#shortstory

Influencer cannibalism, demonic faucets, and the tragic rise of a bathroom-based megachurch.

"The last few nurses we've hired have all flaked on me," Jim said with an exhausted sigh. "Please tell me you don't plan on flaking."

Halle and I had only been living in Brunswick, Georgia for a few months. We moved here from Tallahassee over the summer and honestly, we missed home. But hey, the area had grown on us. We liked the beaches and the culture. But one place we hadn’t checked out yet was Jekyll Island. Jekyll had a mystique to it to say the least. It had history given that it once served as a vacation destination for many of America’s wealthy elites during The Gilded Age. The opportunity to visit said island arose…

EVIL_BILLY57 AKA BILLIAM DALE EDWARDS IS AN ROBLOX HACKER BUT THE ONLY GAME HE WOULD HACK IS DANDY'S WORLD, HE HACK THE GAME IN AN WAY TO MAKE IT THAT 1 RANDOM TOON YOU'RE PLAYING WITH WIIL HAS AN HYPNOTIZED SMILE , CLOSED EYES AND AN SOMETHING USED FOR MURDER, THERE IS NO KNOWN WAYS TO SAVE THAT TOON FROM KILLING THEIRSELF AND WHEN IT HAPPEN, YOU WOULD HAS AN 5 STAGES VIRUS

“It’s going to happen, Jack. Nothing we can do about it. The wheels are already in motion. Higher-ups tell me I need to release the staff by the end of the week.” “Then ‘AM 640 - Talk of the Town’ becomes what, exactly?” Ron sighed. “Another DJ-less, auto-programmed, adult easy listening station.” “Aww, Christ on a bike,” I said. “They’re stealing the soul of this industry. Our Arbitron numbers grew last ratings cycle.”

One time, near Prescott, Arizona, I witnessed a ghostly wagon train rumble across the scrub brush for nearly an hour. Kept pace with my truck as I screamed down the highway. The driver even doffed his cap to me. I returned the favor as he evaporated into a fine mist.

I I wished it with my whole being, which is to say I wished it with something I didn't know yet was a cage. Let me tell you about Delia first. Not because she's the main point—she isn't—but because you need to understand my obsession. Delia is the kind of pretty that makes pretty people feel plain. She wakes up, and her hair is already in order. Her laugh hypnotizes you and puts you in a trance. People lean toward her as plants do toward light, without even knowing it.

Xavier Truman drove with one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel, the other drumming against the door in rhythm with the radio. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, bathing the quiet neighborhood in a warm, nostalgic haze. The radio crackled softly.

“HELP!” I yell, at least I believe I’m yelling, the feeling of my skin bubbling, is it bubbling… I don’t know. I can feel it, but I don’t know if it is what I think it is. I am or at least what I believe I am… I don’t know. It’s cold wait what does cold feel like again sigh I think I sighed. My body grows old and decayed, my flesh turning a colour I cannot perceive, my hair falling out of my grotesque scalp or what’s left of it. He… no, IT did this. My senses have been stripped away from me, I…

The Doorman

"What are you gazing at...? What's there outside the window...?" "Outside the window...? Nothing." "Nothing? Looking at nothing?" "It's her... my... my ghostly girl." Beloved women... They, like a sudden downpour, come, turn you into themselves, and vanish… leaving you… leaving you alone with your own shadow called sorrow.

Ghosting Hour - The Last Days of Raoul Makumbe Remake 2026 Copyright: Andre Michael Pietroschek Disclaimer: No warranties! I use Grammarly Proofreading, which includes AI that I cannot turn off, and a wonderful rephrase tool that explains to me, WHY Native speakers would never speak like us Non-Native speakers consider it to be!

It is a new and so far prosperous day when we are called to the King's chamber and so we come with high spirits. Under the old king's watchful gaze we listened to his words with both eyes and ears as wide as the kingdom gates in which the people of the land came forth for their daily business. "Do not leave the kingdom walls after nightfall." Said his Majesty, eyes widened with terror "For if you are to go forth then I cannot keep you from the wild things in which will find you"

We didn’t have much to do. Not in Cairo, Georgia anyway. That’s Cairo pronounced with a ‘k’. Kay-Row. Not like the one in Egypt. Instead of pyramids, we had our beloved Cairo High Syrupmakers. But besides those Friday Night Lights, we didn’t have jack shit to be honest. Just an old theater and a museum downtown. There wasn’t much us twelve-year-olds could do even this close to Halloween.

Tap, tap, tap… Tap, tap. Silence... tap.

The clock was ticking. Like a pickaxe in my skull. It's now 2:45. Fifteen minutes until I hear your footsteps; not that bare feet can make much noise on that gravel road. Seventeen minutes until I hear your broken nails on the wooden door. Blindly scratching away, trying to find the handle. Twenty minutes until your voice is calling out to me. But it will be strangled, like always. It's hard to talk with maggots eating at your vocal cords.

Most people have never heard someone die. The moaning. The crying. The pleading. The last tortured breath before they go quiet. Most people will never hear those things. I do. Daily. No, I’m not a serial killer on a hellbent mission to cleanse the Earth. I’m a 911 operator. When I took the job ten years ago, I assumed I’d more or less be like an air traffic controller, but for emergency response teams. For a large portion of my job, that’s true. That’s the easy part. Death is harder.

Think about this for a second, when you delete a file, a video, an image, literally anything on the internet, where does it go? Is it technically still out there? Is it in the hands of someone else? Well, I sure as hell found out.

No one remembers her name. Her real name anyway. She was a girl once- a regular girl, a good girl- who worked as a harlequin for her family's tiny traveling show. She had a white painted face, with a happy painted red smile. Jolly jinglin' shoes, and bright purple-dyed pigtails that bobbed comically as she capered about on the stage of some, now long-fallen kingdom. She made nobles and peasants alike laugh.

I already know what you’re thinking. A gnome? Despite what the term I use might suggest, these creatures aren't rosy cheeked little bearded men with a pointy hats and quaint little tunics. As my friend would later find out, and as I'd feared for a long time, these beings are much stranger and far different from what is typically portrayed.