Vincent Cava
AT THE PATIO
A man is brought an eye and figures that his cat, Felix, is the one that brought it to him. His wife, whom he killed, convinced him to get the cat that he did not particularly want. More body parts show up and then eventually the cat is dead on his porch. He sees a figure in the distance. He realizes it is his unborn son. His wife wanted a son, but he wanted to leave her and he knew it would be more difficult to do that if they had a child. So he killed her. Now the son comes back for revenge.
THE OCEAN’S COOL AIR
A man is trapped in an escape boat at sea. A fishing boat with a crew stops to try and help him. The man laughs in hysterics as they try to reach him. A tentacled monster pulls the men under and then topples the ship. A human arm is going across the man’s lap and the monster tells him to eat. After starving for a week, he is disgusted with himself as he eats the human flesh.
GAS STATION BATHROOM
A woman stops at a gas station to use the bathroom and it is disgusting. She avoids the used debris on the floor to get to a stall. She squats over the toilet being sure not to touch it. Another person staggers in and goes to use another stall. It is a woman and she stumbles and starts to vomit violently and screams. A man knocks on the first woman’s stall to ask if she has any toilet paper.
THE WOMAN IN THE RED DRESS
A man jumps out his window to get to a woman in a red dress
PICTURE THIS
(2nd person POV) MC discovers art at a young age and wants to be a painter, but goes with a more practical path through college. MC is miserable decides to start painting and posting them on social media and a post inspires him to continue. He quits his job and is happy he gets ti paint everyday ti make his living. Eventually the critics come. One in particular, DarkPainter97 likes to troll him. After a bit of digging on the internet, he finds out it is a kid that lives in the next state. He drives over and finds the kid at home before his parents get off of work. the kid doesn’t recognize the artist, so MC beats the kid bloody in a blacked out rage. When he comes back ti himself, he puts the kid in his trunk and drives back to his apartment. He puts the kid in his bathtub. When the kid wakes up, he recognizes MC as the crappy artist he trolls. MC beats him to death. He finds a mortician that likes to have sex with dead bodies and leads him on until he has enough evidence to report the mortician to authorities. In exchange for not reporting him or telling his wife, he agrees to let the artist use the crematorium to get rid of the body. Once this is all done, the artist goes back to look at the original post someone had left that has inspired him to go back to art. It was DarkPainter97. He decides to kill all the trolls from his comments starting close and then going farther out. When a detective comes to question him, he changes his hair, name, and eye color (contacts) and moves to California. He decides he needs a new form of art and decides to use the written word. When the negative comments start coming in, he plans to start killing again.
THE AFRICAN BOWANA SPIDER
Old Dr. Weed tells Robert about the giant African Bowana Spider. While in Africa, one of the parties’ mules started acting strange. They were warned about the many venomous animals in the jungle they had gone through. They couldn’t find any bites. The spider crawls out of the mules mouth even though it was too large to seem to fit. Many men left the camp in fear. The doctor stayed to study it. He thinks the spider entered the mules mouth and controlled it by its nervous system and used the mule as a puppet to lay its eggs. Robert thinks it would be horrible to have such a thing in England. The doctor agrees just before his head is split open and a giant spider crawls out of it.
FAST ENOUGH
A man is running as fast as he can. There is a massive fog that is looking to cause destruction. The man knows he won’t be fast enough to get to it before it gets to his three year old son.
CLEAR BLUE SPRING
Lynn takes her boyfriend to a clear blue spring and tells him it has helped her many times. One time it showed her dad having a heart attack and told her to go help him. She was able to get home in time to call the paramedics and save him. It had helped her find her post dog, told her a bit would come into her life to end her loneliness, and other such things. She kept it secret and only used it when she deemed it necessary. She brought her boyfriend there because his mom had died three weeks before. She takes off her clothes, tells him she loves him, and kisses him. She helps him take off his own clothes and they get in the spring together. It shows him finding his drug addict mom passed out on her bed from the pills and him throwing gasoline all over her room. When he set the place on fire, she started to scream and he left her there trapped. When the vision ends, he realizes Lynn saw the entire scene as well. He sees her running home and calling the police. He catches her and drowns her in the pool. He spends years as a nomad. The news reported was that the two young lovers ran away together. Eventually he comes back and drowns himself in the pool as well.
