Sleep Paralysis

Every night, he dreaded falling asleep. Every night, he tried to fight it. He'd drink a pot of coffee. He played loud music. He downloaded addictive games onto his cell phone. He exercised. He'd write down everything he did that day. Tried an expensive lamp that mimics daylight. Ice-cold showers. Caffeine pills. Other, less legal pills. 

He got rid of his bed. Broke it up with an axe and burned it in the backyard. Threw every pillow and blanket into the flames. 

Every night, he'd fight it, and every night, he'd fail.  No matter what, at midnight, his body would betray him. He'd slowly collapse, deflating like a balloon. Crumpling onto the ground, he would fall asleep. But he wasn't asleep. He could hear, and he could see. But he couldn't move. 

Then the beast would come. 

He heard the claws clicking against the floor. Guttural growling, deep, that he could feel in his chest. It lumbered towards him. It looked like a brown bear, except for its face. The head was a elongated skull, like a horse skull, gleaming white and slicked with viscera. 

It hunched over him. The grinning maw pressed up against his face, snuffling and snorting through its bony nostrils. The incisors click-click-clicked. It tilted its head and turned an empty eye socket to look into his. It opened its bony jaws and spoke. 

"Go the fuck to sleep."

THE END

The Gods In The Woods

There were still gods in the woods. Little ones, mostly. Scampering through the roots of the great trees, or wrapping themselves in blankets of moss. They bounce up and down on the caps of mushrooms, and sail down the streams in boats of woven grass and leaves. 

They will hold mock battles with twigs for swords, and the cupules of acorns for shields. Dances are held every full moon, and they songs, lilting and chirupping compositions are older than the forest itself.

The old man limped into the woods to feed them. He brought nothing but his walking stick and his simple robes of rough-cut cloth. He found a warm patch of sunlight streaming through the towering trees and sat on a fallen log. 

And he did nothing. 

The gods of the woods do not need anything from us but our attention. Not even that, really. They need us to come back to them, for a little bit, and inhabit that hidden space that is apart from life and death. To be human is to exist in binary, a duality of us or them, losing and gaining, and agony and ecstasy. The gods don't do this, and they serve us by reminding us that we don't have to think like that anymore, if we don't want to 

He would not call it inner peace. His old injured leg hurt today, his back hurt every day, and his stomach hurt because he hadn't had anything to eat yet. And to all this, he said yes. We are always at the place where we always are. 

Just like the gods in the woods. 

THE END

Author's Note: I looked for the big gods, but I did not find them in this draft. Maybe they'll show up the second or third. 

Your Billion Future Selves

It has been only a handful of generations since humans had unlocked the ability to edit their own genetic code, and now there were no humans left. No true humans, anyway. They still looked like  humans, but biologically, they are now siphonophores. 

The Portuguese Man O' War is often mistaken for a jellyfish. It is related to jellyfish, but the jellyfish is a single organism, with one genome. The Man O' War contains multitudes. It is a colony; multiple units of creatures called zooids. Genetically identical, all from a single egg, but still individual. Each zooid becomea specialized to its role in the colony. And from the outside, it looks like one big jellyfish. These things that look like humans, are made up not of cells, but of, essentially, tiny humans. 

Before, a human might lose a finger. But now, there is no human to lose it. The finger was born to be a finger, the hand was born to be a hand, and the arm, and the torso, and the head the eyes the brain all of it, each one a zooid. The lost finger is alive, as a finger, and it knows it is alone. It will not survive long without the rest of the colony. Not long at all. 

It's confusing, I know, why anyone would want this. They're immortal now, functionally, these new humans. If a liver or a kidney fails, the lab can grow a new one. If the new human were to be cut in half at the waist, and the lab was sufficiently prepared, each half could be made into a whole. This wasn't done, at least not yet, but it could be. 

Individuality, down to the last body part.

Immortality achieved, at the cost of the self.

These new humans appear content, on the whole. Except those of us who work in the labs, raising the zooids into the parts they will play. We monitor every vital sign, every nerve, every . We get the same patterns, the same jagged waves on the electro-cellulargrams, over and over again. 

They are screaming. 

Author's Note: I really thought tonight was going to be the night I ended my streak. It's late, and I'm tired, and work was hard. But then Sibbitt went and wrote this really cool poem about a different kind of immortality and that got me to thinking...

This story needs work; I think the distinction between a single organism and exactly what siphonophores are is not explained very well. It's okay, because I think overall the story is headed in the right direction in evoking an atmosphere of existential dread for that very reason. At least that's what I'm telling myself because it is late and I must sleep. To learn more about siphonophores, visit your local library! Or you can read these notes I copied from Wikipedia and pasted below to re-read ah I struggled to convey how these things are very much alike in concept to a single organism, but the way they go about it is still uncanny as hell. Goodnight!

