Hallways

You may find yourself stuck in a building that seems to consist entirely of hallways. First of all, don't panic. There is only a moderate chance anything will hurt you, and you may even be able to make it out someday. 

Now, of course, you are going to panic. That's normal. But seriously, don't. Don't scream or shout; nobody who can help you is going to hear you. There are things that will hear you, but they are not going to help you. 

Do not run blindly down hallway after hallway, through corridors and passageways, up and down the galleries, concourses and antechambers. You will only tire yourself out and be unable to run when you really need to. 

There should be food and water here, somewhere. You need to move efficiently and steadily. Travel for ten minutes at a time. Stop. Listen. Move again. You'll either find it or you won't. Sleep when you need to. You'll startle awake. When you do, do not try to go back to sleep. Continue moving. 

If if IF you find a door, kick it open and then run and hide. See what comes out. 

If nothing comes out, wait some more. See if anything heard you kick the door open and tries to go in. 

There isn't much more to it. 

If you do this long enough, and get very luckily, you might get out. 

But don't bother telling anyone about what happened. They won't believe you. 

ghost problems

Everyone gets a choice, at the end, if they want their consciousness to move on to the next plane of existence or if they want to stay on this one. The non-corporeal part isn't an option; you will be, in a basic sense, a ghost. A bodiless you that isn't bound by the laws of physics. 

I chose to stay. I wanted to explore the oceans, the molten core of the Earth, and all the other planets in the solar system.

And I did... I know I did. The problem is I don't really remember. 

Memories, real memories, aren't formed as just pictures. When we experience anything, when alive, there is smell, touch, sound, as well as sight. All of these combine to form the memory. It turns out they also give it shape, hold it up, secure its location, so to speak. Without the extra sensory information received by the body, it gets... lost.

Like waking up from a dream; you only hold on to it for a few seconds and then it vanishes back into the void. 

I can see everything, even experience it, but I can't learn. 

There's something in the walls of the house. 

One morning, when I turned 13, I noticed I had two shadows. 

I'm being stalked by a flock of unusually large ravens, and they all have human-looking teeth. They click them at me and smile when I look at them.

I've gotten what your voice sounds like, but I can still see your face. Frozen in the ice; the last time I saw you. 

A tiny pocket universe, where everyone is bored out of their minds. They're not evil, exactly, but so lacking in stimulation that you can pluck them out and promise they can stay in this universe if they'll just do a few terrible things to your enemies, I mean, to some bad guys that deserve it. 

Plastics can be directly bonded to the cells of your skin. You'll lose almost all sensation, but your skin will look perfect, and feel soft to the touch, and also be much tougher. It's very hard to cut, but if it does, it won't heal on its own and will require an operation to seal it. 

The delicate, ethereal notes of a handpan float through the air and simultaneously lull my restless spirit and invigorate my body. This is also very confusing because it's 2 am and this is a truck stop diner.

A handpan consists of two metal half-shells glued together and is played by hitting it with your hands. It's kind of like a steel drum, but it looks like a tiny flying saucer or a giant robot clam. 

It sounds like more laid-back version of a steel drum. Where steel drums tend to sound bubbly, buoyant, and festive, the handpan leans into exotic meditative tones. 

Knowing this, I still don't know why I'm hearing it now. I've finished my eggs and toast, the coffee is cold and black like the icy roads I've got to drive on for the next hundred miles, and I'm enjoying the warmth of the diner for a few more minutes before I have to brace myself for the winter chill as I go back to my truck. 

Is no one else hearing this?

Rowyn's Spire

Halfway up Mount Cullerman, (the locals call Rowyn's Spire) within just a few hour's hike from the summer cabin, are the ruins of an ancient stone fortress. They lie just at the edge of the treeline, which is strange because the treeline everywhere else in the area is about 2 thousand feet higher. Out of all the mountains in this stretch of the range, the trees just don't seem to want to grow any higher up on this one. 

Maybe that's why whoever built the fortress chose that spot. It wouldn't be hidden from their enemies, but nor could the enemies sneak right up to the walls. 

They'd have to cross about fifty yards of scree with no cover, and the clattering of the loose rock would alert the guards, even in darkness, and be met with a shower of arrows. 

I can see the tactical advantages, but what was the fortress guarding? Why spend the time and effort to put up stone walls and ramparts to defend a bare, resourceless mountaintop?

