Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror Read Online Free PDF

wall next to the urinals.
    Cars drone past the barred windows of the nondescript brick structure. A distant siren calls out.
    The Crenshaw boy— don’t ever call him Lionel —holds Jack in place. There was no way in hell Jack could outrun Lionel Crenshaw, anyway. And certainly not Billy Norton, who flies like a fart and runs like a queer dog. Supposedly a vicious, queer dog scared Billy’s mother when she was pregnant with Billy. That’s why he runs like a queer dog.
    “School taxes!” yells Lionel behind a malicious, toothy smirk. He pounds his dirty fist against Jack’s chest several times, knocking the wind out of him. “Taxes, buddy. Taxes. You have to pay your dues. Oh, did I mention TAXES? ” Lionel takes hold of Jack’s spaghetti arm and begins smacking him in his wounded, freckled face. “Quit hitting yourself,” chants Lionel. “Quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself.”
    Billy Norton spreads a hockey-player’s grin, but falls into a bout of heavy coughing. “Stop hitting yerself, stop hitting ( coughcough ) yerself. Shit ( cough cough )–smoker’s lung,” he wheezes and grins again.
    “Well, maybe, you know, it’s time to quit smoking. Ya think? Maybe?” Jack had the words out of his mouth before he even realized he’d spoken.
    “Listen to the dead guy,” hisses Lionel. “Awful brave for a dead guy.”
    “Dead guy,” repeats Billy, and then breaks into another fit of coughing.
    “What a fuckin’ pisser.”
    “What a ( cough ) pisser,” repeats Billy.
    A jab to the guts brings bony Jack to his knees gasping, sucking hard to bring air back into his deflated lungs.
    Lionel begins searching Jack’s pants and jacket pockets.
    Billy slaps Lionel on the back, and Lionel breaks into a fit of laughter, his face turning cherry red. Billy laughs, too, but then starts hacking again.
    “I . . . told you . . . you should . . . quit,” Jack said.
    His words seep up from the tile floor in a series of short, labored breaths. Dribbling sounds from the urinal; buzzing from overhead lights, muffled traffic passing outside window and . . . freedom.
    “You got to be fuckin kiddin’ me!” cries Lionel.
    Billy watches Lionel’s face carefully, hoping to glimpse the birth of a sadistic idea. And there it appears in short order.
    “There’s something I wanna do,” says Lionel. “Something I wanna try.” He tilts Jack’s bruised and bloody face towards his and grins. The grin blossoms into a cancerous mask of evil. Lionel slips his hand over the smaller boy’s mouth. Jack begins to squeal beneath Lionel’s smothering grip.
    Lights.
    Oh, the beautiful lights.
    It ends.
    Jack falls into the black of unconsciousness.
    “I got an idea,” repeats Lionel.
    Seeing what Lionel does next, Billy wishes Jack had run.
    L. A. Tobin was born in Newfoundland and now lives in Ontario. She loves horror and suspense (who doesn't?). She has been writing stories since childhood and recently finished a suspense thriller/horror novel. Writing a collection of short stories and another novel are her next projects.

80 SQUARE FEET
     
    JASON BURUM
     
    The visceral terror I once felt has long been replaced by anger and aggression. The thoughts of any hope I once had have regressed into anxiety and depression. I’ve lost my other, a best friend, my sister and my nephews along with my only child. All I have left is 80 square feet of cold white tile and Rex. I inherited this palace of porcelain on the sheer luck that they don’t have the motor skills to open anything that requires pulling. They operate only in one gear: forward. Moan and go, groan and get, slow and straight ahead—that’s how them boys roll.
    I’ve enjoyed six or seven days in this upscale setting. Romantic candle-lit nights spent listening through the ventilation system to the sweet sounds of hundreds of walking corpses lurking outside at the prospect I might still be in here. I’m down to a half of a package of beef jerky, three juice