Tag Archives: morbid

The Thing.

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The Thing.

A *very* short story by Kim Mathews

The Thing was lonely. Every day it went from here to there searching for a friend, but always it found none, and the Thing was sad. It was tired of singing and dancing by itself and it wanted someone to sing and dance with.

One day when the Thing was up and about it found a little girl. Now, the Thing loved the little girl and the little girl loved the Thing. They were always together, singing and dancing and playing pirates and Indians and everything else one could imagine playing at.

After a while though the Thing got hungry from all the singing and dancing and playing at, so it ate the little girl.

And the Thing was lonely again.

The Red Envelope.

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The Red Envelope.

 

A short story by Kim Mathews.

 

Based off of a fable I read somewhere online; just wanted to expand it a little. The idea is not my own, but this rendering off it is.

“Dammit!!” As Sarah looked down at her watch, she couldn’t help but express a slightly colorful expression; she was over an hour late for work, and it was only her second week.
“Not like it’s my fault! First the car, then stupid Davis and his damn rent issues…” she continued to mumble crossly to herself as she stormed out of her apartment in a rage. She’d got rear-ended the day before, so she had to walk the four and a half blocks to work.
Feeling a cold, wet plop on her face, she looked up to a grey and bulbous sky. “Awesome. It would rain on a day like this. I should just quit and use my master’s degree for a Big Mac wrapper…” she said to herself. Not that she didn’t like her job; she did a lot. It was just lately that nothing seemed to go in her favor.
Head down to avoid the wetness falling from the sky, she didn’t see the homeless man charging like a bat out of hell after her.
“MISS! PLEASE, HELP ME!” He yelled after her, about a block away. She turned around, and seeing no one else, assumed the raggedy hobo was addressing her. She decided to cross the street; she couldn’t even handle her own problems, let alone someone else’s.
“Ma’am, PLEASE! It’s life or death!!”
That phrase got her. She stopped, hesitated for just a moment before turning around and saying, “Look, I’m already late for work, and-“
“Please, it will only take a moment!” He pleaded. She looked at him; he really was a pathetic looking person. He was maybe in his early to mid twenties, needed a bath, and a good meal wouldn’t hurt any. His dirty brown hair was sticking out in tuffs under his sopping wet beanie, and his expression was one of desperation.
“Fine! What do you need?” she snapped, hands on her hips. At least she would have an excuse to be late, she thought sarcastically to herself.
“Oh, thank you! I don’t have time to explain, just please deliver this for me!” he said, almost cried, even. And before Sarah knew it, he had thrust a red envelope into her hands and had run off.
“What the…?” she said softly to herself. Standing alone on the wet and dismal walk way, she took some time to study the envelope.
Aside from being red, it was extremely ordinary. Sealed in the front, no markings of any kind except a sloppily written address jammed into the upper left hand corner. 42 East Second St-that was on her way to work.
“Well,…it wouldn’t hurt. Seemed so important to the poor guy.” She muttered. She headed off again, and a few minutes later arrived at her destination.
It was a singularly nondescript house that would be pretty easy to overlook if it wasn’t for the door the same color as the envelope: blood red.
“Now why did I think of that?” she thought. She’d never been a superstitious person before, so she shrugged off the feeling of unease that had crept up on her and walked up the sidewalk to the door.
The grass on either side of the sidewalk was extremely overgrown, and the color of corn in late fall. The overall appearance of the house was very unkempt, and she wondered how anyone could live there. The shutters were hanging off, holding on by just a hinge, and most of the paint was chipped off or so molded from the weather that it was hard to guess at its original color.
She got to the front door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again, harder this time, and the door creaked open. Looking from left to right, she slowly opened the door and went inside.
The inside reflected the outside: disheveled, unkempt, and nasty. There was even a smell to it, like death, that almost blasted her over like a brick wall.
There was no furniture in the room, save for some black plastic bags all over the place. The wall paper was yellow and peeling, and the ceiling was long gone; all that remained were the rafters showing the groundless rooms above.
Wrinkling her nose, she called out, “Hello? Anyone here?” she paused, waited with her hand on the door about to leave.
