Tag Archive for: dark moments

An Excavation

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by Cailín Frankland

They took our relics first: pots and tools, playthings and jewellery. This we tolerated, chuckling at their blustering talk of papers, conferences, museum displays. We bore their ambition, indulged their curiosity—even in death, we are a generous people.

Then they stole our bones. They extracted ribs with dental picks, boxed up our vertebrae—we felt brushes graze our clavicles, trowels scratch our shoulder blades. When they took our limbs, we warned them—we shook the earth beneath them, snuffed their precious flashlights. They came for our skulls anyway.

In life, the diggers pitied us. Now we are the same.

Cailín Frankland

Cailín Frankland (she/they) is a British-American writer and public health professional based in Baltimore, Maryland. An avid reader and horror aficionado, their work explores themes related to feminism, queerness, disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and intergenerational trauma. They live with their spouse, two old lady cats, and a 70-pound pit bull affectionately known as Baby.

 

The Doctor Will Be With You Shortly

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by Weird Wilkins

The gas has done its job. You lie there barely awake, the pain in your teeth has numbed, from agony to a dull ache.

You lie there on the chair, dreading what comes next, your drooling mouth held agape by metal and perspex.

It’s then that you spot it, hardly a spec to your blurred eyes, something dark on the ceiling, something that likes to eat flies.

You try to jerk away, to close your mouth and run, but the gas has done its job so well, you can barely twitch your thumb.

And on a thread… Here it comes…

Weird Wilkins

Hailing from the deepest, darkest pits of England, Weird Wilkins is a fresh-faced writer and lifelong horror fanatic. He writes firmly in the “weird fiction” sub-genre and has a particular passion for folklore, the supernatural and healthy lashings of body horror.

Facebook: @weirdwilkins

The Surgeon

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by Tracy Davidson

For someone who spends so much time wielding scalpels, a sudden attack of haemophobia is somewhat inconvenient.

My therapist shares my fear. She talks me through her coping mechanisms. She’s good. I feel the panic and anxiety leaving my body. Hands stop trembling at the merest thought of scarlet oozing over my gloves. She’s really good. I’m me again.

Alas, for her, she proves too good a listener. She now knows I’m a serial killer—not surgeon. My fear has gone. But hers returns.

I show mercy by blindfolding her. Oops! Seems she’s afraid of the dark, too. Oh well.

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, Black Hare Press, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.

The Same As You

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by Tim Law

I watched on, helpless, as you faded away. All of those crosswords, logic puzzles, the way you challenged and stretched your mind. Nothing seemed to help, nothing stopped or even stalled your decline. You were the smartest and most caring person I know. In the end, you became nothing more than a blubbering mess.

I thought your love for mathematics would save you, hoped intelligence would win the day.

Now I push myself to write, to draw, to stretch my mind in new directions. Every idea, each new thought, I try outrunning the fear your fate will, too, be mine.

Tim Law

 

Hydro-Phobia

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by Anastasia Jill

Hydro—

Foam, like venom bile. Jaws, square and concrete, hit the floor. Throat open, wide open

and dry as a desert. Shaking, shaking, shaking—Please! I’m so scared.

My mouth is so large, but my throat is so small.

Water, water? WATER! NO! Get away from me—

—phobia

Brain? It is so heavy; it is sick; it is not mine. It’s in the bats

and racoons and foxes and coyotes that ravaged me.

Blood, it is rabid, scratching its way out of my failing skin.

I’m scared and dying. Please, tear my red lane open. Please.

I just need a drop

to drink—

Anastasia Jill

Anastasia Jill (they/them) is a queer writer living in Central Florida. They have been nominated for Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and several other honours. Their work has been featured or is upcoming with Poets.org, Sundog Lit, Flash Fiction Online, Contemporary Verse 2, Broken Pencil, and more.

