Reddit Collection (Fresh-Short #10) by DeYtH Banger (books to get back into reading txt) 📖

to do the same thing to me that it did to that poor bastard downstairs. It was going to invade my body to stay alive. That’s why it was watching me. It was studying my actions, waiting or the right time to strike. I wondered how it came to be. Was it made in a lab? Was it the product of some satanic ritual? It was very close now, maybe only a few feet away. It lumbered towards me like a toddler trying to hug a teddy bear when an audible thump made it stop. Behind it, I saw the bedroom door open and Taylor who had just dropped his beer bottle in shock. He ran up to try and grab the thing before I could stop him. His hand when through its body like jello, and it quickly slid its form around him, sticking its arms and appendages into his mouth, nostrils, ears, and everywhere else it could move into his body. He screamed and writhed in protest, but I just stood there, motionless. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen.

 

I ran past the thing and Taylor and slammed the door shut behind me. I had to call the police. I had to get far away from that thing. I had to… WHAP. I tripped down the stairs in my haste and smacked my head against the bottom step. I felt a warm stream of blood slide down my face. I looked at the top of the steps to see Taylor, his eyes now merely shriveled pits under the control of that thing. It walked downstairs awkwardly, but with more grace than in its true form. I crawled towards my front door on my hands and knees. I couldn’t let that thing have me. I managed to crawl over to my truck and get inside. Luckily, I had kept my keys in my pocket from work. I started the thing up just seconds after the thing had made it over to me and smashed my window with Taylor’s hand. Thick, black oozing blood dripped from the wounded hand as he reached for me. I slammed on the gas and sped away into the night.

 

My heart didn’t stop pounding until I was about an hour away from my house. I didn’t even think to grab my cell-phone before I had left, so I stopped at a gas station to ask to use their phone to call the police. The gruff, middle-aged store clerk looked me up and down. I must have looked really shaken up and he took pity on me. I called the Eckerd County Police Department and a young-sounding female dispatcher picked up. I explained the incident as best I could without it sounding like a prank and as calmly as I could, asked if they could look for Taylor. The woman’s response seemed puzzled. “We got a call from a man named Taylor Matthews a little over an hour and a half ago. We already have officers at the scene and they found the bodies of two people.”

 

I let the phone slip away from my face for a second as I attempted to lift my head up and keep from puking. Taylor was dead, and that thing was still out there. “Get everyone out of the house.” I whispered. I hung up the phone, paid for fifty dollars in gas and roared back towards home. I couldn’t let one more person become the victim of that thing. After about twenty minutes of driving, I heard the engine of my truck make a massive CLANK as it rolled to a stop. “No, no, no, no shit!” I said to myself as it came to rest on the side of the road. I got out and popped the hood to look inside. There was thick, gooey oil all over the inside of my engine. I cleaned it out the best I could and got back into the cabin of my truck. I punched the steering wheel several times out of anger and heard the horn echo through the woods. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t have a cell-phone to call for help and I was at least thirty minutes from town.

I opened the door and started to step out of the truck when I heard that voice again; the inhuman timbre of a being that I didn’t understand. “It’s so cold.” It said quietly. I looked back to see that thing’s cheerful eyes and mouth staring at me with an enormous grin, its body resting half-formed sitting in the passenger seat of my truck. Its mouth oozed black liquid as it spoke. It grabbed me with its disgusting, appendages.. “I’m sure you understand.”

 

Credit To – Ben Meadows

Cracks and Bones

 by WontThinkStraight

 

 

 

The more stories I collect, the more I start to question what our reality actually is. Like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, perhaps what we think of as real is nothing more than flickering shadows across a dim wall. Our minds try their best to piece together these echoes of reality with our limited senses, but the great world of truth lies beyond our reach and comprehension.

But there are some of us who can, and do perceive reality very differently to rest of us. After reading my last two stories, my friend Steve spoke of one of these people - his ex-girlfriend Christine.

 

They had met at University where they attended the same Psychology course. From the first time he saw her, he knew that she was special. She had an otherworldly quality to her, mixed with a strange intensity that he saw in few others. She was exceptionally bright - almost inhumanly so, and it took several weeks of relentless courting before she relented to finally start dating him.

