The Most Frightening Imaginable Thing

With a dozen wounds bleeding and a blade buried in his heart, Vincent gurgled a bloody laugh. "You think you've beaten me," he rasped, "but you haven't even seen my true form." His skin rippled and bulged, something beneath it writhing with inhuman power no longer restrained.

"Can't really be scarier than a genocidal maniac, though, can it?" Vera sounded bored, and she caught the sword by its grip as the transformation forced it out of the once-man's chest.

"It will bring you terror as you have never before conceived." Its voice now resonated with the echo of a dozen inhuman mouths.

"I don't buy it," she said.

The shape-shift stopped.

"I mean, humans are the real monsters," Vera said. "You're monstrous, sure, but the true abomination is a human, as Vince here was before you came along, slaughtering billions. I can't personally imagine anything more frightening than a real, mortal human with the will to murder the entire globe."

"Then that," the monster intoned, "is what you shall face." Its shape-shift changed course, returning to the familiar form of Vincent.

Vera's sword promptly removed his head from his body.

"Luckily, humans are much easier to kill than extra-dimensional monstrosities."

A Tiny, Hidden Thing

Captain Rodriguez took another solemn step toward the impromptu altar, aglow with emergency candles beneath the periscope. With a firm grip, he pulled Chief Engineer Henschel close enough for a whisper. "Anything?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "Everything checks out functional, just... nothing's functioning."

With a disgusted sigh through his teeth, Rodriguez completed the walk to the altar. Lieutenant Neilly met him there with a knife. "She says you don't have to believe it, Captain," she said. "Just do it."

The trouble, as he sank to his knees in full dress uniform, was that he did believe it. He always had. And he'd buried that belief deep. His mentors and peers would have teased him—which was tolerable—and sidelined him—which was not.

He'd buried it so deep that he couldn't admit it, even now that it seemed true. But, for his crew, he would pretend to believe it and ignore the whispered "told you so" in his head. Rodriguez cut his palm and made a bloody handprint on the altar. "Our shield against the ocean's crush, chariot through the waves, sword piercing our foes... USS Cheyenne, we pray to you."

To his deep resentment and tiny, hidden joy, the engines came back on.

The Stars Beneath the Waves

The lights flickered in the cold, matte grey of the submarine, then everything returned the scarlet-tinged darkness of the emergency lighting. The background hum of air circulation had already died, replaced by the limping pulse of a grinding motor pushing out thick, too-warm air. The klaxons had quit already, two minutes ago or twenty, Sandra couldn't tell.

"O'Connell?" Sailors didn't normally go armed on board, but Sandra had found a weapons locker pried open and a pistol dropped in a corner during the ransacking. She hefted the weapon now. A scrape of metal on metal seized her attention, and she rounded the corner to find O'Connel in a pool of blood beneath one of the emergency lights, a bloody screwdriver just out of reach beside him.

"Who did this?" The wounds looked fresh, still pumping blood at a pace that couldn't go on for long.

With trembling hands, O'Connell grabbed her by the neck and pulled her close. Another flicker of the lighting showed her in clear relief the infinite black depths of his eyes, the stars within, and the way to reach them. She fell inward, the lights failed again, and she reached for the screwdriver O'Connell had used.

The Really Early Edition

Holding her morning coffee, Isa opened her apartment door with a smile that fell off her face when no morning paper was waiting for her. She was on the phone to her best friend about fifteen seconds later.

"It's not here."

"What's not where?" Isa heard a yawn; Jet hadn't yet gotten to their morning coffee.

"It. It."

"Oh." Their voice sharpened. "Well, um, maybe whoever sends you your paper a day early so you could mess with fate thinks you need a day off?"

"Ha ha, this is serious." Isa paced endlessly. "What could do this? There could be a war."

"There is a war."

"I mean a nuclear war! Or a meteorite? What if we're all dead this time tomorrow?"

"What would you do if it were?" The question froze Isa.

"I..."

"Yeah, so, how would you stop nukes? Or an asteroid?"

Isa fell onto her couch. "Nothing. I guess."

"Right. So breathe, babe." Isa closed her eyes and did that. "Also, it's a paper shortage."

"What?"

"The Tribune says online there's an acute shortage and they won't have a paper edition tomorrow."

"Uh..."

"I'm going for breakfast. Byeeeee!"

Isa blinked. "I guess I have a day off."

The Bear Witness

Smoke still rose from the pistol in Mark's hand as he turned to look out the window and found a massive bear peering in at him. Mark dropped the gun, his intended contemplative post-murder look over the remote mountain landscape forgotten.

The bear's mouth opened in an ursine smile. Though its mouth otherwise didn't move, it clearly said, "I saw that."

"Saw... saw what?" Mark struggled not to look at the still-warm body behind him.

"Murder."

Mark leaped backward, nearly tripping over his victim, as the bear invited itself in through the window. It sniffed the body, lapped once at the pool of cooling blood, and fixed Mark with beady eyes.

"You want it, you can have it." Mark groped behind himself for his pack. "I'm just going to hike outta here." He started edging toward the door.

"You won't get away with this," said the bear. Mark was growing accustomed to words emanating from its open mouth.

"Courts won't have any proof." Mark dared a grin. "Especially once you're done."

The bear stepped toward him. "You won't get away."

Mark blanched. He ran.

The bear's land speed nears 35 miles per hour. The bear didn't need nearly that much.

The Bear of Bad News

Len ducked out of his tent and contained a scream, backpedaling so hard he fell on the damp, loamy ground. Only a tremulous moan escaped his throat, and he quieted himself after another pounding heartbeat, afraid of stirring the seven-foot slab of bear looming over him as though it'd been waiting for him to wake up.

"I have bad news." Len's jaw dropped. The basso voice had come from the bear's mouth, which seemed impossibly large as Len couldn't pull his eyes away from it.

"Wh... what?"

"He's cheating on you." This time Len watched the bear's jaw opening to "speak" and closing when it was done, though it didn't look like it moved to shape the words. It opened again. "It's not that he didn't want to go camping, just that he wanted the apartment to himself. Because he's cheating on you."

"I, uh, yeah. I heard you. I.... Maybe I'll pack up early and go surprise him." Len looked past the bear in thought. "And if he's not, uh... not, then I'll say it wasn't as nice without him."

"I have more bad news," said the bear. "You won't get home." Len couldn't contain the screaming that followed.

A Study in Perspective

Howard came home excited, the book tucked under his arm against the rain, old canvas binding feeling solid and real against his ribs. Setting it on the small desk beside his narrow bed, he quivered as he reread the title: "The Educated Man's Guide to Out-of-Bodie Experiences." With a smoldering focus, he opened the book and began reading.

He skipped the introduction and the tedious account of the author's travels in the "Near Orient." The older Howard got, the more his body felt like a shackle. He wanted techniques to loosen that bond, not century-old racism. Finally, he found the instructions.

The next day, Howard lit candles, burned incense, and crossed his legs on his bed, the book open in front of him. As instructed, he meditated, repeating a mantra in his head. Time blurred. He opened his eyes on a new perspective and swelled with joy. He could see himself, legs crossed and hands resting on knees, book open in front of him. He could sense things beyond the room.

Incredible! Amazing! Howard felt a flood of relief at the freedom from his body.

Howard realized he couldn't see to read the chapter on getting back into his body.