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

A Pile of Photographs

 

A young girl walking home from school found a small pile of Polaroid photos lying in the gutter. There were twenty in all, neatly wrapped in a rubber band. She picked them up, and as she walked, she started to browse. The first photo was that of a ghostly white man on a black background, standing just far enough away from the camera that she couldn’t make out his features. The girl slid the photo to the back of the stack and looked at the next one. The photo was of the same man now standing a bit closer. The girl flipped through the next several photos quickly.

With each one the man in the picture came a bit closer and his features were a bit clearer. Turning the last corner to her house, the girl noticed that the man in the photos seems to be looking at her even when she moved the stack from side to side. It frightened her, but she kept flipping them over, one by one. By the nineteenth picture, the man was so close his face completely filled the frame. His expression was the most horrifying the girl had ever seen. Walking up the driveway, she turned to the last photo. This time, instead of an image, there were two words: "Close enough."

Hearing a scream outside their house, the girl’s brother rushed to the door and opened it. All he saw was a pile of photographs lying on the doorstep. The top one looked like an extremely pale version of his sister, but she was standing too far back for him to be sure.

The Photographs

 

One of the photos the woman made

A few months ago a friend of mine, who is a nature photographer, decided to spend a day and night alone in the woods outside of our town. She wanted to get photos of the woods 

 

 

She wanted to get photos of the woods and wildlife as naturally as she could for her portfolio.

She wasn't afraid of being alone, as she had camped by herself many times before. She set up a tent in the middle of a small clearing and spent the day taking pictures. She filled up four rolls of film on that trip, but when she went and got them developed she saw four pictures that unsettled her. These four pictures were taken from inside the tent.

Of her, asleep in the middle of the night.

My day :)

 by  willbo360

 

 

I can't see them :(

I always watch TV with my friends through the window, but the curtains are closed tonight

How can I be friends with my friends if I can't see them?

I need to see them.

My friends :)

I like to watch TV with them this time of day.

I can't hear the sound but I like to watch anyways.

I like to be with my friends :)

I need to be with my friends.

I know they like me.

The have such a nice house, door around back, my favorite window around the side :)

They have a nice mailbox. Very nice and red.

I sleep under the porch in my cozy nest.

They leave a bowl on the steps for me, and I share with the nice dog.

I go to the door around back so I can watch the TV with them.

The curtains are closed so I have to go around back, to the door.

The door doesn't open but I try another way, another way in.

I break the glass with my hand and open the door.

I will surprise my friends. I have never been inside before.

They will be so happy to see me inside.

The don't notice when I walk up behind them, and I am too shy to tell them I am here.

They look at the TV. Their eyes are glued to the screen. I watch with them :)

We are having so much fun :))) haha

I watch for so long then gather up courage to say hello to my friends :)))

They are so excited that I am inside with them, watching TV with them.

They scream with excitement :)

We play tag. I have played this with many of the neighborhood kids, so I am good at it.

The boy and the girl run but I catch them :)

So silly, my friends :)

Then we are all tired.

It is nap time :)

The boy and the girl lay on the ground and sleep.

I go back to my nest

It has been a fun day with my friends :)

Grandpa's second voice

 by tennysonspeaks

 

 

When I was younger, my grandpa and I would watch those medical mystery TV shows. You know, the ones with six-legged cows or skinless babies that still manage to live. Weird allergies, genetic mutations, and even the somewhat comical "Well the doctor made a really big oops and left medical equipment inside of you and you've been living with it for 5+ years" stories. They were educational and gross at the same time, something that I fed off of as a young teen.

Grandpa would always joke around that he should be on those shows. I knew he wasn't serious - he hated drawing attention to his issue. I would occupy myself with what they would title an episode of his, and always came back to the blunt, retro movie title of "The Man with Two Voices".

Ever since any of my family can remember, grandpa's had "two voices". The only way for me to describe it is to compare it to having phlegm in your throat when you're sick, and how it sometimes creates a split in your voice. There's your normal speaking voice that you can hear fine, but underneath it is like a deeper growly echo. Then it'd be gone when you cleared your throat. My grandpa is like that all the time, but his "second voice" is just as loud as his normal voice.

I remember him telling me stories when he was much younger, and his mother pulling her hair out over the whole ordeal. Took him to doctors that stuck scopes and lights down his throat - nothing. Primitive x-rays on his neck - nothing. I used to ask grandpa why he didn't go back to the doctor after that, especially now with all the new things they have in hospitals that he didn't have growing up.

It was always the same answer, "They can't tell me nothin' new."

We named his second voice "Ed". My grandpa's name was Albert, usually Al, so it sounded like a TV show. Ed & Al. Al & Ed.

When my grandpa died, it was tragic. Despite his vocal anomaly, he had tons of friends and people that loved him. Or, my skeptical mother would say, people that liked his "circus act".

Her skepticism - that grandpa was using some sort of parlor trick - was quickly debunked at his autopsy.

Grandpa should have gone back to the doctor, we learned. An ultrasound would have indicated that his beer gut wasn't actually beer, and his "second voice" was literally a second voice. The small, curled-up body of his unknown twin was unearthed from his belly, connected to his esophagus below his collarbone. His childhood doctors did not detect it.

It was made clear, then, that the hollow tube connecting the mouth of grandpa's twin to his esophagus was the source of grandpa's second voice. A voice that kept talking past grandpa's death, according to the autopsist. Ed was still alive some days after that.

Crazy Hispanic woman at the swap meet

by Spooky-Monsters

 

 

 

This happened to me when I was four years old and was still living with my family in San Diego, CA. It was a summer morning and, as was customary for my family on the weekends, it was decided to go to the closest swap meet to do some shopping right after having breakfast at our favourite pancake place.

Before I share my account of what happened I need to make two things clear; the first one, is that I’m a female and even though I’m Caucasian, having very curly black hair has often made people think that I’m Hispanic or biracial. Secondly, there were two things that always and I mean ALWAYS, made my father distracted whenever we went out: Women and tools.

Now, on the day in question my father was looking for some specific tool he needed to work on some armoire he’d been asked to make for a client, while my heavily pregnant mother had decided it was time to buy the last items she needed for the baby before she could go into emergency labour.

To