The Upgrade - New Short Scary Story

Al Donner doesn't understand why his boss is sending him to IT, but he'll soon find out, and so can you when you go to They're Only Shadows and read The Upgrade.

My Short Scary Stories

Over the past couple of months I’ve become addicted to writing very short horror stories that I then post on a Reddit sub called: Short Scary Stories (duh). Go to They're Only Shadows and check out four of the stories I’ve recently submitted.

The Author’s Prerogative - A short short story

The fire cast the only light in the room, a hazy copper glow that reached as far as Armand’s well-worn easy chair. He held a cigarette in one hand, a glass of good scotch in the other, wondering what else a retired writer does during his last night on earth. He could imagine a few things, but at 75 and ill, they were the wistful and wishful desires of a younger man. He took a drink and savored the smoky tang around his tongue before swallowing. As he set the glass back down on the chair’s arm, the air behind him began to chill and wrap around the back of his neck and shoulders like an icy blanket. He dabbed his dying cigarette in the glass ashtray.

“Are you preparing, Armand?” came a hoarse, hollow whisper behind him.

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” said Armand, taking another long drink. “I’ve finished the last chapter.”

“You couldn’t know. No one ever knows.”

            The old man responded with a dusty laugh. “Not even you, apparently.”

“I make the decision. What’s that smell?"

Armand’s glass fell to the floor. “What? You don’t recognize the smell of death?” he rasped, his heart’s final beat a triumphant exclamation point to a life ending exactly when he knew it should.

Failed human #356,532,5338,907

Working on Andrew Getzman (Getz) was always amusing. Probing the poor human’s mind was like being lost in the labyrinth of Rummaltus—there was something fascinating and repulsive around every corner. How such an inept, unremarkable human had been chosen for harvesting was a question no one in the clinic could answer, nor would they try, for it was a decision made very, very far away.

The team always took a short break from sperm extraction and tracking device implantation to watch Getz’s latest lurid fantasy on the monitor. Over the years, the group had been treated to an encyclopedia of human sexual frustration and fetishes, yet there was always a thread of pathos in his personal fantasies that made them more intriguing than most.

During this visit to the galactic out-clinic, the theme was premature ejaculation. Every time he glanced at a woman’s foot he instantly became stiff and came in his pants. The scene repeated itself several times until after another embarrassing eruption, Getz began screaming as he had been staring at a goat’s hoof. Everyone around the operating table yipped several times, shook their large gray heads in pity and went back to work.

Getz saw himself screaming then realized he was screaming, sitting upright, drenched with sweat. He threw off his covers and jumped out of bed, walking around the room and stopping in confusion like a human bumper car.

It had happened again. Abducted. Right from his freaking bedroom. Just like all the other times when the grays came through the wall like micro-ninjas with helium-inflated heads to sedate and kidnap him. Words and phrases angrily erupted as he paced in his underwear.

“They got me again. Fuck.”

He stopped suddenly, stretched out the top of his briefs and inspected his genitals. Swooning, he reached down with one hand and pulled up an object to inspect it. His face contorted with agony as he stared at a smiley-face band-aid.

“Those bastards.”

He angrily threw the band aid at the wall, and then reached behind his neck, tearing off another band-aid.

“Scooby Doo?” he moaned, falling face down on his bed. “Oh God, what did they do to me this time? What did they do?”

Getz had given up trying to get help several abductions ago. No one took him seriously. Sure, he could show the band-aids to his shrink and say, ‘Look. Here’s your proof,’ but all he’d get for his trouble would be a condescending smile and another bill he couldn’t pay. He knew exactly how it would unfold.

“Andrew,” Dr. Eggers would say as he rested his chin on his fingertips. “A person can buy these band-aids at any Wal-Mart in America. Do you think the aliens shop at Wal-Mart?”

“If they cared about saving money, they would.” The moment this came out of his mouth, Getz new it was all wrong. Dr. Eggers laughed like a braying donkey. “I meant,” Getz continued, trying once again to make Eggers see the all too obvious web of connections, “the aliens would probably buy supplies like band-aids on earth. Maybe from Wal-Mart. They couldn’t let me go walking around with an actual alien band-aid stuck to my body. Now could they?”

Realizing that Getz wasn’t laughing with him, Dr. Eggers quickly transitioned back to his well-worn serious continence, although the jolt made him cough uncontrollably.

“I am…very sorry, Andrew, but I thought you were—”

“Joking. I know.”

“Perhaps you should start coming in twice a month.”