Tag: SpookyReads

Birthday

Twenty-seven years on the outside, twenty-seven years of living a life on borrowed time. The headlights flash past me, and I shield my eyes.

I know, too much description? Well, I’m not paying you to read this, so why don’t you just piss off if it’s not working for you.

The car comes to a stop, and she gets out, all legs, miles of them. I swallow. She looks around the empty car park, and we lock eyes. She smiles and marches towards me.

“You’re Phelps?” she asks. The words slide off her tongue as if they were dipped in gold and encrusted with diamonds. I’m in love. Pity I know she won’t reciprocate the feelings.

“I’m the only one here, so I must be,” I reply. What a jerk of a thing to say. Yes would have been so much easier to say. But instead, I tried acting all cool, suave, and shit. She blushes; I don’t think it’s out of embarrassment.

“I was told I could trust you. If I was told wrong, I’d prefer you were honest with me so I can save us from both wasting our time.”

“Doesn’t that whole sentence contradict itself? Sure, if you want me to say I’m the best you’ll get for the price you want to pay, I’ll tell you that, as long as you pay. I’ll say whatever else you need me to if that’ll make you feel more at ease. But honey, if you don’t feel a bond, that beautiful thing we humans call trust, if you don’t feel that between us off the bat, I’m either nothing like you were told, or I don’t give a shit what you think because I’m that good. So yeah, whatever you want me to say, I’ll say it, but don’t ask stupid questions. I’m here to get paid. You’re here because you’ve got a job you need done, someone removed from your life, permanently. How’s that for honesty? Leonardo DiCaprio eat your fucking heart out, where’s my Oscar?”

She stares at me, blinking. I can see the wheels turning upstairs. Something begins to happen. Her face softens, as does her stance, and she becomes more relaxed, more casual. “I’m sorry, I’ve never done anything like this before, I-I…”

I place a hand on her quivering arm, doing my best puppy dog eyes. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re not the first, you won’t be the last. So, you don’t need to apologise. To be honest, I mean, you seem like a stand-up broad, and I don’t want to steer you the wrong way. I’m not really the guy you came here to meet. He’s jammed in the boot of this car. So, this is something of a first for me as well,” I say, thumping the hood of the car. She stiffens, her eyes widen, and then she collapses, the drugs taking their desired effect.

“It’s nothing personal, you understand. It’s just, well, it’s my birthday, and you, you’re exactly what I asked for,” I say, oozing confidence. I know what you’re thinking. I’m scum, taking advantage of such a nice broad. But she wanted me, and when I say me, I mean the piece of shit I introduced to my trusty blade half an hour ago, to off her old man for his life insurance. See how the picture changes, how she becomes the scum? When I’m just a bottom feeder, looking for my next kill. Looking to celebrate my birthday in style, and she fits the bill in so many ways. All the way up those long, gorgeous legs.

Market

“You seriously brought this piece of shit from there?” he says, holding up an unusual-looking goblet. The rim is cracked and chipped, the base the same. “Fuck, it won’t even hold any liquid. Please tell me you didn’t pay that much for it?”

“It was a bargain, a goblet of this type would…”

“How much?” he interrupts.

She looks at the ground and takes a deep breath before meeting his vicious glare. “Two hundred,” she says softly.

His eyes grow wide with disbelief. “Y-Y-You, you’re FUCKING kidding me? Two hundred FUCKING dollars for this relic? Are you INSANE?”

“Trevor, trust me, this goblet will change our lives,” she says, snatching it from him and slowly running her fingers around a symbol on the stem.

“How the fuck is a piece of fucking garbage like that going to change our lives, Sal? Please tell me, because I really wanna know.”

“Don’t be a jerk about it. If you’re going to act like that, then I won’t tell you,” she says sternly.

He raises his hands in front of him and takes a deep breath. “Okay, okay, honey, let’s both just take a moment. There’s no need to do this, okay? I’m sure if we both just…”

“We both? Why do you keep saying we both? You’re the only one acting like an idiot here, not me. If anyone needs to calm down, it’s you.”

“Alright, alright! Maybe you’re right. Maybe we both need to take a moment, find our centre, and talk this out like the adults we are,” he says.

“What? Are you even paying attention to me?”

