"The only redeeming quality about this story is that the good die and the stupid suffer." ~ Anonymous
I’ve seen them in the crowds
I avoid busy places
Too many faces
Too many chances
To spy
Between two passerby
That horrid face
The pallid complexion
The smooth skin
Where eyes should rest
And despite this blindness
They always see me
Turning and pointing
Mouths widening
Widening
Until they reveal
A blood red eye
Peering from behind their teeth
What do they want
What have I done
To earn their ire
Gods help me
I see one now…
Nothing announced the start
I was simply sitting at my desk
Reading quietly
Then all at once
And uniformly
Without a sound
Fingers slid from my walls
Seeming to phase through
Drywall and paint
I fell back from my chair
Staring
Whale eyes
As they passed the first joint
Then the second
Nearing the third
Then past
No hands
Just more joints
Longer
And longer
Until they began to writhe and curl in strange directions
Bending one way
Then with a sickening snap
The joint would reverse direction
Bending the other way
These things reached and probed
Looking for me
Feeling over desk
And floor
My overturned chair
The whole room was filled with a gut-wrenching cacophony
Snaps and crunches
As the probing fingers bent at odd angles
I felt one touch my shoulder
I screamed
They fell silent
And totally still
Then withdrew
And just as I thanked my lucky stars
They reached from the floor
Entrapping me
And dragged me
Screaming
Beneath the wooden beams
Creeptober continues, and I feel the need to apologize. Is this all a bit much? Hm… well nothing to do but soldier on. Eyes forward. Don’t look back. Never look back. They wait for you to look. Never look.
“Gophers I’d think”
My neighbor chided
Eyeing my unkempt yard
And the few scattered holes
I nodded distantly
Feeding a measuring tape
Down a particularly large hole
Five feet straight down already
Then a resistance
The end of the tunnel
I rewound the spool
Shining my light down the burrow
No branching paths
Just a straight shaft
Directly down
“Don’t they make
I don’t know
Like,
Whole systems of tunnels?”
My neighbor peaked over my shoulder
“Suppose they do
But what the hell else could it be?”
That night I lay alone
My curtain drawn
And moon half illuminating my room
I rolled the sight of those holes in my head
What could it be?
What would make such holes?
And why only my yard?
The moonlight dimmed and I glanced at the window
Something thin
And spindly brushed past the house
I leapt from my bed
Already at the window
Thin
Almost like a sapling
But with arms
And hands
Slowly it straightened
Narrowing further
Until only a central beam stood
Sinking slowly into my yard
The head came into view
Speakers
Like on a megaphone
Or
A weather siren?
It did not sound though
It only sat
And waited
I watched it for hours
Until at nearly four AM
It rose
And stretching its limbs
Walked from my lawn
Soundless as the night
Today’s Creeptober was inspired by both the prompt word Holes and a cryptid by the immensely talented Trevor Henderson, slimyswampghost on Twitter. The image featured is a piece of art by them featuring this cryptid.
I arranged it perfectly
My magnum opus
His blood found the cracks
Slipping between the tiles
A bloody tessellation
Then I sat
And played the harp
His final serenade
A lilting dirge
The notes rebounding
Refracting
Multiplying
Fractal melody
The room shimmered
In a strange light
The corners folded
Perpendicular warped
To parallel
There then I communed
With the infinite
Transcending
When I met her
I knew everything had changed
I was alone
Nursing a shot
The bartender close
Hands shaking
As he poured another
The door was open
I don’t remember it opening
But the night poured in
Cold and windy
Dark and stormy
Framed by streetlight
She wore a dress
Black as sin
Lips layered charcoal
Eyes smokey but sharp
“I’ve come to collect
A few of my things.”
Her voice was low
Sultry
Enticing
I swiveled around
Teeth flashing wolf bright
“A drink or two?”
She smiled back
Oh that smile
A dangerous thing…
“No just a few folks
Who are going my way.”
She clicked her tongue
But seemed to consider
“Maybe just one…”
I looked to the bartender
Whose eyes were wide
And staring at me
“Well? Pour her a drink!”
He stumbled away and left
Through a back door
“Rude…”
I grabbed a glass
Poured one out for her
And she sat down
With some gravitas
I held up my shot
And she, hers
“Sláinte!”