I made a campfire in the center of the ruins, and was sitting on the crumbling stones all mottled grey and green with lichen, with the sun having just set, when I heard the gritty, scraping, sounds of something, or many somethings, from somewhere above. 

It hadn't occurred to me that the guardians of this fortress may have been trying to keep something from getting down. 

Delicate rains are common this season. Every night until the early morning. The days are still warm, and the heat of the morning sun unleashes tendrils of mist and fog that quest across the city, snaking through alleyways and pooling in parking lots. 

The fog muffles sounds; the footsteps behind you could be closer than you think. 

I don't worry too much about it. The mist is more of an ally. 

The Dorian Strand

She was smarter than me, and I found that a little annoying. I was rowing the rowboat, or "more accurately" the skiff, through the choppy waters of the Dorian Strand. She was sitting in the stern, navigating, head bent over a map and compass, checking the landmarks on the shoreline. Occasionally she would tap my knee if I needed to adjust course. Left or right knee; a single tap if I was a little off, or multiple if I was very off. We had no rudder, 

She hadn't told me where we were going, probably because she never tells me where we're going. 

I suppose I'm okay with it. If we were doing something illegal, I'd have the benefit of plausible deniability. 

Although last time, we were attacked by a gratuitously large "chambered nautilus." I had called it "one of those things that look like an octopus hiding inside a seashell." It had latched on to the rowboat with its tentacles and was using its spiny tongue, or "radula," to bore through the bottom. 

That time she had uncorked one of her many vials she wore in a bandolier over her dress and dumped it onto the writhing mass of tentacles, which then immediately turned itself inside-out. I think that's what it did anyway. Hard to tell with a creature like that but I'm pretty suremost of it is supposed to be inside the shell. 

I had just kept rowing the whole time. She usually handled stuff like that. Whenever we encountered something that just needed to be hit with an oar, she usually left that to me. Probably doesn't want to waste her ingredients.

Mileage

The great machines that power the city are failing. The massive gears, with teeth the size of a man, are ground down and warping. Coolant, turned acidic and corrosive from countless cycles of heating and cooling, eats away at the seals and hoses. The oil has become sludge, filled with particulate metals that have flaked off during a million hours of internal combustions. As it circulates, it scours and dulls the precisely engineered parts more and more until nothing fits anything. 

I am an expert at my job, helping this engine run another day. Ultimately, it may not matter, because it will fail. I keep my eyes and ears open for solutions, but it is very dark down here. 

I'll keep working, because it is what I know how to do. And perhaps someone else is working too, and they'll come up with a way to fix everything, and my work is buying them time. 

Maybe. 

Night Music

It's like we knew we didn't have time to be strangers. We became best friends so quickly I don't remember noticing. Now you're gone, and I'm sitting in a dark room listening to neo noir jazz songs picked out by a computer in my pocket.

I remain positive. There's a fair portion of my body that doesn't hurt, for example, and I focus on that.The cuts, burns, and broken bones I obtained while fighting by your side have healed pretty well, considering. Not perfectly, so I've had to adapt. 

The web of scar tissue has reduced some of my mobility. Still, I was always the slow one. You were quick, darting in and out, blades flashing. 

I'd slug it out with the heavily armored ones, knocking off armor to expose a vulnerable area, or just keep them busy until you figured out some other way to defeat them. 

You were the brains and the brawn, now that I think about it. And I was just...your friend, I guess. 

I lie down and try to sleep. I focus on the parts of me that don't hurt. It works, and I drift off. Perhaps there will be a good fight tomorrow. If someone needs help, I will be ready. And if nobody needs help, I'll still be ready. No need to overthink it. 

Imaginary Hotels

In the middle of the desert is a hotel where it's always raining inside. Not real rain, of course. Simulated streets, each room its own little house in the "suburbs" section, where it's always a cloudy, overcast day, although the artificial sun does peek out now and then. There's also the "city" section, with scaled-down brownstone buildings, alleyways, and even fake traffic. That's where I usually stay. I like to walk through the rain and wonder what could have been. 

There's even a pool. Swimming in the rain is one of my favorite things, but of course, it's dangerous to do so in an actual thunderstorm. In this hotel, the flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder are impressive, but harmless. 

The hotel is called "Felis Et Canes."

I will advise you to make use of the Sunrise Room before you leave. It looks like a little park, with benches and grass and trees. The fake rain will slowly stop, and the fake clouds will slowly part, and the fake sun will come out, and it will be less of a shock when you step back out into the desert sun. 

