The Shallows

By Callum Matthews

The ocean spoke to Samuel Wade, though not in words. It whispered in the spaces between the winds and in the quiet, mournful song of the tide as it lapped against the rocks. Greyshore was quiet now, just as Samuel had hoped. When he moved here after the death of his wife, he thought the isolation might help—might offer him some kind of peace. But it hadn’t. Instead, Greyshore gnawed at him like a cold, persistent wind, with its crumbling docks and rusting boats tethered to the past. Time moved slowly here, and the days bled into one another with the monotony of the tide.

He walked along the shore, the sand damp beneath his boots, eyes scanning the horizon. The sea stretched endlessly before him, a dark and brooding expanse under the late afternoon sky. He often walked at dusk. It was the only time the town seemed to breathe, if such a dead place could breathe at all.

The locals were wary of outsiders like him. They had been from the start, but Samuel didn’t mind. He preferred the distance. The old men at the docks avoided him, muttering under their breath when he passed. They were a strange breed, the people of Greyshore—eyes sunken, skin worn by wind and salt, as though the sea had carved its mark upon them. They didn’t talk much, but when they did, their words hinted at things best left unsaid.

The stories he’d overheard at the docks intrigued him, though. Disappearances. Fishermen lost at sea, their boats found adrift near the place the locals called The Shallows. The name came with whispered warnings, muttered like curses, as if the mere mention of it could summon something from the deep. Most of them refused to fish near there, insisting that the water wasn’t right, that something lived beneath it—something older than the town, older than memory itself.

Samuel didn’t believe in fairy tales, but the stories clung to him, much like the grief he carried. His wife, Clara, had been everything to him, and when she passed, it was as if the world dimmed, as if something vital had been taken from him. The quiet of Greyshore suited his hollowed-out soul, and yet the more time he spent in this town, the more something stirred within him—something restless.

Tonight, the ocean seemed even darker than usual, a bruised sky reflecting in its inky surface. Samuel’s eyes drifted toward the horizon, where the water met the sky, a line so thin it felt fragile, as though the world could crack open at any moment.

He had heard the warnings, of course. He had heard the names the old men whispered. The drowned. The forgotten. Those lost to the sea, never to return. But Samuel didn’t fear the sea. It was the only place that gave him any semblance of solace. If there was something out there in the deep, he wanted to see it. He needed to see it.

He turned back toward the small dock where his boat, an old but sturdy vessel named The Tempest, was moored. The boat had been his one companion in these months of solitude, carrying him out into the quiet waters where he could fish in peace, far from the judging eyes of the townspeople. But tonight, it wasn’t fish he sought.

The Shallows.

The name lingered in his mind like a dare, a challenge he couldn’t ignore. It was said that the fishermen who ventured there never returned the same—if they returned at all. They said the water was wrong there, that it moved in strange ways, as though something far beneath its surface was breathing, waiting.

Samuel wasn’t sure what he believed, but he was tired of living in the shadow of his own life. Tired of waiting for something to change.

He untied the boat and climbed aboard, feeling the weight of his decision settle over him like a shroud. The engine roared to life with a mechanical growl, and he steered the boat away from the shore, the town receding into the mist behind him.

As he pushed farther out to sea, the wind picked up, sharp and cold against his skin. The horizon loomed ahead, and somewhere out there, hidden beneath the dark waves, lay The Shallows.

The water grew quieter the farther he traveled, as though the sea itself was holding its breath. Samuel cut the engine, letting the boat drift. His heart pounded in his chest, a steady rhythm that matched the pulse of the ocean. For a long time, there was nothing—only the gentle sway of the boat and the endless expanse of black water.

And then, he felt it.

At first, it was subtle. A shift beneath the waves, a tremor so faint he almost missed it. He leaned over the side of the boat, peering into the water. The surface rippled slightly, as though something vast and unseen was moving far below.

A chill ran down his spine.

There were no fish here. No birds, either. The air was too still, too heavy. The silence pressed in around him, oppressive and absolute.

Then, a sound—a low, guttural noise, like the groan of a shipwreck buried deep beneath the ocean floor. It reverberated through the water, through the boat, and into Samuel’s bones. He clenched his jaw, his knuckles white as he gripped the side of the boat. The water beneath him rippled again, and this time, he saw something.

It was brief, a flicker of movement beneath the surface, but enough to make his heart lurch. Something large. Something impossibly large.

He pulled back from the edge, breathing hard. His pulse raced, a cold sweat forming on his brow. The old men had been right. There was something down there. Something that didn’t belong in this world.

Suddenly, the boat lurched, nearly tossing him overboard. Samuel grabbed the edge, his eyes wide as the water around him began to churn, the surface roiling as though stirred by an unseen force.

The groaning sound grew louder, more insistent, vibrating through the hull of the boat. He tried to start the engine, but the key refused to turn. Panic flared in his chest as the boat was pulled toward the center of the disturbance, drawn by an invisible current.

Samuel looked out across the water, and for the first time, he understood why the fishermen never returned from The Shallows.

There was no coming back from what waited beneath

The boat lurched again, harder this time, throwing Samuel to his knees. His hands scraped against the wooden planks, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The churning water roared louder now, a terrible, gurgling sound that seemed to rise from the depths. Something beneath him was waking up. He could feel it.

His mind raced as he struggled to pull himself upright. The engine still wouldn’t start, no matter how many times he twisted the key. The boat was caught in a current that shouldn’t have existed. The sea was calm when he’d arrived, but now the water seemed to pulse with a life of its own, swirling and twisting in unnatural patterns.

