Tag Archives: spooky

The Outbreak

Posted on by under Short Stories

As daylight crept in, they realized they had survived to see another day. For a long moment, no one moved. The silence felt fragile, like thin ice stretched over something deep and hungry. Then Mara exhaled, slow and shaky, and lowered the crowbar she’d been gripping all night. Her knuckles were pale, her arms trembling—not from weakness, but from the constant tension of expecting the door to splinter, the windows to shatter, the dark to come alive.

“Sun’s up,” Jonah muttered, peering through the cracked blinds. A thin blade of gold light cut across the dust-choked room, illuminating floating particles like drifting ash. “We’re clear.”

“Clear,” Eli echoed, though his voice carried no conviction. None of them believed in “clear” anymore. Only “not yet.”

Mara forced herself to stand. Her joints protested, her body reminding her she hadn’t truly slept in days. “We move in ten,” she said. “Same plan.”

Same plan. It was always the same plan. Survive the night. Scavenge the day. Don’t get caught. Don’t bleed. That last rule mattered more than all the others.

The virus—the thing that had broken the world—wasn’t airborne, wasn’t spread by touch or proximity. It lived in blood. It needed blood. A single drop, slipping into a cut, a scratch, even a cracked lip… that was all it took. Infection didn’t come slowly, either. It was fast, brutal. Within hours, your body turned against you, hollowing you out, reshaping you into something that craved what had just destroyed you. A vampire. Mara hated the word. It sounded like something out of old stories, something romanticized. There was nothing romantic about what they’d seen.

Outside, the city stretched in ruins—Atlanta, or what was left of it. Burned-out cars clogged the streets. Buildings stood hollowed and silent, their windows like empty eyes. But the worst change wasn’t the destruction. It was the domes.

Even from miles away, you could see them rising—massive, shimmering structures swallowing entire districts. Sheets of darkened material stretched over steel frameworks, blotting out the sun. Under those domes, the infected didn’t have to hide. They ruled. And they were expanding.

“They finished another section last night,” Jonah said quietly, nodding toward the skyline. “West side. You can see it from the overpass.”

Mara followed his gaze. A new shadow cut across the horizon where sunlight should have been.

“They’re getting faster,” Eli said.

“They’ve got slaves now,” Jonah replied. “Of course they’re faster.”

That word hung heavy in the air. Captured. Not everyone who survived the initial outbreak stayed free. The originators—the ones who had engineered or unleashed the virus, depending on which rumor you believed—had organized quickly. They didn’t just want to survive. They wanted control. They turned the infected into an army and the uninfected into resources. Blood farms, some called them. Mara shoved the thought away.

“We’re not going near the domes,” she said sharply. “We stick to the outskirts. Hit the pharmacy on Peachtree, then the storage units.”

“If it’s already been picked clean—” Eli began.

“Then we keep moving,” she cut in. “Standing still gets you dead.”

Or worse.

They packed quickly, each movement practiced and efficient. Layers of clothing to protect against scratches. Gloves. Goggles. Makeshift armor sewn from leather and scrap. Every inch of exposed skin was a liability.

Mara checked Eli’s bandages one more time. The cut along his forearm had been their closest call yet—a jagged scrape from a rusted fence. Not infected blood, just bad luck. Still, they’d nearly panicked.

“Still clean?” she asked.

Eli nodded. “Still me.”

“Good,” she said, though her eyes lingered a second longer than necessary.

Because that was the other truth none of them said out loud. You could be fine… until you weren’t.

They slipped out into the early morning light, blinking against its faint brightness. The air smelled wrong—stale, metallic, like something left too long in the sun. Somewhere in the distance, a structure creaked, metal groaning as if the city itself were shifting in its sleep. Daylight was safety. But it wasn’t peace.

They moved quickly, keeping to alleys and shadows out of habit more than necessity. The infected rarely ventured out during the day—not unless they were under a dome or heavily covered. Sunlight didn’t kill them, not exactly, but it weakened them. Slowed them. Made them cautious. Still, Mara had learned never to assume.

