Do you like scary stories? How about monsters and things that go bump in the night? If you do, then I have the collection for you. This is an anthology of short scary stories, all of which are original; with more being added as time goes on. If you...
Shawn woke up and began his day as he had for every day since the incident. He rolled out of bed, brushed his teeth, and put on good clothes. Then, when he had eaten breakfast and was ready, he left his little house at the end of the block and began his walk to the city.
He liked his walk. It was quiet and no one bothered him. If he was feeling friendly, he'd wave at people on the sidewalk, but, of course, they would never wave back. They would just stand there, stuck in whatever pose they'd been in when it happened.
Shawn wasn't sure why he could still move around. Everyone and everything else was completely frozen. Birds were left in the air. Fountain water was paused midstream. It was like he was watching a movie and someone had hit the pause button.
It was fine on most days. He was used to being alone, so that hadn't really changed. And he could still interact with most things. But as he entered the city today, something was very different.
In the crowd of people at the city's center, he thought he saw someone moving. Shawn was both worried and excited at the same time. As he made his way through the crowd of still bodies, however, he began to see what it was.
It wasn't a person, but a thing. Something like a leech and a bat. Its mouth was filled with teeth and it was sucking on a person's head. The person didn't react, but they looked stranger and stranger the longer the creature stayed on them. Shawn thought they looked older. When the creature was finished, it pulled itself off the person and flew away. To where he couldn't be sure.
Shawn didn't spend that long in the city today. He didn't like what he had seen, or what had happened to the person. It made him feel uneasy.
He locked his door when he went home.
The next time Shawn went into the city he went back to the place where the creature had been. The person was still there, but there were more now too. The creature was feeding off another person not too far away, and it wasn't alone anymore. There were several other winged leeches. When they saw Shawn they screeched and he ran all the way back to his home.
What were they? And what were they doing to those people in the city? Shawn stayed in his house for a long time after that, too scared to go outside. But then, when he was brave enough, Shawn went back to the same place as before.
There were no leeches there, but strange cocoons on the sides of buildings and in stores. Several people were now missing. Where they had been were piles of dust.
Shawn was very scared now.
He went back home and, after stocking up on food and water, set out to leave his house behind and get as far away from the city as he could. Thankfully, he could still make the car work. As he drove out of his neighborhood and toward the highway, he looked in the rearview mirror and thought he saw something like a black cloud over the city. It wasn't a cloud though. It was the leeches.
Shawn wasn't sure how long he drove, but he didn't stop for anything. He took backroads when the main road was blocked with traffic and sometimes had to go over rough land to get back to the highway.
He wasn't sure how much of the world was affected by the incident. When it happened and everyone froze, he assumed it was everywhere, but now he wasn't sure. All he knew was that he had to get away from the city.
He drove until he was far in the country and the city's towering buildings were a distant memory.
Everything was frozen out here too. As he drove, he noticed more of the cocoons were scattered along the roads and fields. He had to finally stop when one of them was in the middle of the highway. This one was different though. It was hollow. Something had gotten out.
He decided not to linger.
Shawn drove until he came to a very strange sight. As far as he could see, left and right, there was a shimmer in the air. Like a wall or barrier, only he could see through it. He didn't understand what it was though until his car slammed against it.
It was a bad accident. Shawn woke up hours later to see several men standing in front of the car. They were on the other side of the barrier, dressed in Hazmat suits. They were moving! Like him! When they noticed that Shawn was conscious, they scrambled to a vehicle parked a little farther down the road in front of him. The others motioned to him furiously to get out of the car, but Shawn was half delirious from the crash. He could barely move.
What was that feeling? Like footsteps, but bigger.
The man that had run to the van came back with a silvery contraption. He turned it on and a beam of light hit the barrier. The shimmering parted and the men ran inside and began to remove him from the car. They kept looking back from where Shawn had come.
What were they looking at?
When they finally managed to remove him from the car, the men brought him through the hole in the barrier. It closed just as quietly as it had opened.
"Get him to research, pronto! Make sure he doesn't die." One of the men said.
Research? Shouldn't they be taking me to a hospital?
Shawn heard a dull thud behind him. When he looked back to the barrier, he saw something like an insect thrashing against the light. It was so big; maybe even bigger than his car. It reminded him of the leeches, but with more teeth and dull black eyes. He looked behind the monster. As far as the barrier reached left and right he saw more of the creatures. They flew over the treetops and into the sky. There were so many of them!
Are those the things from the cocoons?k
The men in Hazmat suits put Shawn inside the van they had pulled the strange contraption out of. The last thing he saw as the doors began to close was the insect behind the barrier.
One of its claws had broken through.
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