I tipped back
“Sláinte agad-sa…”
Her cool response
Her shot was empty
“So what brings you here?”
I bubbled cheerily
“Like I said
To pick up a few friends
Who are going my way.
I mean in the end
You’re all going my way…”
I paused in pouring
I looked back at the crimson
Splashed over the booths
The tangled limbs
The faces of horror
And gripped the pistol
Which sat before me
“And me?”
She laughed
A laugh like broken glass
A rock through an old house
“Soon
But not yet…”
She drifted from me
All grace
And power
Gently she caressed their faces
Lifting away
Something thin
And whispy
To each one she did this
And I waited
“Well do enjoy your whiskey
And have one for me
Before you call it an evening.”
With that
She left back through the door
Closed already
And the heat suffocating
That was when I met her
Call her what you want
Death
Hades
Valkyrie
I simply call her
The Night
The sun was never again so bright
Never so effulgent
As the first time
I came up from our depths
The ominous
Ponderous creaking
As the lift was hoisted higher
And higher
I felt my heart beat quicken
What did it look like?
The sky
Clouds
Sun
Only ideas implanted in my head
Sounds that conveyed nothing
But wonder
And possibility
With a bang the lift stopped
The workers outside the cage
Tied down the rope to the wall
The door was opened
Beyond the gathered crowd I saw the illuminance
The otherworldly radiance spilling over their heads
I stepped
Uncertain
But excited
Onto the tunnel’s floor
The crowd embraced us and handed us head bands
Inset with dark glass
Old bottle bottoms
Lined with leather
We placed them over our eyes and were lead
Single file
Out of the mouth
Birthed into a world so vast
As to leave me awestruck
No god could have prepared me
Could have forewarned
Of this vastness
This beauty
I wept
“Minos, over here!”
Cried my father
Broad arms waving
Face aglow with love
A bear of a man
And one who I had not seen
Not held
In several years
We embraced
Warmth and sweat
But gloriously rejoined
He released me
And gestured to the horizon
Amber mountains stretched on
Unending
The sun beat down on me
Warming me more deeply
More completely
Than I’d ever felt before
And I knew then
I would never again
Love those caves
As I now loved this land
Minos had emerged
Minos had died
Minos was reborn
If you enjoyed this poem make sure to check out Amberley’s poem for this day also right here! Also if you want more poems like this check out our collections After the End and the hashtag AfterTheEnd!!!
I pressed the door closed
Wood shrieked in protest
They had come finally
To take me where, god knows
I shut my eyes against the effulgent glow
Which pierced the wood of the walls
A warning hum rumbled my chest
Shook the foundation as I screamed
This sound was so entirely consuming
I could not hear my own voice
My hubristic nature had finally caught up
Those demands I sent out
Far and wide to the stars
“Find me.
Take me.”
The minatory response came
“Soon.
Await.”
The strident howl broke me
I collapsed and the door buckled
The light was all consuming
But I simply relaxed
Sighed
And let them take me
This was good
This was right
“The fifth child to go missing
In as many weeks”
I switched off the TV
So morbid
I sat up in the lounge chair
As the door swung open
In waltzed Owen
Smug as always
Tray laden with sandwiches
Cellophane wrapped
One for everyone in the office
I appreciated it
But god was it blatant brown nosing
I took the one proffered to me
Unwrapping with care
No one knows where he got them
Which shop made them
But I have to admit
They had been particularly good
This past month…
Our superiors informed us
A new initiative
A deal had been made
With those elder things
And in return for our service
They would graft onto us
Onto our technology
The smallest bits of them
Almost unimaginable in power
Our flesh twists in grotesque mockery
Of our former human bodies
Tanks and planes and guns
Breath with new life
Aware of our touch
We are now known
By a new name
The Abyssal Corp
I waited in the car
AM murmuring quietly
Outside the grocery
My friend was taking awhile
I felt like I’d never get home
The digital display buzzed
Its electronics going bad
And slipped over to the next minute
My eyes losing focus
Fuzzy edges blurring
Something moves
On top the grocer
Sight snapped quick
A dome of ivory white
Amber in the streetlight
Fingers massive and boney
Skin stretched thin over joints
Bloody eyes lidless and angry
Glared down at my car
I felt like I’d never get home
Dried Ink Ribbon 