Siphonophores are highly polymorphic and complex organisms.[4] Although they may appear to be individual organisms, each specimen is in fact a colonial organism composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized.[5] Zooids are multicellular units that develop from a single fertilized egg and combine to create functional colonies able to reproduce, digest, float, maintain body positioning,

The Town of Crows

The town of Corvus lay nestled in the verdant Carrina Valley. It was surrounded miles of cornfields, the engine of the town's economy. A railroad ran through the valley, ChenIn the middle of the largest field, Woodford Bennett was starting his last shift. He climbed up onto a wooden platform, pushed up the brim of his straw hat, and looked up into the clear blue sky, scanning for crows. 

The Carrina Valley was special. The crop yield per acre was three times that of the entire rest of the state. The town had to protect their investment. 

They had tried traditional scarecrows. But these crows knew. They would come by the thousands, darken the sky, and ravage the corn until there was nothing left. 

But they wouldn't hurt the corn if an actual person was watching over it. Woodford had been hauled out of an empty railcar by the railroad cops when the train had stopped to load up the corn. He had fallen on hard times, as evidenced by his threadbare flannel shirt, torn, frayed overalls. The railroad cops had made him an offer: keep the crows away from the corn, or get locked up in jail. He chose the scarecrow job. 

The cops had treated him real well after that. They even gave him a huge breakfast in the diner. Coffee, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, and pancakes. Woodford hadn't eaten that well in months. He would have liked some scrambled eggs, but the server had said they didn't have any today. 

And now he was standing on the platform in the middle of a cornfield on a beautiful spring day. Best job he'd ever had, so far. He bent his head down to light a cigarette. 

A shadow fell over him, and he heard the sound of thousand wings. He looked up, and the crows were upon him. 

The corn would be safe for a few more days. 

THE END

The Skulking Terror That Came To Wash

She didn't feel like planning for the hunt, not tonight. The villagers would have what they always had: torches, blades, a few flintlock rifles, and sheer numbers. They knew she would come when the moon was full, and the forest that surrounded the modest village of Wash, practically swallowing it, would be shrouded in the steam fog from the lake; typical of the warm summer nights. It was perfect cover for her; because she was a sleek, silvery-grey cat. From a distance, she appeared to be a regular house cat, but for her size. She was as large as a panther, and much more powerful. Her kind were rare, and she had no name. Cats have no use for names. 

The villagers has tried to stay inside at first. Barricaded themselves behind locked doors and boarded up windows, as if against a natural disaster. And yet, when the morning came and the villagers undid the fortifications, one house would not awaken. All the doors would still be locked from the inside, all the windows still fastened shut, and no trace of the former inhabitants. 

Now, on the night of the full moon, the villagers gathered and went out into the woods to hunt for the creature that took entire families. 

She easily slipped past them and made her way into the village. 

She found the very first house that had been taken, months ago. The doors had been broken in by worried villagers, but had since been boarded up. The windows were also still shut and sealed. The houses were treated as cursed. 

She was able to get inside by going through the chimney. It was a tight fit. 

She investigated the entire house. The kitchen chairs were knocked over, the cupboards were open, and drawers were pulled out completely, their contents strewn across the floor. Almost looked like the work of bandits. But there was no blood, and no real damage. Nothing to indicate people had been battling for their lives. 

She moved on to the second house. Again, she entered through the chimney. It was much the same, except this house was from a more well-to-do family. Their portrait hung on the wall, a painting of the mother, father, and two young children. The children had one peculiarity; their eyes were different colors. The mother had green eyes, and the father had blue. The children each had one green eye and one blue eye. Heterochromia. And no sign of any of them. 

And so she searched the next house, and then the next, with no further insights. She knew she was missing something. All these houses, each left  undisturbed after each disappearance. Why, the neighbors hadn't even bothered to clean up the mess...

She dashed back to the first house and wriggled down the chimney. The house smelled...like a house. Not exactly a clean house, but not a dirty house. No hint of rotting food. She checked the trash cans. 

They were empty.

She raced through through the other houses, down the chimney and back out again. Again, they were all the same. Empty trash cans. 

She had a hunch. 

She ran into the forest, slipping past the prowling villagers with ease, and searched the forest. There, in a foggy glen, she found two little raccoons. They looked up at her, shivering in fear, each with one green eye and one blue eye. 

She licked their faces with her rough tongue, and soon the little kits clung to her. She ran deep into the forest and took them to her den. Then she ran back to search for the rest of the transformed villagers. She could not find them. Perhaps they had been scared away by the mob of villagers, or had been caught in the many traps that had been set out. 

The great silvery cat did not return to the village. She cared for the baby raccoons. They grew much larger than regular raccoons, and the three of them would go on to have many adventures. 

She still didn't have a name, because cats have no use for names, normally, but her kits needed to call her something, so she allowed it. They called her "Mom."

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize for how rough this one is; you can absolutely tell where I just gave up trying to describe things mid-sentence, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. It's late, which is why there's no explanation given for the original source of the vamp-raccoon, if you will, but I assure you there is one. As the title suggests, I was kind of going for Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear and The Doom That Came To Sarnath but with... raccoons. And a cat detective. 