“Of course, honey, we both are. Let’s take that moment. Let’s sit down and breathe it out,” he says, waving his hands around as if conducting an orchestra.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Trevor! If you’re not going to be mature about this, then you can just get fucked,” she yells, throwing the goblet at him and storming out of the room.

“HONEY! COME BACK! HONEY! I’M SORRY! HONEY?” he yells, a broad grin on his face, but she doesn’t come back. A few moments later, he hears her car pull out of the driveway and take off down the street. He steps forward and feels something tear into his bare feet. He grimaces in pain as he looks down at the goblet’s remains scattered across the floor beneath him. When she threw it at him in anger, it ricocheted off him and hit the floor, shattering into several dozen pieces. As he pulls the shards out of his foot, his mouth drops open. The goblet begins to piece itself back together again.

Fangs for the Memories

We’re not sure who started the rumour about Mister Jarvis being a vampire. I know it wasn’t Fielding or me; it could’ve been Bailey. But none of that is really important anymore, as we all pretty much have to live with what happened regardless of the role we played in it all.

Yokel Sepalovic arrived at our school ready to learn the English way. He’d grown up in Germany and learned all his English from YouTube and TV. Given that information, it was surprising to find out he was quite easy to understand, and you could even manage a conversation with him, sometimes without even asking him to repeat himself. But none of that really matters; it’s what happened when he heard about Mister Jarvis that does.

According to Yokel, vampires are quite common in Germany, and almost every man, woman, and child are trained in the art of detecting and removing threats believed to be vampiric in nature. We thought he was pulling our chains until he showed up with a necklace made from the teeth of vampires he had killed—twenty-nine—and if Mister Jarvis was indeed a vampire, it would be his thirtieth kill. Apparently, he told us, in Germany, when you hit thirty kills, you are considered an adult and are bestowed many things. For a male, one of the rewards is a sexual encounter with a woman from the Tangsha Tribe. We laughed at him until he showed us a photo. They were all beautiful, and I don’t mean the normal run-of-the-mill, yeah-she’s-beautiful kind; I mean I started to get a stiffy when I saw the photo. So we all agreed if Mister Jarvis was indeed a vampire, we would help Yokel put a stop to him so he could get to bang one of those hot chicks.

It started out innocently. One day after class, Yokel, Bailey, and I stayed at our desks, waiting for everyone else to leave. Apparently, one of the easiest signs that someone was a vampire was to throw holy water over them. As he wasn’t sure if holy water down here was the same as the holy water he had at home, he said it might not be as effective. But it’s always the first and easiest way to find out.

Anyway, Mister Jarvis asked why we were all still seated, and Bailey said that he was hoping we could do a bit of extra credit work as we were both slipping behind. At first, he wasn’t buying straight into the story and then proceeded to question why Yokel was also there. Bailey didn’t drop the charade for a second and fed Mister Jarvis an almost true-to-fact story about how Yokel’s English wasn’t that good, and he relied on me to find his way home every day, which was why he was waiting—because he had no idea what to do. Mister Jarvis walked towards us with a huge smile, and that’s when Yokel jumped up and threw the holy water in his face. Mister Jarvis screamed, and Yokel looked at me, nodding his head. It was true—Mister Jarvis was a goddamn vampire.

The next few moments moved quickly, too quickly really. Yokel pulled a wooden stake from his desk and proceeded to stab Mister Jarvis like he was possessed. Blood gushed everywhere, and Bailey and I just stood there watching it all. I can tell you, it was scarring, to say the least. It wasn’t like in the movies; he didn’t turn to ash, he didn’t burst into flames, he just bled and screamed a lot.

The school janitor, Mister Dumpy, heard all the commotion and managed to stop Yokel as he was trying to pull a tooth out of Mister Jarvis’s dead body. That’s when he went nuts and drove the stake into Mister Dumpy’s head. He looked at us and smiled. He said the school was a cover and it was really a nest. He was going to get a woman for us all once he was done. By the time the police arrived at the school, Yokel had managed to overpower and kill seven of the school’s faculty members and was far from done. It took five officers to eventually tackle him to the ground and get him in cuffs, but he still managed to bite an ear off one of the officers in the scuffle.