Hellekin

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by P.S. Traum

Pasty white corpse makeup, a cackling laugh… A clown at a party is funny, but when you encounter that same clown in a dark alley at night, waiting for you with an unholy grin? Jesters, clowns, all actually very disturbing. You don’t know who is really hiding under that garish wig, lurking in that carnival the children are wandering into. Lunatics, killers, perverts…and worse.

I stare into the mirror and no longer know who or what I am. My frozen smile brings me no joy. I can’t remember whose blood I’m covered in, but I can still hear their screams…

P.S. Traum

P.S. Traum is an author with a range of styles who has had short stories published in several recent small press genre publications. Traum eschews publicity in the hopes the storylines and characters get all the attention without preconceived perceptions of external context.

Feeling Sleepy

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by Liam Kerry

Relax.

Close your eyes.

Breathe slowly. In. And out. In. And out. That’s it.

Focus on the arm that I am holding up.

When I release it, you will fall into a deep sleep.

That’s it.

So, let’s tackle this phobia. When you wake up, darkness will no longer frighten you. You will take control, searching for a sharp object to slash the nearest person with. Over and over. Until they stop moving. You will forget everything upon encountering daylight.

Now. When I count down from 5, you’ll slowly re-enter the room.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1.

Welcome back, Jason.

Liam Kerry

 

Eye Spy

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by Bridget Holland

Once, I loved the beach. Sand, sea, open sky. But the birds were watching me.

I moved to the shops along the esplanade, hid in crowds and covered spaces. One among many. Hidden, safe. But sharp eyes found me.

In my apartment, door locked, blinds drawn. I order groceries and takeout. I tell them to ring, then leave the deliveries.

Yesterday, when the doorbell rang, I checked the peephole. A beady yellow eye looked back.

Today, I can’t leave the bedroom. I hear something clacking on the floorboards outside.

I could hide in the closet.

…Will I ever come out?

Bridget Holland

Bridget’s a reader, dreamer and writer living in Australia and in her imagination.

Der Spiegelgeist

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by Jonathan L. Tolstedt

This ignorant schweinhund says I have eisoptrophobia. A fear of my own reflection. I’m not a handsome man, but he’ll not understand until he sees it. He’s suggested exposure therapy to desensitise me and smugly holds the cloth covering the mirror.

He stands behind me and tugs, revealing our reflections, and something twisted, horrible. Der Spiegelgeist—mirror ghost—the reflection that has been severed from a newly formed vampire, existing, destroying, only inside the mirror.

I’m relieved when it attacks the therapist’s reflection first. His real-world counterpart’s torn open, spraying me with warm blood.

I close my eyes and wait.

Jonathan L. Tolstedt

Jonathan Tolstedt is a patent agent by day and evolving writer by night. He has previously published a short horror story (2018) and had his stories “The Savage Jungle” and “Holiday Closeout” accepted for publication in the recent Dark Moments Jungle Terrors and Mannequin Horrors calls for Black Hare Press.

The Rollercoaster

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by Andrew Kurtz

“Come on, chicken, get on the rollercoaster!” Sam shouted to Frank.

“I’ll wait down here,” Frank responded, his knees feeling like jelly and heart pounding like a drum in his chest at just the sight of the ride.

“You better deal with that phobia,” Sam advised as the Rollercoaster began to move.

“I am,” whispered Frank, checking his watch.

A huge explosion rocked the amusement park. There were no survivors as the Rollercoaster was a mixture of crushed metal and mangled flesh oozing clumps of blood.

“One down, hundreds more to go. No more rollercoasters, no more phobia,” Frank grinned.

Andrew Kurtz

Andrew Kurtz is an up-and-coming horror author who writes very graphic and violent short stories which have appeared in numerous horror anthologies.

Since childhood, he has loved horror films and literature.

His favourite authors are Stephen King, Clive Barker, H.G. Wells, Richard Matheson, Edgar Rice Boroughs, and Ian Fleming.

Website: linktr.ee/horror672