He cast a frantic glance around him. No land. No sign of the town, no trace of Greyshore’s distant lights. It was as if the world had vanished, swallowed by the night and the dark ocean beneath. His breath misted in the frigid air as his eyes searched the water for any sign of the movement he had seen earlier, but the waves offered no answers—only the unnerving sensation that something was watching.

The sound came again, low and rumbling, like the groan of something ancient and immense shifting in its sleep. The water, once black as ink, began to ripple with a sickly green light from deep below, casting eerie shadows across the deck of the boat. Samuel’s heart thudded in his chest as he leaned over the side, staring into the abyss.

Beneath the boat, far below the surface, something stirred. A shadow, vast and serpentine, coiled slowly in the depths, its form too great to comprehend. The pale light caught the edges of something, a gleam of bone or stone, rising slowly toward the surface.

Suddenly, the boat dropped, plummeting as if sucked down by an unseen force. Samuel cried out, clinging to the railing as the water roared around him. The air thickened, pressing in on him like an invisible hand squeezing his chest. His vision blurred, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he felt as though he was no longer alone.

A voice—or something like a voice—whispered to him, low and guttural, its words twisted and alien, scraping across the surface of his mind. His thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind, disjointed and fragmented. He couldn’t understand what it was saying, but the meaning seeped into him all the same, filling him with a deep, primal terror.

This thing, this presence, was not of his world.

It was older than the sea, older than the stars. It had been waiting, dormant and dreaming, beneath the ocean for eons, and now it was awake. And it had noticed him.

The boat rocked violently, as though the sea itself was trying to throw him overboard. Samuel clung to the edge, his hands slipping on the wet wood, his body shaking. He had to get out of here. He had to get away.

But there was no escape.

The green light grew brighter, pulsing from the depths like the heartbeat of some colossal beast. The water surged upward, bubbling and frothing around the boat as something enormous began to rise. Samuel could feel it now, feel the immense pressure building beneath him, feel the weight of the thing that lay beneath the waves, pushing against the fragile barrier between their worlds.

He couldn’t breathe. The air was thick, suffocating, filled with a metallic taste that clung to his tongue. He tried again to start the engine, his fingers trembling as they fumbled with the key, but the engine was dead, as lifeless as the world around him.

The boat tipped violently, and Samuel’s grip slipped. He stumbled backward, crashing onto the deck as the boat listed to one side. A massive shadow loomed beneath the surface, distorting the water in impossible ways. His mind struggled to process what he was seeing—this thing, this entity, was too vast, too alien to comprehend. Its body rippled beneath the waves, long and sinuous, like the twisting of an enormous, coiling serpent. But there were other forms, too—strange, angular shapes that defied logic, that seemed to shift and twist in dimensions beyond human understanding.

Samuel’s stomach churned as his thoughts unraveled. The presence he had felt earlier, the one that had whispered to him, was clearer now, its voice merging with the very air around him, pulling at the edges of his consciousness. It wanted him. It wanted to pull him down, into the depths, to make him a part of its endless, unknowable existence.

The water surged, and Samuel was thrown hard against the side of the boat, his vision flashing white with pain. His head swam as he gasped for air, his body trembling with fear. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. The sea was alive with energy now, the water churning and boiling as if the ocean itself was being torn apart.

And then, with a deafening roar, the surface of the water exploded upward.

Samuel’s mind went blank as a massive form broke through the surface, an enormous, grotesque thing that defied all sense of proportion or reason. Its body was an amalgamation of writhing tentacles and jagged, angular limbs, each one twisting and writhing in impossible directions. Its skin glistened in the sickly green light, wet and gleaming with a texture that made Samuel’s stomach lurch.

But its eyes—its eyes were the worst.

They were vast and unblinking, too many to count, all fixed on him, each one filled with a deep, unfathomable hunger. He could feel them staring into him, past his skin and bones, down into the very core of his being, peeling back the layers of his mind as if he were nothing more than a fragile shell.

A scream tore from his throat, but it was swallowed by the roar of the water as the thing began to rise higher, its massive form towering over the boat. Samuel’s mind buckled under the weight of its presence, the sheer impossibility of it. He couldn’t think, couldn’t move. All he could do was stare as the creature from the depths reached out toward him.

This was it. This was how it ended.

And then, just as the creature’s tentacles began to wrap around the boat, pulling it down into the abyss, everything went silent.

The churning water stopped. The wind died. The green light flickered and vanished. For one brief, horrifying moment, Samuel was suspended in the quiet, the boat swaying gently in the calm sea.

And then the world snapped back into focus.

The boat jerked forward, and the engine sputtered to life with a roar. Samuel blinked, disoriented, as the boat surged ahead, cutting through the water with unnatural speed. The thing in the water was gone, its presence evaporating as though it had never been there at all.

But Samuel knew the truth.

It was still there, somewhere beneath the waves, watching. Waiting.

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. His hands trembled as he steered the boat toward the shore, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The town of Greyshore appeared in the distance, the outline of its docks barely visible through the mist.

But Samuel didn’t feel the relief he expected. Instead, as he neared the shore, he felt only dread.

Because he knew, deep down, that something had crossed over. The veil between their worlds had thinned, and whatever was waiting in the depths was no longer content to stay there.

He could still hear the whispers.

Samuel’s hands shook uncontrollably as he guided the boat into the dock, the engine finally sputtering and choking to a stop. The sound of the dying engine echoed in the still air, but it was nothing compared to the cacophony that still rang in his ears—the terrible, otherworldly roar of the creature, and the whispers that had slithered into his mind.

