Horror – Page 7 – Jeff Coleman Writes

Soldier

By Jeff Coleman / February 12, 2020 February 12, 2020 / Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Horror, Magic

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“A weapon of incredible power,” they said. “A technical marvel. It will crush the enemy, and in so doing, bring peace.”

I was young and idealistic and I believed them.

“Help us,” they said. “Your country needs you.”

And so I packed my bags, and when the sun set and the dark of night set in, I left everything behind and followed after them.

“Let us change you,” they said. “We’ll make you stronger, faster, more agile. With your enhanced abilities, you can wield this new weapon of ours and help us usher in an age of peace.”

Once more I believed them and, without hesitation, offered myself in service to my country.

They gave me injections to change the way I see, cast spells to alter the appearance of my skin, summoned deities to transform the way I think. One by one, they deconstructed every aspect of my being until I was no longer human, no longer a person of free will at all but a slave, and when it was done, they cast me back into a world that could no longer accept me.

I see things differently now.

Among all the people in the world, there are only strangers and enemies. The former I shun as reminders of my former life, and the latter I stalk from the shadowy underworld that’s become my new home with a terrifying clarity of purpose that haunts me whenever I close my eyes and dream of what it was like to be human.

My enemies never see me coming, not until my eyes have filled with their terrible blue light, and by then it’s already too late. I see their fear before the power inside of me is unleashed, and in those dark and desperate moments, I am forced to come to terms with what I’ve become.

I was never meant to wield their weapon.

I am their weapon.

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©2020 Jeff Coleman. All rights reserved. For reproduction rights, please contact the author (who happens to be a kind and eminently reasonable man.) Unless otherwise stated, images are copyrighted by various artists and licensed by Shutterstock.

The Fog

By Jeff Coleman / December 4, 2019 December 3, 2019 / Evil, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Horror, Surreal

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Fog curls around my ankles like creeping vines, and all I can think as I stand there in the dark, surrounded by death, and stare up at a cold and lifeless sky, is how the world wasn’t always like this—how it was once bright, how it was once young and new, pristine and undefiled, a shining luminescent jewel that inspired wonder rather than fear and hope rather than despair.

But those days are gone, dead and buried along with most of the population. I watch dark and dangerous clouds gather in a dusky blood-red sky, and when I tire of watching the wounded horizon, my eyes drift back to the ground and the swell of fog churning at my feet.

What secrets does the fog conceal? What hidden horrors lurk beneath its tainted gunsmoke exterior? I feel the weight of its touch as it swirls above the ground, and if I strain my ears, if I focus on the many silences of the world and the dead things in between, I can hear it speak.

Your life belongs to me.

I used to hear its call as a child, either at night before the flames of a dwindling fire, or during the day in the dark alleys of an ancient city turned graveyard. It’s always reaching out, trolling the tenebrous waters of a forsaken world in search of prey, and there’s always someone who listens. As for myself, its call has grown more insistent, and as time wears on, as I pass through the threshold from youth into old age, the lunatic cry becomes increasingly difficult to resist.

Your life belongs to me, it says every night before I fall asleep and every morning when first I wake, and every day, I find myself more inclined to agree.

Now, here I stand, broken and defeated. I can fight the fog no longer, and though my mind urges me to run away, to flee into those few remaining corners of the world where the fog hasn’t gained a foothold, I have not the strength to go on.

Once, I think as the fog creeps up my legs, life was worth protecting. Now, what is there to look forward to each day but a bloated, terminally diseased sky? What is there to pass on to future generations? The fog took away our reason to live, and now that it’s prevailed, what is left to do but answer its death call?

Your life belongs to me, it says, sweeping up my back and my chest, over my shoulders and my head, and when that fetid off-white mist pierces my lips, when it shoots down my throat and into my lungs, I give in at last.

Your life belongs to me, it says again, and just before I close my eyes, just before the last of the oxygen is squeezed from my lungs and the final darkness of death blossoms before my fading vision, I hear my silent reply.

Take me away, I say, and the fog does exactly as I command.

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©2019 Jeff Coleman. All rights reserved. For reproduction rights, please contact the author (who happens to be a kind and eminently reasonable man.) Unless otherwise stated, images are copyrighted by various artists and licensed by Shutterstock.