365 Short Horrors

P aranoia sinks in like ink to a piece of paper. The fear that everything is watching you is overwhelming. You hear faint whispers behind you, the creaking that could only be the floorboards beneath footsteps. You know something is coming around the corner, you can just feel it. But unlike the cheesy jump scares you find in horror movies, there is no calm before the terror. Coming home from gathering a few logs of firewood, I locked the door behind me. The cabin I stood within was cozy and cloaked me in warmth. It was my simple safety net from the terrors of the outside world. I had been living out in this cabin in the middle of the woods because the real world flooded with people was too dangerous. Seeing on the news every other day that there was a shooting, that more and more people were dying at the hands of others, either accidentally or purposefully. I fear for my own life and my own safety, making me believe that getting as far away from them as possible would be the best ...

T he edge of the universe, a single man sits at a table. He is alone in the universe. Everyone else is gone by some strange occurrence. He is the last person alive. He sits in silence, contemplating whether or not to stay alive. Is there a point in trying to fight for life when there's nobody else around to reap the benefits? As the thoughts race and his hand reaches for the gun, a knock is heard at the door. Being stuck in space wasn't the ideal place to be, especially not at the present moment. My partner, Darren and I, were sitting on the international space station, performing our routine maintenance work. We had been finished for a day or so, but without any communication from Earth, we assumed it would be best to stay until we get the okay to come back. After all, it was expensive to make these trips. Darren and I kept ourselves busy by double checking everything to make sure it was all running smoothly. Then returning to base to talk about life and what all w...

T here is currently a debate looming across my mind, should I stay where I am most comfortable, or should I try to pursue something new? Do I have a choice in the matter? The truth is I don't. There is nothing but the hand of life guiding me, pointing me in the direction I fear the most. I can see myself becoming the monster I always feared by following the path. But if it is the path life has paved for me, I assume I must follow until I reach the end. Unpacking the final box, I find myself content with the home I've made for myself in the new apartment. I wasn't too sure, and I still have my skepticisms of where I currently am. With all the things I am unsure about, the one thing I can say for certain is that this was the best outcome for me. Earlier in the previous months, I was met with a difficult choice. I was being forced to move out with a limited time to find a new place to live. I found a few different towns with a few different places to live in each. The on...

T here is the time travel debate about whether or not you would go back in time and kill baby Hitler. Some might say yes. This could lead to someone else in history rising up evil enough to be remembered as the worst person in history, equal if not worse than Hitler. Some might say no, as it could create a paradox. For, if you get rid of Hitler, it gives no reason for you to go back in time to kill them in the first place. But what if there was a third option? Stealing a time machine wasn't exactly my idea. After all, there wasn't a particular point in history I wanted to visit. I mean, it would be fun to go to the future and see what I become. I then thought it wouldn't be such a good idea. It might work against me in that I would try following the path to lead me there, but be lead astray and fall deep into an inescapable hole. Perhaps I could go back and witness a historical event? But which would it be? Maybe I could go back and see how the pyramids were really bu...

P eople are interesting in a sense that they can be lured by the simplest of means. Some by sight, some by sound. Entrapping their minds before snapping shut like a simple bug trapped in a Venus Fly Trap. Just hope that you notice what's happening before you fall into their devious trap. They waves were a little rough as we sailed across the black sea. My crew and I had been out here, trapped for days with little food. We hoped to have found land by now but, even with the furthest stretches of our scopes, nothing could been seen but more water. Why must it be that the worst happens to the best of us. There was a plague back home that killed half my family. The other half, I can only hope they're safe. Times are rough these days and the situation we're met with couldn't possibly make things worse. We've tried tossing our nets overboard in hopes of grabbing a few fish but no such luck would grace our sails. Any fish we would catch would be few and far between,...

