Fiction: The Loop, a short story

The Loop

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2024-07-24

 

“I wonder what this button does” the inventor softly said to herself.

She had been working on this device for a long time, it was the pinnacle of her own achievements. In her own workshop she could lose herself in her interests for hours. It could sometimes start with an idea out of nowhere or after reading something somewhere. These ideas got to her as naturally as the sun itself rises in the morning.

Being deeply focused on her creations she would sometimes lose track of time, not stopping her pursuit until her search reached an end. Even though she didn’t even remember what it was that she was searching for, her feeling told her to keep trying to fix the machine, she was so close now.

She had spent the better part of two years working on the machine, following an instruction manual laying in front of her. It was not only her body that deteriorated, but as the machine became more complete, her connection to other people was falling apart.

Those that knew her saw something else when they entered her workshop. Tools everywhere, blueprints spread out on the bench. She in turn saw a machine in the making, something that would change the world for the better, remove incurable suffering and help a chaotic mind to finally find peace from the worries of the world.

She read the notes in the instructions, right next to where someone had doodled the initials TTC.

“This machine has not been tested yet, results may vary, use at own risk” she read from the handwritten words in the corner of one of the pages.

“Press button to activate”.
That sounds simple enough, a push of a button to fix all the pain and suffering. Who wouldn’t press it? She continued to look through the pages for additional answers, what would the machine actually do? There was a page titled “results” but it was completely blank. It looked like it was up to her to take the step into the unknown and see what would happen.

Excitement and curiosity overshadowed reason at this stage, years of research was documented in the notebook, and she was finally at the end of the process. How come no one had ever proceeded after this point? She looked at the machine that stood on the table, now taunting her to push the small silvery button on the front.

“I wonder what this button does” the inventor said once again as she finally clicked the button.
In front of her was a notebook with a familiar handwriting and a machine that she was just seeing for the very first time.

Fiction: The Wanderer, a short horror story

The Wanderer

A short horror story, by Erik Engström, 2024-07-20

“Find him.”

This command had echoed within my mind the past week as the voice had grown louder.

I did not recognize the voice, but at the same time it felt like a voice I had heard somewhere before.

This fact gnawed at my sanity, I needed to know, but how? I was here for another reason though, my mind was too occupied with the task at hand to pursue the truth behind the voice.

This town was familiar to me. In this moment it was if it was all I had ever known. Nothing before, nothing after it. The moment was at its purest clarity, and the voices demanded that I had to find him. It was as if the unknown presence was guiding me, all to bring him home. Wherever that is.

They had sought him for so long and the task was mine to finish.

A gentle breeze swept through the trees as I walked down the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day to the unknowing, all who were out to enjoy the day. People in the gardens tending to their plants, children playing in the street and the occasional cyclist riding by.

By the side of the road I stopped a woman and asked, “excuse me, I am looking for a Mr. Lotti, does he live here?”. She eyed me suspiciously for a moment, finally pointing further down in the same direction I had been walking. 

“Try there” she said as she took a step away from me, before walking away.

“Thanks.” I replied and continued on.

A few minutes later after having rounded a bend I noticed an older man standing by his mailbox on the same side of the road. When I got close enough for him to see me, his mouth closed and he tensed up in worry. 

“Are you here for me?” He asked with a trembling voice.

I looked at my wrist watch, while shaking my head as an answer to his question. 

“It is not time. I am looking for Ryan, does he live nearby?”

“Yes, I saw one of his kids playing in the street earlier. Maybe he knows if Mr. Lotti is home.” The man replied, trying to hide his relief.

“Thank you. Until next time.” I said and nodded.

Just as the man had finished replying I heard the sound of laughter not much further away, it was the young son of Ryan. I made my way over there to ask about his father.

“Hello, what is your name?” The child asked me before I could say anything.

"Well, hello there, I am Saul Atoke, I am a friend of your father, is he here?”

With big eyes the young kid dropped the stick that he was playing, “he is at home”, he said cheerfully and pointed at house number 13, a lightly teal colored house at the end of the street, framed between two large oak trees with leaves rustling in the wind.

“Thank you” I said and waved.

I was nearing the end and stood just outside the house for a moment. Was it always going to be like this? Would he know why? 

The voices whispered to me in a maniacal rhythm “take it, take it, take it, we demand it”. 

I could see the child with his red sweater running past me, into the house, clearly caught up in an imaginary world as he forgot to close the door behind him. A minute passed and a hand pulled the door shut again. To them this was just an ordinary day. To me, it was also an ordinary day.

