Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

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Tag: nightmare fuel

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 15

Swarming

There will be worms, maggots, and eggs in everybody else’s corpse but your body will smell of rosewater with a hint of tangerine and cinnamon. When the others rot, when their skin will iris open everywhere to let the insects and dirt in, your skin will glass and smoothen and you will only grow more beautiful. Every eyelash you lose is a step to perfection; you cannot bruise, blacken, or blister. Your deep green eyes will keep staring unintimidated toward the sky when I dig you up from your grave and this time I will be right; you will last.

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 14

House of the Spirits

“Why would we be safe in this temple?”

“Because the undead can’t enter there.”

Gilmichael closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. “Right, but what about the ones already here?”

I laughed, nervously. “What are you talking about? This place doesn’t have a graveyard.”

“No, you don’t get it.”

The building rumbled.

He looked up at me from his hands.

“Probably… just thunder. Been a lot of, uh, thunderstorms lately.”

“Everyone is brought back to life. Hell is being evacuated,” he said.

The bones of many, many dead stirred inside the templestones. I felt all heat disappear from my face.

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 13

Twice as long today to make up for having nothing for yesterday’s picture, or something.

Glass Shard From Steve's Foot

There is a TV commercial which no-one else has ever seen. Going for 6 years now. It is about this miracle powder called Pristine. It is a dumb commercial. Completely unrealistic, I tell myself. I’m often shaking when I tell myself that. I am out of sleeping pills now and it seems to happen more often recently. I do not often realize until it is too late to turn the machine off, but even if I try, I stumble, the TV is sluggish, or if I pull the plug it still runs until the commercial’s 45 seconds are all done:

A simple scene, without dialogue.

A home. A soft white mat. A window shatters. Two pairs of boots climb in– everything’s filmed from the floor. They go into the kitchen; a barefoot man is presumably cooking. His yelp’s silenced. He’s dragged into the living room. One of the boot-clad men bends down for a big glass shard and then it’s just boots and trembling feet again. Cloth rips. We hear the slick, sloppy noise of cutting meat. That continues for a good while, until my head falls upside-down in a close-up, and the men who killed me start cleaning up.

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 11

WTF

Most of us lived with them. For many years I had a clamper bite into my thigh, deeper each month. Sometimes it walked for me, felling me clumsily. Maggio from Gargoyle Street had a liversphere, leaking poison from him.

One avoided the factory grounds. It was the kind of place where even the dumbest teenagers would not dare each other to go. Only accumulators went there.

Recognized by clampers on their skulls, which bored deep into their eye sockets, extending antennae and radars to the air. Accumulators furtivated there as often they could, trading bone and blood for spare parts.

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 10

Untitled

Vines litter the walkway, and right before they get to the gates of the castleyard they see a signpost. A vine is wrapped around its base as if holding it up.

DANGER!

it says,

RUSHMERE CASTLE IS A BAANKLIDE

“Baanklide?” the young one asks.

OBSERVE FROM THE BAANKLIDE OBSERVATION TOWER INSTEAD

“Er, a mythical monster from long ago. It can’t stay still but has to try. Looks like beautiful architecture and eats humans for their thoughts. Some say they’re still around.”

WALK THIS WAY

They eventually get to the tower– a stunning building– and the door opens itself for them.

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 9

Careful With That Razor's Edge

One boot on the man’s back, wire in her hands. “Red eyes. You know what that means.”

On his knees, hands behind his back, struggling to right himself. “What it means is that I smoked pot a few hours ago and I’m having trouble sleeping. Nothing more.”

“Yeah, right. Your pockets are stuffed with posies. What’s that supposed to mean? You’re a kleptomaniac gardener? Give me a reason to not tighten this strap.”

“Safety measure. Look, I haven’t got no plague alright– watch me not cough or anything. Don’t be paranoid.”

A moment’s hesitation. “Paranoia got me this far, buddy.”

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 8

Optophobia

Suicide by Cop

Lucy was in one of her moods when Clark came home from the office. The house was nearly speckless and dinner was cooking – something sweet. Even the bits of flappy wallpaper had been glued back to the wall. She wore a dress that was all buttons and flowers and an apron over that and she smiled her pearlywhite when Clark walked in through the door.

He struggled out of his jacket and scarf and hat. It was the 1950’s in the house and he tried to remember the rules for leaving shoes on inside the house.

“Shoot any criminals today, hon?” she asked him.

A scoff. “You know I just do paperwork, sugar.”

“But you brought the gun home, yes?” She was on tiptoes to kiss him and let her arms stay behind her back, balancing herself like a ballet dancer.

“Yes, as is regulation.” He rolled his eyes. Hung the jacket and holster on the wooden thing that looked a bit like a tree and had no name as far as he was concerned. Pulled away from the kiss and stepped into the kitchen, “need any help with this?”

There was a strong smell of syrup and it hit him like a sack of meat to the face and watered his eyes.

“No! It’s all me.” She dragged him out into the hall again and slammed the door. “Go do something manly. Watch sports or something.”

“I don’t even like– what is it you’re cooking anyway?”

He waited a bit at the door, shaking his head and opening his eyes carefully. She stood before him again with a silver tray and a smile and a curtsy. On the silver tray were two beer cans. “Drinking beer is manly,” she said.

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Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 7

Freaky Deer

“One drinks the blood of the animal and wears its skin and this is how one gains its powers. There are animals out here that you have never seen. The baanklides are the first of it. There is the averit which is a hunter. As far as I know, there is only one, but be careful around it. It hunts by getting its victim happy and drunk and then burrows into the back of said victim’s head, accomplishing both things at once. It may wear your skin for days without anyone noticing.”

(the man grinned)

“It really likes to brag.”

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 6

Unknown Source

“Who buys a fireplace for a chimneyless house?”

“Just shut up and help me. It’ll make me feel more at home. Guy at the shop said it’ll transform all this urban stuff into a proper forest house.”

“Don’t they usually have like, installation offers?”

“No. Shut up. Lift on three. One, two–”

“Huh. It does feel more woodsy. Is that pine I smell?”

“They’ll appear, guy said.”

“Whoa. Did you see that thing’s eyes?”

“Don’t fuck around. Help me with this instead. Why are you locking up?”

“Miriam, don’t freak out but something’s watching us. If you turn, turn slowly.”

Nightmare Fuel October 2012, Day 5

They called the monster ‘the suicide box’.

“Just burn it down. Don’t talk to it.”

The suicide box was hardly big enough to sit in. It had no legs or wings or anything else that moved when it shouldn’t. A warning label said ‘will trap you in it with what you’re afraid of most’. Gus looked at the chair there and sat down in the chair, sweat breaking in his forehead, matches right there in his hands. A gust of wind and the door was shut. It was dark but he could make his own light. He opened his eyes.