We found out later that Yokel, which was not his real name, was wanted in Germany for the suspected murders of over twenty-five members of his previous school. Apparently, his parents had smuggled him out of the country to try and protect him. Unfortunately, when the police went to interview them, they were gone. I saw him on the news later that night, and it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. He kept on saying how he was a hero and that this town was infested like his home.

But you know what? You want to know what I really think? I believe every word he said…

Who Wields Destiny

“What is, what is, and this is all that is,” she says proudly, standing over the bloody and beaten man who kneels before her.

“P-P-Please, Aurora, can’t you see what you’ve become? There’s st-still time, we, we can still sa-save them, we can save them all,” he says weakly.

“Don’t be a fool, my brother. It’s over. I’ve chosen my allegiances, and we have been victorious. Why not stand by my side, be who you were meant to be, and rule this world? We could overthrow Falgan together!”

“No, not like this. Not bitter. Not twisted. Not for power,” he says, holding his head down, clenching his fists together, trying to gauge the strength he has left in his weakened body. “You’ve become someone I don’t even know anymore. The woman I called sister, the woman who fought for peace by my side, who fought for something better than this, for something beautiful, is gone.”

“Oh, for the sake of all, grow up, brother! For years, for centuries, you two have been going at it, waging a war against each other. A war where hundreds have died, millions even, while you two still continued to be children. Now, under my reign, no more will die, no more will suffer. I will rule, and everyone will obey.”

“It’s wrong,” he says softly through gritted teeth.

“No, brother, it’s not wrong. You are. And if you’ll not join me, then I’m afraid you must die,” she says, drawing a sword from its scabbard. She stares at it as it shimmers in the light, then looks back at him. “How fitting that you fall beneath your own mighty blade. A blade which has for countless eons protected you, given you your strength, made you a force to be reckoned with, a hero even. A hero whose tales have been whispered from one to the next, whose feats of bravery have been turned into songs, into prose written by men and women of true skill, men and women who will one day do the same to this moment.”

“P-Please, don’t do this, don’t make me…”

“Make you what, brother? I wish to make you do nothing else but die!” she yells as she draws back the sword.

“T-Then, I-I, I am sorry,” he says, looking up from the ground, his eyes burning into her. She feels them like hot pokers, as a tear runs down his cheek. “He who wields, commands you, strike down the imposter, take back what is mine!” he yells. Suddenly, she screams in pain, in unadulterated agony, as the sword melts in her hands, runs down her arm, and quickly encases her in a metal-like covering. Then, with one last muffled cry from her, it reforms to its shape once more, crashing to the ground before him. “I’m sorry, dear sister, but no one wields Destiny but me,” he says as he reaches out and grips the sword’s handle. The room implodes in a ball of light, and he rises powerfully to his feet, whole once more.

Best Offer Accepted

I don’t know when I first noticed how cold it was inside when outside the house the air was warm—beautiful, in fact. I could’ve stripped down to nothing and still felt like I had too many clothes on. But inside, it was cold, and I mean dead cold.

Nothing I did changed it. I even had the heat pump checked, just to make sure it was working properly. The guys who came to give it the once-over gave me a strange look, like I was crazy. Of course, that all changed once they came in and felt how cold it was for themselves. That’s when they understood what I was talking about.

They pulled that fucking thing apart, checked every piece of it for any possible fault, but found nothing. Not one fucking thing was wrong with it. After a few solid hours of searching, all they could do was charge me for their time and leave.

Now, this is the part that sent me into a spiral. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it so seriously, but I needed an answer to my problem, and any answer would do. As they were leaving, one of them made an off-hand comment. He said, “If I was you, I’d call a preacher. Maybe it’s a ghost!” We all laughed, but once I shut the door, my mind ran wild with the idea. Maybe there was a ghost. Aren’t cold spots indicative of ghosts?

I spent the next few hours on YouTube, watching paranormal investigators run through pitch-black corridors screaming as they tried to determine if the buildings they were investigating were haunted. Once I’d watched my fill, I decided the house was indeed haunted. Armed with this conclusion, I quickly headed out to collect supplies. Seven hundred dollars later, I was back home with my booty: a state-of-the-art thermal camera, a digital recorder, a MEL meter, and a device called a spirit box. Apparently, spirits can talk through this. In all the YouTube clips I’d watched, these seemed to work well.