They reached the pharmacy just after sunrise. The front had already been smashed in, glass crunching underfoot as they stepped inside. Shelves were half-empty, scavenged by others like them—or worse.

“Split,” Mara said. “Two minutes.”

Jonah headed for the back, Eli to the aisles. Mara moved straight to the counter, scanning for anything useful. Antibiotics, painkillers, antiseptics—gold in this new world. Her fingers brushed against a sealed kit, and relief flickered through her chest. Then—a sound. Soft. Wet. Not from outside. From inside. Mara froze.

“Jonah,” she whispered.

He appeared instantly, weapon raised. Eli followed, eyes wide. The sound came again. A faint dragging. A breath that didn’t quite sound human. Behind the counter.

Mara swallowed, tightening her grip. “On three,” she murmured. “One. Two. Three.”

They moved together, weapons swinging around the corner—and stopped. A man lay slumped against the wall, pale, barely conscious. His eyes fluttered open at the sudden movement.

“Please…” he rasped.

Mara’s gaze dropped instantly to his arm. Blood. Fresh but not just his. It was dark, thick… wrong. The room seemed to tilt.

“How long?” Jonah demanded.

The man’s lips trembled. “I—I don’t know… they took us… I got away…”

“Did they bite you?” Eli asked, voice cracking.

The man didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Because even as they watched, his pupils began to dilate, swallowing the color of his eyes. His breathing hitched, then deepened, sharpening into something predatory. Mara stepped back.

“No,” Eli whispered. “No, we can help—”

“We can’t,” Mara said, her voice hard as steel. “You know we can’t.”

The man’s gaze snapped to her. And for a split second, something human was still there.

“Don’t…” he said, barely audible.

Then it was gone. He lunged. Jonah reacted instantly, slamming him back. Mara didn’t hesitate. She swung the crowbar with everything she had. The impact was sickening. The body stilled. Silence crashed back down around them.

Eli staggered away, breathing hard. “We didn’t have to—”

“Yes,” Mara said sharply, though her voice shook now. “We did.”

Because hesitation got you killed. Or turned. Or worse—captured, drained slowly under some artificial night while the people who did this built their perfect world above your head. Mara looked down at the still body, then at the blood smeared across the floor.

“Grab what you can,” she said quietly. “We’re leaving.”

Outside, the sun had climbed higher—but on the horizon, the shadow of the expanding dome stretched just a little farther than it had yesterday. And for the first time, Mara wondered not if they could survive another night—but how many days they had left before there was nowhere left to run.

Tomb of the Forgotten King

Posted on by under General, Short Stories

Fear forced his heart to beat like a bass drum as he opened the door, each violent thud echoing in his chest as stone scraped against stone. The slab resisted at first, as though weighing his worth, then finally gave way with a low, anguished groan. A breath of air escaped the tomb: cold, ancient, and fouled with something that made his stomach turn. It was not merely dust. It was the smell of confinement, of time compressed into rot.

Elias Kade stood frozen, one hand braced against the door, the other gripping his lantern so tightly his knuckles had turned white and his palm began to ache. The flame flickered, its light stretching weakly into the darkness beyond. He had imagined this moment countless times while hunched over cracked manuscripts and brittle maps, tracing burial chambers with the tip of his finger. In those imaginings, he had felt awe. Reverence. Triumph. Not this.

The darkness inside the tomb was dense, almost tactile, pressing outward as if eager to spill into the world. Elias felt it brush against his face, cold as damp linen. His instincts screamed at him to step back, to seal the door and retreat to the safety of daylight and research libraries and colleagues and rational explanations. But he had not come this far to turn away.

“This is real,” he whispered, though the words sounded thin and uncertain in the narrow corridor. He stepped across the threshold.

The temperature dropped immediately. The warmth of the desert sun vanished as if severed by the stone door, replaced by a chill that seeped through his boots and crawled upward, settling deep in his bones. The lantern’s glow revealed walls carved floor to ceiling in hieroglyphs: prayers, offerings, processions meant to guide a king safely into the afterlife. The carvings were sharp, their edges unnaturally crisp, as though the artisans had finished their work only days ago instead of millennia. Elias swallowed hard. Impossible, he told himself. Dry climate. Exceptional preservation.