L ooking toward the curtains, you uncover something beautiful. It is something you must have in your possession. Something you must hold in your hands and never let go. But as you hold it, you uncover the cracks, finding the imperfections that fill you with distain. How can you feel such love for something that isn't as perfect as you once saw? A word of advice, never buy into apartment complexes. They may promise you peace of mind and protection from the outside. In reality it causes you far more stress than you bargained for. You fork out a bunch of money for rent and electric, only to get half broken things and easy infestations for months. The worst part about the apartments is that there are others far more obnoxious living all around you. Their selfishness has reached heights that make you question how nobody has knocked any sense into them. It's the kind of thing that makes me question and lose faith in humanity. They are my reminder that things will only get wor...

W hat reason did you have to fall for her? Was it the friendly compassion she threw your way and you clung to harder than you should have? Was it the look in her eyes when she smiles in a  way you know she's happy? Or perhaps it was the personality that attached itself to your mind with an iron grip that screamed you needed her in your life? In the blindness of love you felt, did you ever ask what she wanted? Through the dark of night, I could faintly make out the road signs ahead. I could make them out better when the beams of the headlights from the approaching cars lit them up. I was walking in a ditch alongside the road, making my way through town, attempting to make it home. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to stop and give a poor girl a ride. I would look to every car that passes me by, hoping I'd capture their attention. I was pretty after all. Sure, I wasn't wearing anything too revealing at the moment, but I shouldn't have to for people to recognize I needed ...

T hink about one of the worst people you'd ever met, someone that did something terrible to you, ruining your life, forcing it to change for the worst. All those sleepless nights you had them running through your mind, the horrible scene playing on repeat to seemingly no end. You wish you had some way to make them feel as bad as you did. But what if you could? Waiting in line, I stood outside of the building as darkness loomed overhead. The stars were barely visible in the sky, yet the crescent moon still shown. The streets next to the sidewalk were covered in small puddles from the rain earlier in the day, reflecting the street lights in its presence. The line moved up one, a single person stepping inside to have their darkest fantasies granted. See, you may find it strange, the ability to have dark wishes granted, but it is the one thing that keeps us sane. An impossible invention created by a madman. They have only one rule to keep safety in line, nothing that happens in...

S ome say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. Some believe the world will end in screams, others in silence. Some think we will all die alone, others think we might colonize with the few left. Many theories have arisen of how the world will meet its doom. They all end with one common idea in mind, it will end with one single thought, "I wish I had more time." Stumbling through the cold, I hug myself tighter. I was thankful the gloves I had on were thick, for if they weren't I probably wouldn't have fingers right now. I've been making my way further down south for several days now. Just as the few survivors planned to do.  You may not have heard, but a sudden cold front crashed down over the Midwest. A nice, warm summer, suddenly interrupted by a cold so sharp that people who were swimming were suddenly trapped within layers of ice. Many didn't survive. Nobody knows what caused the sudden cold. Some may have pointed fingers at the climate change....

H orror isn't often about jump scares, nor the monsters hiding beneath your bed. The true horrors in the world are the ones that are real, ones that can actually happen. It is the scary truth we don't like to think about. But just because you don't think about it, doesn't make it any less likely to come true. Leading a life with a decent amount of money isn't always as good as it seems. Sure, it may absolutely have its good side, but it has some incredible drawbacks. For example, because you have more money doesn't mean you will suddenly gain more friends, nor more of a following of fans. Sure, you can buy some incredibly expensive things, it just won't end up making you happy in the end. As for how I'm carrying myself? I have a group of people surrounding me, ones that come over and play some poker every few days, much like tonight. We each took turns, putting our chips in. The one thing we do to make things interesting is playing with real mone...

M isdirection, a skill that some of the greatest magicians use. They lead your eyes astray while they do something in the opposite direction to make things appear as more than they seem. Sometimes people figure it out and dissect the process. Other times, the world isn't quite ready for the truth, their dark secret, to be revealed. It felt like it was taking forever, but I finally made it to my new apartment to drop off my final load of boxes. I wish I would have brought someone with me to help with boxes, but I wasn't so lucky to find someone. I got out of my car and headed to the back of my truck to grab a few smaller boxes. Start with the easy and finish with the challenging ones, that's the way my mind always worked. I climbed up the steps with them and unlocked my door to let myself inside. I looked around my apartment. The walls were white and clean, leading down to a dark blue carpet that appeared brand new. I dropped the boxes on the counter and made my way ...