It only took me a few minutes to set everything up. I was shaking with excitement and maybe sweating a little bit with nerves. My heart skipped as I turned on the spirit box, and I held my breath in anticipation. It instantly started hissing, spluttering, and convulsing with reverberated white noise. The guy in the store said it scans thousands of radio signals every few seconds, and spirits can use the energy it creates to say words across the spectrum.

Three hours passed without any contact. I’d asked so many questions that I’d started yelling at it. I was on the verge of throwing the thing out the window when something finally happened. The thing sparked, and then, as clear as day, a voice came through—one I recognised.

“You got ripped off, boyo. If I wanted to talk to you, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

I sat there for what seemed like forever, in the cold, wondering what the hell had just happened. Nothing else came through after that, no matter how many times I begged it to. The next morning, I packed everything back in their boxes and tried to return it to the store, but the guy pointed out a sign on the counter: “All items firm sale, no returns, EVER!”

That’s why I’m selling this on eBay, in the hope of making something back. So, make me an offer.

Do you think I should tell you a little bit more about the stuff, or is this story enough of a description?

Shortcut

He pushes the bike’s throttle to its maximum as he tears down the street, his heart thumping vigorously in his chest. He rides more on instinct than awareness, the numbers displayed on the inside of his helmet counting down relentlessly. He tries to push the bike harder, faster. But he knows he’s too far behind the clock now, and he only has one option: he has to go through the Unclassed Zone.

He slams the bike around the next corner, keeping the throttle down as he powers through the gates with a crash. The front wheel wobbles violently as he struggles to regain control. That’s when he spots the group lumbering towards him. He closes his eyes tightly and slams into them; they are thrown left and right as the bike crashes to the ground. Rolling with the impact, he quickly scrambles to his feet as more of them emerge from the darkness. He pulls out a metal rod and charges towards his still-purring bike, just as one of the three he hit lunges for him. He smashes it across the face with the rod, knocking it to the ground, and pulls his bike back up onto its two wheels.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a panicked voice yells out from above. He looks up and sees a soldier staring back at him. The soldier looks no older than he is, fear hidden behind his eyes and panic in his voice.

“Making a fucking mistake, that’s what I’m doing,” he replies, mounting his bike and taking off, deeper into the zone. More of them filter out from the shadows, their dead eyes following him, drool running down their chins as they smell the irresistible, intoxicating aroma of fresh meat. The deeper he goes, the more stagger towards him from the ruins of a neighborhood he once played in so freely as a child. He knows with only a handful of minutes remaining that this is the only option he has left, and everything depends on him making this delivery without fail. But once again, he pays for his ignorance. Too deep inside his own head, he doesn’t see the herd coming around the corner until it’s too late and crashes into them. Bodies fly in several directions, with the biker ending up trapped beneath his bike as they viciously scramble towards him, ripping and tearing. Shots rip through the air, and several of them crash to the ground, missing parts of their heads. He hears a voice call; the young soldier must’ve followed after him. Desperately, he scrambles to his feet, grabs a container from his bike, and forces his way out of the attacking shadows. He hears the soldier call to him again, but he heads deeper into the zone. His helmet tells him he has two minutes until the deadline, but if he can make it, he should only be a minute away from the end of the Unclassed Zone, and then it’s less than thirty seconds to his destination.

His chest screams at him, pain ripping through his lungs, as he sprints towards the gates. He can see them in the distance, and he allows himself to smile. But his smile is soon wiped away as he feels something rip into the back of his leg, and then something hits him in the back of his head. He feels a sharp pain, a wetness, and then nothing as he crashes to the ground, a bullet hole in the back of his helmet. By the time the young soldier reaches the body, an alarm in his helmet is going off.

“Sorenson, what’s the ten-four on your rider?” a voice screams over the soldier’s headset.

“Rider is down, command. He suffered multiple bites, and I had no choice but to put him down.”

“Understood. Do you know what he was doing in the Unclassed Zone?”

“Not sure, command. He had a package with him. Whatever was in it must’ve been valuable.”

“Can you locate the package, Sorenson?”

“It is in my line of sight, command.”

“Open it. Let’s see what this fool risked his life for.”