We should go sometime. I think you'd really like it. 

hidden factories

There are buildings with no roads that lead up to them. Generally made of red brick, with high, narrow windows. We have one on the outskirts of our small town. I don't know how anyone applies to work there. I heard you get a letter, with a contract to work for 2, 3, or 5 years. 

It's not a 9 to 5 job, whatever it is. The people walk out there, go inside, and they stay. They don't seem to ever come out the whole time. After their years are up, they walk back in to town. Most of them leave town and never come back. Those who stay keep to themselves, and don't seem unhappy, but none of them ever seem to work anywhere else again. 

stowaway

Stowing away had seemed like a good idea. Hide out in the hold for a little while, let the ship sail far away from my enemies, and then sneak out at one of the many island paradises along the trade route. Now, after two weeks of the dark, the damp, and horrible seasickness, Prell was lamenting that he was slowly dying, lying there in the mildewed belly of this ship, when he could have died quickly, on his feet, fighting in the sunlight of the city streets. He liked to fight. He might even have won. 

Instead he had run, and hid, and now he was alone, with his writhing innards, his regrets, and the taste of bile on his cracked lips. 

"Perhaps it's not to late to be a man," Prell croaked, his voice sending the gathering rats scurrying away. He began to crawl over to entrance of the hold, where he would try give himself up. He doubted he had the strength to climb the ladder, but he still had the cavalry whistle his father had given him. The shrill blast had signaled many men to charge into battle, sometimes their last. 

Maybe he'd even be able to get in one more good fight. 

Fog

The fog writhed grey in the darkness, twisting coils choking the streetlights. The sidewalk was slick, and I picked my way carefully home. I knew the path from my door to the pub very well, although I confess the way back was harder to remember. After a few pints, the cobweb pattern of streets and alleys were harder to navigate, especially in the dark. 

I usually make it home eventually. 

Good Habits

For the most part, trying to master any skill starts with carving out time to practice. On top of that, it's about finding slivers of opportunity in which to practice even more. 

Waiting in line at the grocery store? Discreetly check for security cameras. Most big stores have them everywhere, but what you want to do is learn to spot them without looking like you're trying to find them. 

If you're waiting for the barista to call your name for your coffee, scan the other customers as they go up ahead of you. You're looking for any obvious weak points. A limp. A cast on an arm or a wrist. Hearing aids or glasses with the thick, convex lenses that indicate farsightedness. A lot of people hold their car keys while they wait so you can get an idea of the make of their vehicle. With practice, you may even learn to tell what model. Again, discretion is key. Don't try to look like you're not looking. It's normal for people to look up at a loud noise, sudden movement, or someone shouting a name. Glance over like a normal human being, than return to what you were doing. Hold that image in your mind, that snapshot, and run your scan. 

And don't ever pretend to do something else while you look at the person. If you ever see someone looking at you while they're simultaneously doing something else, they're either a cop or a serial killer. Best to just pretend you didn't notice them surveiling you and proceed as normal until you can get out of their line of sight. Corners are good. Get around the corner, and then walk briskly, like you're an important person and you're late for a meeting. Do not run. Running is suspicious. Do not look back to see how close a pursuer might be. If they catch you, you'll know. 

Nowadays, it's suspicious to not have a cell phone, so bring a phone that isn't activated anymore, (maybe purchased with cash at a pawn shop) and fiddle with that while you hunt. 

Don't bring your actual phone; it will ping your location when it connects to cell phone towers. If the police try to connect you to the last known location of the trophy, that's the first thing they'll check. It'll show you were home, and if they're typicals, they'll just move on to the next suspect. Might be tricky if somebody calls or texts during that time and you didn't respond. But it's probably fine. Nobody ever calls you anyway. 

Fortune favors the prepared, and good luck is the residue of good planning. Remember, wherever there are people, there is the potential to be practicing. 

Happy Hunting. 

THE END

little curses

Welcome to my magic shop! Now, I imagine that like every new customer, you would like to jump right to the big stuff, and want to look at the spells that will summon tornadoes of living flame, pull the moon down from the sky, or sink entire continents into the sea.  

There is rarely a practical reason to do any of those things, and even if there were, I've met very few who could actually afford it. 

I would direct you, instead, to our fine selection of curses. Surely there is someone who has wronged you and who, while perhaps not deserving of death, needs a little less happiness in their life. 

Allow me to show you a few of them, to give you a general idea. Yes, they all have "official" names, but they're stupid and only hint at what they do. I prefer to list the descriptions.