It was months into their relationship that Steve was able to piece together why Christine was like no other person he had known. Christine was an individual with a rare form of synesthesia, which gave her a very unique perspective on the world. She processed stimuli in a very different way - her brain mixed up her senses so she could hear colours, smell sounds or even tastenumbers.

She was a genius at mathematics because she could intuitively feel the right answers - they would "taste" right to her. She had this ability for as long as she could remember. Growing up, she had assumed everyone could do it too. It was not until third grade when she asked her teacher why the school bell always smelled like oranges did she discover she was different.

Her classmates would laugh at her, and call her a "freak". So she would avoid talking about her abilities, and kept it secret throughout high school. Her synesthesia only got stronger as she got older. By the time high school ended, she had already decided to devote herself to the study of the human mind so she could learn more about herself. Steve was the first person since primary school that she had trusted enough to tell.

 

She had loved the fact Steve was also a psychology major, and was just as intrigued as she was about her ability. They spent countless hours discussing how she experienced the world, which was so much richer and varied than he could imagine. She told him that the number 1 tasted like chocolate, 3 was cinnamon, 6 was garlic, and 8 was cut grass. For her, doing multiplications (for example) was like cooking - she could taste the result and know if the answer was right.

It seemed as if she experienced a whole new other world that no one else sense.

 

The most intense of her sensations were for colours. Each colour had a unique voice and personality that spoke to her - especially when she touched it. Red was an old woman, kind and gentle, like a grandmother. Blue was angry and impatient, constantly rushing her. Green was stern and strict whilst yellow was proud and arrogant. Black was pure silence - the absence of all sound. Her favourite was White - seductive and passionate. She loved wearing white.

 

There was one colour she truly feared though - dark grey. Even just a shade above black, and she would start to hear whispers rising from the silence. A few shades lighter, and the voices would get louder.

Evil voices, whispering in her ear. Delighting in telling her how her skin would be flayed strip by strip from her conscious body. How her flesh would be devoured and torn from her bones while she was awake. How her eyeballs would be scooped from her skull so she could see a thousand pointed teeth tearing at her face.

 

Needless to say, she hated night time, and the dark. She had to always sleep with the lights on, and with sleeping tablets so she wouldn't dream when her eyes were closed.

 

When Steve and Christine moved in together, they found an old apartment in a nice neighbourhood with white plaster walls all around. It was perfect for them - close to the university and their work, very spacious, and surprisingly affordable. Christine had loved the feel of it the moment she saw it - and Steve would have no complaints with how much friskier she was in this white apartment.

Steve was careful to avoid any grey in the house. Each room was a different colour to match it's purpose: their study desk was green and their kitchen was red.

 

Their bedroom in particular was furnished in white, from the painted wardrobe, to the white bed linen and the white carpet. Steve even took care with the lighting to avoid any shadows casting grey spots in the room. In their first week there, both had failed to attend any classes due to their extensive love making sessions.

It was after one of these particularly passionate sessions, while Steve lay asleep on the bed that Christine noticed a faint crack in the opposite wall. Against the stark white plaster, the thin grey line seemed to whisper imperceptibly to her from across the room. While it annoyed her, she decided to deal with it tomorrow as they had a lot of catching up with classes to do. She took her sleeping pills, and drifted off to a dreamless slumber.

 

For the next day, she had completely forgotten about the crack, until she was in bed again staring at it. It became like an itch she couldn't scratch - it became more noticeable because she knew it was there.

It called and beckoned to her, whispering to her to get closer. The more she gazed at it, the wider and thicker the grey crack seemed to get. She nudged Steve, who reassured her she was imagining things. He assured her he would paint over the wall on the weekend if it bothered her that much.

 

True to his word, Steve filled the hairline crack with plaster and painted over the wall twice.

It didn't help. She could still hear the voice calling to her. Her strategy was to now avoid looking at the wall, to banish it by ignoring it. But in her mind, she could still see that crack, now the width of a thick pencil. She was sure that the last words she could hear repeatedly as she drifted to her medicated sleep was a ghostly "I'm heeerreee…" and "no more hiding..."

 

One