He could still feel them, faint now, like a distant song carried on the wind. But they were there, always there, clawing at the edges of his thoughts. His legs trembled as he climbed out of the boat, his boots landing with a dull thud on the damp wood of the dock. Greyshore was dark, the streetlamps casting weak halos of light through the thick fog that rolled in from the sea.

Samuel stood for a moment, staring out at the water. The surface was calm again, smooth as glass, as if nothing had happened. As if the nightmare he had just lived through was nothing more than a trick of the mind.

But he knew better.

The sea was a liar. It held its secrets deep, hiding them beneath the waves, waiting for the right moment to reveal them. And tonight, it had shown him something. Something he would never be able to unsee.

He turned away from the water, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. His head pounded, a dull ache spreading from the base of his skull, and the air felt thick, suffocating. He needed to get away, to put distance between himself and the sea. The thing that had risen from the depths was still out there, somewhere, lurking just beyond the edge of his perception. And it was waiting. Waiting for him to come back.

The thought made his stomach twist, and he stumbled forward, his vision swimming. The docks were empty, the town eerily quiet as he made his way up the narrow path toward the small cottage he had rented on the edge of Greyshore. The wind picked up, cold and biting, but Samuel barely felt it. His mind was elsewhere, replaying the events over and over in a loop he couldn’t escape.

The eyes. He couldn’t stop thinking about those eyes. So many, all watching him, studying him, as if he were nothing more than a fleeting speck in a universe far older and more dangerous than he had ever imagined.

His breath hitched in his throat, and he stopped in the middle of the path, his eyes darting to the darkened windows of the nearby houses. There was no movement, no sound, but Samuel could feel something watching him, hidden in the shadows. His skin prickled with unease, and he quickened his pace, his boots thudding against the damp ground as he neared the cottage.

The door creaked as he pushed it open, the old wood groaning under the weight of his exhaustion. Inside, the air was stale, the faint scent of salt lingering in the walls. Samuel shut the door behind him, sliding the bolt into place with trembling hands. The cottage was small, sparsely furnished, with only the essentials: a bed, a table, and a few chairs. It was enough for him, enough to keep him out of the town and away from prying eyes.

He collapsed into one of the chairs, his body heavy with fatigue. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and half-formed fears, but there was no escaping the truth. Whatever he had encountered out there, whatever had risen from the depths, wasn’t done with him.

The whispers were growing louder again, filling the quiet room with their strange, distorted cadence. He pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block them out, but it was no use. They weren’t coming from outside—they were inside him now, winding through his thoughts like the tentacles of the creature that had surfaced beneath his boat.

He leaned forward, his head in his hands, trying to steady his breathing. His heart was racing, his pulse pounding in his ears, and for a moment, he thought he might be sick. He could feel it, that thing, as though its presence still lingered on the edge of his awareness, just beyond the veil of reality. It had touched him, marked him, and now there was no turning back.

Samuel’s eyes drifted to the window, where the fog pressed against the glass, thick and impenetrable. Beyond it, he could hear the faint sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, a steady, rhythmic pulse that matched the whispers in his mind.

And then, as he sat in the silence, something moved outside.

A shadow passed across the window, swift and silent, barely noticeable in the dim light. Samuel’s breath caught in his throat, his body going rigid. He waited, his heart hammering in his chest, but the shadow didn’t return. The fog swirled outside, thick and dense, and for a moment, he thought he had imagined it.

But deep down, he knew better.

Slowly, he rose from the chair, his legs trembling beneath him. He approached the window cautiously, peering out into the fog. The air was still, and the street was empty, but the feeling of being watched hadn’t left him. If anything, it had grown stronger.

His hand hovered over the curtain, ready to pull it closed, when a sound broke the silence—a soft, wet scraping, like something heavy being dragged across the ground. His heart lurched, and he took a step back, his eyes darting to the door. The sound came again, closer this time, and Samuel felt the blood drain from his face.

Something was out there.

The scraping grew louder, more insistent, and the door rattled on its hinges, as though something was trying to push its way inside. Samuel backed away, his pulse racing, his mind spiraling into panic. He had locked the door, he was sure of it, but the bolt rattled now, shaking with the force of whatever was outside.

He didn’t know what to do. His breath came in shallow, rapid bursts, his body frozen with fear. The door groaned under the pressure, and for a moment, Samuel thought it would break. He could hear the wet, labored breathing now, just beyond the door—something massive and hungry, something that had followed him from the sea.

The whispers surged in his mind, louder now, more insistent. They weren’t just whispers anymore—they were commands.

Open the door.

His hand twitched, instinctively reaching toward the bolt, but he stopped himself, his heart pounding in his chest. No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t let it in. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t meant for this world.

The door shuddered again, the wood creaking under the strain, and the whispers grew louder, pressing against the walls of his mind. The scraping continued, a rhythmic, wet sound that made his skin crawl. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands trembling as he pressed them to his ears, trying to block out the whispers.

But it was no use. They were inside him now. They had always been inside him.

And slowly, despite his terror, despite the pounding of his heart and the sweat dripping down his back, Samuel’s hand moved toward the door.

The bolt slid free with a soft click.

Samuel’s body moved as though it no longer belonged to him. His trembling hand gripped the handle of the door, and for a brief moment, clarity broke through the fog of whispers in his mind. He didn’t want to open the door. He knew what waited for him on the other side—what had followed him from the depths of The Shallows. But the whispers twisted through his thoughts, pulling him toward the door, their voices soft and insidious, as if soothing him into submission.

