Creative Corner

Let's get spoopy! I love the Halloween season but I am not an artist. So I decided to write 31 short stories using the official Inktober prompts as inspiration. I'll be posting all of them here. Feel free to post comments here or add your own writing!

It was getting bigger, Erin was certain of it. Just yesterday the mark had been as small as a pin, but today it had swollen to the size of a dime. The skin shiny and taught, a bright shiny red, and the two pinpricks in the center had turned deep and black.

She pressed her nail into the bump, trying to relieve the painful itch, even if just for a moment. The flesh beneath her thumb was soft, a bubble of fluid sloshing around from the pressure, and with every passing moment she could feel it seeping deeper into her skin.

It was poison, Erin was certain of it. Two days ago she had felt the sharp burn of the bite, her hand automatically coming up and slapping against her arm. Her hand had come away with a black stain in her palm, eight spindly legs stretching out on all sides, and in the center of which was an unmistakable red mark.

She had shown the bite to her father, the skin just barely red and puckering. Her ran a finger over the skin but claimed he saw nothing, even when Erin frantically pointed at the exact spot. When it had grown larger, now bright and unmistakable, the next day she had shown him again, only to be denied. "You're crazy," he said, "there's nothing there".

She was going insane, Erin was sure of it. Now the mark had stretched the length of her forearm, the skin blistered and red, shiny white boils sinking into her flesh. Thin veins spread from the center of the mark, like spiders legs crawling up to her shoulder. Where the fangs had pierced her hte skin had taken on a sickly green pallor, and the tips of her fingers were blue and cold.

But it was all in her head. It had to be, surely, just like everyone was telling her. In the night the itching was so strong her nails had torn her flesh apart, but when she saw the doctor the next morning he claimed to see nothing. She held her arm under his nose, red and scabbed and bleeding, and his eyes passed through, unfocused and unseeing. He asked her if she was depressed, if she had thoughts of killing herself. "No, it's not like that," she said, "there was a spider-". He held up a hand and cut her off, and handed her a prescription for ***** to help her sleep and told her to go home and relax.

She was dying, Erin was certain of it. The skin was green and sickly, the blisters bursting with yellow puss, a terrible rotting smell seeping into her skin. Her fingers had turned black and brittle, and the veins now encircled her throat, and the bite mark had sunk all the way to the bone.

They had to be lying, all of them. How could they not see what was happening to her? She wrapped her arm in layers of gauze and still the smell permeated, the puss and blood oozed through the white bandages, staining them red and black and green. She was tired, they said. She wasn't herself. She seemed depressed. They saw the way her cheeks were sinking, how her skin had grown pale, how the rings around her eyes had grown dark. But they could not, no, refused to see the plague that was killing her.

She was alone, so painfully and chillingly alone. No one was going to help her, no one cared that her body was rotting from the inside out, that her blood was turning thick and cold. She was dying, and they were going to let her.

It was difficult, her arms and legs were stiff and unresponsive, but finally she had found the nest. Tiny black spiders shivered from inside the sticky white webbing, their bellies the color of blood. She placed the sack into a jar, carrying the children home with her. They were small, certainly, for now, but soon they would grown. Soon, they would be hungry. Soon, they couldn't be ignored.

I have been dead for a long time. Time passes slowly here, but I have seen the days wane into nights, stars and suns fill the sky, the world frost over and become new again.

It looks so much smaller from here. So insignificant. My life used to be so busy, so chaotic, so important. I was constantly racing to get somewhere, to be something. Time, money, power. It all held such significance. How small things were, yet how big they felt to me.

I cannot feel anything anymore. Not joy, not anger, not fear. In life I feared Hell, an endless abyss of fire and torment. Here there is no beginning, no end. I am floating, perhaps, or falling. There is no direction, no sense of space.

Here there is just my own mind, my own thoughts, and the Earth.

They would have to amputate. The scalding iron rod had burned the flesh all the way to the bone, leaving a smoldering husk of what used to be Jason's leg. The flesh around it was black and charred, the skin beyond that shiny and red. If he had come sooner, they said, maybe they could have saved it. But by the time he arrived the toes were already dark and cold.

Jason was strangely calm when he received the news. His mother was weeping in the chair by his bedside, but his face was remarkably calm. He asked the doctor questions in a distant voice, not making eye contact, looking anywhere but the woman's face.

"How much is being removed?" Above the knee.
"What will happen to the leg once it's gone?" It will be disposed of, there's thing salvageable from it.

"Can I keep it instead?"

This question was met with uncomfortable silence. The doctor fumbled with her words, trying to explain that there was really no need, but he asked again in an icy voice, meeting her eyes for the first time. His piercing gaze bore through her, and she gave a tight nod.

