Reddit Collection (Fresh-Short #9), DeYtH Banger [best novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

when I saw it.

 

A face, inches away from my own, with bone white skin stretched tightly over its skull. Its tall, thin figure was hunched and bent over my bed. Its lidless eyes watched me, studying me. I wanted to recoil at the sight of it but I couldn't move. Suddenly everything changed.

 

I woke up gasping, the lights were on in my room and the chair was still pushed against the door. Marley lifted his head and looked at me. My eyes drifted to the clock; 10:46. I heard the doorbell ring and I ran downstairs to the front door, wrenching it open and falling into my mother's arms, crying...

And so now here I sit, ten years later to the day, in a lobby crowded with people because I can't stand to be alone. I remember my mother traveling into the woods the next day against my wishes, only returning to say she didn't see anything. My brain had played tricks on me in the dead of night, she said. I didn't believe it at the time and I don't now.

 

There isn't a night that goes by that I don't think about it; that one night I'll wake up to see that horrible face again and this time it won't be a dream. What scares me most is the thought that on that warm summer night, ten years ago, I was the one that got away, the pet it didn't get to keep.

I still don't know what to think.

 by Earthling-2822

 

 

First, let me tell you about my grandfather. I literally just met him a few days ago- He's my dad's wife's dad, and as she's the new stepmom, this is the first time we're visiting her family. My new grandfather isn't too old, (I think)- somewhere around fifty or so, maybe. He's sort of grumpy, but he's alright. He's got a pretty kick-ass beard.

 

He's got something wrong with him. Not entirely sure what, but due to poor circulation, he can barely walk. His feet are blue, and he has to wear slippers all the time, and he can barely walk 10-15 steps. He's got sores and lesions all over his legs and feet, plus one huge open sore on the back of his hand. He lives downstairs in the basement because... well, I don't know, really. I think he might be embarrassed, having to sit around all day and not move while we all pass him by. The doctors refuse to help him until he stops smoking, and he doesn't think he can stop after smoking for his entire life.

 

The following occurred, around 3:30-4:00 am this morning. I was sitting here on Reddit as I'm usually doing around that time, when out of the dead silence I begin to hear a faint buzzing noise. At first I ignore it- probably just my imagination. But, it gets louder, so I went to investigate. I opened my door and crept toward the source of the noise; down the hall, through the living room. Peering around the corner, I see that the basement door is open, the light is on, and my grandfather is standing at the top of the stairs.

 

He had his head thrown back, mouth open wide, and the buzzing noise was coming from inside his throat. It was intense- it sounded like a really really large bee. I asked what was wrong, (thoroughly creeped out at this point), but he didn't seem to hear me. I got a bit closer, trying to get his attention, when the buzzing abruptly stopped.

 

He lowered his head and looked directly into my eyes. Then, he grinned the largest grin I've ever seen in my entire life. It seemed to extend past the boundaries of his face by a good three inches. He twitched once, and took an enormous breath. When he spoke, it wasn't in his normal voice, but the buzzing sound, just formed into words. Still staring me dead in the eyes, he growled "We were never meant for this place... and neither were you".

Then, he threw himself backward down the stairs. I lunged forward to try and grab him by the shirt, but I missed- and even if I had caught him, he probably would have just taken me with him. He is large... I am not.

The fall broke his neck, and he died.

 

The Basement

 by M59Gar

 

 

I was home alone for the week, as my family had gone on vacation while I had to stay and work. It was around 2 AM, and I'd stayed up to watch a scary movie in the dark in my basement. I was intent on really scaring myself and seeing how far into terror I could really go - while still knowing I was safe in my own home.

It was then that I heard pounding footsteps on the first floor. This was a common annoying occurrence when my family was home - every time they passed through the front hallway, past the basement door, I heard their footsteps. This time, fear immediately shot through me at the sound. My reflex was to turn the television off immediately... the basement door was up a flight of steps and around a corner, so whoever it was would not have seen any light.

I heard the basement door handle click and turn as I sat in absolute darkness. I moved slowly so as to be absolutely silent, and crawled behind our large television. As I passed it inch by inch, I noted with panic that its black screen still dimly glowed. I heard footsteps coming down the carpeted but creaky stairs.

 

I froze in my hiding place, listening. For many long minutes, I heard nothing. Had the intruder seen the television's afterglow, or had it faded in time? Was he standing in the pitch dark listening for me? I seemed to lie there in total silence for an interminably long time. My panic began to fade, and I began to think more clearly.

Had I really heard an intruder? Could someone possibly be standing there in silence for so long without making any noise? The basement was so exceedingly quiet that the silence itself began to hurt my ears. Could the unknown person really avoid any noise from shuffling or breathing or anything else? If there was an intruder, he was still in the basement, because the creaky stairs were incredibly loud, the door handle clicked, and he wouldn't know to mask his footsteps on the first floor so that they couldn't be heard down here...

 

I began counting in my head trying to pass the time, as drool fell from my mouth onto the carpet - I didn't dare risk the sound of swallowing. I reached sixty seconds once, twice... thirty times... sixty times... by now my fear had faded and I was more confused than anything. I estimated I'd been crouched in the absolute black for almost two hours, and had still heard nothing. If there was an intruder, none of this made sense... finally, I decided I'd have to make a move. If I did nothing, eventually the sun would come up, and shine in through the small basement windows... and, worse, I began to smell something horrible and cloying.

 

Slowly, ever so slowly, I began inching my way towards the stairs by way of the walls. If someone was standing there in the dark, I should be able to go around them and then make a break up the stairs... meanwhile, the horrible odor grew stronger. Had something died down here in the night? No living person would smell like that... terrible images of some sort of corpse-monster listening for me in the dark erupted in my thoughts, and I moved as fast as I could without making a sound.

 

Just as I finally approached the stairs, there was an enormous clatter, as of something falling or collapsing on the floor. It was at that moment I leapt forward and crashed up the stairs, running out through the open basement door and my wide-open front door. Now certain that someone was in the house, I called the police from my cellphone and watched my house from afar.

 

The police came, checked inside the house, and then grimly came back out to question me. They'd found a body in the house - my elderly neighbor, who seemed to have died of a heart attack. Their belief was that I must have left the front door unlocked, and he must have wandered in my house while dying, looking for help. At first, I felt horrible, thinking that I had sat there in the dark while the old man literally died a few feet away.

Then it occurred to me - what the hell was that loud noise of things falling, that last prompted me to bolt up the stairs and out of the house? I asked the police and they confirmed - the back door of my house had been left open as well, near a single bare footprint in the mud. Somehow, for some reason I'll never know, there was someone else in that basement with us... silent, waiting, and listening in the dark over the fresh corpse of an old man.

 

Don't ever turn it off... never.

 by  trisight

 

I haven't spoken about this before now and I fear that I have lost much of my sanity as a result. The years of endless inquisition have not been kind to me as well as the constant yearning of my heart for the same answers that they were seeking.

 

Back in 2000 my family and I moved up to Indianapolis, Indiana. I am a software programmer and had moved up there for work. It was at the end of the dot com bubble and I thought I was pretty lucky to find a good paying gig for someone that was