The shadows clung stubbornly to the recesses between the carvings, refusing to disperse even when he brought the lantern closer. For a fleeting moment, he thought one of the figures turned its head. He blinked rapidly, heart racing.

“Get a grip,” he muttered.

This was his first excavation. Until now, his career had been confined to climate-controlled rooms and academic conferences, his hands more accustomed to paper than stone. When the opportunity to join the excavation team arose, when they needed someone fluent in archaic inscriptions, someone who knew the burial customs of minor dynasties, he had accepted without hesitation. Unearthing the tomb of a long-forgotten king was the chance of a lifetime. He had not considered what it would feel like to be alone with the dead.

The corridor widened ever so gradually, and then opened into the burial chamber. Elias halted at the threshold, breath catching in his throat. The room was vast, its ceiling supported by thick pillars carved with protective prayers. They rose like petrified sentinels, each etched with symbols meant to ward off intruders. The air felt heavier here, pressing down on his chest, making each breath an effort.

At the center of the chamber lay the sarcophagus. It was massive, black stone veined with pale lines like cracks in bone. Its surface was smooth, unmarred by time or theft. No chisel marks. No fractures. No signs of intrusion. Untouched since it was placed in the room. Elias felt a thrill of fear cut through him. Untouched tombs were rare. Untouched tombs were dangerous. He approached slowly, lantern held high. The light glinted off the stone, revealing inscriptions running along the lid. He recognized the name immediately.

Khetamun. A minor king. Barely a footnote in most historical records. A ruler whose reign had been brief and poorly documented. Yet nothing about this tomb spoke of insignificance.

As Elias circled the sarcophagus, he noticed something odd. Certain honorifics had been scratched away, their elegant symbols replaced with crude, jagged markings. The workmanship was frantic, uneven, as if carved by a trembling hand.

“Defacement?” Elias murmured, crouching closer.

The markings were not random. They formed a pattern, one he did not recognize. A chill crawled up his spine. The lantern flickered.

Elias straightened sharply, heart leaping into his throat. The flame wavered, shrank, then steadied. He exhaled shakily, though his breath fogged in the cold air.

“Old oxygen pocket,” he reasoned aloud. “Air circulation.”

His voice echoed strangely, lingering longer than it should have. As he turned back toward the sarcophagus, he became aware of a sensation he could not immediately name. A pressure behind his eyes. A faint ringing in his ears. Then he heard it.

A sound: soft, indistinct. Like breath brushing past his ear. Elias spun around, lantern swinging wildly. The chamber remained empty, the shadows pooled at the edges of the room.

“Hello?” he called out meekly, hating the tremble in his voice. Silence answered him. Thick. Watchful. Almost ominous.

He laughed weakly. “You’re alone,” he told himself. “You knew this would be unsettling.” But the laughter died quickly.

Drawn by a force he could not explain, Elias returned to the sarcophagus. His fingers brushed the stone, recoiling from the unnatural cold. He found the mechanism almost by accident, disguised seamlessly within the carvings. His hands hesitated.

Every rational part of him urged caution: documentation, consultation, procedure. But another voice whispered beneath those thoughts, insistent and hungry. Open it.

He pushed. The lid shifted with a shriek of stone on stone, the sound reverberating through the chamber like a scream. Dust billowed upward, stinging his eyes and throat. Elias coughed, waving the lantern to clear his vision. When the dust settled, he leaned over the open sarcophagus. Inside lay the remains of Khetamun.

The body was wrapped in linen, blackened and fused to brittle bone. Gold amulets rested against the chest, their surfaces dulled and corroded as though something had eaten at them from within. The skull tilted slightly, jaw parted, frozen in an eternal attempt to speak.

But it was the wall behind the sarcophagus that stole Elias’s breath. Carved deep into the stone, crude and unmistakable, were words that did not belong to ritual or reverence.

I WAS NOT MEANT TO DIE

The lantern shook violently in Elias’s grip.

“No,” he whispered. “That’s… that’s impossible.”