His hand turned the knob.

The door swung open with a low groan, and the thick fog immediately seeped into the room, curling around his legs like cold, wet fingers. The air was frigid, far colder than it had been just moments ago. For a moment, there was nothing—just the fog swirling in the doorway, and the distant, rhythmic sound of the ocean.

Then it appeared.

At first, it was a shadow—indistinct, shifting within the mist. But as it moved closer, its form became clear, and Samuel’s breath caught in his throat. The thing standing in the doorway was massive, its body hunched and grotesque, a twisted amalgamation of flesh and bone. Its skin was slick and wet, gleaming in the dim light, and the faint glow of the streetlamp outside caught the edges of its form, revealing glimpses of something too monstrous to fully comprehend.

The creature’s head, if it could be called that, was a writhing mass of tendrils, each one twisting and curling in the air, as though tasting the atmosphere. Its body was a nightmare of angles and curves that defied logic, its limbs moving in unnatural directions, as though it existed in multiple dimensions at once. The mere sight of it made Samuel’s mind rebel, his thoughts fracturing under the weight of its impossible form.

But the worst part—the part that froze Samuel in place, his heart pounding in his chest—were its eyes. Dozens of them, scattered across its body, each one unblinking, glowing faintly in the fog. They fixed on him with a hunger that made his skin crawl, as though they could see straight through him, into the very core of his being.

The whispers surged again, louder now, filling his mind with a cacophony of alien voices. He staggered backward, his body trembling as the creature stepped over the threshold, its massive form barely fitting through the doorway. The wet sound of its limbs scraping against the floorboards sent a shiver down his spine.

It was inside. He had let it in.

Samuel’s breath came in short, sharp gasps as the creature loomed over him, its tendrils writhing and reaching out toward him. He tried to move, to run, but his legs refused to obey. The whispers were in control now, guiding him, forcing him to stay where he was. The creature’s eyes locked onto his, and he felt a wave of cold, suffocating terror wash over him.

The thing in front of him wasn’t just from another place—it was from another reality entirely, something ancient and incomprehensible, a thing that should never have been allowed into this world. It had followed him, latched onto him when he crossed into its domain at The Shallows, and now it was here to claim him.

Samuel’s legs buckled, and he fell to his knees, his mind unraveling under the weight of the creature’s presence. The whispers in his head grew louder, more insistent, filling every corner of his thoughts until there was no room for anything else. They were not words, not exactly, but impressions, feelings, thoughts that were not his own. They whispered of endless oceans, of stars that had long since burned out, of things that moved in the spaces between worlds.

They whispered of surrender.

The creature bent low, its massive, grotesque form looming over him, tendrils brushing against his skin with a cold, slimy touch. Samuel’s body went rigid, his muscles locking in place as the creature’s presence filled the room, pressing down on him like a weight he couldn’t escape. Its eyes gleamed with an unnatural light, and Samuel could feel it probing his mind, peeling back the layers of his consciousness like the skin of a fruit.

He tried to scream, but no sound came out. His throat was dry, his chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. The whispers were deafening now, a constant hum in the back of his skull, pressing him to give in, to let go. He could feel the pull of the thing before him, an ancient, irresistible force that had reached out from the abyss to claim him.

And then, in the midst of the chaos, something shifted.

For a brief moment, the whispers quieted, the pressure in his mind easing just enough for a single, coherent thought to break through: This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

Samuel blinked, his vision swimming as the room around him wavered, the edges of the creature’s form flickering like a bad signal on an old television set. The fog, the creature, the whispers—it all felt wrong, like a dream that had gone too far, a nightmare that had slipped into the waking world.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to wake up, to pull himself out of the horror that had consumed him. But the whispers returned, louder than ever, and the creature’s tendrils tightened around him, its eyes boring into his soul.

“No…” Samuel gasped, his voice barely more than a whisper. “No…this can’t…”

The creature’s presence pressed down on him, the weight of it unbearable. He could feel his thoughts slipping away, swallowed by the endless ocean of madness that the thing carried with it. He was drowning, sinking into a darkness that stretched on forever, and there was no way out.

But just as the last vestiges of his mind began to slip away, something inside him snapped.

With a final, desperate burst of will, Samuel pushed back against the thing that had invaded his mind. He shoved against the whispers, against the weight of the creature’s presence, clawing his way out of the abyss with every ounce of strength he had left.

And then, suddenly, it was gone.

The whispers stopped. The pressure lifted. The creature’s form flickered once, twice, and then vanished, dissolving into the fog as if it had never been there at all.

Samuel collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath, his body shaking with exhaustion. The room was silent, the fog still hanging thick in the air, but the creature was gone. The door hung open, swinging gently in the breeze.

For a long time, Samuel lay there, too weak to move, his mind reeling from what had just happened. Had it been real? Or had it all been in his head—a nightmare born from the trauma of what he had seen in The Shallows?

Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, his legs unsteady beneath him. The room was cold, the fog still pressing against the windows, but the oppressive presence of the creature was gone.

He stumbled toward the door, his hand gripping the knob as he pulled it closed with a heavy thud. The night outside was quiet again, the distant sound of the ocean the only thing that broke the silence.

Samuel stood there for a moment, staring at the door, his mind still reeling. He had let something in. Something from another world, another reality. And though it was gone now, he knew, deep down, that it hadn’t left for good.

The veil between their worlds had thinned, and whatever lurked beyond it was still watching, waiting.

