Pica

I don't usually do two in one day, but this one came to me all of a sudden and I couldn't resist the urge to just get it down.

I couldn't ask for a much better life. I’m fit, in my prime, and I have an awesome job. I have a beautiful wife, and our first child is on the way. I’m happy.

Sure, it’s been difficult at times. Mood swings are common, but not unmanageable. She uses the bathroom a lot. She has trouble sleeping sometimes. I know though, that in the end, all the trouble will be worth it.

Yeah, sometimes she has funny cravings, but that’s normal, right? Almost every pregnant woman has that weird urge to eat pickles and ice cream, or just want to chug lemon juice or something like that. So Melanie wanted to eat dirt, who am I to stop her? She's my wife and I want to keep her happy. I did a little research, and yeah, it’s not common, but it isn't exactly unheard of.

And okay, maybe it got weirdly specific. She started asking for fresh grave dirt, and I’ll admit I looked at her funny, but I've never been one to tell my wife “no”. A happy wife makes for a happy husband, know what I mean?

I couldn't be happier. She’s three months pregnant, and I can already see and feel my little guy moving around in there. And, yeah, just this week she started asking for rotten meat, but that’s only because my little guy is growing so fast!

I’ll admit, I am a little concerned, though. I’m not sure where to get the meat. Every time I’ve brought her something, be it week old steak from the dumpster outside of Denny’s or that box of chicken wings I found in the trash by the bar, the one with all the flies on it, she tells me it’s “too fresh”.

Yeah, yeah, I know Melanie’s funeral was four months ago, what about it? Sure, it was depressing, but do you think I’m gonna let something like that get in the way of our happiness? No, sir.

We’re gonna name him James, after her father.

Guilt

It knows.

It knows what I did. I didn't mean to hurt her, and I didn't think anyone would find out, but it knows and now it’s here and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.
I can hear it scratching at the door. I can smell it’s sulfur stink from across my bedroom. I can feel the dread clutching at my heart like a vise. It knows.

We were at the park, alone together. Just she and I and the stars. She said no, but I didn't listen. She screamed and I hit her and she fell and there were rocks and there was blood and she stopped screaming but I didn't stop.
I buried her deep, far out where no one would find her. The police came, I cried and told them I didn't know and they believed me.

It doesn't believe me. It knows what I did. It knows and now it’s here and now I have to pay.

My heart stops in my chest at the same moment the sound of its claws dragging on the door stop, and starts again suddenly when I hear it breathing, feel the hot air on the back of my neck. It’s here.

It knows.

Crawling

   The bathroom was bare except for the toilet, the sink, and the mirror that he now stared into, studying his reflection for signs of movement beneath his skin. He could feel them crawling, wriggling beneath his skin. It had begun a few days ago, a slight irritation, almost an itching sensation that hadn't really bothered him, but as it increased in frequency and intensity he found that he couldn't take it anymore.
    He turned the hot water on, letting it flow into the sink and letting the small room fill up with steam from the nearly scalding hot water, never taking his eyes off of his reflection even as the mirror began to fog up and obscure it. He had been awake for well over forty-eight hours, and it was beginning to show in the bags beneath his eyes and his tangled, messy hair.
   It didn't take long for the steam to irritate them, and he began to feel them move again. First it was that tingling, itching feeling, and then he could feel the pain explode throughout his body. It was most intense in one specific place, however, and he resisted the urge to double over and scream so that he could keep his eyes locked on his reflection as he did what he had to do.
    Slowly, very slowly and with the utmost care he lifted the bright, clean straight razor to his left eye, gritting his teeth as he dragged a horizontal line across the center of it, bisecting it cleanly. He hardly felt it, even as his vision lost depth. Finally, he moved his gaze away from the mirror and turned it down into the sink, watching as the fluid dripped from his ruined orb into the porcelain basin.
    His hands shook now, freely, as he dropped the razor to the floor. His left socket burned as he felt the wriggling there, and he watched as something dropped out of it and into the sink. Quickly he slammed his right hand down into the basin, getting it wet with hot water and eyeball fluid as he smashed the spider that had crawled out of his head.
    Looking into the mirror again, he smiled as the rest of its family began to wriggle free of their prison inside his skull.

Untitled Old Story

 I had never taken a life before. I'd never thought that I'd need to.

 The creatures that shared my mindscape laughed in malicious glee even as I stared in rapidly growing horror at the ever expanding puddle beneath the face-down body of my best friend. I could feel them grinning behind my eyes, waiting for me to ask the question that I knew only they would have the answer to.

  Shuddering, I closed my eyes and tried to push them away, but it didn't do any good. I could see them in the darkness then, as i did whenever I tried to shut them out. Disembodied heads, piranha-like, floating there and watching me with their glowing green eyes, their hideous faces split open in ever-present rictus grins revealing jagged teeth that dripped with bile.

  I was past wondering if I was crazy. I had seen the truth, seen the madness behind my friend's eyes as the Other overtook him. Despairing, knowing I had no other choice, I asked them.

  "What do I do now?", I asked aloud, though I knew that I didn't need to. They could hear me think. It was a small comfort, however, to pretend that they existed outside of me rather than within. Their reply was instant.

  "Wait," they hissed, "He isn't done yet."

  I opened my eyes to discover that they were right. The thing that had once been like a brother to me was even now struggling to lift itself from the floor, the caved in side of its face bubbling as its jaw worked. It was trying to speak. It looked at me, its one good eye rolling up to face me, and I think it tried to say my name. It didn't have enough face left to make words, so instead it just gurgled at me.

  Slowly, tears stinging my eyes, I lifted the hammer again, and before it could try to say anything else I brought it down. I didn't stop swinging until all I was doing was pounding hunks of wet bone and brain matter into the floor. It shrieked as it finally died, a hideous, inhuman noise that left my ears bleeding.

  I could still hear them laughing in my head.

Introduction

   So, welcome to my new blog! This is intended to be an outlet for my recent desire to write. I have a fearblog that I've been running for about a month now, and as satisfying as it is to produce that, I've been having other ideas now and again that wouldn't fit well into the flow/style of that story, so I've decided to start this blog to try and showcase them.

  I can't say I have a posting schedule in mind, but I do have quite a few ideas as well as a couple of older stories that I will repost on this blog. Check out my fearblog, "No One Sees", if you're interested in that sort of thing and you aren't already reading it.

  I'll post one of my older stories a little later today, and get to work on some content for future posts. I hope to keep myself writing between this and No One Sees for as long as possible.

  Wish me luck!

P.S. For those visitors who don't already know me and my style, I tend toward the macabre/horrific side of fiction. Influences include Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and of course, The Fear Mythos. Below you'll find a link to the Fear Mythos wiki if you've never heard of it, give it a look.

http://thefearmythos.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fear_Mythos_Wiki