THE EYE OF RA
Jay Bennet is a felon on parole and waiting tables for a living. A cubb, well dressed man calls him over to his table as Jay is getting everything ready for closing. The man says he has already been cashed out, but he needs to talk to him, Jay Bennet. Jay is surprised the man knows his name. The doctor introduces himself and gives him an envelope. He says the money in it is his whether or not he takes the job, but he will get more money if he completes it. Dr. Robert Wilkens was on a dig in Cairo with a partner who stole the Eye of Ra from the project. He wants Jay to steal it back for him from the blind partner that took it. Jay says he isn’t going to do anything illegal. He has only a few month of parole left and he isnmt interested in risking it. But he puts the envelope in his waistband before he gets back to work. As his manager degrades him the rest of his shift, he is more and more tempted by the offer. That night, he goes to the address given. He goes in through an unlocked window and a man calls out for Jay by name. Jay is surprised when the man tells him to come up ti the study, but he does. The old man knew his partner would send Jay and tells him the Eye of Ra is a curse that showed him everything past through future. Even his blindness was only a temporary respite from the curse. He now intends to pass it on to Jay expects Jay to kill him. He grabs Jay’s knife and attacks him. Jay fights back and ends up killing the old man. He takes the Eye of Ra and exits. He calls the number he was given, but it is disconnected. A bright blue Dodge Neon drives past him.
FAVOR FOR A FAVOR
A depressed man is about to kill himself after his wife cheated on him with the local pastor (whose wife is in the hospital dying of cancer) and has their children to go live with him. The devil arrives in the form of a teenage boy and convinces him not to kill himself. He promises he can instead kill his wife and the pastor with no consequences in return for a favor to the devil somewhere down the line. The man agrees, goes to the pastor’s house, and kills his wife and her lover. The devil arranges clean up from others that owe him favors. He takes the form of the pastor and asks the man to go about his life without a word to anyone. A few days later, a suspect is apprehended and the man is never even suspected. He goes about his life with his kids as a single dad helping them deal with the grief of losing their mother. The pastor’s wife miraculously heals and news spreads of her and her husband leaving. Soon after, the man receives a Christmas card from the devil as the pastor and the pastor’s wife who is now pregnant.
SCHIZO
Donny wakes up to see a bird woman at the foot of his bed. It is the same monster hulicinstiin he saw when he was a kid. He looks at his wife who is still asleep. The bird woman starts to crawl up him. He reaches for his medication in the bedside table and takes a handful. The bird woman continues to crawl up him. He looks at his wife again to see she has woken up and looks terrified. She says she sees her too.
THE OLD HOUSE
Two brothers go through the woods to an old house. Peter goes in and says he is going all the way to the basement. Peter goes in and is gone longer than an hour. When his brother asks what took him so long, Peter said he lost track of time. Before the brothers go to bed, Peter’s brother asks what he was doing in the house. Peter says there was a lot of things inside. The brother asks if there were monsters. Peter says, “Yes,” and his eyes blinked the wrong way. The brother stays in the parents’ room that night. In the morning, Peter is gone. The police are called and he is reported missing. The brother believes Peter’s doom happened in the house.
TROLL BRIDGE
Andrew goes into the woods and starts imagining his own role playing campaign. When darkness starts to fall, he starts his quest home before his grandmother starts to worry. He imagines cannibals attacking and eating him. He finds a stream and starts following him. When he starts to think about cannibals again, he starts to run. He finds a lovely meadow and goes into it. In the center over the water is a bridge. He goes to inspect the bridge and admires the workmanship. He hears a noise from under the bridge and a troll appears. He asks Andrew why he is afraid of him. Andrew admits his granny told him trolls eat children. A bird lands near them and the troll tells Andrew not to be afraid. The troll tells him they are mostly vegetarians, but there was one troll, Lillifoot, who ate children and was ostracized from the rest of his kind. Andrew asks the troll his name. The troll eats the bird and says his name is Lillifoot.
