Horror
Shoeless Joe
Betrayal by loved ones had become my norm, but I never expected my shoes to follow their path. Footwear of all shapes and styles had covered my feet as a toddler, the first day of school and my last. Various styles of shoes, trainers, casual, hi-tops and low-tops had all filled my closet until they no longer fit or were worn out.
By J. S. Wade3 years ago in Fiction
The Worsley Family Locket: Chapter 3 - Arthur and Clarence
It is not possible to explain what occurred next, without speaking about your more senior siblings. How your eldest brother Clarence carried himself, was the epitome of the household’s ever-lasting cruelty and neglect. Aged just 13 when I first encountered him, he lambasted my beggared condition and inferior status with eloquence beyond his years. Irresolutely an intelligent boy, but one who utilised his perceptiveness and quick-thinking with callous intent. A disdainful slug of a whelp, on the very brink of blossoming into a vile moth that was drawn toward opportunities to torture and belittle like flickering candlelight. I was victimised relentlessly by the child, who seemed to claim a wilful disliking to me from the very moment he encountered me. He taunted me for my work, stole my possessions which only rarely returned to me destroyed and even physically struck me when his loathing was made its most bold. The women of the manor he treated with similar disregard. His younger sisters Ida and Helen were positively terrified of him. Yet Lady Ethel, before she came to know the locket with such lamentable affinity, remained smitten. He was, after all, the first child she’d birthed. Regrettably however, those affections had never been mutual. Clarence only behaved with any civility around his father, though even this was demonstrably lacking in sentiment. He had eyes only for his father’s capacity for prosperity and influence, and declared a divine right to a share in his prestige, though to my eyes it was utterly unearned whenever he received it. A dreadful young swine through and through, but one with a certain ruthlessness that had already sniffed the alluring scent of ascendancy; traits that often collude to put a rotten fruit at the forefront of the grocer’s stalls.
By Matthew Curtis3 years ago in Fiction
Circus: Hells Kitchen Chapter 3
Welcome To Life Jr walked out of a salon with dyed black hair. He looked into a nearby puddle and slightly smirked at how much he looked like his father’s human form. He turns to ask K where they should look first. He looked around and didn’t see K. He walked back inside the salon to see the workers swooning over K. They complimented on how great the black hair dye looked on him and worked well with his crystal blue eyes. Jr glared at K, “We need to go.” K nodded and excused himself from the workers and slid by to walk out. The workers called out in unison with either a ‘call me’ or ‘come back soon’.
By Christopher Shavers3 years ago in Fiction
The Trees Swallow People: Part 12
I was sleeping when the bangs echoing across the house finally stirred me. In the blissful, groggy sort of state, where you're not yet a person, still a bag of organs that occasionally moves, I just accepted someone was at my front door without feeling the need to hurry. Before all this, perhaps I would have sprang out of bed, leaping into the air and landing on the unswept wooden floor with my bare feet and unclipped toenails, the patter of slapping soles across the floor marching as I race to answer the front door, but now… now I take my time, rising with monumental effort, a slog of sluggishness. The door hammers once more, bringing back a flicker of a nightmare I endured. I take the time needed to talk myself up enough to stand and make my way to the door, Diva trotting behind me in a spritely dash. When I reach the door, however, she retreats, cowering, whimpering. I ask her what's wrong, but the only answer I get was the lowered stare at the silhouette behind the door's privacy window. Tall, squared.
By Conor Matthews3 years ago in Fiction
Circus: Hells Kitchen Chapter 2
Crack the Whip The wave of bats reformed into K sliding towards the scene. A scene he hasn’t allowed himself to forget even to this very day. K dropped to his knees, crying for the first time in his existence. Crying at the site of the big top on fire. Burning a dark blue and yellow flame. Burning under a dark sky that only smiled in K’s pale face.
By Christopher Shavers3 years ago in Fiction
I Thought You Killed Me
I think you feel it, don’t you? The scraping and tearing. How, despite my cries, you stand in the dark corner of the stuffy room with your hands slack at your sides while I’m being killed. You feel it, right? You just said it. Please tell me again that you do because I ... I feel it --- every part of it. My body shudders when I hear the stairs creek and feel its teeth inside me. By now, you understand what that means. You’re shaking, too aren’t you?
By Kevin B. Jones3 years ago in Fiction
The Old Barn
I tore through the thicket, barely registering the young saplings and bramble shrubs that scraped mercilessly at my bare arms and legs. Every tree looked the same. I could see no markers indicating that I was even headed in the right direction, but I couldn’t stop. The taunts and jeers of the others gave me speed as I tried desperately not to panic. With every frantic pump of my legs, my heart beat faster. Its cadence became so loud, it finally drowned out the voices trailing from behind.
By Michelle Gibson3 years ago in Fiction
