Scary Short Stories #2, Sophia Worden [new reading .txt] 📗

that was slowly tearing them apart.It started just three days ago. Something happened, out there in the world, and before we even get news of what's going on, seemingly half of the world is gone. Police and military were unable to stop it, providing such a short frame of resistance it's hard to know whether it was real or just a fluke. There was no centralised target, no way to use our most powerful weapons, not without incinerating ourselves in the process. They poured forth across the world, from wherever it was that it started.I hear banging on the door downstairs, and the screams of people being slaughtered, unable to mount a proper resistance against such a force. It doesn't take long before the pounding gives way to splintering and the sound of shattering wood.They're in the house.No more than a moment or two passes before the door to the bedroom starts shuddering. The things I piled against it are holding, for now, but I know, realistically, that they're going to manage to come through.I keep rocking my little girl, humming a lullaby in her ear to calm her as she cries. The pounding grows in force and volume, the frame starting to crack.I put my little girl on my lap, her back to my chest, and I stroke her head with both hands, from the top of her scalp, down across her ears, just as I've done ever since she was a baby. Just the way she loves it.The effect is instantaneous. Her desperate crying calms to a series of sobs and hiccoughs, her small body shuddering against mine in fear. I keep humming to her, soothing her hair, acting for all the world as if nothing is out of place, not a single thing amiss. Agonisingly slowly, in a reverse cadence of the sound of splintering wood, she calms down. I can feel it when she stops tensing, as I keep stroking her down the sides of her head. A final hiccough of a sob, and she falls quiet, her body relaxed.She doesn't even have time to realise what's happening as I twist her neck with a violent jerk, accompanied by a dry snap of a sound. She's dead before she can even slump down into my lap.The door is giving way, the furniture pushed back. I may be torn limb from limb while I scream, but at least my baby angel's safe from harm.

 

The War

 

I flung myself through the door and vaulted the toppled, long-dead refrigerator that served as an ineffective barricade in front of me. My legs propelled me through the room and into the small hallway on the other side. I couldn't stop to eat the expired contents of the fridge, appealing to me despite their stench after several days without food. The shrieks of pain and cries for mercy around me spurred my body onward and filled me with unexpected energy in spite of my hunger.We were at war.I came to a halt in front of a small bathroom.A noise. Something behind the shower curtain.My fear heightened and images of the enemy flooded my mind. Merciless beasts wearing human skin, devouring indiscriminately, accepting no pleas and respecting no argument. Zombies.It had begun as we expected, with a virus. The original infected were almost a cliché. There was no humanity left in them. Just mindless rage, twisted bodies, and some primal urge to consume others. Our generation had prepared, with almost obsessive focus, for this monster. The first wave was eradicated with almost laughable ease.We were not prepared for adaptation. We were not prepared for the creature we bred by destroying the instantly recognizable zombie. A creature with more tact.Most of the first zombies were killed at close range, you understand, since longer range attacks were less likely to be fatal. We had trained ourselves, even before the outbreak, to equate "infection" with "death" when it came to zombies. A person "died" when their eyes clouded over and they started biting, not when you put a bullet in their head.The new strain of the virus still controlled the body, yes, but it left other faculties to the host.Maybe you could pull the trigger on a hopelessly crazed caricature of your best friend, your spouse, your child. But what if there was still a soul behind those eyes? If even as they attacked, they sobbed and screamed in their own voice? All the virus needed was a moment's hesitation.I bet you'd hesitate.I did.Which is why now I could only watch as my arm wrenched back the shower curtain and my hands reached for the cowering child. Why I could only beg for forgiveness before the virus used my mouth to tear ragged, bloody hunks from his body. Why I couldn’t even vomit as my hunger dissipated with the now sickeningly familiar taste of human flesh.We were at war. And I am the enemy.

 

The House

 

Here they come again, the brave ones. Another Halloween night, and the kids are back, here to prove their fearlessness. The old house's floorboards creak beneath their sneakers.Only half an hour until midnight, so I have to work fast. I start with their flashlight, blowing lightly against it, so that it flickers, but this inspires little more than a nervous giggle.Fifteen minutes until midnight. Time to take things up a notch. I hover up to the ceiling, and will my body into flesh. My every nerve is on fire, but they've given me no choice. I force drops of blood to trickle out my nose, but the boys below don’t notice. I knock against the ceiling, but they won’t even look up."I thought this place was supposed to be haunted," says the leader. "What a joke."Five minutes until midnight. I'm running out of time. With the last of my strength, I scream— so loud that they finally turn to look up at me. I like to think I put on a good show: I sway on an invisible noose, and the blood flows freely from my nostrils now. A couple of drops hit a skinny one with a crew cut. The boys scream and run into the night, just in time.Below me, I hear the Thing turn, its disappointment palpable. For now, it sleeps. But one day, I will fail. The boys will be too brave, and I won't scare them out in time. One day they will wake it.

 

Ghosts

 

I don't want to sound mean, but the dead are pretty clueless. I've always seen them. When I was younger everyone thought I was just talking to imaginary friends. After a couple years, when I overheard my parents talk about calling a psychologist, I realised what I was talking to. See, ghosts don't tend to realise they're dead, and they don't look like in the movies, they look just like us.I'm pretty smart for a 13 year old, so I started noticing certain patterns to tell them apart from the living. They could be a bit distant from living people, or you'd see them try to talk to people who wouldn't even notice them. Some of them could tell I was different, that I noticed them. Like this guy I saw after school yesterday. I'm a big boy now, see, I don't need my parents to pick me up, home is just a short walk away. He was standing away from the other parents, didn't talk to them, just stared at me, that's how I knew he was one of the ghosts. I went over, told him I knew what he was and asked how I could help him. I don't remember much after that, I think because of what happened this morning.Downstairs, my parents were crying. I tried talking to them but they ignored me. They must have died last night somehow, sometimes the new ghosts wouldn't talk to me. Some police officers and reporters just arrived, they won't talk to me either, just my parents. It's weird, I've never seen so many ghosts together before. Why won't anyone talk to me?

 

Imprint

Publication Date: 05-04-2017

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
I thank my mom, dad, my two brothers, buzzfeed, and whoever told me these stories