Boo! Two new short scary stories

The Audition

The room was a large, open, unfinished loft. In the middle of the space, a nervous Kyle Evers sat in a folding chair holding a script. Several feet away, movie director Eve Tolbertson sat behind a picnic table, a script lying on it in front of her.

“Thanks for coming down, Kyle. I know actors hate cold readings, but it is what it is.”

“Oh, no problem.”

“Great. Okay, let me set up the scene. Your character Jerry is your age and height. He’s a bartender at a club downtown and…. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I’m a bartender downtown.”

“Okay. So Jerry’s goal is to be an actor, but it’s been tough and he’s only found work as an extra. Then an audition for a film pops up that he’s very excited about.”

“Look, I’m really sorry to interrupt, but you’re describing my life…exactly my life. How can that be?”

Eve took off her glasses and set them on the script. “I hope not, because Jerry finds out that his girlfriend Anna is cheating on him and he stabs her to death with a butcher knife.”

“Shut the fuck up. My girlfriend’s name is…” His phone rang and he checked the caller ID. “I’m really sorry but I have to take this.” He put the phone to his ear. “Jean, what is it?”

“Oh my god, Kyle. Something horrible has happened to Anna…”

I Remember

I remember everything about that night. There was a squeaky gate in the picket fence surrounding the house. I remember there was no moon that night, just like tonight, and the air was chilly and damp. We went to the back door and into the kitchen and there was a chemical, hospital-like smell that enveloped us.

The door to the basement was just off of the kitchen, and the stairs going down were old and noisy.  I remember being laid on a cold hard table and the sounds of metal things clinking together. The light over me was bright and I couldn’t look at it very long.  Something was wheeled up next to me. Then his piggish, sweaty face suddenly hovered over mine, and his eyes were wide with excitement and he grinned at the moment I felt the pressure of the blade on my arm.  Then, all I remember was searing pain and screaming. Waves of pain and screaming.

As I make my way quietly down the hallway, a grandfather clock chimes three times, and I remember hearing that sound from the basement as my energy dissipated and death overtook me.

Now in his bedroom, I watch as he snores and his fat body rises and falls to the grating noise. Tonight, I’m going to help him remember me.

A frightening new duo of short scary stories

The Accident

It was one a.m. and Guy Halverson sat in his dark living room. He hadn’t moved for over an hour. The accident earlier that evening kept playing over and over in his mind. The light turned red, but he was in a hurry and accelerated. An orange blur came from his right, and in a split second there was a violent jolt, then the bicyclist rolled across his hood and fell out of sight on the pavement. Horns blared angrily and he panicked, stepping on the gas and screeching away from the chaos into the darkness, shaken and keeping an eye on his rearview mirror until he got home.

Why did you run, you idiot? He’d never committed a crime before this and punished himself by imagining years in jail, his career gone, his family gone, his future gone.

Why not just go to the police right now? You can afford a lawyer.

Then someone tapped on the front door and his world suddenly crumbled away beneath him. They found me. There was nothing he could do but answer it. Running would only make matters worse. His body trembling, he got up, went to the door and opened it. A police officer stood under the porch light.

“Mr. Halverson?” asked the grim officer.

He let out a defeated sigh. “Yes. Let me—"

“I am terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your son’s bike was struck by a hit and run driver this evening. He died at the scene. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Voyeur

He was lonely. His wife of ten years had just left him. What’s the bid deal? Les stood near the window of his darkened bedroom watching the new neighbor’s teenage daughter brush her long black hair. She was willowy with creamy, flawless skin and very attractive. He wasn’t hurting anybody.

Mid-brush, she suddenly looked up in his direction. Les snapped back further into the darkness, worried she may have seen him and tell someone he was a creepy peeping Tom, but it wasn’t like that. Was it?

The next morning Les walked to his car in the driveway. He happened to glance up, and to his discomfort the girl stood at her window, expressionless, watching him with dark accusatory eyes.

Her appearance at the window disturbed him the entire day. Did it mean anything? Was it a message? Later that evening as he got ready for bed, the window beckoned him again. Lights off, palms damp, Les edged to the sill and peered out.

His knees went weak from shock. Framed in the window were the girl’s calves and feet as they swayed gently in mid-air. Les rushed from the house, jumped up onto his neighbor’s porch and pounded on the door. A thin tattooed man in a sleeveless T-shirt opened the door.

 “I know we haven’t met, but I just happened to look out my bedroom window a few minutes ago and I think your daughter is trying to commit suicide.”

The man frowned and his eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re smoking friend, but we don’t have a daughter.”

2 New Short Scary Stories

The Silver Ring

Gary Donovan’s shovel slid easily into the dark earth in his backyard. He glanced over at the pile of dirt he’d created and saw something glittering. It was a woman’s silver ring with a large single diamond. Inside, he washed off the old yet elegant piece of jewelry. Kim came into the kitchen and he hid it behind his back.

“What have you got?” she asked suspiciously.

He held out the ring. “Marry me? Again?”

Taken by surprise, she plucked the ring from his fingers.. “Where did you get this?”

“Say ‘yes’ and I’ll tell you.”

She hesitated. “Come on, Gary.”

“The hole in the backyard for the koi pond.”

“Wow. Buried treasure.” Surprisingly, the ring fit. Then her face darkened. “Don’t think this makes up for everything.”

No, he knew, nothing would ever make up for the lying and cheating. A few days later, a sweaty Gary stood back, admiring his work. He called for Kim. Arms crossed, looking annoyed, she stood at the edge of the cavity.

“Nice hole,” she said.

The shovel cracked against the back of her head like the sound of a solid double. Kim fell face first into the black earth at the bottom of the hole.

Two months passed and Gary sat on his deck enjoying the silvery orange koi in his new pond.

“Gary,” a woman cried from inside the house. Dawn came bouncing out onto the deck holding out her left hand. “How did you get that on my finger without waking me up?” She proudly displayed an antique silver ring with a large single diamond. “Yes, I will.”

Apartment 118

After having lived in his apartment for what seemed like an eternity, Cliff had still not met or even seen his next-door neighbor. He knew someone lived there because he heard the occasional thump, water running and muffled snippets of voices through the shared wall. Being a private person himself, it didn’t really bother Cliff that he’d never met the people next door, but it did seem strange that he didn’t even know what they looked like.

The situation abruptly changed one night when he was awakened by a woman screaming. After several heart-stopping shrieks followed by sobbing, Cliff got out of bed and went to the neighbor’s door. No one answered after several loud knocks, and the screaming stopped. Cliff was reluctant to meddle, but the woman sounded like she was in trouble, so he dialed 911.

The police arrived shortly and knocked a number of times on the door, but there was no answer. Several minutes later the building manager, looking dazed and concerned in her bathrobe, joined the officers in front of the apartment door.

“What’s gong on?” she asked.

“Gentleman who lives in that apartment, 118, called and claimed he heard a woman screaming in the apartment next door. No one’s answering their door.”

“That’s because both apartments are empty.”