after being rudely awoken at 3am by the phone ringing, that she didn’t realise that the battery had died hours ago and, as she later found out, so had Lily.

Three Sentence Stories

Sketched TextLeave a comment

I know without a doubt that the person who stares back at me from the mirror is not my reflection. No matter how terrifying this idea, however, I hope she comes back soon. I can’t  move unless she’s here.

After a year I opened the hatch to the bomb shelter and looked outside for a moment before weeping, then ducking back inside and bolting it closed for another year. I turned to my family and, still weeping, told them that it wasn’t safe to go outside yet. I think the tears really sold it for me.

I lie awake, too terrified to move. I can hear my husband’s snoring from behind me, and I have the scars to remind me of how violent he can be if disturbed. Most of the marks are faded now, so many months after he died from the poison I put in his coffee.

 

Two Sentence Stories

Sketched Text2 Comments

 

I am the victor of this battle, and its sole survivor. From the ground around me I hear the dead begin to clap.

I stand outside my front door, watching the stars blink out one by one. The porch light begins to flicker.

The crack on the ceiling above my bed has been growing. Now I can see the fingertips on either side, pulling it wider.

The Midnight Visit

Sketched Text1 Comment

There is a knock at my front door.

I know who it is without having to answer. The elderly woman next door used often to come by, always armed with some excuse to chat for hours. I know she lived alone well before I moved in, but I refuse to answer the door anymore.

I used to let her in and offer her tea and conversation on an almost daily basis. She stopped coming by about a month ago. It was around that time I happened to see someone visiting her. He went over every night for a week. I’m not normally one to pry, but it was hard to ignore him; you could hear him rap his knuckles on the door with a force that I thought would break it.

After he stopped going by, it was quiet for weeks. She resumed visiting me about two nights ago.

I can hear her frail voice calling my name. Last night she knocked at my door until dawn. I found dried blood on the wood and there were smudges on the frosted glass where she’d pressed against it.

I think she’ll stop after tonight. Her funeral is tomorrow morning.