Samuel turned away from the door, his breath coming in slow, shallow gasps. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay in Greyshore. The town, the sea—it had changed him. He had seen too much, crossed a line he could never uncross. And the whispers, though faint, were still there, lingering at the edge of his mind.

He wasn’t safe. Not here. Not anywhere.

But as he stood in the dim light of the cottage, Samuel knew one thing for certain.

The sea had called to him once. And it would call again.

Haunted

By Robert Howell

For years I have been telling people of the haunted house I once lived in. Most people just laughed, some believed and wanted to hear more, and some just thought I was trying to rope them in to sell them a book. Yes, I am a writer and storytelling is what I do. But the haunted house experience was real.

Since I am writing this down in the hope that someone will find this and know the truth about what happened to me, I might as well start with the beginning.

I was thirteen years old when we moved into the house. I refuse to name the place so that no one will try and find it. It may have been torn down years ago, but those who hunt down the place, and name it, could fall into the same pit of despair that I currently reside in.

My father moved around a lot. I don’t think we lived in any one place for more than three years at a time right up until I joined the military and made my own way in life. The house was a rare exception even for this. My father had a temporary job that would last a year so he rented this beautiful brownstone townhouse in the eastern section of a city I will not name. The house was beautiful and came fully furnished. Even the beds were there, but the owner had replaced all the mattresses.

We moved in on a sunny warm day in July. It was the first time I had seen the place. It had a double-door entrance with a foyer large enough for a nice wooden bench, table, double closet, and still room to move around. Passing through the entrance, on the left was a large living room with a fake fireplace and an archway to the dining room, and straight ahead was a hall leading to the kitchen. Just before reaching the kitchen was a door leading to the basement which I will go into later.

To the right after the entrance was a staircase leading up to three bedrooms and a full bathroom. The bathroom was to the left as we exited the staircase and beside the bathroom was the master bedroom which of course became my parent’s room. To the right was another bedroom, which became my younger sister’s bedroom, and at the end of the hall was my bedroom. For the first time, I would have a bedroom all to myself as my older sister had already moved away the year before when she turned eighteen.

We settled in nicely and for the first couple of months, it was peaceful and quiet. When the change came it was not sudden mayhem and the first incident did not connect us to the idea of the paranormal nor did fear enter the picture. It was gradual as events started to pile up. Yes, it started with the basement, which I will now talk about.

It was a winding staircase that led to the basement. At the bottom, the first room had the furnace and electrical boxes. The next room was locked. The owner told us he used it for storage and would not give us a key so we had no idea what was in it. The final room was the laundry area. It was in this room it started.

It was an unusual layout. The washer and dryer were on opposite sides of the room. One day as my mother tried to put the wet clothes into the dryer it slammed shut on her, breaking three fingers. My father said it was some type of defect in the dryer door and had a repairman adjust the door. It took over a month for her hand to heal enough to start doing chores again. Myself and my younger sister took over a lot of the household chores as my father was always at work.

The second incident also took place there. This time it was me. I was bringing clothes down to do laundry when I felt a push from behind and tumbled all the way down. I was fortunate not to break my neck, but the same could not be said about my arm.

After that, my mother shut and locked the door to the basement and gave strict instructions not to go there. My father was pissed, saying using a laundromat was too expensive and that it was all in our imagination. Still, my mother stood firm.

My father’s position soon changed when it happened to him. This time it was on the back balcony. He was sitting and having a beer. It was his first one so he couldn’t even blame it on the booze. He saw a shadow at the doorway and knew it was not one of us because he saw the form of a large man. The door slammed shut and then pieces of the wood overhang above him started falling off. What convinced him though was that each piece, as it fell, headed directly at him. The entire incident only lasted about ten seconds, but when done he required over thirty stitches.

For the next two months, there were little incidents, but nothing serious. Small things like lights going off and on, and we could actually see the light switch going up and down, articles being put in one place and reappearing later somewhere else, usually in the refrigerator, and so on.

One day the owner of the property came to visit. We tried to tell him what was happening, but he got all huffy and told us if we wanted to move, we could go ahead and move, but he would hold three month’s rent. My father then demanded that he at least show us what was in the locked room or he would break down the door. By this time, we were convinced that the center of the problem was located behind that door.

The owner said fine and produced an unusual-looking key, shaped like an actual skeleton. It is the first time I ever wondered about the origin of the term skeleton key. We all followed him down, wanting to know what was there.

The opening was anticlimactic. It was not a large room, maybe ten by ten. The walls were lined with model trains. He told us that his father was an aficionado of trains and that it was his place of pride. The trains even worked, he told us, although he had not started them in a long time. He said his father had been very protective of the trains and spent many days, until his death, making hand carvings to go with the trains, and he ran the trains over and over again every day. It drove his mother crazy. We only found out after we moved that he meant literally, as his mother had been admitted to a hospital for psychiatric patients where she lived to the end of her days.

While my father was talking to him, I snuck past when the landlord wasn’t paying attention to get a closer look. What I saw shocked me. In each train, there was a sculpture of a person that I first thought was a plastic toy. But when I got close, I could see they were carefully carved of wood, painted, and had an almost real appearance. But each of the figures had a look of horror on their face. That was when the owner grabbed me by the shoulder and fiercely twisted me around, knocking me to the ground. My father was about to strike the man when he suddenly changed and helped me up, apologizing for his actions. He explained it away by saying the trains were delicate and he was afraid I would break them. He then pushed us out of the room and locked the door again, quickly leaving the house.

