The Hours of Creeping Night - a Collection of Dark Speculative Short Fiction Read Online Free PDF Page B

plywood, peeling at the base. It wasn’t like the deep cupboard built into the wall in her bedroom at home. So deep that Grobble fused into the shadows, the only thing giving him away the reflection of blue light in his eyes as he stared out through the crack in the door. Even so, Cynthia kept her gaze on the wardrobe and wondered how Grobble would have looked without all his bandages. Now she’d never know.
    Her father’s round spectacles sat on the bedside table.
    Cynthia couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to think about her father, so she thought about her friends instead. She hated Grobble and Mr Spears, but they were the only friends she’d ever had. She had to check. To make sure they were gone. She pushed back her blanket and slipped on her shoes. Closing the door quietly behind her, she ran down the street to their old house. It stood there, like a half dissolved shadow.
    She slipped in through the back door. Inside, everything was black and wet. The house groaned as Cynthia climbed her way up the semi-collapsed stairs.
    The top of the bedroom door had burnt away. The bottom half remained, scorched. The bolt was still firmly in place. Cynthia climbed over the fractured door into the room.
    Relief. They were gone. Everything had turned to ash – even the little table they had been sitting at.
    Just as Cynthia was about to leave, she saw a movement in the corner of her eye. She squinted in the darkness, but there was nothing there.
    Then she saw it. The ash was shivering. It began to pull itself together, like a statue shattering in reverse. It formed into tall, elongated body. Cynthia could see that its eyes were made of tiny diamonds and they sparkled in the darkness.
    The Thing stepped towards Cynthia, smiling widely. It flexed its long fingers over her shoulder, and whispered, voice toneless and rough as dried leaves, ‘I know that you burned them. But that’s okay, I won’t tell anyone. Because friends share secrets. And we’re friends, aren’t we, Cynthia?’
    Cynthia didn’t move or say a word.
    ‘ Aren’t we? Because, if we’re not, I won’t be very nice to you.’
    ‘Yes,’ Cynthia whispered. ‘We’re friends.’
    The Thing squeezed Cynthia’s shoulder until tears rolled down her cheeks.
    ‘That’s right,’ it whispered. ‘Our little secret. Now don’t say a word.’

 
    Blood Obsidian
     
    F our snarling dogs snapped at my heels, their chains taught, as the officers threw me into the cell. ‘So, you’re all they’ve got? Pathetic,’ they laughed. The cell door clanked shut, the lock clicking. I saw them leave through the haze of red dust, their scarlet uniforms fading as they walked away.
    Rising shakily to my feet, I brushed off my rags and spat out a mouthful of blood. I rubbed my temples. It felt as though I’d just been wrenched out of sleep, my brain not yet fully engaged with reality. The room before me spun. Though the cell was small, the open air around me felt empty and exposing. I longed for the close proximity of warm earth pressed around me.
    My skin was snaked in pale pink scars, flowing over my veins in a lattice of forgotten pain. I ran my fingertips over the smooth ridges. I trembled, amnesic with trauma.
    Two shadows recoiling in corner of the stone cell shifted, catching my attention. Their sunken black eyes were like empty pits in their hollow faces. Their skin was yellow and leathery, tightly stretched over their meatless bodies. Like mine, their heads were shaven and they wore tattered rags.
    ‘What is this place?’ I demanded. ‘Where am I?’ I marched over to the vertical slit in the wall that served as ventilation and the only window. I tilted my head, lining up my eyes with the gap. A wasteland of red desert stretched out across the horizons, at least a hundred feet below. My stomach twisted as I saw hundred upon hundred of skeletal people slaving slowly with pick-axes and other tools, contorting while they ground gigantic boulders into sand at