Right. Thanks for reading. This was fun. Kinda wish I didn't have a day job because I am going to be hurting tomorrow. Oh well. That's future Guillermo's problem, not mine. 

Goodnight!

The Library of Babel, Abridged

There are definitely pros and cons to being trapped inside this infinite library. I have always loved reading; in school I was constantly getting in trouble for reading. I'd hide mysteries in my textbooks, or use my foot to hold open the pages of a sci-fi novel on the floor under my desk. Most of my teachers gave up eventually and let me read. 

The con of this particular infinite library is that a lot of these books aren't very good. Which makes sense. We take for granted that are English classes are giving us "good" books to read (which they are, usually, they're just not taught in a very good way) and we don't really think about how all these great works of literature came out right alongside a bunch of crap that people had to wade through to find the best stuff. 

This is making me sound like a snob, which I'm not. I believe everyone has a thousand terrible stories in them, so we all need to hurry up and write as much as we can and get them all out. Then we can get to writing the good ones. 

The food situation is strange too. There are little tables set out that will sometimes have food and drink laid out on them. I've noticed they only appear after I've read an entire book. I'm a pretty fast reader, and the meals have enough food for an entire day and night.

There's little water fountains everywhere, but the water pressure is so low it comes out in only the tiniest arc, so small that I almost have to put my mouth on it. It's maddening. It's always cold though, so that's nice.

There is light, sunlight, that comes down through the shafts. Oh, I guess I should try to describe this place. It's kind of like a beehive, maybe? No, a honeycomb. The hexagonal walls are made up of shelves of books, and walkways with stairways and bannisters. The center part is an open shaft, and sunlight comes in from the top. This is also strange, because the sun would have to directly overhead to each shaft to shine all the way down with casting any shade. I've walked for miles in the same day and have never seen a shadow. 

There are nights. A slow dimming over the course of an hour, with no oranges or reds like in my memory of sunsets, and then total darkness. There is no moon, or at least there's no moonlight. 

It's really not bad in here. I do wish I had someone to talk to about these books. Also, since this library is infinite, statistically speaking there must be a book that explains how this place works, and maybe even tells how to get out of here. 

I do wish I had someone to talk to about escaping. I mean, someone I could see and who could talk back. 

Because I am talking to you now, I think. There's nothing to write with here in this infinite library. I've been composing this narrative by tearing out words from the other books. I only steal a couple from each. And I'm leaving this story, word by word, like a trail of breadcrumbs, so if you are reading this, then keep following it and you'll find me, eventually. 

I can't wait to meet you. 

THE END

Author's Note: With apologies to you, Jorge Luis Borges. But I'm pretty sure you'd be cool with it. 

Nemosyn, 70mg

The development of a new psychopharmaceutical drug, Nemosyn, was pitched as a revolutionary way to help treat people with post-traumautic stress disorder. The drug would allow the user to re-live a targeted traumatic event in their memory, and then it would erase the original event completely. 

The user would still have a memory of having vague memories of having re- lived the experience, of course, because that's just how memory works. The sessions were recorded as well so the patients could still access the the memory in that way, if needed. But the original pathways to the trauma would be severed, and the idea was that by putting an emotional event completely into the realm of the rational, what would normally take years of therapy could be reduced to a simple outpatient procedure. 

It was just a pill, but it has to be administered under specific guidance by a professional. To a casual observer it would seem similar to hypnotism, instead of a specific and calculated set of verbal and physical cues designed to take the person to that specific memory, and only that memory.

And it worked. Until the formula got out into the wild and home-cooked versions flooded the country. It was cheap, plentiful, and just as effective. 

People quickly began using it not only to erase traumatic memories, but any memory they didn't want. And many more began re-living their happiest moments, which was worse. Trauma makes it harder to live our lives but without the joyful memories to sustain us and remind us of why our struggle is worth it, there was a rapid breakdown of social order.

Now I'm in my own lab at home, frantically trying to find a way to reverse the effects of what I've created. 

It's not safe to go outside. Everyone is out there having both the best and worst day of their lives, then erasing it and starting all over. 

It's all falling apart. And it's all my fault. 

I'm so sorry. I wish I'd never invented Nemosyn. I wish I hadn't hurt so many people. What I've done haunts me as I work. It's been months and every night when I try and fail to sleep, I hear the wailing and the laughter of people erasing themselves. 

I wish I could just forget that this is all my fault. 

THE END

Fragments for later, maybe

"Compartmentalize," he told himself as he lined up the kill shot. 

The message in the bottle said: "Please help. I am trapped on a desert island with very little food and water. There is an office building here, where I can sit behind a desk for 40 hours a week, but if I do then I can't get up for 40 years until I reach something called 'retirement age'."

He no longer remembers where he was when the world fell apart.

"I don't think this edible is working," the ghost whispered into his ear.

Boredom was her only real fear.

Scary stories are a way to mentally prepare for the terror of the mundane.

Gasoline isn't very good for burning bodies. It's the vapor that burns, and it won't do anything to the bone. You're gonna want to invest in a good acetylene torch.