IMMORTAL
David spends his whole life in academic research. In his forties, he started searching out ancient legends. He finds himself on top of a mountain in Easter Tibet looking for the answers to immortality. An old monk leads him in and doesn’t say anything. David’s hope starts to fade as he realizes the old man might not have the secret to eternal youth. They go down the stairs in silence. The monk leads him to a door. David opens it and there is a blinding light and he is in excruciating pain. He closes the door and slumps to the floor. His own face looks down on him and smiles. He looks down at his hands, but sees the hands of the old monk.
NEPTUNE’S FANCY
A fishing/whaling crew finds a woman with webbed hands and feet in their tuna nets. The ship’s first mate, Antony, goes to help her, but she bites off a piece of her finger. The Captain thinks she is a rare beauty and wants to profit off her in ports. Antony tells them he can understand her because she has his blood. She promises them riches if she is returned because she is the king of her people’s favorite wife. Antony suggests they restock and then take her home. An old man named Job thinks it is a bad idea to get involved with the creature, but none of them head his warning. As they make their way to port of Lisbon, Antony spends time with the creature in her cabin. He has MC bring him a tuna and puts a piece of his own flesh in it for her to eat so he can understand what she is saying. One day, the feral woman is so hungry, she accidently bites MC’s hand enough to draw blood. He is relieved when Antony dismisses him for the night. Job wakes up MC to warn him again about the creature, but MC hasn’t been feeling well and sends him away. When they take off again, the captain makes a speech about how they’ll all be rich when they get back. The creature is giving Antony directions as he is the only one she trusts. As they get closer, Antony draws a map to the Golden Gratto and goes to discuss the customs of court with the woman. MC starts to get sicker and has visions. He goes under the sea and past many sea creatures to a church with runes carved into the interior walls. There are hooded figures in robes. They go about their ritual and then remove their clothes to reveal the same species as the woman. Their leader turns to look at him and MC is terrified at the sight of him. The slug above them thrashes in fear. MC tries to scream and get away, but wakes up back on the ship. Three days later, the crew is more weary about their trip. The night MC had the vision, Job had tried to kill the merwoman, but Antony kills him instead. They bury Job at sea and Antony doesn’t attend the funeral. Many of the crew don’t think Antony needed to use lethal force to keep Job from killing the woman. Antony became sick and needed help tending to the woman. Jacob is assigned to assist him. When MC is feeling better, Jacob comes to talk to MC about what he saw in that room when Antony feeds a piece of himself to her. Jacob reveals that the woman takes bites out of his chest and chants while she does it. He tells MC to take over the job because he can’t take it. The woman ends up taking a bite out of Jacob and the Captain comes to see what happen. Other crew members take Jacob away to stop the bleeding. Antony doesn’t look well and screams about how Jacob walked in without any warning. The captain asks how much longer they have. Antony says it is only another day. Jacob has a fever that night and is babbling in his sleep. MC knows the venom from the woman is what caused the sickness as the only three men she bit got sick. The next day, they reach land and anchor in a rocky grove. Most of the crew stays on the ship, but a small ship of six go to the cave. It doesn’t look anything like how Antony described it. MC doesn’t see the promised riches anywhere. The frustrated captain points his gun at Antony and demands to know where the treasure is. The woman looks into the water. MC looks down and sees the creatures in the water. The woman attacks the captain from behind and bites him in the neck. They fall into the water. Antony doesn’t do anything to help him, but the other men try to pull her off the captain without any success. The creatures are all around them and Antony chants the prayers MC heard in his dreams. The men are pulled from the boat and MC makes his way back to the ship frantically. The crew pull him back onto the ship and they leave as fast as they can. MC and Jacob stay away from the sea after that, but stay in touch. They talk about their shared experiences of the visions. Jacob was looking for a book he thought would help him decipher what the runes on the walls of the church said. When Jacob’s writing starts to sound paranoid and grows fewer and weaker, MC goes to visit him. His mother answers and says that he has changed so much in the past year. He was angry and clearly disturbed. One day, he stripped naked and walked into the sea. His body was recovered and he was given a service. MC’s dreams continue and get worse. The creatures are the attempts of the Mother Hydra to mate with humans. MC knows that one day Cthulu will rise.
