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

by  lifestrikes

In 1979, my dad was 16 years old. He grew up in Southern Arkansas near Spavinaw Creek deep in the country. He knew that land better than he knew anything, but my grandmother was still hesitant when he asked to go camping at the creek for the weekend with his friends from the other farms around the area.

After much deliberation, my grandmother finally agreed. That weekend he and his friends packed up and headed to the creek. The group was made up of nine teenage boys, ages thirteen to seventeen.

When they got there they spent the day fishing and playing games. It started to get dark so they started a fire. The sun went down, and it got so dark that my dad could no longer really see the faces of those around him.

He looked around the fire and began trying to identify his friends. He could hardly see. He figured out who most of them were, but he was confused by the number of people around the fire. He counted to himself, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10..." He counted again and again trying to determine whether he had accidentally counted someone twice.

After counting over and over, he began to panic.

"Who is this extra person sitting with us around the fire?" he thought.

He didn't know how to tell his friends. He was afraid that whoever or whatever was with them around the fire would be set off by his telling the group and hurt them.

"Count the people," he finally said to his friends.

They all muttered "What?" "What are you talking about?" confused by him disrupting the conversation to say this random sentence.

"Count the people!" he insisted loudly.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds; they realized what he was saying. They all jumped up and sprinted away from the fire.

After about fifteen minutes, they all made their way back to the fire. They all came back safe.

None of them ever found out who or what was around that fire with them. But to this day, when my family goes camping with my dad's childhood friends, I can see them all looking around the fire and counting the people.

Rumor has it that every Halloween, during the hours of 2 AM and 5 AM, there is a void that opens up in reality. It's said that you can take advantage of the Void... for a price. You must stand in front of a mirror in a pitch black room with your gaze fixated on the mirror.

If you remain in the room when the moment arrives, you will feel a chill seize your body. Place your right hand on the mirror and whisper, "I accept." If done correctly, in the mirror, there will be a faint image of an infant with no flesh and pitch black eyes. He will stare directly into your soul, and you will be filled with unspeakable terror. You will also hear the buzzing of flies and nervous whispering.

The infant will ask you five questions about events that have occurred in your life. His voice will sound like the rubbing of sandpaper and will be devoid of all human emotion. For each question that you answer incorrectly, one of your five senses will be consumed and lost to you forever.

For each question that is answered correctly, you will be able to recite the name of someone you know. That person will be found dead the next morning with their flesh removed and their eyes missing.

 by Slimebeast

They're always blue, and I can't figure out why.

There has to be a reason. It can't just be random. I thought maybe it was because they blend in with the sky, but that would denote some sort of evolutionary process... or even worse, intelligent design.

I can't process that. I don't think anyone could.

They sweep in from nowhere, they just whip by like large, immobile birds frozen with wingspan extended.

You never know when one is coming because they're silent... they cut through the air effortlessly... there doesn't even have to be a breeze so there's absolutely no warning.

There's just a flash of blue.

A flash of blue, and a child is gone.

It's just innocent behavior. They run toward the things. All they have to do is see one out of the corner of their eye and suddenly little shoes are beating the ground, small hands outstretched like... like when they're demanding a hug.

The things exploit this somehow. They whip past, and before you even see them, the children are off sprinting... wheeling madly toward... those things.

They don't wait for the children. They never stop moving, like vibrant, shimmering sharks that prowl the skies. They don't HAVE to stop, because one child always reaches them... grabs on... gets whisked away.

It doesn't matter how much you warn your son or daughter. You can scold, you can run practices, you can shriek until you're as blue as those things. Nothing matters. The minute a kid sees it, they want it.

"Look," they'll cry out, "it's getting away!"

Then they're gone.

We lost our little one, Daniel, very early on. We hadn't even heard there was anything wrong. It was just a normal day in the park and... and when we saw what Danny saw... we let him go to it.

We encouraged him to grab onto it.

How could we have known? THERE WAS NO WAY TO KNOW!!

They found his body broken and mangled... dangling from a tree branch miles away. I knew my wife wouldn't be able to identify the body without breaking down, but... I didn't do any better in the end.

It's just... it's just RANDOM. They get taken, they get bashed around like ragdolls, and they get left behind in the most disturbing and inexplicable places.

They're always blue.

I can't figure out how they can always be blue... never red, never green or yellow...

Just blue kites.

There was no way to know...

 by Slimebeast

This story has a happy ending. I promise. Please, no matter what happens, don't stop reading.

This story is about someone I'll call "Honey", who had a very bad night. There was nothing very special about Honey. They were just like anyone else, for the most part. Really, this could have happened to anyone.

It all began right before bed. Honey had stayed up a bit late, as you may have already guessed. There was no moon in the sky, and everything was dark save for the light in Honey's room and the glow of a computer monitor.

No, Honey wasn't special and Honey wasn't doing anything special, either. Looking up scary stories on the web was hardly a unique activity.

It wasn't until Honey reached the end of a particularly strange tale that they noticed something was, for lack of a better term, "off".

There was a strange smell in the room, something that had previously gone unnoticed. Something that almost seemed to belong, and only seemed out of place in that moment.

"Honey..." whispered some far-off voice from beyond the doorway, "Honey..."

Or was it simply imagined? It could have been a creak, or just something picked out of the white noise of an appliance.

Already a bit on edge from the night's reading, Honey was loathe to check on the source of this sound. Instead, Honey hunkered down and silently insisted it was just a trick of the mind.

Everything seemed fine for a while, and Honey started to relax.

"Honey!" called a man's voice. Clear. Loud. Unmistakable.

What followed was the sharp cry of an animal. Honey's beloved pet. Jumping from the chair in both shock and concern, Honey peered through the dark doorway for any sign of what could be going on.

Had someone broken in, or was the supposed voice simply a sick sound the animal had made before sounding that desperate, pained cry?

Something sailed through the air, through the doorway, and landed at Honey's feet with a wet, gruesome splat.

There, a mangled, crushed ball of bloody meat lay motionless.

Honey cried out in terror, and instantly felt sick from the sight, smell, and sound of the bloody entrails that were oozing out onto the floor. The idea of this much-adored animal now turned to twisted gore made the illness all the more overwhelming.

There was no doubt in Honey's mind now, as they raced to the telephone. Quickly, Honey dialed the authorities and placed the phone to their ear.

The voice on the other end of the line was terrifyingly familiar.

"What's wrong, Honey?"

The phone dropped to the floor as Honey moved to hide from whatever unnatural force had set upon them.

There was no time, however, as a bulky gray figure rushed into the room, its small head set with only the crudest, most basic concept of what could be eyes and a mouth. Two black dots, one black line.

"NOT SO FAST, HONEY!!"

With only the briefest flash of white-hot claws, Honey was looking down at their own arms twitching madly as they fell to the floor. Jaw open, eyes wide, pale and unable to speak, Honey looked into what passed for the thing's face.

Its thin black line of a mouth opened... and opened... and opened until it exposed a black void lined with small, thin flailing black tentacles in place of teeth. The gaping maw went over Honey's head and, despite all protest and struggle, it passed the shoulders, then the chest, then...

Well, I told you this story had a happy ending, and I wasn't lying. You see, none of that really happened!


Not yet, anyway.

Goodnight, Honey.