A terrifying trio of new short scary stories

The Shadow

A friend just sent Janice one of those “there-was-no-one-else-in-the-room” photos. It was a shot looking into the living room of her apartment and in a corner of the room was a blurry, shadowy person-like thing. There are no facial features, just darkness in the shape of a human. Cass said she was freaked out and asked Janice to come over, which she did.

The two women had lost contact for about a year, so it was a good opportunity to catch up on her life, thought Janice, but she was shocked when Cass answered the door. Her old friend was pale and gaunt and looked like she hadn’t slept in days. They each had a glass of wine and Janice droned on with gossip and ranted about the men that had come and gone in her life. She finally realized she was literally doing all the talking.

“What’s going on with you, Cass? Are you okay?” A chill suddenly gripped her body.

“I’m so sorry, Janice.”

“Sorry? For what?” The light coming in from windows behind her was being blocked out.

“It makes me do this.”

The room was growing dark as if an eclipse was underway. “Do what?”

“Lure its prey.”

Janice’s panicked scream was quickly muffled as the smoky shadow enveloped her and began feeding.

The Spirit Box

There were three sharp raps on his dorm room door, but before Jason could get up and answer it, Flip Sherman sauntered in and set a white box on Jason’s desk. It was about the size of a paving brick and resembled a radio.

“It’s a spirit box,” announced Flip.

Jason’s expression turned quizzical. “A spirit box? You don’t mean the “talk to the dead” kind of spirit box, do you?”

“I do. I’m starting my own ghost hunting crew. Wanna join?”

Retaking his seat, Jason shook his head. “Ghost hunters? No thanks, man. I’m a science major for a reason. I only deal in facts and reality.”

Undaunted, Flip picked up the box and turned it on. Annoying static filled the room.

“Flip, come on...”

“Is there anyone here with us? Please tell us your name.” The static continued until the whispery word “Charon” broke through the white noise. “Sounded like ‘Karan’ to me.”

“But it’s a dude.”

The voice was louder this time. “Charon.” Once again, it barked, “CHARON.”

Standing in the hallway, Glenn knocked impatiently on the door, then called out. “Jason? You in there?”

He pushed open the door and entered the room. It was empty, but static escaped from the spirit box sitting on the desk. Glenn walked over and picked it up.

“Glenn,” came a warbly, frightened voice just above the hissing noise. “Help us.

The Promise

The man in the coffin at the end of the room was my husband Edmond Copper. Not a successful or lucky man, he’d owned several small businesses during his lifetime that failed for one reason or another. He also endured two marriages far longer than he needed to because he was never very good at reading the signs of a relationship in trouble. I was his second wife, and toward the end we were only going through the motions.

Edmond committed suicide a few days ago.

I came home from work one evening and found him on the bedroom floor, blood pooled around his thin, pale face. He’d been in a state of deep depression for months, and while I was horrified by the scene, I wasn’t completely surprised.

After the funeral I returned to my empty, lifeless house and poured a glass of wine. Trying to relax on the couch, my eyes landed on a photo of the two of us taken on our vacation to Hawaii several years ago. I don’t know why, but I recalled we promised each other that whoever died first would contact the other one. Those were the kinds of conversations we had after several Mai Tais. Tired, my energy spent, I climbed the stairs and went to my bedroom, only to pull up short as I neared the bed.

Lying on the comforter were two objects; a photo of my lover Paul, and Edmond’s .38 Smith & Wesson.

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.”

The terror never ends: Two more short scary stories

The Affair

Jeremy knew his wife Gail was having an affair. The only information he’d discovered about the man she was seeing was his last name, Chamberlain, and he didn’t really care to know anything else about him. The marriage was over and he and Gail were merely going through the motions.

Clues started to appear that Gail’s relationship was turning sour. Her face betrayed bruises and she was making and taking frantic calls at all hours. Jeremy kept his distance from the drama in her life, feeling that whatever problems she was having she brought on herself.

Then Gail disappeared. Jeremy came home from his office to find the house empty, which wasn’t unusual, but when Gail didn’t return for two days, he started to become concerned. She hadn’t packed any clothes for a trip. No note or text. Another 24 hours and he’d call the police.

The following morning, Jeremy was driving to work when the flashing lights of a police cruiser burst on behind him. Agitated, he pulled over and lowered the window for a burly, grim officer.

 “Morning. I pulled you over because I noticed your trunk had popped open.”

“Really?”

“Come back and take a look, sir.”

Jeremy got out and followed the cop to the rear of the car where the trunk was indeed open and to his shock, inside was the bloody, lifeless body of Gail in a fetal position. Cuffed and dazed, Jeremy leaned against the cruiser as the cop called it in.

“This is Officer Chamberlain, requesting back up and an ambulance.”

