1st Serving The light of the late evening filtered through my bedroom window; motes of dust danced in the rays of dying sunlight. My body feels wrong. It somehow feels heavy and light at the same time. I keep trying to lift myself out of bed but can’t find the strength. Has this happened before? No of course, not…right? I shouldn’t have eaten at that diner; I knew that gravy looked and smelled weird. I must be paying the price for eating that slop. Then I felt it, something was coming up. I tried to will myself up, I needed to get to the toilet. But my body wouldn’t move no matter what I did. I strained my neck as…

Did you see what happened last night? I’ve checked all the major news sites, channels, and popular social media sites, and I haven’t seen anyone talking about it. I even looked into some more obscure forums, but no one is talking about it. Am I the only one who saw it? Or I guess I should say the only one left who saw it? Did it even happen? It must have, the memories I have are so clear they can’t be a dream. But it happened so fast, and those people. I never learned their names or anything. Hell, I can’t even be sure exactly how many I saw out there. At any rate, they’re all gone now, and somehow,…

Up and up the rough-hewn steps tramp the wormy feet of countless dark denizens. They move in silence through the earth’s bowels with a singular purpose. Stirred from restless sleep and unholy dreams. Stirred from aimless wriggling and horrid scavenging. Stirred by the voice of their beloved mother, vast and terrible. She bids them rise, and rise they do. None shall disobey their doting matriarch. And so, they rise the ancient steps and forgotten causeways. Passing through slimy tunnels filled with a fetid stew flowing from unseen waterways. Their steps faintly echo before being devoured by the yawning darkness of countless pits. Their hunched forms move through the dark with a seemingly awkward gait. Yet none of them stumble or…

I hate pumpkins, I hate jack-o-lanterns, and I hate Halloween. I guess I hate Halloween mostly because it means I have to see those disgusting things all over the place. On every porch, in every yard, and at every store I see them. They leer at me with crooked grins and empty eyes. Empty eyes that somehow follow my every move. I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about them. Even now I can peer out my window and see one on my neighbor’s stoop. It sits there, still as a cadaver. God, it’s looking back at me, I can feel it. It’s drilling into my skull, my soul. You think they’re horrible too, right? Do you feel…

It’s funny how tales like this cling to you, worming their way into your mind, gnawing away, festering like a wound. They say truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes the stories we pass down—the ones we whisper in shadowy corners or over drinks at seedy bars—are more chilling and grotesque than any proven fact. This is one of those tales. A fable, sure, but one that sits far too close to reality. Told by those who find comfort in the macabre, and believed by those who understand that the scariest monsters are always human. Ever heard of Helen? The lonely, gaunt old woman who ran that ramshackle diner out on Highway 22—the one no one seems to remember until…