“I was given a letter to drop off, should I leave it on the floor, or..?” she perked her head, ears strained to catch the tiniest of sounds; but there were none. Sarah tossed the envelope on the floor with a shrug, and was about to leave when one of the black bags caught her attention.
It was just a simple black bag, like the kind you would use to put leaves in after raking. But there was a rip in this one, and something was sticking out. She cautiously stepped closer, eyes straining to figure out what it was. It was long and thin, the color of a peach.
“It almost looks like a…” she began to think, but never finished the thought as she realized she was right.
“Holy SHIT it’s a finger!!” she said yelled, tearing backward and falling over. She started to pick herself up, when suddenly a figure was standing over her.
“Where do you think you’re going, miss?” the large, bearded man said. She didn’t fail to notice the bloody cudgel in his hand.
She let out a blood curdling scream and half crawled, half ran towards the door, frantically. Thankfully, luckily, she had left it open.

~~~~~~~~

“Do you need anything for that coffee miss?” Officer White asked.
“N-no, I’m fine.” Sarah replied, holding her mug tightly for warmth. “What was that?” she asked.
Officer White plopped a manila folder on the metal table, which echoed slightly in the tiny interrogation room with a light thud.
“Some sorta halfway point for black-market human body parts.” He said gruffly, flipping open the folder and showing her pictures of things she wished he hadn’t shown her.
“What?!”
“Not that uncommon nowadays, to be honest.” He said, giving her an uneasy look.
“And the man?” She asked.
“Name’s Richard, he’s the ‘owner’, middle man, whatever you want to call ‘im.” He said, waving a meaty hand in a nonchalant manner. “Bigger guys up than him would come, buy whatever he’d happen to get that week and then sell it in bigger cities.”
He paused for a moment. “My question is though, where’d ya find this at?” he asked suddenly, leaning across the table and pulling the red envelope out of the manila folder.
Sarah swallowed. “… I’m not sure who he was. What I thought was a  homeless guy came running up to me this morning, said it was life or death, then before I knew it….He was gone.” she said with a slight shudder. She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
“Do ya wanna read it?” he asked abruptly.
“….Do I want to?” Sarah replied. She looked at him, and he hesitated for a second before responding.
“I think ya should. That guy didn’t give you this on a whim, ya know.” With that, he slide the envelope across the table. She picked it up hesitatingly; to think something so simple could be so insidious.
With a rip, she broke the seal and pulled out a small, crumpled note that read, This is your last delivery for the week Rich, make it count.

Sleeping Beauty Effect.

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The Sleeping Beauty Effect.

 

A short story by Kim Mathews.



No one remembered when it started, or why; the only people who were alive at that time were the Elders of the village, and even they had been but swaddling babes when it begun. ‘It’ referring to the unique preservation of its citizens upon deaths arrival, that is.

As parchment was both expensive and rare in this part of the world, the village at some point in time had begun the practice of making the skin of its departed into Vellum for book bindings and pages, which would then be added to the hundreds of others in the village library.

Now, as it so happened, there had been not been a death in the township for some years, so when the village doctor was found slumped over at his desk, the populous was not at all depressed; quite the opposite, due to the fact that over the last few months there had been much clamor for a copy of Holts and Tramers Guide to the Human Anatomy.

A few days after the Book Binders had come for the good doctor, his now widow was leafing through his notes, as he had always been most private concerning them. Most of them, as she had presumed, dealt simply with the everyday mumps and pox that had plagued them all at one point or another. As she stood up to walk of restlessness, though, a brown folder managed to separate itself from the remaining manila ones and fell to the floor with a light thud.

Curiosity gripped her as she picked up the unknown folder. Opening it, she saw a fresh page of notes with the heading “Sleeping Beauty Effect” Her features composed a face of confusion as she read his attempts to make what he had dubbed an ‘anesthetic’ to put ones patients to sleep, allowing for more invasive procedures. Her confusion changed to horror as she continued to read how, unable to find a willing test subject, he had chanced to try the concoction on himself only yesterday.

With a yell of pure horror, she tore from the room and out her front door, only to hear the piercing scream of a person’s skin being ripped from their still-living body echo throughout the village.

Insatiable.

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Insatiable.
A short story by Kim Mathews.