That night was scary. Doors were slamming all over the house, windows opening and closing on their own, the television starting up and then shutting down, and more. We would see the shadowy figure of a large man wandering from room to room. Every once in a while, we could hear his voice saying he would take care of all who had mocked him or tried to damage his trains.

The next day my father called in a friend who knows a little about the supernatural. He said we had a vindictive ghost and that if we didn’t cleanse the place we could be seriously hurt. Like we hadn’t already been. He claimed to have done some research at the local library looking through old news clippings. That he had discovered that the owner of the trains had died in this house. He had also been under investigation for the deaths of his co-workers when he had worked at the railway company but had never been charged.

My father’s friend then showed us copies of some of the articles he had read. I never said anything, but I recognized the pictures in the articles, the pictures of the people he was suspected of killing. I recognized them because I had seen those faces on the figures in the train!

He had come prepared though. Using white chalk, holy water, and reading from the Bible, he went from room to room. He used the chalk to make crosses at every window and door, reading a passage from the Bible each time and sprinkling holy water.

It all went well until he came to the door to the basement. It would not open. We used a screwdriver to pry it, a hammer to smash it, and any other tool we could find, but it would not open. Instead, he finished off by chalking a large cross on the door. He read passages from the Bible for over half an hour and sprinkled the holy water liberally over it. He then took a large padlock and ensured the door was secure before leaving the house.

That night we all slept in the living room. The banging on the basement door started at midnight and got louder and harder by the minute. Finally, my father had had enough. We packed up our things and went to a motel for the night. But as we were on the way out the door, a voice yelled, “If you ever return, you will become a permanent part of my collection.” The next day my father hired a company to go over and pack our things. The men that went there rushed through the packing as they said they felt fear their entire time there. When my father asked them about the basement door, they said there was none.

Later that week my father got a transfer and we moved to another city. Over the years, the fear and then the memories of that place faded until it just became a story.

I was in my late thirties when my parents passed in a car accident. It was at the service that my younger sister mentioned a memory about the house. She was only eight at the time and had vague memories of it. It was left to me to tell the tale, and I kind of made a comedy about it. But it got me thinking, and that was my mistake and what has led me to today.

My curiosity had gotten the better of me. I had to know what had happened to the house. Google solved nothing, so I traveled the two hundred miles to that city.

My first stop was the local library, looking through their computers for any and all news from local papers about the property. It took some digging, but I found information that surprised me. The first article was about a family who had lived there right after us. It was a family of five with three very young children. While they lived there, one of the children went missing and was never found. The police claimed that there had been a child molester in the area and he had probably snuck into the house and taken the child. The mother though claimed otherwise. She said there was a ghost in the house and it was the ghost that claimed the child. She said a voice told her that her child was to help the ghost play with his trains. Eventually, she was admitted to the local hospital and ended up sharing a room with the mother of the landlord.

The father though wanted revenge. He sent the other two children to live with his parents and one night snuck back into the house and set it on fire, burning it to the ground. He of course was arrested and jailed for arson, but the story goes that as the police took him away, he had a big smile on his face.

By the time the fire had been put out, there was little left of the place. The city ordered the remainder of the building to be demolished, and when done, they dug up what was left and carted it away.

In another article, there was an interview with a fireman who had been there that night. He told a story of a shadow moving around and taking something out, but no one believed him as the fire had been too intense for even the firemen to get close.

I decided to drive over to the place to see what was left. I had some trepidation, but I was also a very logical person who did not believe in the supernatural, despite my own experiences and the fact that a lot of my novels include tales of the paranormal. I would not let some dumb feeling get in the way of what could be an interesting story to write about. Maybe it will be featured in my next novel.

It was only a ten-minute drive, but when I got there, I didn’t recognize anything. Most of the homes that were on that street when I lived there had long since been torn down and replaced by condos. Even the land where the house used to be was a condo building. It was quite a letdown.

I spent a few minutes walking around, trying to place exactly where the house had stood, as the condo building encompassed a large area that used to be where at least five houses once stood. For some reason, I kept being drawn to one area. It was a little courtyard where it looked like the developer had decided to build around that spot. At the center was a small bush that had long since died, but had never been replaced. When I got to the spot I just knew that at this exact spot almost three decades ago, was where the room with the trains had been.

Is this all that is left, I wondered, but for some reason, I said it out loud and finished by calling it by name, the house with the owner’s name. I couldn’t begin to understand why I did that, but maybe it was because it wanted me to. What scared me though was that there was a response.

“I told you that if you ever returned, you would become a permanent part of my collection.”

There was no one around that could have said those words. For the first time since I left that house as a thirteen-year-old, I felt genuine fear. I turned and ran as fast as I could, jumped into my car, and peeled rubber like I was a teen again.

Once I was well away from the place, I began to wonder if it had all been a part of my imagination. I write scenes like this in my books. Maybe I just wanted to hear something to have a new story to write about. But deep down inside I knew that wasn’t what happened.

It took some digging, but I was able to locate the phone number and address of our old landlord from that time. He still lived and was only a few miles away. I decided not to give him a warning but just stop in. I was afraid he would refuse to speak with me.

I pulled up in front of a small townhome that matched the address I had located. Sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch was an older man. It took me a moment to realize that it was him. My memory was of a much younger person, but I was thirteen at the time.

I got out of my car and walked up the driveway. He watched me as I approached but didn’t make a move to go back into the house. He surprised me though when I got to the steps.

“You had to go back there didn’t you.” He made it more like a statement than a question.