“Affirmative,” he replies, bending down to open the lid of the box. His eyes widen in disbelief. “Command, you’re not going to believe this, but the rider was a delivery driver. It’s a fucking pizza. I repeat, the guy was delivering a fucking pizza!”

“Sorenson, did you say he was delivering a pizza?”

“That is an affirmative, command. The rider was delivering a pizza.”

“Who the fuck orders a pizza to be delivered in the Unclassed Zone? The only things in there are fucking zombies.”

“Beats the hell out of me, command.”

“Okay, Sorenson, clean up and get back to base for a debrief. Does the pizza have mushrooms on it?”

“I’m sorry, command, did you just ask if it has mushrooms?”

“That’s affirmative, Sorenson. I’m allergic to mushrooms, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

The Roundhead Knows No End

“Powerful stuff. I like how it twists and turns its way through reality. Quite a clever concept; it could really work in a weekly episode format,” Jacob says as he looks up from the tablet at Suzan. She leans back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling with a smile on her face.

“I like the concept. A writer’s story that goes haywire, kills the writer and the artist who brought it to life, then erupts over mankind as it makes its move to control the world. Apparently, they have another six chapters to post. But I really think we should make a move now, while we have the chance, before Netflix or someone else gets in on the action offering money that we could never match.”

“You think others are watching?”

“They’d have to be. It’s all over the news with these killings. Surely it’d be prime real estate right now; they’d all be rubbing their hands together to see how it’s all going to end. See if you can track down this Marty Towns and get him locked down by the time the second chapter is released. I want to get production up and running as soon as we can, a name or two out there of who’s in the cast while it’s hot property.”

“What’s my limit?”

“I don’t care, just make it happen,” she says. “Everyone’s got a price tag, and this Towns fellow will have his. But we have to lock it down sooner rather than later.”

“Okay, I’ll get on it right away,” he says as he places the tablet onto her desk and slides it towards her. “Just one question?”

“No, I’m not worried about the negative impact this could have. Numbers mean viewers, and viewers mean numbers, so just make it happen.”

“Done,” he says as he leaves, gently closing the door to her office behind him.

She spins the tablet back around to face her and smiles as she looks over the story again. “How ingenious. You certainly know how to get people’s attention. I wonder what you can do with some money behind you,” she says out loud to herself as she retweets a link to the story and adds the comment, “I see you!”

Suddenly, all the lights in her office flicker as a power untold by the ages surges through them until they explode, leaving her in darkness. She sits there frozen in place, petrified.

“JACOB!” she yells out. She waits for a few moments as her heart begins to race frantically in her chest before he finally replies.

“Suzan? Is everything okay?” he yells from the other side of the door.

“The goddamn lights just exploded. What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. The lights are all okay out here,” he says. “Can you unlock the door?”

“T-T-There’s no lock on my door, you know that!” she says as she gets up from her desk and quickly makes her way over to the door. That’s when she notices the man standing a few feet from her. His skin is pale, almost white, and his eyes are endless pools of darkness.

“W-W-What the fuck…” she whispers as the man opens his mouth and begins to speak.

“On wings of electricity, through the here and the then, it comes, breaking the walls of the worlds, as your soul calls to it like the beat of drums. It salivates at the thought of taking you into its being. You rode the path, you set its course, and now your souls will feed its beginnings as it breaks through your shell with its force. So fear its name, don’t shy away, it’s coming now, so prepare, for it is here!”

“Let it come,” she says. The man’s head leans to the side with a confused look on his face.

“What? You didn’t think I wanted this? I can make your master bigger than a pathetic story on some unknown’s blog. I can…”

She stops in her tracks, her mouth drops open, and her eyes follow the beast as it rises from behind the man, who flickers from sight, leaving only the beast.

“What makes you think you can do more than what the words spread a million times around the world can do?”

“T-T-They, they’ll stop it before you’re strong enough. But, but I-I-I, I can bring you to a bigger audience, more than his story coul…”

The beast grabs her and slams her against the wall, then lets out a low, inhuman growl. The stink of death wafts into her face, her eyes water as it tears at her flesh, burns her cheeks, and leaves her mouth dry.

“It’s my story, not his,” it says.

