The following is a rough draft and the beginnings of a horror story. I’m trying to write some creepy stories for the month of October. Starting early seems to be a good way to get into the habit of it. Perhaps you’ll join me in some themed creative writing?
This turned out a little stream-of-conscious/ meditative in process. Usually I like more of an outline for where the story is going. I’ve been getting really inspired by the ideas of horror stories in which the main characters do everything right but everything tuns out horrible. We’ll see how far that prompt gets me.
Whiskers
by Sarah Hughes
She reached down and pulled the zipper on her legging tight, cinching it around her ankle. Hopefully that would keep these beastlies out. Like ticks while hiking. Only this parasite had much longer biting range and a little bit of a shock if vibrating of Frank’s body was to be an indication of anything.
Selma ran as quietly as one can. The activity was much more breathy and awkward than it was now that her ear was turned to focusing on what the monster would hear. But still, hiding in one place didn’t seem like it would work either. She didn’t know what was inside the little rusty storage rooms. Hiding inside the meat lockers outside of them just seemed like ironically asking for it. Plus, small spaces usually have the problem of suffocation.
None of that for now. She considered going back inside the restaurant. Frank always kept a shotgun behind the counter in hopes that a Hell’s Angel-looking customer would make trouble. So far the only trouble had come from a petite Tweaker who really liked the pepper shakers and napkin rings. Vigilance and chatty nearby cops had been a better approach.
Selma entered slowly, checking every which way, like the agents on Criminal Minds. Nothing. The white vinyl wrapped stools on top of the chrome tables made a clean enough forest. She walked carefully, scanning the length of the counter, which was her only real visual blockage in here.
***
It was now that Selma got a fully-lighted look of the alien’s motherfish. It should have kept the lights off. The thick tubes hung like whiskers on a hideous cat fish, warped and brown. But they had a cyberpunk edge. But this catfish was not a pretty goth. There was the feeling of slim covering every surface of the boss fish. Not quite liquid, it seemed to move with the viscosity of lugie. There was no more polite word to describe it.
The female of the species, was Angler-like in that it had grafted a male onto her body. He hung limp and dried out, like a concerning growth. It also had the tubules hanging from too many surfaces, and a few glimmered in ways that meant they could be lures. That notion seemed to make little sense here. But it had a misshapen, pudgy humanoid structure too it. There was that mix between symmetry and human-likeness that made the viewer a little on edge. But it was with absolute certainty, all monster.