After the surgery, what was left of Jason's limb was pink and healthy, wrapped heavily in bandages. They handed him an ice chest, and if it was not for the hazard sticker on the top, it looked like any normal cooler one might keep meat in.

Once home, after pleading wit him the entire ride home to just please get rid of it, his mother tucked the chest away in basement. Over the months Jason slowly recovered, began to walk again with the help of a crutch, and she forgot all about the severed appendage.

Six months later Jason was finally recovered. He hosted a party at his house, inviting over everyone he knew to celebrate the occasion. Despite his mother offering he insisted on cooking himself, making a special recipe for roast chicken that he refused to share.

At dinner he brought out the steaming plates, small chopped pieces of meat lying over a bed of rice. As his guests looked expectantly at the meal, Jason beamed.

"Please dig in," he said, "I'm sorry if it's a little burnt."

"What are you, chicken?"

The taunting voices echoed all around him. Isiah shivered. The air was icy cold, causing goosebumps to ripple across his skin. He was standing at the edge of the bridge, peering over into the inky black waters below.

"We came out all this way for you, and you aren't even going to give us a show?"

"I-I said I would do it," Isiah stammered, turning back to face them. The jeering smiles and five pairs of smirking eyes glared back at him, like smoldering torches.

"It's only a forty foot drop you little baby. Come on, you want to join Beta Theta, don't you?"

Of course he did. Isiah had been rushing the frat for weeks, overcoming every obstacle they had thrown at him. Each challenge was more brutal, more dangerous. And this was the worst one yet.

People killed themselves on this bridge, Isiah knew that. He'd seen the headlines like everyone else. It was a popular spot for boys to hang out, test one another, see how far out they could go, how high they could climb, how long they could hang off the bridge. Just silly games. And that's all this was right, a game?

"You guys are gunna catch me, right?" Isiah asked.

"Dude, it's just a little trust exercise. How can we call you our brother if you don't trust us?"

Isiah turned back to the rail. In slow, shaking movements he put one leg, then the other, over the side of the rail on onto the edge of the bridge. He held on tightly, his knuckles white, but now there was nothing between him and the watery abyss.

The boys began chanting now, laughing, cheering him on.

"Don't be a sissy! Come on, do it!"

Isiah took a shuddering breath. He closed his eyes, and let go.

No hands came forward to stop him. No arms held him back. As Isiah's feet left the bridge, he turned back to look at the pale faces of his classmates, their eyes shining black stones, watching him fall. Watched him crash into the water. Watched his broken body sink into the waves. Watched as the last bubbles rose and popped on the surface.

Then, silently, they turned and left.

It's been two years since my wife got sick.

The illness took everything from her. It ate away at what made her the woman I loved and left a rotting husk behind. She became lethargic and distant, no longer able to recognize me. At the same time she became aggressive and hostile, more demanding, more single minded. And always hungry, so very hungry. She barely speaks to me now, just drooling and grunting all the time, always asking for food and nothing else. I try not to let it bother me, but it still hurts, seeing someone you love get lost like that.

But I loved her - love her, still. That's the oath you take, "In sickness and in health". I wasn't going to abandon her, not for anything. I made her a promise, to stay by her side no matter what, even if the world came crashing down all around us.

Which, unfortunately, it did.

"I'm home darling," I call out, carefully maneuvering through the rubble that used to be the first floor of our house, "I brought dinner!"

I make my way to the iron doors that lead into the cellar and heave them open, dragging the sack of meat behind me, trying-and failing-not to leave a trail of blood "It's your favorite."

Alice snarls as I approach straining against the chains that hold her to the wall. I blow her a kiss as I make my way around, picking up the discarded bone from her last meal. She snaps at me as I walk, reaching out her hands as if to drag me towards her. "Be patient my love," I say, chuckling.

I finish cleaning, returning to the bag at the bottom of the steps. I begin to untie it, "I hope you like this one sweetie, they put up one hell of a fight."

I pick up the bottom of the bag and heave it forward, and a bruised and bloody body human body topples out. It rolls towards Alice who eagerly grabs at its skin, tearing its flesh apart with her teeth.

I sit down on the steps to watch her, wiping my bloody hands on my jeans, and smile, "I love you too, honey."

The candle flickers once more. I cup my hands around the flame, trying to keep it strong, alive. The wax has melted into puddles against the windowsill, the candle barely more than a stub now.

And still, I am waiting.

She asked me to. She told me she was coming back, promised me she would return. She held my face close and kissed me on the forehead, saying she would be back soon. She wouldn't meet my eyes, but when I grabbed her hand she squeezed it tight, before running out the door.

It has been a few days now, I think. They seems to blur and burn together, just light dancing across my vision in a shadowy haze. The nights have gotten colder, and even in the sunlight I can see my breath. The last of the firewood ran out a while ago, but I have the blankets she left me to keep me warm.