It Waits in the Basement

“I’m telling you, Kyle, no bullshit, I saw them going at it with my own eyes. Kendra and Mister Welling, not more than five minutes ago!” he yells at his younger brother, who rolls over and pretends to be asleep.

“Kyle, for God’s sake, you’ve got to come and have a look. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t. You’ll always find yourself wondering what they looked like out in the open,” he says. Kyle turns over and stares at Lincoln, whose smile stretches from one ear to the other.

“What makes you think I wanna see them?”

“We’re twins, Kyle. I know you wanna see them because I wanna see them again, and I’ve already seen them once. So I can say without hesitation that you’ll at least wanna see them once, if not twice!” Lincoln says enthusiastically.

“You promise you’re not kidding?”

“WHY THE HELL WOULD I JOKE ABOUT THIS?” he says in shock.

“Because last week you swore you saw Franny Williams get abducted by a vampire, and it turned out to be a sack of shit. So forgive me if I don’t believe you now,” he says, rolling back away.

“Don’t be like that, you know I joke around. And you can’t tell me it wasn’t funny to see old man Jeffery running down the road with a leg off one of his chairs, screaming, ‘They’re coming, they’re coming to get us all,’” he says with a laugh, while Kyle chuckles softly as well.

“Still doesn’t change the fact you could be bullshitting again.”

“I swear to you, Kendra is next door in the basement with Mister Welling, and they’re doing it, naked!” he says.

Kyle lets out a sigh and sits up in his bed, while his brother leaps in the air, overjoyed.

“Come on, before it’s too late!” he says, grabbing his brother by the arm and dragging him out the window, across the yard, and over into Mister Welling’s property. They both scurry quickly over towards a small window that peers into the basement of Mister Welling’s house. The room is dark and more than likely empty. Kyle smacks Lincoln in the arm.

“Arsehat!”

“What? I swear they we….” He stops in his tracks as they both hear moaning coming from somewhere within the basement. Then they both quickly peer through the window again, this time noticing the shadowy forms of what can only be Kendra and Mister Welling thrusting themselves at each other in the passions of love.

“See, I fucking told you,” Lincoln says proudly. “I fucking told you, man! It’s just a pity the lights are out. You’re really missing a sight, Ky…” It’s then that he notices Kyle taking off towards the back entrance to Mister Welling’s house. “Kyle!” he calls out softly, “Kyle, what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna turn on the light. If it’s as good as you said, I’m not gonna be ripped off, not after you dragged me out of bed for it!” he calls back.

“Don’t be stupid, man, you can sorta make out…” He stops talking once he’s sure Kyle has made his way in through the back door of the house. He smiles wryly before he looks back through the basement window. It doesn’t take him long to spy a figure moving down the stairs, who then slowly creeps towards the couple who are still intertwined, thrusting vigorously at each other.

“So predictable,” Lincoln whispers to himself as he watches his brother reach out and grab a handful of one of Kendra’s breasts before running out of the room, up the stairs, out of the house, past him, and into their backyard. Lincoln follows quickly behind him, a broad smile on his face.

“What the hell, Kyle? I thought you were turning on the light, not groping her tits!”

“I was, but then, well, I thought, maybe it’d last longer if I got a real good feel.”

“Well, don’t keep it all to yourself. How’d they feel?”

“Not like I imagined. They were harder, saggier than I would’ve thought,” he says with a confused look on his face, one that turns into a frown as he sees the look on Lincoln’s. “Whose boob did I just grab?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Lincoln says as he bursts out loud with fits of laughter.

“Lincoln, wh…” He freezes in place as he hears the front door of Mister Welling’s house open, and his mother walks out, fixing her dress into place. They both laugh, say goodnight, and she leaves while Lincoln rolls around on the ground laughing himself stupid, and Kyle feels his stomach turn as tears start cascading down his face.

Fragile

“A fragile heart is an easy thing to break. I give you fair warning; it won’t be as simple as you think to win him over.”

“I’m well aware there’s more than one way to a man’s heart, not just through his rib cage,” she says with an evil smile. He grabs her, and they kiss.

“I love it when you talk dirty like that, about all the inner things,” he says. She pushes him away and laughs.

“Dermott, we have expired. You are now nothing but a memory to me. How can I make you understand?”