The pressure behind his eyes intensified, blossoming into pain. Images flooded his mind: parched land cracking beneath a merciless sun, a king kneeling before silent gods, priests chanting words they barely understood. A ritual meant to bind a soul to the land, to save a dying kingdom. A ritual that failed.

The whisper returned, louder now, layered upon itself. “I am still here.”

The shadows along the walls began to move. They stretched and twisted, peeling themselves free from the carvings, forming long, clawed shapes that reached toward the sarcophagus and toward him. The temperature plummeted, frost creeping along the stone floor.

Elias staggered back, heart hammering wildly against the inside of his chest. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.”

The whispers swelled into a chorus, grief and rage intertwined. “You opened the door!”

Driven by pure terror and instinct, Elias slammed the sarcophagus lid shut. The stone sealed with a thunderous crack that shook the chamber. The shadows recoiled, snapping back into the walls like smoke caught in a sudden wind. Silence fell. Elias collapsed to his knees, sobbing, the lantern clutched against his chest. He did not know how long he stayed there, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

When he finally fled the tomb, stumbling back into the brutal sunlight, he felt hollowed out, as though something had followed him to the threshold and pressed itself deep into his memory.

The discovery would make headlines. Scholars would praise his translation, his courage, his contribution to history. But Elias would never return to the field again. And sometimes, late at night, buried deep in the quiet stacks of a research library, he swore he could still feel cold breath against his ear; and hear a voice that has been waiting far too long for the door to open again.

Wrong Turn

Posted on by under Short Stories

He hadn’t a clue where he was. His cell phone was dead and the area looked dicey. Buildings slouched together under the weight of age and neglect. Crumbling red bricks and tangled vines told a story of abandonment. Faded billboards loomed overhead like forgotten gods, their messages lost to time. Somewhere in the distance, a siren howled—sharp, mournful, then gone.

Jordan’s fingers tightened around the frayed strap of his backpack. Every instinct told him to keep moving, to find light, people, something—anything—that felt familiar. But every street he turned down just seemed to fold deeper into the city’s forgotten ribs.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had taken the 23 bus from campus to visit his friend Derek, who lived in the next borough. Only, he hadn’t paid close enough attention. One missed stop. A rerouted line. Then that “shortcut” through an alley that seemed to promise a straight path through the grid. That was an hour ago. Now it felt like he’d crossed into a pocket of the city not listed on any map.

He pulled his phone out again. The screen was black. He tapped it. Held the power button. Nothing. The battery had died somewhere between confusion and panic. The irony burned—he had portable chargers at home, cables in every room. But not tonight.

The sky had deepened into a bruised purple, clouds thick like smoke overhead. It would rain soon. Probably hard. A low hum reached his ears—streetlights flickering to life, one by one. Their pale amber glow stretched long shadows across the cracked sidewalk. A newspaper cart, abandoned, listed on one wheel. A neon sign flickered in the distance: OPEN. Jordan moved toward it. It wasn’t just about finding his way—it was about safety. This neighborhood had too many blind alleys, too many places to disappear.

The shop came into view—a corner store, its windows grime-smeared, barred with thick iron grills. The light inside buzzed fitfully. Rows of shelves stood mostly empty. The door was locked. Jordan jiggled the handle, peering inside. A payphone hung crooked on the back wall, its receiver missing. Hope drained from his chest.

Then came the crunch. Glass underfoot. Behind him. Jordan spun. Nothing. Only the empty sidewalk, the stretching shadows. And then—

“You okay, kid?” The voice came from across the street. A man leaned against a rusted lamppost, the cone of light above him flickering on and off. He wore an old flannel jacket, patched at the elbow, and a knit cap pulled low over shaggy gray hair. A cigarette burned between two fingers, its tip a tiny red eye. Jordan froze. The man raised a hand, half wave, half signal of peace. “You look a little turned around.”

“I’m lost,” Jordan admitted, voice tight. “Phone’s dead. I don’t know where I am.”

The man nodded like he’d expected that answer. “Figures. You’re not the first to wind up down here after dark.” He flicked his cigarette to the gutter and gestured. “Come on. Diner’s a few blocks up. You can warm up, get a charge, maybe call someone.”