Arthur was hiking in the woods one fine summer morning. It was such a glorious day, with the clouds so white and the grass so green and the sky so blue.

So very beautiful, he thought to himself as he listened to the joyous sound of the burbling brook and the chitter-chatter of little animals in their leafy houses. It was such a glorious day.

It was a day that had been made for being out-of-doors, for romping through the wood and becoming deliciously muddy in the much of the forest.

Arthur loved the sight of the birds twitting away amongst the brilliantly swathed trees, the happy foxes and jolly rabbits frolicking to their music, not seeming the least bothered with him as he paused to bask in their happiness. He whistled to himself a merry tune, passing by a plump spider slurping away on a twitching, struggling moth that seemed to scream to Arthur for help in a teeny bug voice, its struggles slowly ceasing…

In such a merry mood, he failed to notice the darkening sky that was fast overtaking his beautiful day. Quite suddenly, the moon managed to eat the sun, and with a defeated sigh was forced to make camp.

After rolling out his bed pack and making up the fire, his stomach gave a mighty rumble. Happily he looked through his bag to see what vitals he had packed, but found none; he had forgotten them in the anticipation of the glorious day, it seemed . He grumpily settled back down around the fire to help fight off the cool bite of the night air, tummy a-rumbling.

His mood slightly lessened, he tried to think of things to cheer himself back up. Ahh, at least he was warm! Gratefully he stretched out a hand to the merrily dancing flames that offered such comfort against the chill of darkness.

So very warm, he thought. Stretching out a tad more, he jumped back with a yelp as the once mirthful flame nipped his finger, seeming to laugh at him as he put the angry- peeling flesh of his forefinger in his mouth.

Licking his burnt skin with his tongue and tasting the seared epidermis, he was surprised when his stomach chose that moment to give a loud bellow. Ignoring it, he continued sucking on his burnt finger to ease its pain.

Upon pulling it out, Arthur was alarmed to see that all that was left of his finger was bone! His stomach gave another growl, and he with little hesitation was obliged to answer this time.

He stuck another finger in the fire until it was blacker and more burnt than the first one had been, and began hungrily gnawing until not two fingers where white as snow. Still hungry, he stuck the remainder of his hand in the heat.

So very good, he thought to himself upon finishing now both hands. Despite the rather large meal he had just eaten, he still found himself with a rather impressive appetite, so he swung his right leg around to the blaze, impatient for more.

So very HUNGRY, his thoughts screamed in his mind, now being only a meaty torso with four paper-white, jangly limbs. His hunger absolutely insatiable, he rolled himself into the inferno and to him they seemed to embrace him like a friend, holding him in its warmth…

For the rest of the night, he picked the rest of his savory flesh from his bones with teeth and twiggy fingers until all that was left was a bleached skeleton with bits of himself stuck between his teeth, sitting next to the camp fire and grinning at how lovely the forest seemed that night.

The Water Color Lake.

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The Water Color Lake.

 

A short story by Kim Mathews.

Richard had been working on the painting for ten years now. It was quite beautiful, depicting a lovely young women carefully pouring over some unknown novel underneath a willow tree, which had been planted aside the chief beauty of the art work: a pristine, glass-like lake. To look at the young woman next to it, she seemed very content simply sitting in the springtime Richard had painted for her.
Another ten years went by, and the painting grew ever more angelic. Every day following work, Richard would come home and retire to his study to labor over it, only breaking to use the restroom or eat. He wanted nothing less than perfection, no matter how long it would take him. The painting, though, was a little less patient than Richard was. The woman beneath the willow had reread the unknown novel several times now, and she found the plot line had become very dull. The painting longed simply to be finished, to sit upon some mantel and be admired for years to come; for the moment, however, it was happy to wait. Perfection was worth it, after all.
Ten more years passed by, and the painting was still not completed. It was more beauteous than ever, each brush stroke being a breath of absolute radiance, so beautiful as to make the Sistine Chapel look rudimentary. However, the painting failed to see this in its frustration at Richard. Each day it grew ever more displeased, wanting its creator to simply put down his brush and look upon it with a sign of contented finality. No, every look it received from its maker was one full of criticism and imperfections. It made the painting feel ugly, and hideous. Surely thirty years was long enough for perfection? Surely, if after thirty years and Richard was still not satisfied, then there was nothing more he could do? The painting pondered this…