And the candle. The candle she said would last until she returns.

I tear the last of the bread in my hands, chewing slowly, trying to make it last. Another sun begins to set on the horizon, lighting the sky in pinks and oranges. I wish she were here to see this. I wonder when she and I will share a sunrise again.

I lay down to sleep, the bed hard and cold, and stare up at the candle. It flickers, still, hanging onto its light, lighting the night sky like a star. I shiver, stomach turning and growling, legs and arms stiff, feeling sleep taking me faster now, all the energy in my body seeming to leave at once. I am so very tired, but still, I will wait.

As long as the candle burns, she will come home.

As my eyes fall closed, shut by a heavy hand I cannot control, the candle flickers once more, and then all light is gone.

The sun has died.

Well not yet, anyway. Not for eight minutes. But out in the far reaches of space, lightyears away, the star that has been providing us warmth and light for millions of years has gone cold. Like a candle being blown out, the sun flickered and winked an danced in the sky before being consumed by the inky blackness.

I've know this for years. I'd seen it in my dreams, nightmares where the earth turned cold and dark in an instant, all like snuffed out in a single instant, and I would wake screaming and drenched in sweat.

For a long time I thought it was just a dream, but the more I saw this future, the more I believed it was real. I tried to tell people about what I saw, tried to warn them, but no one believed me. I don't think they wanted to believe me. It was too terrifying to think I knew what would happen, knew how doomed we all were, how futile and useless our efforts were.

But now there is just one minute left until my dreams come true.

So now I sit, watching people pass below me. Talking, laughing, living their lives. Completely unaware that its minutes from being extinguished. I finish my beer, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I dangle the bottle in the air a moment, watching the sunlight stream through it, casting an amber glow. Then I drop it, watching it fall, fall, thirty stories until it shatters on the ground below.

The people below stop moving, and look up at me. They point, covering their mouths, unsure of what they're seeing. I stand, my toes on the edge of the building, and someone screams. None of them believed me, and now it's too late. And I'm not sticking around to watch it.

I step off, close my eyes, and the world goes dark.

He has had the box ever since I first met him. Small and black, covered in shiny satin, a foot long, with a silver clasp in the front holding it closed. It was the first thing I noticed when I came to his house. It was sitting on the mantle above the fire place, the light glistening off its surface. I didn't ask him then, it seemed rude to pry, but I was curious. It was such a prominent place to display the chest, what could he possibly be storing in there?

The next time I visited his house I asked him about it, "What's in that box of yours?"

"Oh that?" his lips twisted to the side, "It was supposed to be a gift for my little brother. My father gave it to my mother before he was born but...he didn't make it through the birth."

The news hung in the air as we stood awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. I didn't ask about the box again that night.

But the box still bothered me. What could possibly be in it? And why display something that was tied to so much pain? I couldn't get it off my mind. So the next time I saw him, I asked again.

"Well there's nothing in it," he said, "We just keep it there as a reminder, a memento I guess."

"Right." I said, "of course." I looked across the room at the box, admiring the way it glistened, the way the silver metal perfectly accented the black velvet. And as I looked a knot formed in the pit of my stomach, heavy and dark. He was lying, I was sure of it. There was something in that box.

It began to haunt my dreams. I would see myself reaching the box, opening it, but the dream would always end before I could see what was inside. So when I saw him again, I asked a third time.

"It's nothing, jeez, why are you so obsessed with this thing?" As he was talking I was staring at the box, watching it carefully, and as I watched it shook violently, threatening to fall off the mantle.

"Look!" I shouted, pointing, "I knew there was something inside."

"What are you talking about?" He was standing too now, his hands itching at his sides.

"It moved! Didn't you see it?"

"You're crazy Kara," he said, but before he could speak again I heard something coming from the box. Just a whisper, barely audible, but so very clearly calling to me.

"I have to open it," I said, moving towards the fire place. At once he stepped between us, his hands shaking at his sides. He looked angry.

"You can't open it," he said. The box rattled once more and the whispers grew stronger.

"I have to," I said, "It needs me to."

"You can't," he says again, his hand reaching behind him, "You don't understand what it is. I can't let you see what's inside."

"Move!" I cry, shoving him away, but his arm swings towards me and a iron rod bangs into my side. He brandished the fire poker at me, standing between me and my box. I cry out, lunging at him, and we grapple. I step forward, pushing him back, and he steps into the fireplace. The pain blinds him for just a moment, and his grip loosens on the fire poker. I rip it from his hands, turn it, and stab it into his chest.

I am reaching for the box before he even hits the ground. As his blood pools around my feet, I reach, hands trembling before the silver clasp, and I open it.