Every sound they hear will be either too loud or too quiet, whichever is most inconvenient.

Every shower or bath feels freezing. (If it's hot enough to burn them, they will feel that so they can avoid injury; we're not monsters.)

Their breath will smell like a rotting yak, but only to themselves. They will always smell it when they open their mouth, and other people won't notice at all but they will feel like there's no way they don't and think they're just too nice to say that they reek.

Every stoplight they approach will be red. 

Whenever they are out alone at night, they will see an ominous moose in the distance, heading slowly in their direction. 

Their shoes will be always feel too big. 

Oh, and here's one of the cruelest ones, in my opinion:

All animals will dislike them, even their own pets. 

We can also customize them! One devilish girl was in yesterday and who wanted a curse that would make someone's boss be an incessant micro-manager, while ensuring the boss would never actually understand the tasks themselves. That was a tricky one, and it will only work while the person is under that specific boss, but honestly it is deliciously fiendish and I'm rather ashamed we didn't think of it ourselves. 

Now, what can I get you? 

THE END

The Fishing Hamlet

He was the only one left in his tiny fishing village that was still human. He had been away, over at one of the much larger, more prosperous towns scattered across the countryside, attempting to sell his meager catch of some herring and a few small cod, and by the time he returned home the next day, at dawn, everyone in the tiny fishing village had disappeared. 

The dozen little homes built around the small inlet were still, lifeless. The shutters were all fastened. The fishing boats were still tied to the docks, and despite the light dusting of snow on the ground, no smoke rose from any the chimneys. 

He had entered his home in a daze. His wife and child were gone. There were no signs of violence. 

He had checked the rest of the houses. All the same. Nothing out of place. It's as if everyone had just walked into the ocean. 

He had fallen asleep that night, somehow. When he awoke, there was a piece of paper on his chest. It read: "Sell the fish. Return with the money." It was in his wife's handwriting. 

He stepped outside and his horse was waiting there, hitched to the wagon. In the back of the wagon was a large crate. He looked inside, and there, packed in snow, was a massive bluefin tuna. 

Not knowing what else to do, he did as he was instructed, and went to nearest town. 

That single fish sold for more than he usually made in a year. He brought all the money back, and left it on the kitchen table. 

And so it went. Every morning, he would awaken to find valuable and exotic fish packed neatly in his wagon, and he would sell them and return with the money. Every night, he was coming back with wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but he only felt the numb confusion and terror one feels only in nightmares. 

The notes, still in his wife's handwriting, would occasionally instruct other things.

He purchased land, and over time, built a grand estate on it. The agents who came to update him on the progress were baffled by this rough, sullen man in simple clothes who lived in a weathered cottage being the one in charge of and financing such a grand project. 

He had tried to leave, once. He had awoken at dawn, and ridden his horse until it collapsed from exhaustion, and then he ran and ran until his legs gave out. He fell asleep under a little copse of trees. 

When he awoke, he was back in the fishing hsmlet, in his own bed, There was another note. It read: "No."

Last I heard, the man was still working to maintain and expand that incredible mansion that he'll never actually see. And that's just one of the ways vampires make their money. Perhaps you're working for one, too. There may be no way to know for sure, anymore. You could try running away, if there's still anywhere left to run to. 

The End

Note: I was literally falling asleep at the end at I threw on this ending so that I would be furious enough to change it later. It was either this ending or "it was all a dream" but even I'm not that cruel. 

Lurking

I keep seeing something in the dark. Something tall, and thin, that has arms at long they almost touch the ground. It usually walks, slowly, gingerly stepping over houses, lurching across the barren orchards and fields. Sometimes it drops to all fours, its head bent down to the ground like it's following the scent of prey. 

I don't think it has eyes. 

I don't think it needs them. 

No one else seems to have seen it, and I'm not stupid enough to bring it up. If I have lost my mind, why is it only this one thing? I can still do my boring office job, and my friends and family haven't said anything, other than some gentle teasing when I want to get home early; that I'm getting too old. 

I tried driving away, once. After hours of driving, just before dawn, there it was, loping towards me from the opposite direction. I broke down and wept. Finally I turned around and went home. 

What's been nagging me lately is why it has never done anything to me. It lurks, it stalks, it won't leave me alone, but it only ever watches. 

What if it's keeping something away? Protecting me from something even more horrifying. Or maybe I'm just bait, and it's waiting for something else. 

