Shoggoth.net

“Good morning. I’ve brought you your breakfast.”

Reluctantly, I awakened. I’d been having the loveliest dream—something about warmth and sunshine, and some gleaming object in the palm of my hand. I fought to hold onto the images, but they slipped away from me.  

Dear Journal,

It’s Christmas Eve again, and it’s been the worst year of my whole life. I snuck you and this pen out of the trash, so I have to be careful. I’m hiding under my covers with a light right now so I can write everything down before I start forgetting even more about what happened last Christmas. 

The others are all asleep, and if she catches me up past bedtime . . . I don’t even want to think about what she’ll do to me. None of the others that she took away have ever come back. But I don’t want to forget my life from before, and it’s getting harder and harder to remember. After I write everything down, I’ll hide you in the secret hole I made in my bed.

I can already hear that thing outside in the sky again. Like it’s calling to me with that deep groan that echoes in my brain and makes my heart beat weirdly. I have to hurry now before I run out of time.

***

Evelyn Mullins knew she sometimes saw things that weren’t there. Where other people saw only the harmless moving shadows cast by streetlights or car headlights or lights spilling out from buildings, she would often see more alarming things hiding in the darkness. She had learned not to warn others of these lurking dangers. What other people could not see; they could not believe. And what they could not believe, they pitied or mocked or scorned.

Or worse.

It started last week. I was at work and the dead man was just there, standing, staring at me. He was clearly unaware he was quite dead. I was startled, to say the least. I turned and grabbed at my coworker in the next cubicle, frantically sputtering. 

“Frank! Frank!” but Frank was on the phone. He glared at me, annoyed, his hand cupped over the receiver to mute my yell. I stopped shouting, regaining some sense, and instead gesticulated wildly toward the corpse.

“Yeah…,” Frank businesslike as always, stayed calm, but after a moment of me pointing wide-eyed with fear he added, “Robert? Let me call you right back.” He hung up angrily.

“What the hell is your problem? I’m trying to work!” Frank scowled at me. I pointed towards the water cooler.

When next the bell rang, it was all he could do to keep his feet. He steeled himself for another meal. Fray Joachim led them into the dining hall and took his seat at the head of the long table. A platter of raw corn and a jug of water awaited them. The bell ringer brought the monks a plate of ears of corn. Fray Joachim took them one by one and ate them, cobs and all. Hull took a mouthful of corn and chewed it throughout the meal, drinking his water and silently battling Obregon for the rest of the jug. McKeever sat staring straight ahead as he fisted the corn into his mouth like a pig on market day. 

Now

“Well this is new,” Cassey said, and the surrounding walls echoed her words. She felt she should be scared, but after what she had been through already? This was tame in comparison. The portal behind her crackled, spilling violet light into a large room filled with shadows, and sinister shapes. She gave off a little violet light herself, had done for a while now. Cassey felt this should scare her too. In the kingdom of the mad, however, the sane woman was queen.

A laugh, more of a cackle really, escaped her mouth. It echoed and bounced off the walls to impact against…

There were dozens of them, large, brutish-looking horrors the size of bears. They had more limbs than a bear though, more limbs than any creature had the right to possess.

Chef Kaets put down the kitchen towel she had in her hand to answer the phone.

“Hello, Chef Marie Kaets speaking, how can I help you?”

The voice on the other side of the phone dredged up her past by asking for the one thing she would never cook again, no matter the fee they offered. Thinking back, she couldn’t believe she’d ever really done that, but it felt like a lifetime ago. In her defense, she was desperate for money at the time and ultimately felt the experience was worth the risk involved to further her budding career.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve made a mistake. I certainly don’t offer a service like that!”