The next day when Richard went to his study with brush in hand, the woman beneath the willow stood up, grabbed him by his smock, and pulled him down into the painting before he could do so much as blink. After several moments of darkened dizziness, Richard opened his eyes against the blackness and beheld a gorgeous sky of robin’s egg blue, streaked with the most delicately feathered clouds. He sat up to see an exquisitely wrought willow tree, surrounded by an array of wild flowers of every hue in the spectrum; from colors like sapphire, jade, scarlet and violet to a white so pure it would make the firmament itself look soiled. There seemed to be something missing from this Eden, though; there was a place just under the tree, an ugly bald spot that was worn down and bare as if someone had sat there for a rather extensive amount of time. He spied the spot’s occupant some paces away, a white void in the emerald grass.
She was glowing and radiant in the early morning sun; she had hair the color of purest gold, and satiny pale skin any oyster’s pearl would have envied, touched with the faintest hint of rose on her cheeks. She held out a tiny gloved hand and said, in a voice like pealing bells, “Come see thy work, master.” He took her hand as she smiled at him, such a sincere, innocent gesture. She proceeded to show him the fragile wild flowers he had spent so many years on that kept her company, the sturdy willow he had strove so hard to perfect which she leaned on when wearied, and finally that lake of such superb artistry that Aphrodite herself would have wept from sheer beauty.
“Go ahead,” she whispered in his ear, “touch the water.” He kneeled down, hands centimeters from the crystal depths when he saw her reflection in the water which showed her true nature: her thick, gilded locks were withered and brittle, her soft velvet skin was pock marked and stretched taught over skeletal features. Her tattered, now grey dress clung loosely to her emaciated frame as her sunken eyes clouded over white, filling with an insatiable rage. With a scream, he quickly turned around only to flail backwards into the water as the frighteningly grotesque figure surged towards him, and with surprising strength grabbed him and held him under the water color lake, screeching all the while. “You did this to me! You did this to me!” until the waves were quite still and Richard’s struggles ceased.
Her immaculately white dress sopping wet, the radiant young woman returned to her post beneath the willow tree, and resumed her book; she had just gotten to the good part.

The Orange Octopus.

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The Orange Octopus.

 

A short story by Kim Mathews.

The octopus stared at Jimmy, and Jimmy stared back. His five year old eyes widened with wonder at the sight; it was a gigantic fluffy thing, traffic-cone orange with a sewn on smile and bright button eyes, and Jimmy wanted it tremendously. Turning his gaze from the fogged up window, he stuck a tiny hand in his pockets for 25 cents. He found nothing but some crumbs and an old tootsie roll wrapper, the treat being long since digested. With a defeated sigh, he dragged his feet back to the bench to wait for his mother to finish her shopping.

Swinging his feet back and forth, he heard a curious sound of metal against stone. He turned his Spider Man shoes over to see a dirty, sticky quarter held precariously in place by a piece of blue chewing gum. He jumped up excitedly and ran to wash it off in a nearby fountain, the octopus staring at him all the while. Shoving the coin into the slot of the machine, he impatiently hopped up and down as the mechanism sprang to life. Hardly breathing, he painfully directed the shiny, rudimentary hand over his prize and pushed the button.

He started, not daring to even blink as his octopus was lifted into the air like some bizarre piñata. It dropped into the gigantic chute, its smile disappearing down in the darkness. With an exuberant yell, Jimmy stuck his hand in the door on the machine to grab his new toy, but was disappointed when his tiny fingers failed to grasp it. He got down on his knees and opened the door, seeing it all the way in the back, the mouth of the chute being more of a tunnel than an actual chute. With a triumphant grin, he pushed himself in the chute to get his toy until half of him was dangling out of the hole. Just as his hand was about to touch his treasure, a fluffy tentacle latched onto his arm. With a scream of pure terror, Jimmy tried pulling back, but he lost his footing outside the chute door, allowing the octopus to pull him into the plushy darkness while it continued to smile.

Not yet ten minutes later, the octopus watched as a little girl with bright green eyes pushed her nose against the glass, her face a lit with wonder. The octopus smiled back at her, still hungry.