THE WENDALL LANE DIARIES
1. YOU SHOULDN’T. Alan Palmer meets with the author to tell him about his time at the house on Wendall Lane. One night in the summer, he turns on the TV and sees there is a channel called “You Shouldn’t Watch.” There is no description, so he goes to that channel to see what it is. It was a black and white shot of an empty room with no doors or windows. When he gets to the channel, he tries to pull up the the synopsis information, but it is blank. He goes to make a sandwich in the kitchen, but then he hears as terrible noise. He drops his sandwich and goes back to the TV to find an old frail looking man screaming in pain. The old man then goes to a rotary phone and dials a number. Alan’s cell phone rings and he checks the caller ID. It just says “You shouldn’t watch.” He doesn’t answer and the old man calls again. Alan tries to change the channel and unplug the TV, but the image doesn’t go away. The old man calls again and Alan finally answers. A voice says “You shouldn’t tell.” Alan suddenly realizes he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that story. He freaks out and leaves. Twelve days later, Alan was found dead in front of his TV with his eyes, ears, and tongue missing.
2. THE PHONE IN THE KITCHEN. David would get strange calls from the kitchen phone. The first one he gets is from his grandma that died when he was twelve. The calls are always at night and end before the morning comes. When David’s brother is in an accident, he is in critical condition and a coma. David leaves his sister-and-law and nieces and nephews at the hospital with his brother and goes home. That night the phone rings and he talks to his brother. When he goes back to the hospital the next day, he is surprised to see his family all smiles. David was alive. When he gets back home and the phone rings, David says he knows he isn’t really talking to his deceased loved ones because his brother is still alive. The voice says that it is lonely and just wants someone to talk to. David unplugs the phone from the wall and throws it away.
3. BIG F’N ROACH. A man meets with the author to tell Jim Baker’s story. Jimbo almost set his house on fire trying to kill a large roach. The man runs a pest control company and offered to send his guys out to take care of it. When the job is done and he asks Jimbo about it, Jimbo asks how long it is supposed to take for the poison to kill the roach. The man is surprised the bug isn’t dead yet as the pest control usually works within minutes. He goes himself and sees Jimbo has a bump on the back of his head from the Roach attacking him, flying into his mouth, and then walking away. Jimbo asks him to tent the house for the one roach. The man agrees though he thinks it is overkill. Jimbo stays on the guys couch while the process is completed. When the house is done, Jimbo comes back that same night and says the roach is as big as a dog and attacked him while he was in bed. The man thought he was hallucinating and goes to see for himself. He doesn’t find anything and sends a text saying he found it and killed it. He leaves his hat so Jimbo would know he was there. Jimbo wants to see the body, but the man can’t produce it. Jimbo starts staying other places. When Jimbo leaves for good, the man comes back for his hat using his spare key. He hears crunching and opens the door of a room to see the giant Roach. The smell is awful. It is eating Jimbo’s face. He runs out and calls the police saying he saw armed men robbing Jimbo’s house. He then believed all the stories about the house.
4. BY YOUR BOOTSTRAPS. A young girl sees an old witch standing in the door of the back shed wearing a green broach. She tries to tell her parents, but when they check, nothing is there. They try to tell her it was just her imagination. Later that night, the parents have a babysitter come over to watch the young girl and her younger brother while they go out on a date. They are having so much fun that the little girl forgets all about the scary witch. The doorbell rings and the babysitter answers it. The witch is there with the garden shovel and kills the babysitter. The witch then comes for the children. The little girl tries to fight her off, but doesn’t have any luck. She is able to grab the broach and rip it from the witch. A beautiful stranger comes in and tries to help the children, but it is as if the witch knows she is coming and knocks her to the side. The witch kills the little boy. The beautiful stranger kills the witch with the shovel and then leaves. The police are called and the parents come home. They move shortly after. Years later, after graduating from college, the little girl is driving to her friends house. She realizes she is about to drive past the town where the house was. She feels drawn to it and drives to the house. It is empty and listed for sale. She goes out back to the shed and looks inside. When she comes out, the yard looks exactly as it did the night her brother was murdered. She realizes what is happening and rushes inside the try to stop the events before her brother is killed. When she goes to swing at the witch, she is knocked to the side and hits her head. She is stunned for a bit and when she comes to, her brother is already dead. She hesitates before she kills the witch. She wants to stay and make things better for her younger self, but her intuition tells her to leave. When she does, she is back in her own time and looks through her suitcase until she finds the broach. She wants to toss it away as far as she can, but something compiles her to put it back in her luggage. She continues on to her friends house. The girl grows old and her hair turns white. She realizes she has become the old witch. She goes back to the shed and is teleported back to that night. She looks up at the little girl in the window. She goes to kill her brother. She never knows where the broach actually came from.