Every red flag in Jordan’s brain started firing. Stranger. Night. Isolated street. But he looked around again—at the boarded windows, the dead silence, the locked store. And he followed.

The man walked at an easy pace, hands in his pockets. He didn’t speak much, just offered directions when needed. “Left here. Watch the curb. That building burned out last winter—don’t lean too close.” Jordan stayed a few steps back.

“Name’s Milo, by the way,” the man offered. “Jordan.” Milo gave a small nod. “You from the college?” Jordan hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Thought so. You’ve got the backpack, the look.”

“What look?”

“That look like you’ve been reading about the world for years but tonight’s the first time it bit back.” Jordan gave a tight, nervous laugh.

They passed a narrow alley that stank of wet garbage and rot. Jordan caught sight of a dark figure watching from behind a dumpster—but when he looked again, it was gone. His skin crawled. “You see things sometimes, in this part of town,” Milo said softly, not turning around.

“What kind of things?”

“Things you don’t want to see twice.” Jordan didn’t ask for clarification.

The diner appeared suddenly—like it hadn’t been there until they turned the corner. Old-school chrome panels, a flickering DINER sign buzzing in blue and white. One window glowed softly, shapes moving inside. Milo pushed open the door. A bell chimed overhead. Warmth hit Jordan like a wave. The smell of bacon grease and stale coffee wrapped around him, almost comforting.

The interior was a time capsule—vinyl booths, Formica counters, a jukebox in the corner playing a jazz track so low it was more memory than sound. A waitress with tired eyes and bright red lipstick stood behind the counter, cleaning a glass with a rag that looked older than Jordan.

Milo slid into a booth. Jordan sat across from him, watching the few scattered patrons—an elderly man sipping soup, a couple whispering in a corner. No one looked up. The waitress wandered over. “What’ll it be?”

“Hot coffee. And he’ll need one too. Maybe a grilled cheese?” Jordan nodded. As she walked off, Milo leaned back. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.” Jordan glanced at the outlet near the booth. “Mind if I—?”

“Go ahead.”

He plugged in his phone, screen springing to life. Three percent. Enough. He texted Derek:

Got lost. At a diner near someplace named Calder Street. Can you come get me?

After what felt like an eternity, the message sent. Jordan waited. No reply. “Reception’s weird down here,” Milo said, sipping his coffee. “Sometimes the messages take a while. Or never go through.” Jordan frowned. “How come?” Milo stirred cream into his cup. “This part of the city… it forgets things. Or maybe it gets forgotten. People don’t come here unless they’ve got nowhere else to go. Or unless they’re sent.”

“Sent by who?”

“You’d be surprised.”

The grilled cheese came. Jordan devoured the sandwich, his appetite was ravenous now that he was safe. Or at least safer than he was a few minutes ago. He checked his phone. Still no reply. He looked up. “Milo, why were you out there?” Milo didn’t answer right away. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, battered notebook. Set it on the table. “I help people who get lost. Been doing it for years.”

Jordan opened the notebook. Names. Descriptions. Dates. Dozens of them. One page caught his eye:

R. Harris. Found near the tracks. Said she followed a voice. Never made it back.

Then another:

L. Ortega. Claimed he saw the city breathe. Wouldn’t stop screaming. Disappeared from Booth 5.

Jordan swallowed. “What is this?” Milo’s voice was quiet. “People think when you get lost, it’s a mistake. A wrong turn. But sometimes… it’s a calling. The city has places that aren’t mapped. Places that pull. They find people when they’re vulnerable. Hungry. Scared. Lonely.”

Jordan leaned back. “You think that’s what happened to me?”

“I think you were close to something. But you didn’t cross the threshold. Not fully. And that means you can still go back.”

The bell above the door rang. A man walked in, soaking wet. Black hoodie. Pale face. Eyes wide, darting. He slid into booth 5. The same one from the notebook. Jordan looked at Milo. Milo just sipped his coffee. The man in booth 5 looked at Jordan, almost as if he was staring straight through him. Then he whispered, “You shouldn’t have come here.”