“Just like that? After everything I’ve done for you? I won’t be just thrown to the kerb like the rest. I deserve better than that. I deserve MORE!”

“This is not a discussion or a competition; this is fact, plain and simple. It is how it is, and how it will be,” she says. Her brow furrows, her lips tighten, and her hands clench into fists.

“That’s not how it works!” he says, grabbing her by the forearms. She twists away from him and shoves him again.

“Don’t be foolish. We are through; it is time to move on…” She stops mid-sentence as she feels a hand gently run up her back and softly wrap around her neck. She lets out an energised breath, and then the hand grips her tightly. Panic sets in as the grip tightens, her breath coming in frantic, shallow gasps. She struggles, but it’s no use. Desperately, she gasps for air, trying to form words, but the hand squeezes tighter. Her knees weaken, her vision starts to vibrate, and pockets of black and white flash before her eyes. From the corner of her eye, she spies Dermott standing a few feet away, his face confused, surprised even, but not disappointed. Then the darkness engulfs her, and she feels the ground come to meet her face.

He crouches over her, squeezing with everything he has, until he’s certain she is beyond hope. Then he releases his grip and stumbles backwards onto his backside. For the next few moments, he sits there, staring at her body, until Dermott breaks the silence.

“I-I-I can’t believe you did it. I can’t believe the bitch is actually dead,” he says. “I almost didn’t think you’d come. I thought, I thought for a moment I-I-I might have to do it myself.”

“I almost didn’t,” he says, his eyes fixed on her body.

“I’m glad you did. She was determined to go through with it all, to make her move. She had all she needed from me, taken everything I…”

“I know, I heard what she said. What I did needed to happen. Otherwise, she would’ve moved on to the next, and then the next after that. But I had a chance to change it all. To stop her. To end it,” he says, looking up at Dermott, tears in his eyes. Dermott pulls him to his feet, and they kiss.

“Now do it. You have to, otherw…” Dermott doesn’t get to finish as the man drives a knife into his stomach. He lunges forward, letting out a cry of agony as the pain rips through him. He clutches his shoulder and smiles into the man’s pale, saddened face. “Don’t worry, once this is all over, we’ll go away, somewhere speci…”

“Jeremiah” contains scenes of sexualised violence and strong profanity that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Jeremiah

They stand gathered around the hastily dug hole in the ground, with bowed heads and closed eyes. Today, this family buries its patriarch, a man who they all thought would live forever, but now they stand in awe of the truth that nothing lives forever.

Jeremiah Talbot was a man of few words but many actions, with a temper that ran through his veins and out through his fists. For as long as he had lived in these parts, only strangers had attempted to pass through what Jeremiah saw as his territory, as the rest of the neighbouring area stayed well away from Jeremiah and his kin. Because of that, almost every soul that travelled within his lands never reached the other side, and those who did would soon succumb to a violent death before being able to report any wrongdoings by Jeremiah and his demented flock of children.

As his busted and broken children weep while the wooden box that is to be his coffin is lowered into the hole, the reality is lost to most of them. What his death truly means is yet to hit home. Over the course of his seventy-two years, Jeremiah fathered over one hundred and eighty-nine illegitimate sons and four hundred and forty-six daughters. Life for those who survived past their first few years was a harsh, brutal world, with only a handful reaching their teens. Those who were not victims of the world they lived in fell to the impairments in their DNA as a result of genetic mutation caused by the oversaturation of the gene pool, mainly from the constant inbreeding that took place, where many of his daughters mothered their own brothers and sisters. Jeremiah was a man governed by no rules but his own, and he made a point of ritualistically starting sexual relationships with his daughters once they reached the age of eight.

Of course, there were also the travellers. The ones who took the journey across, into Jeremiah’s land, off on adventures, with the belief that new things waited on the other side. But they were never to find anything else, as they would never reach it. Instead, they would succumb to Jeremiah and his children. The men were killed and provided the family with fresh meat, while the women became new play toys for Jeremiah, impregnating some and beating others until their life had left them. Very few of these outsiders ever became part of the family, for they could never accept their fate, and eventually, all became food, for here nothing was wasted; everything was recycled into something of use, something to sustain more life.

