I Enjoyed This! It Was Short And Not Too Complicated. I’d Recommend Skimming Over It For Some Light

This is a veryyyy short story I wrote probably a decade ago that might’ve been a good contender for r/shortscarystories if it was any good.

A Ticket

When John called me in this morning, I already knew why. A new case. That's what detective's do. They solve cases. Non-detectives can't even go near the crime scene.

It was a murder case. For the average person, this is some scary stuff. But with years of experience, you get used to it.

Everybody knows what a detective gets to do. It's like owning a ticket to investigate a crimes scene. Of course, it's all for work, and no play. But there is another advantage.

No one suspects the detective.

No story today, enjoy this horrific artwork of Anxiety

Anxiety, 3D concept art by Martin TK Hamilton

Childhood can be scary.

A collection of some of my hand-drawn horror looping animations!

No story today, appreciate this artwork

Art by Vincenzo Lamolinara

I managed to buy a whole heap of vintage horror paperbacks a few days ago to add to my collection!

I'm so excited to own The Fungus!

My kidnappers didn’t know I was pregnant when they locked me in this cage

At least I’ll be able to eat soon.

2 Sentence horror story by u/traumafactory28 on Reddit.

You're going for a stroll in the woods one day when you see a person approaching you on the same path you're walking on. From afar it looks like they don't have a face. That's a funny illusion, you think to yourself, but as you pass them you realize they actually don't have a face. Less than a minute later you see the same person approach again, exactly as they had a few seconds ago, and this happens another time, and then again and again, and you realize it's not just the faceless person that is the same. You hear the same exact bird chirps in the same exact order with regular intervals, go past the same trees including a tree stump with a cluster of mushrooms on it and a small ant hill. You want to stop and get your bearings but you can't stop, you just keep walking, passing by the same things and the same person over and over. You're starting to realize something about this person, too, that you hadn't realized before for some reason. They're wearing the exact same clothes you're wearing, they have the same hair, they're basically you. Somehow you know your face is beginning to disappear too, little by little, but you can't check because you can't stop walking and your arms won't stop moving in step with your feet. Soon your face is entirely gone just like the other person's face but you keep walking. You don't remember a time when you weren't strolling through these woods, seeing these same things over and over. You don't remember a time when you had a face.

So Cute You Could Die

I’ve never been a fan of babies. Actually, that’s putting it lightly.

But there’s few social taboos as huge as telling a parent that their newborn is anything less than beautiful. And, well, I find it hard not to be brutally honest when all babies resemble potatoes to me.

So when my social butterfly coworker Geraldine returned from maternity leave and started showing everyone a picture of her baby, I made sure to steer clear. Still, each water cooler break, my fellow employees’ transfixed reactions to her kid grew more sickly-sweet.

“Oh my gosh, you must be so proud” gushed sales rep Fiora, gazing down at the polaroid. “She’s so cute you could die!”

“How absolutely friggin precious!” sang file clerk Donny, holding up the photo to his face. “She’s so cute it just kills me!”

“Okay, you’re making my ovaries ache” trilled receptionist Mona, looking over the snapshot. “She’s cuter than a heart attack!”

At the time, I rolled my eyes at each of these effervescent displays and turned my attention back to my work. People often speak in those sorts of ridiculous exaggerations, so I thought nothing of it. Imagine my utter shock when I heard the news the following day.

Fiora, Donny and Mona had all been found dead in the parking garage, having seemingly suffered heart attacks the previous night.

It was an absolutely insane coincidence. All of them had looked at that baby photo of Geraldine’s and all had died in the same way, on the same day. I could draw no other conclusion: the picture of baby Brooklyn was cursed.

Sitting at my desk, barely concentrating, my mind jumped from possibility to possibility. Could her baby itself be some eldritch demon, killing people to hide its identity? Or was it harvesting their life source through the photo, to sustain itself?

My curiosity was simply too great to resist. I decided to finally glimpse this fatal frame for myself.

“Sure, I’ll look at your baby, Geraldine” I agreed as she thrust the picture out to me, too. Tentatively, I glanced down to see…

…a perfectly normal baby girl, sleeping in a cot. I felt fine. Nothing to indicate being cursed at all.

“Congratulations, Geraldine,” I replied, relieved. “She seems like a great daughter.”

Hours later as I’m leaving the office, I still can’t help but feel silly for believing there was ever a curse.

Suddenly, midway through unlocking my car, I feel a sharp prick in the side of my neck. I spin around in enough time to see Geraldine pulling a syringe out of me. Her eyes are incensed, her teeth gritted in maternal rage.

“What the hell!” I cry out as heart attack-inducing toxins surge through my body. Geraldine merely wags her finger.

“That’s the last time one of you idiots mistakes my baby son for a girl!”

The Devil's Wheel

The Devil’s Wheel

“If you say yes,” said the Devil, “a single man, somewhere in the world, will be killed on the spot. But three million dollars is nothing to sneeze at, missus.”

“What’s the catch?” You squint at him suspiciously over the red-and-black striped carnival booth. You’re smarter than he thinks you are– a devil deal always has a catch, and you’re determined to catch him before he catches you. 

“Well, the catch is that you’ll know you did it. And I’ll know, too. And the big man upstairs’ll know, I ‘spose. But what’s the chariot of salvation without a little sin to grease the wheels? You can repent from your mansion balcony, looking out at your waterfront views, sipping a bellini in your eighties. But hey, it’s up to you– take my deal or leave it.”

The Devil lights a cigar without a match, taking an inhale, and blowing out a cloud of deep, sweet-smelling tobacco laced faintly with something that reminds you of rotten eggs. If he does have horns, they’re hidden under his lemon yellow carnival barker hat. He wears a clean pinstripe suit and a red bowtie. No cloven hooves, no big pointy fork, but you know he’s the Devil without having to be told. Though he did introduce himself.