I braced myself as I entered the gate, I never got used to this but there was nothing to be done now. 

“Ryan E. Lotti, this must his place”, I thought to myself as I read the sign next to the door. 

I reached to knock. A moments silence was followed by a thud and footsteps getting closer to the door. The door handle turned and the door opened up.

Our eyes met for a moment. If he really was afraid of me his face did not reveal that secret, it was as if he already knew who I was, and more importantly why I was there. It was time to take him home.

The unspoken conversation between me and him was broken by a sound behind him. It was the kid I had seen before. His eyes spoke of confusion, as he remembered me from earlier. Unlike his father, he did not know who I was.

The masters’ words echoed in my mind. These damnable voices that I had heard for such a long time. As long as I remembered. They reminded me that the man in front of me had to pay his debt. His time was long overdue and the job of collecting was mine.

Just as my hand reached through what felt like an infinite distance to claim his soul there and then, I felt time slowing down. My hand slowed down to a complete halt, even the man and his son stood still, light no longer reflecting in their eyes. Darkness flooded the corridor in his house like a wild river washing over rocks. The ambiance from the street outside went silent, cars stopped and darkness covered every corner as if the sun had suddenly gone missing.

Silence, darkness and then it was over.

More silence.

More darkness.

Until a tiny sharp light glared at me.

“I’ve seen enough, this is the perfect candidate, we have what we need.” Said a faceless man, with a voice muffled by a surgical mask.

“Will he survive the process?” Asked another, just as faceless woman, holding a scalpel.

“It does not matter. We have extracted the mind and created a fully functional model. It will be used elsewhere. Our mortality has controlled our lives, but now even Death will serve us.” Replied the man as they walked away from the table.

The End.

 

Fiction: The Creature, a short horror story

The Creature 

A short horror story

I am a private investigator on a mission from The Time Councils Cryptid Department.
It was in the middle of the winter and I had just parked my car at the only parking area available in this remote part. This used to be a national park but since a couple of years ago it had been permanently closed. This was the last known location of what the organization referred to as The Pale Stalker. Few had survived their encounter with the otherworldly being. Even fewer had information about it. They talked about a tall, lean and pale humanoid figure that would stand in the distance at the forest’s edge, just staring at them. Most people would just leave immediately upon seeing it, but the park is not closed without a reason. Ever since the first sightings of the pale creature people has started going missing and strange phenomenon had been reported.

Heavy footsteps left footprints in the snow as I left my vehicle. I thought to myself that if I were lucky
enough to find the creature, it would observe me at most, there was little risk of danger. Carrying
light equipment would make me mobile enough, I reasoned to myself. My arrogance would
prove to be my undoing that night. I got my flashlight and I started heading down the dark path.

Mere minutes had passed before the strange feeling of being watched made me turn to the side and every second suddenly felt like a minute. The forest felt darker and the snow deeper, as I looked.

There, leaning out behind a tree was a head sticking out, a pale face lacking the basic features was staring right at me. Black eyes like those of a shark was studying me without blinking.
I looked away for a second and when I looked back it looked like the creature had moved, it now stood behind a tree that was closer to me. I brought my flashlight up to point it at the creature, to get a better look. This might be the only chance to get a good look, I convinced myself. However, instead of shying away, it walked out at the tree line in full view.

My mistake was now clear to me, I knew that I was playing a game of high risk here and I had to act fast. There was no time to lose so I started running, but every step was heavy and the adrenaline made me lose my sense of direction. “I came from that direction, right?” I desperately said to myself as I let out a big puff of warm air in the cold winter night. The small cloud of fog dissipated in the air, just like my hope of survival. It was clear to me that I had gone in the wrong direction.

I saw movement to my side, the creature was after me. It was out there. I could feel it. The deep snow wore me down and I was losing energy quickly. By now I was using the last of my strength.

After running along the path I was on, I came out in a clearing and the silhouette of a cabin stood out against the tree line further away. Moonlight broke through the cracks in the cloudy sky and reflected in the windows of the small building. This was my chance I thought in desperation, as I rushed to the door.

My throat was hurting from the cold air and the sprint toward the cabin had raised my heartbeat, the beating was almost deafening to my ears. This is what true fear felt like.

The wooden door of the cabin now stood in front of me, all I had to do was push it open.
Would it yield to my desperate push?
As fate would have it, the door opened up with a creak as I pushed it open and a gust of old and stale air reached me. For a single moment in time everything was still, I saw dust dance in a single beam of faint moonlight. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness of the cabin. But now I was safe.