The Call

The floor was buzzing like an angry hive. It was mid-afternoon on Monday, the busiest day of the week, and 40 callers were chattering into their headsets trying to convince bored housewives that a three-day spa experience at their local Healthy World Retreat would change their lives.

I was one of those voices, following our tired script, trying to sell people something they didn’t need and couldn’t afford. Unfortunately for me, a master’s degree in biology was useless here, or anywhere else for that matter, and I struggled daily with my anger over having to work at a totally useless job just to survive. 

Tiredly, I dialed a number. A woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Dan from Healthy World Retreats calling, how are you today?” 

“You don’t sound very well, Dan.”

“Good. I understand your time is valuable so I’ll make this brief.”

“You know you deserve better.”

“Life is stressful, but we can help.”

“I hear the anger behind your words. Who can blame you?”

“Let’s talk about—“

“What a miserable nightmare your life is?”

“I’m just doing what I need to do.”

“You don’t have to pretend for me. You’re mad as hell. You’ve been screwed.”

“I know, but—“

“Did you bring it? I think it’s time to finally be a man and make someone pay.”

“Yes, Mother,” I said, reaching deep into my briefcase. “You’re right as usual.”

Fresh from my twisted mind: 3 new short scary stories

Poor Choices

Jacob Coleman had spent the two months since his mother’s passing renovating the childhood home he’d inherited. It was a decrepit older house badly in need of a face-lift that would help him forget about a tough childhood of desperate poverty.

While removing strips of ancient, yellowed wallpaper from what used to be the bedroom he shared with his brother, Jacob noticed a slightly raised portion on the freshly peeled wall surface. It resembled the outline of a door.

Making a hole just large enough to see in, he discovered that there was in fact a door on the other side. He broke away the drywall, took a deep breath and pulled the knob. Light penetrated the dust-laden darkness until it revealed what Jacob first mistook for a large doll, but looking closer, discovered it was the dried, leathery skin of a dead child.

The sight and smell of the body hit Jacob like a stomach punch, and he staggered backwards until he reached a far wall. Preparing to bolt for the doorway, his body was instantly paralyzed when he heard scratching and shuffling noises coming from the now open tomb.

A faint shadow emerged, followed by the small, translucent boy, his eyes dark and vacant, wearing an expression of eternal sadness.

Jacob managed a whisper. “Brett?”

The boy looked up. “Yes.”

“Mama told me you ran away.”

“They could only afford to feed one of us.”

The Old Country

Jenny’s grandmother came to America from a place she couldn’t even pronounce in Eastern Europe. The elderly woman had lived in a rural area and was very poor most of her life, so she mended clothes and cooked with herbs she picked herself and made every meal from scratch. “It’s how we do it in the Old Country,” she would say. Despite being a kind and cheerful person, Jenny was always a little uncomfortable when her mom wasn’t there and it was just the two of them.

Jenny came home from school one day and her grandmother said that Jenny’s mother had tripped on the stairs and broken her ankle, and she would have to stay with Grandma for awhile. The girl wasn’t crazy about the idea, but had no choice.

Grandma lived in a small house and Jenny had to sleep on a couch in the den. Later that night, Jenny was awakened by noises coming from somewhere in the dark house. She got up to investigate and found that the grinding noise was coming from the basement. She opened the door and called out.

“Down here, sweetheart. Don’t be afraid.”

Jenny cautiously came down the steps. It smelled awful and she pinched her nose. At the bottom of the stairs she turned to her right and saw her Grandma grinding meat and packing sausages. On a bloody table lay the pale, naked body of a man minus a leg. Jenny was too terrified to scream.

Smiling, Grandma kept grinding. “It’s how we do it in the Old Country.”

The Big Bad Wolf

Three stools down from me at the Missoula Café, Fred Knudson was sipping coffee and staring blankly at the wall on the other side of the counter. I only took notice of it because his hands were shaking pretty badly, and I’d never seen him like that before.

“I know it’s none of my business, but you okay, Fred?” I asked.

He turned toward me, and I could see he was pale and his eyes were bloodshot.

“No sir, I’m not okay. Last night, something tried to break into my house.”

“Something? What, a deer or bear?”

“That’s what’s got me riled up, Quentin, because what I seen on the porch wasn’t a four legged creature. It stood on two legs, but…”

“But what?”

“Now don’t you laugh, but this thing had bright red eyes and looked like a man-sized wolf. And no, I wasn’t drinking.”

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into Fred’s driveway just behind him. He showed me where the thing had been and sure enough, there were large paw prints in the snow on his porch.

“Even though I had my rifle with me, I called 911. I think the lights from the police cruiser scared it off.”

“What do you imagine this thing wanted?” I asked.

“Hell, I don’t know.”

“Didn’t I hear you shot a wolf a few days ago?”

“Yeah. It killed two of my sheep. I got a right to protect what’s mine.”

“True,” I said through growing fangs. “And I have a right to protect what’s mine.”