The eldest of his sons, the twenty-eight-year-old Calvert, stands at the head of the grave and looks up to his thirty-six brothers and sisters and frowns deeply, not out of sorrow, but out of dissatisfaction.

“Daddy, Daddy was a great man, but now he’s gone. We are strong, and we will survive,” he says with a smile. “Daddy would want today to be joyful, a celebration of what he stood for. So while we be sad, we be happy, because from today I am Daddy now. It falls on my shoulders as I am oldest; his seed runs through all of us, and my seed will run through all of you, for it is his as well as mine,” he says as he pulls down his pants and grips his hardening member. “Let my seed go with you,” he says as he furiously begins to jerk his now hard penis until he empties himself over the top of the wooden box, then looks up at his brothers and sisters. “Rest now Daddy, for my seed is now yours and what you did sow, now will I.”

His brothers begin shovelling the dirt back into the hole, covering the box as the rest make their way out of the shrine-like graveyard.

Inside the box, she opens her eyes urgently, to the muffled sounds of something thumping above her. Her eyes widen with fear as dirt leaks through the cracks in the wooden box. Desperately she feels around, touching something cold and hard. Instantly she realises that she’s being buried with Jeremiah and begins to scream in absolute terror.

Suddenly a frozen hand grabs her by the wrist. “Don’t you be worrying, girly, it’s going to be warm where we be going,” a raspy voice hisses into her ear.

Hello Officer

He looks uncomfortably into the rear-view mirror at the car behind him, as its red and blue lights flash violently, and he swallows a mouthful of air. It moves down his throat like a rock while he shuffles in his seat. The officer gets out of his vehicle and slowly makes his way towards the car.

“Is this your car, sir?” the officer asks.

“Y-Y-Yes, yes it is. D-D-Did I do anything wrong? I didn’t think I did anything wrong, I was…” he says quickly until the officer interrupts him.

“Please, sir, I’ll ask all the questions around here. You just need to provide me with the answers, not write a book. Now, can I see your licence?”

He nervously pulls out his licence and hands it to the waiting officer. “I-I-I wasn’t trying to be rude before, I just didn’t realise I did anything wrong. I-I-I’m sure I was within the speed limit. I indicated when…” The officer interrupts him again.

“Have you been drinking today, sir?”

“No, no, never while I’m driving,” he quickly answers. “W-W-Why? Did I seem to be driving erratically or something? I swear to…”

“If you can just blow into this?” the officer says sternly as he pulls out a small black device with a tube on the end of it.

“Is this really necessary?”

“You can either do it here or at the station.” The man reluctantly places his lips over the tube. “Now keep blowing until I tell you otherwise,” the officer says. The man blows into the tube, followed moments later by a high-pitched noise, and the officer pulls the device away. “Okay, you can stop now,” he says as he looks at the device and back at the man. “So what’s your deal, son?”

“Excuse me?” the man asks nervously.

The officer pulls his sunglasses off and leans down to the window. “I said, what’s your deal? I saw you initially at the lights three blocks back. I don’t think you realised I saw you, but I noticed you noticing me, and it seemed like you suddenly got a little nervous, like you are now, sweat running down your forehead, all jittery and whatnot. I thought maybe you had a few drinks under your belt, but that isn’t it. So, what is it? Should I search the car?”

“NO!” he yells quickly.

“So, I should search the car.”

“H-H-Honestly, you don’t need to. There’s nothing in the car, I SWEAR! I-I-I’m just late for work, really, I am.”

“Step out of the vehicle and put your hands on the roof!”

“No, please! You can’t do this! I know my rights, and I’ve done nothing wrong!”

The officer pulls his revolver from its holster and aims it towards the man. “I SAID! Get out of the car NOW! Before I put a bullet in your head!”

“Okay, OKAY!” he yells as he nervously gets out of the car and the officer shoves him up against it. “Fuck Luke, you jerk!”

“What?” the officer says as he takes a step back, putting his hands high in the air in surprise.

“You fucking prick, you shoved me too hard!” he says as he turns quickly around to face him.

“S-Sorry, I guess I really got into it.”

“You think?” he says as he storms past him towards the house.

“Watson, SHIT! Don’t blame me, you know how I get with this role-playing shit!” he yells out, chasing him inside.