N.J. Gallegos
Bio
Howdy! I’m an horror-loving ER doc/author. Voted most witty in high school so I’m like, super funny. Author of The Broken Heart and The Fatal Mind! Follow me on Twitter @DrSpooky_ER.
Check me out: https://njgallegos.com
Achievements (1)
Stories (25)
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The Comet
“Incandescent ice streaked against inky night. A comet. Cosmic snowballs spreading millennium old celestial dust. Miles above me? A cataclysm: unleashing blood-red lightning and bruising the sky. A deep thunder—not of this Earth—shattered the silence. Interstellar key clicked."
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
Goodbye
Mourners clad in black stood near the plot; eyes cast downward. A dour priest intoned meaningless words, unheard platitudes. Your casket—gleaming mahogany topped with blood red roses, still above ground—beckoned me. What was life without you? Nothing. With a creak, they lowered you into the pit. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and my fist unclenched, a handful of graveyard dirt pattering atop your final resting place.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Fiction
An Eye for an Eye
Well, this seat is hard and uncomfortable. And the coffee? Sludge is a better word for it. But I guess I can’t be too picky, seeing as I’m the one being questioned and detained right now. Right, Officer? Sure. I bet the guys behind the two-way mirror agree with me. I’m guessing they prefer Starbucks too.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
Outside
The Outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Not that it was his room any longer… the dead forfeited all possessions, including bedrooms. But she still thought of it as his room. Except now she wouldn’t have to worry he’d catch her snooping through his stuff… she had full reign of the space and could do as she pleased. Any time she tinkered at his—no, her workbench—the ghost of him lingered in the air: motor oil, sweat, and sometimes, after he came back from a mission, she smelled the Outside on him. Alien odors, some smelling of spices used in faraway worlds while others were vaguely medicinal, like ammonia with burnt undertones. Alex kept the room dark, just like he had. Part of her enjoyed the dim aesthetic but really, it was a sort of camouflage and survival tactic. Strips of cardboard covered all the windows on the inside, barring the Outside from looking in, from discovering…
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Fiction
Paging Dr. Dickhead
Clanging and high-pitched beeps. Engines flaring to life. Bird song—hesitant at first, but as the horizon lightened, a babble that deepened into an outright racket. The rhythms of a society that gave NO SHITS about the poor folks who had worked a brutal shift the night before.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
A Night at the Aquarium
Trigger Warnings-Mentions of sexual assault. “I can’t believe you got the keys for this place!” Karl remarked, his eyes wide as he scanned the walls. Earlier this year, some local artist spray-painted the inner walls of the building, adorning the brick with colorful creatures. Hammerhead sharks with fearsome teeth, pink starfish with puckered limbs, and every fish from the Finding Nemo franchise watched sightlessly as I pulled the door shut behind us.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
Quark
Kyle always combed yard sales. On Fridays he’d cruise the streets, eyes peeled for hand-lettered signs; one couldn’t count on the Internet alone. Some people just eschewed technology, saying the old ways are the best ways. Most ticked the box of the over-seventy age group on their Census forms. Silver-headed wonders, painstakingly writing checks at the grocery store, completely oblivious to how goddam inconvenient they were being. Those were the same folks that staked out a sign advertising weekend yard sales.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
3:02 AM
The closing credits of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre unfurled on the den TV screen. Not that any of the girls paid them any mind. If Leatherface wasn’t capering about menacing unsuspecting visitors, who cared about some dumb list of names? Clara’s dog, Zander, rooted under the couch, desperately searching for dropped popcorn. While the girls watched the movie, he’d sat near the couch’s tattered arm, putting on his best I’m-starving-to-death-and-no-one-cares expression each time someone plunged her hand into the overfilled bowl. Zander lived for nights like this and when Clara’s friends piled into the house, he shook his body with such force, he nearly toppled over Clara’s grandma’s ashes that lived in the urn in the foyer.
By N.J. Gallegos 3 years ago in Horror