“How do you know who I am?” I asked.

“I recognize all his potential victims,” was the answer I never wanted to hear.

“You knew and you rented the house to us anyway?”

He looked at me with sadness in his eyes. Then I saw he had tears running down his face.

“I didn’t know he could still kill after he was dead, or I would have burnt that place and his trains into ashes long ago. I spoke to the fireman who was at the fire and he described exactly what my father looked like, and what he had in his hands as he walked out of the blaze. Of course, no one but me believed him. My father was a man of pure evil. He is the one who drove my mother crazy and almost did the same to me. I was so happy when he died, in that room he loved so much. I thought it was all over then. I was wrong. He took those trains somewhere else and if I knew where I would tell you.”

“What do you mean when you said I had to go back there?”

“I felt his presence as soon as you pulled up. He will come for you soon. He will make you just another passenger in his train like he has to dozens of others. I am sorry but there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

“There must be something I can do. A priest, a fortune teller, or even the police.”

“The last victim died in a church talking with a priest. Another died in the presence of a gypsy fortune teller. One even died in jail. All under mysterious circumstances. No, there is nothing you can do but go home and make your arrangements. He usually comes on the third night after he has told you he would claim you. I am sorry.” With that, the man went into his house and closed the door, refusing to answer my repeated knockings.

The next two days I did everything I could think of. I went to see a priest who told me I should go see a psychiatrist. I surfed the net, looking for any hint of a defense. I stocked up on all the crystals, oils, crosses, and whatever else I could find that anyone even hinted would offer protection.

Now I sit in my chair with my laptop awaiting the inevitable. I can hear him coming. For the last two nights, he has whispered in my ear that my time was almost up. Tonight is the night. I can feel his presence getting closer. I will type what is happening as long as I can in the hope that when my body is found someone will believe the truth. But I will not mention his name or the name of the house. I will not take the chance of condemning another person to what I am about to suffer. My locked door has just opened. I think my time has come.

“This was the last story your brother wrote before he passed. I thought you would like to have it. Your brother had quite the imagination.” The police officer handed a copy of the file they had found on the laptop next to the body, to the sister of the man they had found.

A Wrinkle in Blood

By Alex C. Telander

It began with a wrinkle.

Madeleine was looking into the small makeup mirror. She’d turned forty-five just days ago. Had been doing her best to stave off the wrinkles with a growing collection of creams. And now it’d all gone to shit.

“What the fuck!” Madeleine yelled at the mirror.

She checked in the bigger mirror and there it was right across her forehead: this cavernous wrinkle that had not been there yesterday. Gray and ugly. The fucking Grand Canyon plastered right across her face.

“Ow!” she said as she touched it. It felt like a sharp knife had been drawn across her forehead. She was going to cover it up with foundation, but that wasn’t an option now. She’d just have to deal with it.

She caught the chyron on the TV as she hit the power button: MYSTERIOUS DEATHS PERPLEXING.

Things got worse.

On her lunch break, as she was tossing the wrapping to her sandwich she saw a new wide ridge of wrinkle on her arm.

For the first time she felt fear zap through her.

Something wasn’t right. But she couldn’t deal with it right now.

When she stripped off her clothes to shower that night, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and screamed. New wrinkles all over her body now. Like they were contagious and multiplying. All ugly gray, some oozing blood.

Madeleine moaned with despair as she got into the shower, then screamed again under the hot water, this time in pain. She had to turn the water down to almost cold before she could bear it.

She took Advil and an Ambien then got into bed. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to fall asleep; her body was on fire. What the hell was wrong with her? Sleep eventually took her away from this nightmare of a day.

The nightmare didn’t end.

Madeleine awoke in a level of pain she’d never experienced before. There was sharp discomfort and soreness on the outside of her body, but internally something was very wrong too. Her organs ached. The fact that she could feel them individually seemed impossible. Left kidney. That was her right lung? It was either a heavy ache, or a sharp pain, or something else that just felt very wrong. Her heart. Her liver? And that was her right kidney she was pretty sure.

It was 2:31am. The Advil had worn off.

Madeleine mostly fell out of bed, then dragged herself slowly into a standing position. She awkwardly pulled on clothes: sweatpants, t-shirt, hoodie. Went into the bathroom and screamed at herself for a third time. Something had clawed her face with new wrinkles: one across her cheek, the other reaching down from the corner of her mouth and under her chin.

She pulled her hood up, yanking the cords tight. The roughness of the material against her cheeks felt like nerve endings being rubbed raw.

She took more meds.

Should she call an ambulance? She needed to go to the emergency room. She got her phone, purse and keys and made it into her car. Sitting down was both a wonderful release and an aggravating discomfort. She got on the road and was sort of okay for a little while. Fresh air and not moving much she guessed.

The ER parking lot didn’t look too busy. Thankfully. She went from icy night air to stuffy warmth as the automatic doors opened. She gave her info and her weird symptoms to the receptionist behind the glass. The person did their best to hide a shocked look, but Madeleine still saw it for what it was. She was hideous.

She sat hunched over, not even wanting to mess around on her phone. The TV was broadcasting the news: dead bodies showing up all over the world. It went over her head.

It felt like two hours later when they called her name. Looking at the clock, it’d been twelve minutes.

A medical person asked her what was wrong and she gave the bizarre series of events that were the last twenty-four hours. They did better at hiding their surprise. They took blood, a urine sample, checked her vitals.

She was sent back out into the waiting room. She wanted to be anywhere else. She wanted to not be in agony. She wanted to be fast asleep. She wanted things to be normal.