I'm going to find out. I'll go out into the fields tonight, alone, unarmed, and I'll wait. 

This torment demands an ending. 

THE END

Need Nothing

He was trying to get to bed early tonight. He'd felt off all week, and knew that it usually meant he hadn't been getting enough sleep. He wasn't tired yet, so he put on some instrumental music and stared at the wall. Off-white, knockdown-textured drywall. He would imagine shapes in the ridges and plateaus of the paint. A skyscraper. The head of a horse. A clawed hand reaching down. 

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Except... He could still see the wall. He opened and closed his eyes again. Still, the wall was there. He pressed his fingertips against his closed eyelids. 

He was wondering if he was dreaming when the clawed hand he has seen in the texture of the paint began peeling itself away from the wall towards him. 

Towards his face. Towards his eyes. 

He froze in terror. 

A searing pain, and then he saw nothing. 

The End

Author's Note: This was going to be about the mental strain of not being able to close your eyes and enjoy peaceful darkness once in a while but I quickly realized that being able to see clearly at all times is kind of a superpower and would become a whole thing and I didn't want to deal with the logistics of that right now. Goodnight!

*Note to self: it's twenty minutes later but why you don't you have him only see the image of the last thing he saw clearly? That could work. 

A Time Machine

You can travel to the past, if you really want to, but no one is there anymore. It's just an empty shell, a scaffolding holding nothing up anymore. In a past life, we met for the last time and hugged until we cried. I went back, once, and saw the tear drops on the ground and our footprints in the dust. 

You can go forward, too, but nobody is there yet. You can see amazing new places, cities and mountains and towns and architecture that means nothing to you, nothing to anyone, not yet. 

If I were trying to warn you against it, I would say "Time is like a river, and you can only step into a moment once" or something quasi-profound like that. 

But I'm not going to stop you. You've already gone, and I've already gone, but we didn't go at the same time. And we missed each other again. 

And I can go as many times as I like, for as long as I like, just hoping. But time moves on without us, unwavering, resolute. It will take longer and longer to get back to the present. Until one day, when you just won't make it. 

This isn't a warning. You've already done it. You already know this. 

Because you're the one who told me this. I read the message you left, written in the dust. 

The End

Author's Note: I was thinking about a story about a werewolf but then this happened. Goodnight!

Care To Go Around Again?

Shit. I'm finishing my second glass of Macallan 12 year single malt scotch when I realize that its September 30th. Nothing special about today, except that it usually means tomorrow is October 1st. That's the day I have a problem with. 

Exactly a dozen Octobers ago, I got a doppelganger. A double, almost an exact duplicate. I don't know how it happened. I was torn, I guess, wanting to be in two places at once. Then, I was. Staring directly at myself, like looking into a mirror. I had attacked him immediately. He had hesitated, I remember, which makes me suspect that even then, we weren't exactly the same. 

Other Me got in a lucky kick to my knee and I fell, and he ran. 

Haven't seen him since. 

But I know that he's still out there. I also know, somehow, that I'm completely safe for eleven months out of the year, but every October, for those 31 days, he gets a chance to destroy me. 

It's been so long now, and I haven't seen him at all. 

I stretch half-heartedly. I've been exercising, mostly. Partly. I'm ready for another physical fight anyway. My knee still bothers me, but I've got a brace for it. 

It's getting late, and I'm drowsy. He wouldn't attack right at midnight. That is, we wouldn't. It's too obvious. Plus, the dogs would bark. The dogs are the reason I don't just put booby traps all over the place. Also because, statistically, your booby traps are more likely to harm you than the actual intruder. Most major accidents happen in the home anyway. 

I hope we get to talk a little before we do battle. I have so many questions. Presumably, we have now had the chance to learn from double the amount of mistakes, so why not share that hard-earned wisdom with whoever wins? 

Whomever wins?

I'll also have to thank him, I suppose. These 13 years have been a lot of things, including a huge pain in my ass, but they haven't been boring. 

And I've got a good feeling about this October. 

The End? 

Well it begins. I'm going to attempt to write something fictional and spooky (or at least autobiographical and horror-adjacent) every day this month. Since I don't do NaNoWriMo. This one isn't that. Spooky, I mean. This isn't really writing; this is merely swirling the water a bit, as they say. 

I don't know, I don't like doppelgangers. We might be friends and I guess clothes shopping would be fun because we could share a closet. Still, imagine the pointless arguments. Everyone around us would probably kill us first. 

Goodnight!