S ometimes luck can be on your side while other times it couldn't be further away from you. You could be the lucky person to make it out alive from a disaster or you can be pinned under the rubble with no hope for a rescue. Some of us are lucky to get by with what we have. Others will find that the jealousy of such incredible luck can be a strong, and sometimes fatal, thing. Have you ever been met with such an overwhelming amount of joy for so long that it eventually feels miserable after a while? Few often do. I'm what you might consider someone with an incredible amount of luck. I mean, not everything works out the way I want it, but when it does it feels as though it's too good to be true. Over the last year, some intense things have taken over the world. First there were the plants that turned on people and killed all that tried eating healthy. We were lucky that factories could easily produce food, no matter how fake and bad for you it is. Things were recalled, b...

H orror hides in the most innocent of places. You may find your darkest fear down an aisle at a grocery store. Perhaps you might uncover it when you drive home from work. Or you might look in the mirror after a shower and find your reflection looking a little off. No matter how you stumble across the terror, it is there and ready to haunt your memories. Some of which you may never recover from. I wasn't exactly a fan of going on these long road trips. Sure, it was something for work, but it meant I was getting paid to drive for what felt like a day and a half. Yeah, I loved getting paid without being at work, but the drive itself can feel like a chore. Especially driving alone without much to keep me company. I was running low on gas and my stomach was grumbling. Finally, the perfect opportunity to make a pit stop and take a break for a few minutes. I looked for the signs along the highway that said what to expect on the next exit, but only one sign came up, a gas station. I ...

I deas come and go, like a spinning door with a constant flow of entrances and exits. Some might stick around and expand even further into something great. Others might be stick for a few moments before their mind is changed and they never look back. But what must the world the ideas live in look like from conception until its inevitable demise? I'd just gotten off the phone with the guy I'd been talking to for a while. We haven't exactly made anything official but I know he's interested, just as he knows I am. He and I met at the grocery store. I was picking up some alcohol and he must have been doing the same. We nearly bumped carts with each other before cracking jokes and we began talking. We must have hit it off because we've been talking ever since. We'd been talking for a few weeks now and he just recently invited me over to his house. He told me over the phone how to get there and I fully intended on making my way there soon, I just needed to get r...

S ometimes you don't realize something has happened until it is too late. You are only reminded of your mistake when a calamity takes place, destroying everything in its path. You find yourself flooded with guilt as you become aware that you have accidentally awakened a nightmare that continues without end. Sitting before my monitor, my cursor blinks away. It is seemingly mocking me and my built up writer's block. It is often difficult to come up with an idea, even if you had plenty of time and new experiences to develop something magical and out of the ordinary. Often times in sitting and writing, I often stare in amazement as my fingers type away rhythmically at the keyboard, continuing in such a constant motion that it almost feels satisfying. It's something that makes me feel at ease when writing unspeakable horrors that cross my mind.  I find myself sitting and thinking about the woman I've been in love with but cower in fear as I stand before her, speechle...

M istakes are made on a daily basis. Everyone does them whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. Some of us refuse the idea that they could be wrong, shutting it out of their mind and hoping people will work around it. Other people see their mistakes and beat themselves up about it when others have already forgotten its existence. No matter, mistakes hit us all. It's how we choose to deal with it that truly matters. The wolf ran faster through the woods, the villager getting closer and closer. No matter how hard the wolf ran, giving all his strength and speed, the villager was still easily able to catch up. The wolf had an idea, he took a sharp turn to the left. The wolf turned its head and saw the villager sail by, a confused look on his face. The wolf lost them. "The wolf then, made his way back home and rested in his bed in the corner. He was safe. For now." "Mommy, what happened to the villager?" my son, Weston asked, clutching his teddy bear. ...