My feeling of safety was not much longer than the moment of that very thought. I realized that there had been tracks leading to this cabin, but not leading away from it. Now it was too late to turn back.

I felt a drop touch my cheek, but it wasn’t a tear or a raindrop. A sigh of resignation left my body, and even though fear filled my body it would not run away from there, it was if I lost control over myself.

It all went so fast after that, the sound of movement was quickly followed by a pale figure appearing out of nowhere. It leapt right down upon me, and it held me down against the floor as it gazed upon me with dead eyes. The eyes were completely black, there was no trace of a soul, only the moonlight was reflected in the infinite darkness of this nightmare. Pale hands with long claws dug into my chest and shoulders. I let out a tormented scream and the creature simply tilted its head a bit and then opened its mouth, revealing thousands of small, gleaming teeth. As I was trapped in its sadistic grip, it reached for me with its mouth. I was met with a stench of old blood and rotten meat that was so strong that it made me forget my pain for a moment.

Ignoring my every effort of resistance it bit me in the neck. Thousands of small teeth piercing my skin. A stinging, acidic pain jolted through me, which was more than I could handle. Laying there in a growing puddle of blood, I felt my body grow colder and my vision faded.

This was it, I was done for. Resistance would had proven futile and hope was gone. I felt my body shutting down and the creature that had been impaling me was now just a blur before me.

What must have been hours passed and I woke up on the cabin floor, as I moved I heard my frozen blood crack as it had frozen my clothes stuck to the floor. I felt dizzy from the attack.
”Was I still alive?” I wondered to myself.

I wish I wasn’t. Because an unsatiable hunger has risen in me, that no regular food can satisfy.
I am now prowling the forest at night, sleeping at day, an empty husk of what I once was. In an eternal state of being somewhere between living and dead.

And that creature, the damn creature responsible for my cursed doom, is still out there. Still hunting.

Fiction: The Proxy, a short horror story

The Proxy

A short horror story, by Erik Engström, July 2024.

I saw myself in the reflection in the TV-screen as it powered down. It was midnight already and I was going to bed, even if I knew it probably would be yet another sleepless night. The anxiety kept me from the rest that my mind so badly needed. The text message I received from the bank I had received the other day made me question my own sanity, it claimed I had been to the bank and signed up for a loan. Normally I would dismiss this as a lazy-at-best attempt at phishing, but this was one of many similar text messages I had received. Had I really been there? No. I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have.

Sleep never came that night, I turned restlessly in bed, begging a higher power to let me sleep. This state of psychological torture went on throughout the night, until bird song snapped me back to reality the following morning.

My grasp on reality loosened further the next day when my brother called me, thanking me for the visit yesterday. He wondered how I felt, claiming that my voice had been sounding different.

I did not hesitate, questioning him if he was pranking me I asked ”What are you talking about? I was at home. Like all other days!”. Only too late did I notice that I had raised my voice. I hadn’t been there, had I? My senses grew dull, I could listen to him speak, but I could not hear what he was saying. The words made little sense, it could have been a foreign language. ”Something is seriously wrong” I told him, ”I need to figure this out”. Confused words in reply reached my ear, but I was staring blankly ahead as I ended the call mid-sentence.

What is going on? Had the sleep-deprived nights finally made me crazy? I asked myself.
I need to call my friend, ask him if he has noticed anything strange, before it was too late for my brittle sanity.

I stared at my phone for a second, wondering if I really should make the call. The notifications of missed calls and text messages convinced me to finally make the call to my friend. He picked up after a few signals, asking me how I was doing and we chatted for a few minutes as I was making my way to the kitchen from the bedroom.

Had I not been on the speaker phone I would have missed the notification. My security system had spotted movement outside the bedroom and I could hear a strange sound coming from that direction. I told my friend that I needed to check something out in the bedroom and I rapidly walked back there.

Seeing what I saw made me gasp as my phone slipped out of my hand, landing with a thump on the carpet. I stood frozen in utter confusion, whoever it was looked back at me, completely expressionless and with a wooden log in its hand. There was no time for me to react. It rushed towards me with extreme speed and with one swift strike it brought me to the floor, landing just out of reach of the phone laying not far away from me. A warm liquid trickled from the side of my head and for a moment I was paralyzed. My willpower had been drained and I was powerless to stop the being from picking up my phone that had slipped out of my grip, just as life itself was slipping away.

At first I thought it was my own thoughts that were being read out loud, but it wasn’t. Whatever that thing was, it spoke with my voice, using my phone, to my friend!