He’s been perfectly polite. 

You know you need the money. He knows it too, or he wouldn’t have brought you here, to this strange dark room, whisking you away from your new house in the suburbs as fast as a wish. Now you’re in some sort of warehouse, where all the windows seem to be blacked out– or, maybe, they simply look out into pitch darkness, though it is the middle of the day. A single white spotlight shines down on the two of you. 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” you say. “I bet the man is someone I know, right? My husband?”

“Could be,” the Devil says with a pointed grin. “That’s for the wheel to decide.”

He steps back and raises his black-gloved hand as the tarp flies off of the large veiled object behind him. The light of the carnival wheel nearly blinds you. Blinking lights line the sides. Jingling music blares over speakers you can’t see. The flickering sign above it reads:

THE DEVIL’S WHEEL

“Step right up and claim your fortune,” the Devil barks. “Spin the wheel and pay the price! Or leave now, and a man keeps his life.”

You examine the wheel. 

The gambling addict

The doting boyfriend

The escaped convict

The dog dad

The secretive sadist

“These are all the possible men I can kill?” You ask, thumbing the side of the wheel. It rolls smoothly in your hand. Then you quickly stop, realizing that this might constitute a spin under the Devil’s rules. He flashes a smile at you, watching you halt its motion. 

“Addicts, convicts, murderers– plenty of terrible options for you to land on, missus!”

“Serial wife murderer?”

“Now who would miss a fellow like that? I can guarantee that the whole world would be better off without him in it, and that’s a fact.”

The hard worker

The compulsive liar

The animal torturer

The widower

The desperate businessman

The failed musician

The beloved son

“My husband is on here too,” you say. 

“Your husband Dave, yes. The wheel has to be fair, otherwise there’s simply no stakes.”

“I know what’s gonna happen,” you say, crossing your arms. “This wheel is rigged. I’m gonna spin it around, and it’ll go through all the killers and stuff, and then it’s gonna land on my husband no matter what.”

“Why, I would never disgrace the wheel that way,” the Devil says, wounded. “I swear on my own mother’s grave– may she never escape it. In fact, take one free spin, just to test it out! This one’s on me, no death, no dollars.”

You cautiously reach up to the top of the wheel and feel its heaviness in your hand. The weight of hundreds of lives. But also, millions of dollars. You pull the wheel down and let it go.

Clackity-clackity-clackity-clackity

Round and round it goes. 

The college graduate

The hockey fan

The Eagle Scout

The cold older brother

The charming younger brother

The two-faced middle child

The perfectionist

The slob 

Your husband Dave

Clackity-clackity-clackity.

Finally, the wheel lands on a name. A title, really.

The photographer

“Hmm, tough, missus, but that’s the way of the wheel. But hey, look! Your husband is allllll the way over here,” he points with his cane to the very bottom of the wheel, all the way on the other side from where the arrow landed. “As you can see, it’s not rigged. The wheel truly is random.”

“So… there really isn’t another catch?” You ask. 

“Isn’t it enough for you to end a man’s life? You need a steeper price? If you’re really such a glutton for punishment, I’ll gladly re-negotiate the terms.”

“No, no… wait.” You examine the wheel, glancing between it and the Devil.

You really could use that three million dollars. Newly married, new house, you and your husband’s combined debt– those student loans really follow you around. He’s quite a bit older than you, and even he hasn’t paid them off yet, to the point where the whole time you were dating you watched him stress out about money. You had to have a small, budget wedding, and a small, budget honeymoon. Three million dollars could be big for the two of you. You could re-do your honeymoon and go somewhere nice, like Hawaii, instead of just taking two weeks in Atlantic City. You deserve it. 

Even so, do you really want to kill an innocent photographer? Or an innocent seasonal allergy sufferer? Or an innocent blogger? Just because you don’t know or love these people doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t. 

The cancer survivor

The bereaved

The applicant

Some of these were so vague. They could be anyone, honestly. Your neighbors, your father, your friends…

The newlywed

The ex-gifted kid

The uncle

The Badgers fan

“My husband is a Badgers fan,” you say.

“How lovely,” the Devil says. 

Then it hits you.

Of course.

The weightlifter.

The careful driver.

The manager.

The claustrophobe.

Your husband Dave lifts weights at the gym twice a month. You wouldn’t call him a pro, but he does it. He also drives like he’s got a bowl of hot soup in his lap all the time, because he’s afraid of being pulled over. He just got promoted to management at his company, and he takes the stairs to his seventh-story office because he hates how small and cramped the elevator is.

“I get your game,” you announce. “You thought you could get me, but I figured you out, jackass!” “Oh really? What is my game, pray tell?” The Devil responds, leaning against his cane.

“All these different titles– they’re all just different ways to describe the same guy. My husband isn’t one notch on the wheel, he’s every notch. No matter what I land on, Dave dies. I’m wise to your tricks!” 

The Devil cackles. 

“You’re a clever one, that’s for sure. I thought you’d never figure it out.”

“Thanks but no thanks, man,” you say with a triumphant smirk. “I’m no rube. No deal. Take me back home.”

“As you wish, missus,” the Devil says. He snaps his fingers, and you’re gone, back to your brand-new house with your new husband. “Don’t say I never tried to help anyone.”

Now Available!

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meat4meat by wolfpaper

Transgender and Disabled Body Horror Anthology

meat4meat is a body horror anthology featuring a foreword by @cryptotheism, stories from eighteen disabled and/or transgender authors including Claudine Griggs (as featured in Netflix's Love Death Robots), @masonhawthorne, @horrorsong, @jayahult, and many more, illustrated by several other trans and/or disabled artists including @magistelle, @himecommunism, @receptor-modulator, and more!