H earing a sound in the darkness, you go to investigate. Is there a monster looming through your home, there to pay you a terrifying visit? Lights flickering and the noise gets closer. You have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It waits for the right moment before the beast pounces and you find yourself face to face with death. I was finishing the last few minutes of my show on the History channel. The idea of real vampires existing in some sense was so interesting to me. I let out a yawn and felt my eyelids growing heavy. Was it really so close to midnight? I glanced over at the clock, fifteen minutes after. As the show was on commercial, I stood from the couch, my bones cracking slightly from the first stretch of the evening. There's no way I'd been sitting for that long, I thought. I made my way to the kitchen to find my dog whining. I looked over and saw his food bowl was nearly empty, a few pieces remaining. I shook my head, a smile plastered on my face as I grabbed...

T hings aren't always as they seem. You may see two people fighting and believe them sworn enemies when they could very well be a married couple after a rough day together. A misunderstanding from a miscommunication that never happened. But what if the misunderstanding was far more confusing and far more darker than it seemed? It was difficult and seemed to take forever, but I managed to escape from work. The place was understaffed, leaving everyone there, even those that opened, to work well over ten hours that day without a break. It was something that made me want to walk out but I knew I needed the money far more than I needed to be petty. As I drove away from the store, I came across several hand-written signs stapled to poles that advertised a yard sale, just a few blocks from where I was at. I figured I might as well. A little measure of the outside world before turning in for the day. I pulled up to the house and saw several tables scattered about the yard, out fron...

T rust in the government is something very few people have, whether it be the belief that the opposite party has rigged something against the other side, or they're doing something as a mass cover-up. No matter which way you roll the dice, there's always a reason the government isn't trusted. But the biggest twists coming from there have yet to come. The world, our world, is falling apart. It has been for several years now. The people we live next to, the neighborhood of the world is crumbling before our very eyes. Anger fueled by misunderstandings because any attempt at communication is cut short by the other party refusing to listen, as they might have to go against what they believe and say they're wrong. Some might say technology is the reason behind the cruelty. Being trapped in your own little world on your phone where your dreams can play out and only serving the things that make you happy. While you're lost in the sea of dopamine, you might find it dif...

M agicians are crafty, swaying the crowd to believe their seeing one thing, but using slight of hand, misleads the people in believing true magic exists. Illusions are simply paintings on a wall. You can look on it straight on and see black and white. When you move around and the light hits it just right, the color appears and leaves you in awe and wonder of how it was done. But a good magician never reveals their secrets. I stood, leaning over the balcony on my back porch as I watched my son, Corbin, having fun running around with his friends. We invited them all over for his birthday party we were throwing for him in our backyard. They were playing around on the jungle gym we had set up for him a while back. A few kids were jumping on the small trampoline we had out there. There was a rustling in the bushes that surrounded our backyard. The kids started looking toward it and started gathering around. I too was a little curious but I think I knew exactly what it was. All of a su...

Misunderstandings can sometimes be beautiful. The well crafted creation of the miscommunication can warp reality into disasters striking and creating messes one after the other until you may see it unfixable. The misunderstanding can create a mess so well pieced together that nothing else could have caused it. And sometimes the mess created can be far greater and scarier than you may have bargained for. "Why do I have to babysit Timmy tonight?" I asked. This was my first night off in like two weeks and I have to spend it looking after some kid. "You're watching him because your mom and I are going on a date," my dad replied. "We haven't been on one in years because we've had so much going on. You know better than anyone." I rolled my eyes. I knew they had to take care of me for a few years before my little brother came along. But still, they'd been away from going out on a date for so long that you'd think they wouldn't feel...

W hen someone mentions Egypt, what comes to mind? Perhaps the great Sphinx with the riddle to stump many. Or maybe you think of the mummies from horror movies that rise from the dead, scarabs by their side to assist you in joining them in the afterlife. Or you might imagine aliens from another world, assisting in helping put together the pyramids and being perceived as gods. But no matter what you see, it all lays dormant in the past or rests its head in fiction. At least that's what they want you to think. The wind from the open world whipped against my face, making it difficult to keep my eyes open. My team and I were traveling in an open jeep as we raced to make it to the ancient pyramids of the Nile. We were a team of archeologist, sent to investigate everything in the pyramids, document them, and send all the information back to our group over in the states. My friends, Joe and Nathan, sat up front, cracking jokes, whooping and hollering as we drove. I sat in the back wi...