The news droned on about bizarre deaths.

This time it was under five minutes. They called her name and she was given a cubicle with a curtain for privacy. She asked for help and moaned while they slowly got her into a hospital gown. The nurse was a pro, giving no reaction that she looked like some kind of freak and was probably the last of her kind. Before long she was in bed with a warm blanket. It was thick and rough and would’ve been iron wool on her skin had she not been wearing the hospital gown. Also the warmth was really helping. The nurse said the doctor would be in soon and then someone would be in to do an EKG and then she’d be taken to do a CT scan. Madeleine wasn’t paying much attention because she was already mostly asleep.

The pain was still very much there letting her know something was dreadfully wrong with her body, so she never fell fully asleep. The doctor didn’t show. Someone came in to give her an EKG, attaching all these sensors to her. They had an actual look of terror when they saw her body covered in these ugly gray wrinkles. The pain from each attached sensor was excruciating. She actually yelped as each one peeled away. Then she reverted to her stuporous state until another person came in saying they were taking her for a CAT scan. Her bed became a moving gurney. As she was wheeled to the equipment room she wondered if she was dying and this would be her last night. Then she was back. She didn’t really remember what happened, other than constant pain.

Another semi-conscious period then the doctor finally showed up, turning on all the bright lights. She squinted at him and didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. He was fucking terrified. His voice was shaky. They were going to order more tests. They were going to give morphine for the pain. They didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she would be staying until they had a diagnosis and could help her.

It made her feel a little better. Half an hour later she was on the morphine drip and that helped a lot. It was six AM now and the sun was coming up. They brought her breakfast which she was able to eat. She turned on the TV as she ate.

Something very bad was happening in the world. All over it actually. People were dying and no one knew why.

Madeleine felt a dread begin in her that she didn’t think she was capable of after the night she’d had. Hadn’t she seen something about this earlier? They were collapsing in the street, while driving, while flying, while just being anywhere. Collapsing into a puddle of human goo and not much more. Like someone had dropped a handful of clothes into a bloody puddle. There were photos, lots of them. Then there was video, with a blazing red warning that what she was about to see would be extremely disturbing. Then she watched a person being filmed stop and start screaming, slowly collapsing, then falling to the ground, then . . . that was it. They were dead. They were pretty much gone. Nothing human left.

Madeleine lost her appetite. The nurse came in to take her food away and take her vitals. Her eyes had a look of terror.

“What the fuck is going on out there?”

The nurse just shook her head. She was too scared to speak. She left abruptly.

Madeleine switched channels, but most of it was news and they were covering what was apparently the end of the world. People dying in the tens of thousands everywhere. It was happening too fast for anyone to react, to try and figure out what to do. Some of the puddles of blood had been scraped up and transferred to hospitals and labs, but there was nothing to work with. It just made no sense. It was so random. Anyone could suffer at any time.

No one was safe.

Madeleine could feel herself shaking now. It made what was going on with her seem trivial. Unimportant. But they still hadn’t given her any answers. She hadn’t seen the doctor in hours. Was she going to end up like one of those . . . puddles?

She didn’t have a fucking clue.

At least no one else did either.

She tried to sleep. The food and morphine helped her doze for a few hours. A loud scream ripped her awake, her heart thumping in her chest. It felt like it was just outside her room, but she couldn’t see anything. Then she heard people coming, lots of voices. They were there for a few minutes and then moved away.

Had the hospital just had its first case?

Madeleine, now very much awake, turned the TV back on. It was still the same. The reporters all had this look in their eyes now: they could be next, any one of them, and nothing could be done about it.

She started shaking again.

On the overhead speakers she heard someone calling a CODE BLUE. She didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good. Ten minutes later, there was another CODE BLUE. A short while after that another scream. Someone yelled doctor! only it didn’t sound like they needed the doctor, it sounded like . . . like it’d been a doctor. Another CODE BLUE.

Madeleine pulled her knees up under her chin. Wrapped the blanket around her like a protective shawl.

Everything was so fucked.

She put her head down and started crying.

The blanket had no problem absorbing her tears.

It ended in silence.

The hospital was very quiet now. Only the occasional medical person passing by, usually needing to get somewhere fast. The doctor had stopped by a while ago. Scared the crap out of her. Suddenly he was there, ripping the curtain aside. He’d looked drawn and haggard, like he didn’t know if he would ever sleep again. He told Madeleine they still didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her. She shouldn’t be alive. The wrinkles were everywhere inside her body. In all her organs. But they didn’t seem to be affecting her that much. The doctor didn’t understand how. As he turned to go, he stopped and looked back at her, at the morphine drip.

“I could open it all the way,” he said. “It’s a nicer way to go.”

She shook her head.

He turned and crossed into the hallway then began screaming like an animal that had been crushed under a car. Madeleine watched her doctor fold down and compress into a pool of blood right in front of her. A long time later someone came to clean up the mess. There was a long bloody smear left on the floor.

More time passed. Madeleine thought she was the only one left now. In the hospital. Maybe the world. She felt something new in her body: a vibrating of her skin that went deep, all the way to her soul. She was very scared. She slid out of bed, shakily standing. Her body wobbled, starting to compress.

Madeleine closed her eyes as she felt herself fold down to the ground and end . . .

Madeleine opened her eyes.

She was staring into her bathroom mirror. Her face was clear. Her skin perfect. She took off her robe, revealing her naked body. There wasn’t a single wrinkle on her; not a blemish or mark anywhere.

She was perfect.