#thriller

I've always hated my job for one simple, yet insurmountable reason: nothing ever happens. Imagine spending nine hours. NINE freaking hours. Locked inside a concrete bunker, listening to the universe breathe into your head through an oversized pair of headphones. The higher-ups like to pretend this is some kind of essential service. That my job is somehow paramount to the advancement of the human race. It isn't.

Tap tap tap. James peels his gritty eyelids back and stares up at the blank ceiling. He considers putting something up there. A poster maybe, like he had as a child. It would make sense, given how much time he spends staring at the ceiling above his bed. Sleepless nights, bed rotting, and the three AM wake up call from some animal tapping its way through the walls.

I was in the schoolyard when, suddenly, my friend Christopher Satin or as i call him, Chris, told me: "Damian, I have something to tell you. I’ve known you since we were little, so I wanted you to be the first person I told." Chris was always one for jokes; his personality matched his appearance—a skinny, 5'7 guy with curly, shoulder-length blonde hair. Seeing him look so serious worried me; he’s usually terrible at acting serious, so I had a feeling he was probably not faking it.

I used to think the worst part of my job was the blood. The stink of it, thick and metallic, clinging to my clothes, clogging my nostrils. It soaks into everything, wood, concrete, carpet, skin. You scrub it off, bleach the scene, pretend nothing ever happened. But doesn’t lie. It leaves stains, no matter how hard you try to erase them. It tells a story, even when no one don't want to listen. Yet, it's not the worst part, the worst it 's the silence.

The light of the waning gibbous showered down through the veil of clouds onto the wheat fields below. There was a scar amongst them, where there lay the charred skeleton of a farmhouse. A cold wind blew through the autumn air. The front door stirred, which bore a strange sigil upon it, scratched into the woodwork. Ashes blew solemnly into the night. Beyond, many such sites could be seen littered amongst the fields, all reduced to teeth and cinders. Down the road for miles and miles the wheat…

Hi, I’m Zack, and I’m going to share my experiences with Carbon, a high-tech security lab. Though I’m sure you know me for my experience as a security guard watching over an abandoned Disney park that had lured children to their demise. I had never wanted to talk about any of my other experiences before, but now that I’ve said my first one, I think it’s time for me to explain.

At the outset, I should tell you I’m a thief. Not a classless “smash and grab” guy or a lowly pickpocket. Those require no planning or strategy beyond “move quickly and be ready to run.” I’m a fourth-generation cat burglar. I’m very good at my job. If everything goes right, you don’t notice I’ve been there for weeks. If ever.

The job was simple. It paid well enough. Even if it hadn’t, I would have taken it anyway. After nine months of unemployment, choice stops being a luxury and starts feeling like arrogance. I started on a Tuesday. Odd, I know. They said they were in a rush—something about the previous guy leaving without notice. Apparently the guy just walked out mid-week and never came back. A red flag, sure. But red flags fade when rent is due.

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…

Most kids enjoy Christmas the most. Not me. Maybe it’s because my family is poor, and we can’t afford good presents for each other. My favorite holiday is Halloween. Not only can I dress up as my favorite scary movie character, but I get free candy out of it. It’s a double win.

I was eleven years old when it happened. It was Halloween night, and my parents had gone out with my aunt to a party across town, planning to stay overnight at a hotel and return the next afternoon. That left me at home with my seventeen-year-old sister, Jessie, and our older cousin, Hannah. I absolutely adored Hannah; she was the fun, cool older cousin who always brought us treats and took us on adventures.

The email from Becca arrived at 3:14 AM, blinking on the screen like a dying pulse. It contained a single, corrupted video file and a trembling plea: “My little sister Kaylee went missing after she found that tape. Please... find her. Don't let them put her to sleep.”

"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."

The sweltering summer is especially unbearable for me, not to mention the endless rain, which is slowly driving me insane. Savage pains torment my body. Everything inside me swells and bursts, so violently that sometimes I simply pass out. Every step I take feels like a thousand nails being driven into my flesh. My calves explode, oozing meat and fat, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. But physical suffering can be endured. You can switch yourself off for a while.

Aware of my dependence, of how insignificant I am in the claws of the monster, I cannot bring myself to feel panic or the urge to run from it. I want this. I want it, and I plunge into the abyss, into the depths that rake their claws across my thin, frail body, and I even find pleasure in it, because at last, after all these years, I can feel something. I experience this euphoria, this furious rapture beating inside my rib cage with nine separate hearts, while my head grows hazy and heavy, as…

The room smells like stale iron and wet earth, but I don’t complain. I haven’t complained since the funeral.

Oct 10 - Today is cloudy Starting today, I'm going to keep a diary! My family includes little Jack, my mom, and the "Red Devil" too! My mom and the Red Devil are always getting into fights! It’s a total blast—whenever the Red Devil comes home drunk, a fight with Mom breaks out. Little Jack is really timid and just cries when he sees it, but I actually find it fun! Oct 11 - Today is warm

The laughter didn’t start right away. In the beginning, it was just an odd, harmless hobby. Sarah loved David. She loved his quiet nature, his steady hands, and the calm predictability he brought into her life. So, when David suddenly took an interest in clowning—buying vintage costumes, studying classic mime routines, and practicing face paint in their bathroom mirror—Sarah did her best to be supportive. She even chuckled when he clumsily juggled oranges in the kitchen.

I was five when the man in the wolfman mask scared the shit out of me. No, he didn’t eat me. No, he didn’t kill me. He just gave me one good Halloween scare.

Smoke covered the midnight moon, while cheers could be heard all across a small farming village. Bonfires were lit all around the main road. Young and old folk alike celebrated as the Fire Runners, dressed in dark clothes adorned with bright red and yellow ribbons, moved among them, their faces covered with masks whose abhorrent features imitated the unholy visage of demons and monsters. They were performing what was locally known as the Devil’s Dance, an ancient pagan tradition, much older…