5. THE CURIOUS CASE OF STEPHEN HAIM. Stephen lived in an apartment with his sister. One night, he got really high off of PCP and killed his sister, Janice, in a particularly brutal way. Stephen had a full blown case of amnesia and couldn’t remember any of it. It was suggested the court not bring it up and remind him of it unless necessary. Since he was pleading guilty, there was no need and he was sent to a Sequoya to work with Dr. Rieve, who thought they were keeping him much longer than they needed to. A few years after his release, Dr. Rieve receives a letter from Stephen asking him to call for some advice. He tells the doctor he smells something putrid in his house, but nobody else seems to smell it. Dr. Rieve asks him to get checked out by a neurologist to see if something is going on. A few days later, Dr. Rieve gets a letter from Stephen’s fiancé, Collete, who says Stephen committed suicide and invites him to the funeral. Stephen goes to the house and meets Collete. She asks if Stephen ever expressed that he was sorry for what he did to his sister. Dr. Rieve tells her he loved his sister very much and was very sorry about the entire situation. She hurries him out of the house and he assumes she is in the middle of funeral preparations. When Dr. Rieve gets to the funeral that afternoon, he is surprised Collete is not there. Stephen’s childhood friend, Rami, who had arranged everything asks him how he had heard about the funeral. Dr. Rieve tells him about the fiancé, Collete. Rami tells him Stephen didn’t have a fiancé. Dr. Rieve spots a picture of her and points her out. Rami tells him that was Janice, Stephen’s sister. Dr. Rieve realizes it was the memory of how Stephen had killed and eaten Janice that was haunting him with the smell. That was why he killed himself.
THE CRIME SCENE
A detective arrives on a crime scene and finds Charles Hopple laying on a stretcher and talking to a paramedic. He asks what happened there. Charles explain that his wife, Marcy, had made a great dinner and they were eating when someone came into their house and attacked them. The attacker had hurt Marcy pretty bad. The detective interrupts to tell him he has been told she will be fine and won’t need reconstructive surgery. Charles continues to tell him the attacker grabbed the carving knife from the table and was about to stab him when the police showed up and rescued him. He had no idea what would cause the man to attack them like that. The detective loses his cool and flips Charles’ stretcher and starts beating him up. He says Charles and his sick wife were eating the man’s infant son.
THE FIGHT
Damarco fights a 19-year-old Russian kid in the boxing ring. He hasn’t been back in boxing long after having to get over a drug addiction. His wife left him and took their daughter, Trinity, with her to move across the country. They would talk when they could, but he hadn’t seen her in two years when she was killed in a car accident. Another round ends and Damarco goes back to his coach, Richie. He tries to tell him to watch for the Russian, Dimitri, to drop his shoulder after he punches, but Damarco is distracted by a woman in the stands that is beautiful, but unnerving. As the fight progresses, the woman gets closer. When she makes it all the way to the side of the ring, Damarco asks the referee, Steve Milton, to not let her stand so close. He doesn’t seem to understand what Damarco is talking about. He tries to push her out of his mind and remember that he is fighting for Trinity. Steve the Ref has been a fan of Damarco’s and even told his wife that he was going places when Damarco had first started boxing. In the last round, the woman is in the ring. Richie tries to convince Damarco to take the loss, but Damarco refuses. Young Dimitri is fighting to provide for his family back in Russia. His father died when he was young and he kicked out his stepfather when he found him in his little sister’s bed. Dimitri swings at Damarco who is focus on the woman that is now right behind the young Russian. Dimitri continues to hit him. Steve feels like he is not supposed to stop the fight. Damarco watches for the shoulder to drop, but that is when the woman’s finger touches him. When Damarco wakes up in the ring later, everyone is already gone. He is no longer afraid of the woman. Trinity comes to greet him and says she has been watching over his dog, Milo, since she died. They go through the door labeled “exit.”