#creatures

The unrelenting dirt road twisted and turned in front of James, small rocks popped under the tires and a cloud of dust billowed behind him as he drove on through the forest. He was visiting his brother over a long weekend of three days. A trickle of sweat fell over his brow and into the rims of his glasses. He was a city person, he had never been in the country for a day in his life, and, although the hot Italian sun and rough terrain was bothersome, he found a sort of peace in it that was…

The child jolted awake in the middle of the night, a scream lost in his throat. He was covered in cold sweat and trembling all over. The nightlight next to his bed illuminated his room. There was no monster. He had simply imagined everything in a brief, terrifying nightmare. His hand reached through the darkness and pulled the cord to his lamp. The bulb flashed on and his room was liberated from the blackness. He would sleep with the light on just in case.

Twice I saw the face in the window, pressed up against the surface, its icy breath fogging the cold glass. At first it appeared strange to me, the skin beneath its eyes drooping in ripples of flesh, exposing the red sensitive strata underneath.

It was a cold winter night in a very very remote town, out in the middle of nowhere. A debate team from a larger city had driven out that morning and had done very well, not finishing until around midnight. When the bus finally set off, it was around 12:45. As students filed onto the bus to go home, the driver turned on the strobe on top of the bus, so if they got in a wreck or anything they could easily be seen.

Have your ever seen something in your life that you just cannot explain? Do you feel like if you ever mentioned it to somebody else, they would look at you like a raving lunatic? I certainly do.

For the tenth time that day, Lucy's phone rang. She knew that, because she had been counting. And for the tenth time that day, Lucy ignored the shrill sounds of the phone. She didn't much care for it, it was if anything annoying and too persistent for her taste. What she had learned, was that persistence got you killed. Much like curiosity. And she would be giving into both those things if she were foolish enough to answer the phone.

Coffee is a damned thing. I hate the wretched bitter stuff, it was never compatible with my mild palate - and yet as of late I've been up to almost four cups a day. Might as well stick a caffeine IV in my arm. In fact, I'd greatly prefer that. But right now my fondness of coffee is really the least of my worries. I have to stay awake.

Ever since I was a boy, I have always loved the woods. Well, had might be better word, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As a child, I lived in a house right next to a heavily wooded area. Every day, I would go out into the woods with my friends. We covered nearly every inch of those woods. Hiking, camping, climbing trees, you name it. The woods were our playground and we controlled them. Or so we thought....

It's Christmas Eve in snowy 1800’s London, England, and in a small house at the edge of town, there lived a lonely, 7-year-old boy named Isaac. Isaac was a sad child with not a friend to his name. While most children were spending time with their families and eagerly looking forward to opening the presents that were placed with care beneath a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, little Isaac spent this most holy of nights alone, in his cold, dusty attic room. Isaac’s parents were very poor,…

In 1347 the Black Plague had reached it’s peak. Across Europe thousands perished as this vile disease, festered in pestilence, showered the landscape with death. No one rich or poor, nor learned or simple, nor strong or weak were spare from it’s putrid touch. In the inner cities, so many had been wiped out that there wasn’t enough room to bury them all. Mass graves had become common as well as the unfortunate souls who had to collect the corpses. One such a man was Phillipe Deitre and this is…

Wipe your feet when you come inside. Cliché. Old school. Who does that anyways? Well, the shit your grandmother tells you isn’t always bad advice. Quite the contrary really. I’m about to tell you a story you won’t believe. A story that will never leave me. A story about what exactly happens when you don’t WIPE. YOUR. FEET. And please, whoever finds this, heed my advice. Read the story. It’s too late for me…

He never smiled I never understood why he cried. I would see him everywhere I went, he would cry over everything I did, he would always be sad.. like he just lost some one he loved. His hysterical sobs would fill my senses and I could never block him out. His woeful eyes, dull and glazed over would stare in my direction, but never directly at me as he heaved for breaths between his trembling tears.. he.. it... never smiles.

Bedtime is supposed to be a happy event for a tired child; for me it was terrifying. While some children might complain about being put to bed before they have finished watching a film or playing their favourite video game, when I was a child, night time was something to truly fear. Somewhere in the back of my mind it still is.

I cannot tell you when it all began. I have always been plagued by sleep paralysis. I have somewhat learned to deal with it, to recognise it for what it is and wait it out. It always begins with the need to yawn or speak, but my mouth is shut tight. I then try to sit bolt upright, but my arms and body are clamped down to the bed. Sometimes my eyes are open. Sometimes I see things.

I’m breaking every single one of my rules for survival doing this and yet I know if I don’t I’ll die of hunger in a few weeks or worse they’ll find me when I’m sleeping and carry me off to where they dwell nestled in the tunnels beneath the city. I stare into the abyssal depths below me, nothing to make out but the now motionless escalator stairs, poking their way out of the blackness. I take one last deep breath savour the clean crisp February air and make my way down to find Nate. Nate’s the…

I am glad to have friends. I know a lot of people find high school a really lonely and difficult time, but for me it was surprisingly easy. I wouldn't say I was popular by any stretch of the word. Maybe there were just a whole lot of "outcasts" at my school so I fit in perfectly. The closest friend I had was Bridget. She and I both loved to play online games like WOW or GTA and that's actually how we met. It's nice to have a crew in GTA or a clan in WOW and so I joined one and she was the…

Moving into a new apartment wasn't easy when I first started college. The main issue was the rent. I couldn't pay it alone so I started networking and getting to know other girls. Callie was the first friend I met and after a few weeks of getting to know each other she decided to move in. We were still struggling so we took on another girl, Amber. Our apartment was beautiful and it didn't take long until we filled it with everything that we loved. The time we spent together was great and I even…

Around me are the sounds of panic and horror. Gunshots fill the once silence air and people in white lab coats are screaming and running past my room. I know they are because I can see them through the reflective wall that shows my own reflection. How is this possible you might ask? Well, I was once the hope for humanity. This is how it began. I was thirteen and still had some sort of life stitched together if you could call it that. My father was nonexistent and my mother trying to form a…

To whoever receives this letter, these are the final words of me, Cynthia J. Hill. They will sound like the ramblings of a mad woman, but I swear I am and have been of sound mind. It happened something like this:

Danny was a necrophiliac, that was no secret to him.