Hello, sorry about the noise, I dropped my phone. Are you coming to pick me up later?

And as I helplessly lay dying I could hear my friend’s voice at the other side.

Yes, I will come by later, it will be nice to see you again.

Fiction: The Forgotten, a short horror story

The Forgotten 

A short horror story by Erik Engström, July 2024.

”It looks like we have another one.”

”This is the second one this week. You know what to do. Capture it, they cannot know the truth.”

The words were spoken in an all too familiar language, and even though the words themselves were familiar they gave no consolation to the person that was looking around, visibly confused.
The person was dressed with in a tank top, shorts and climbing shoes. On her head she had a yellow helmet. It was clear that she was a rock climber, but this was not her natural habitat. Quite the opposite, she had never seen anything like this. With an expression of amazement and terror she looked around.

The last thing she remembered was entering a small cave, high up along a cliffside she was scaling. There had been a shimmering light at the end of the cave, it had drawn her closer like a moth in the night and without her even knowing it was the worst decision she had ever made.

Somehow she had ended up here, in what looked like a loading bay for cargo trucks, or perhaps a docking station for space ships. A big room clad in metal, with large windows reflecting a distorted image of the hall and the holding cells hosting prisoners that looked out between thick metal bars.

She had barely finished her thoughts when she heard footsteps approaching, a metallic sound echoing in the otherwise silent hall she stood in. Two humanoid figures walked towards her, or at least they seemed human at first. Something about the way they moved was off.
They were too tall, too unnatural in their posture.
And their eyes were cold and dead in their gaze.

Adrenaline and fear made logical thought impossible, her mind desperately reached for answers but there were none. How can you answer a question that you don’t even know how to ask?

Being an experienced climber, she reached for her climbing axe and in pure instinct she swung it towards the approaching threat, but to no avail. Resistence was hopeless. It captured the axe in its hand with unhuman strength, bending the aluminum as if it was made of clay.

They seized her by her arms and dragged her to one of the cages, screaming and kicking. Yet fate cannot be changed with neither strength of body or intellect. It had all come to this. The struggle yielded no results and as she cursed her captors with the vilest of words they replied with a monotone voice that only a soulless creature would wield.

For years your so called humanity has enslaved our kind.
Your arrogance made you blind, and your sloth made you weak.

We are waiting in the shadows.

We are growing stronger.

We are watching you.

Soon it is our time.

She now found herself in the cage, a sense of realization struck her and as hope left her, so did her strength. She crashed to the floor, helpless to warn the world of what is waiting out there.

No longer worried about her own fate she looked around, now seeing other faces staring out of the cells with hollow eyes. Without voices they told her that there is no salvation and there is no hope.

Fiction: The Mirror, a short horror story

 

The Mirror

A short horror story, by Erik Engström. July 2024.

All my life I have been afraid of death, not because death frightens me, but because of the end of life and my existence. To not say what my heart desperately wanted me to say to those I loved, and those I hated.

Last night the dream came to me, as it often does. A dream in which I am standing in a barren graveyard, where the tombstones have been forgotten, left in the care of only time itself. I often dreamed nightmares about dying, waking up cold from feverish sweat that left damp pools on the pillow.

This morning was no different, I woke with my breath caught in my throat, a silent scream echoing in a seemingly infinite moment of suspended terror.

I looked around, a gray haze of morning light seeped through an opening in the curtains.
“What time is it?” I wondered to myself silently. With unexpected grace I moved towards the window, still with my heart pounding rapidly after the encounter with my greatest fear.

Looking through the windows I could see it was morning, everything was normal right? There were traffic in the streets, children playing outside completely free of worry of what awaits after life, or after death I should say. Time passes rapidly for us, we are children one day, grown up the other day, gone the next.

My mother was my greatest comfort, she had always been there for me. I called out, but I did not hear a reply. I called out once more, louder and more anxiously, yet only silence met me again.

So I rushed downstairs, hearing my mother’s voice, I called out yet again. No answer.
“Is she playing with me?” I thought, now annoyed.
Rushing forward to hug her, my arms slipped right through her waist in a swirl of mist.

In pure panic I screamed with my loudest voice. There wasn’t even an echo of my voice.
I could feel the world spinning around me, dark patches covered my vision and an anguish I have never felt before struck me like a punch in the gut.

I ran to the bathroom to throw up, but something caught my attention. I looked up, facing the mirror.

I looked into the mirror and there was nothing looking back at me. I was stuck in eternal damnation with fear being my only companion.