“Finals are the scariest short story”
Well, I originally had big plans for this week, with a list article to scientifically, objectively prove something, but then I realized that I have three finals and two projects due this week, plus a random assortment of other junk with deadlines due this week, and I kind of shit my pants in terror. So I decided to try and recreate that terror for you, the reader, by sharing two very short stories I wrote that are kind of scary. They’re nowhere near as horrible as realizing you have just a day left before the big test, but they’re content, at least. Next week will be better. Next week will have that list.
The refrigerator one I originally wrote to go along with my three Creepypasta stories, but it didn’t get accepted to the Creepypasta website. So here it is now, slightly edited from its original form to be more palatable. The Other Things story I wrote this year around Halloween for a microfiction project in class. I kind of like it, even after I edited it. Hopefully you enjoy it, too.
“Is your Refrigerator Running?” by Andy Sima (2014)
You ever have those weird experiences where you go to the refrigerator to get some food and it’s like there’s less food than you expected? No, no, I don’t mean that I ate it all, or that someone else ate it, which is impossible because I live alone with my cat. I just mean that some of the food is… gone.
But that’s ridiculous, of course. I must have eaten it all when I was drunk or tired or something. That ever happen to you? No? Huh. Okay, then.
Has your refrigerator ever gotten warmer, unexpectedly? At least, I guess that’s what happened. Like someone turned the temperature up, just a little bit, so the food goes bad. That happened to me, one time. I was out for the weekend, and when I came home, all the food had spoiled. It smelled disgusting and rancid, just awful in general, let me tell you. It smelled like something had died in there.
Of course, now that I think about, I don’t remember the milk being curdled, and I’m pretty sure the lunch meats were still good, too. It was just the smell. You ever get that? No? Weird.
Hey, has your refrigerator door ever opened for no reason? Mine does that, on occasion. The door will open, just a crack. Enough so that some cold air gets out. My cat hates when that happens; she won’t go anywhere near my kitchen. It’s the only time she doesn’t.
I always figured it had something to do with how much food I put in there. Like, the air buildup forced it open or something. I don’t know, though. You ever have that happen to you? Nah, who am I kidding. I already know the answer.
What about this, though? Has your refrigerator ever made these weird clicking sounds? No, I don’t mean the regular hum of the refrigerator. I mean ticking, knocking. It’s irregular, random. Like someone hitting the inside of the refrigerator. It’s not very heavy, though. But it’s like if something was inside of it. It happens at night, usually.
I chalked it up to the pipes moving around, or the pressure changing and the metal creaking or something. Come on, tell me you’ve had that happen to you? No. I know. Maybe it isn’t my refrigerator. Because just last night, when I came home from work, my refrigerator door was completely open. And I’m totally sure I closed it when I left in the morning. And you know what I just realized today? I haven’t seen my cat since yesterday morning, when I left for work. When the refrigerator door was closed.
“The Other Things,” by Andy Sima (2019)
Every morning she would open the closet door and, in greeting, kiss the hand of the man hanging there. After that she would smile and tell him to have a lovely day before she closed the door and left him there, twitching in the darkness at the end of his rope. And then she would go about her day as she always had. Going to work downtown in the basement of a high-rise office, going to the supermarket to buy dozens of eggs and pounds of raw meat, going to the train station to watch the busy people as they went about their lives unaware of the things shifting beneath their feet. She felt it all, and then she went home to her hanged man.
Every night she would open the window in the hanged man’s closet and she would fill a rancid metal basin with whatever animal parts she had bought at the grocery store that day. Then she would take a step back, into the corner of the room, and wait. And she would hold the dead man’s hand as his body continued to spin in the breeze, suspended by a frayed and moldy rope strung up between rafters of unfathomable height. They would wait together, the two of them, wait for their visitors.
As they would wait, the scent of rotting meat and curdling eggs would waft its way out of the open window and into the world beyond, ascending over the streetlight-bathed avenues and cookie-cutter houses. From the beckoning scent’s view above the winding roads and walkways, one could have seen the city in the distance, could have seen lights twinkling and shadows leaping along the highway. And the smell, infused into the air like the feeling of rain, would attract creatures out of the shadows.
Every night they would crawl from the darkness and into the tiny closet at the top of that house in the suburbs. Formless masses spreading along the ground like infection, or ragged wings cutting through the air like rusted knives through butcher’s paper. The ravens usually got there first, followed by the rats and the snakes, and then followed by the Other Things. The Other Things were her favorite to watch, and she liked to think that they were his favorite to watch, too. The way the Other Things grabbed at the offering by the window, tearing into it as if there were no other food left in the world, always would excite her.
She would always know when the other things were getting close, because the hanged man’s foot would start to twitch to an unheard beat. His hand would shudder in her grasp, and she could hear him breathing coming from above her, high in the rafters where his head was bound by the old rope. On active nights, when the offering was especially pleasing, he would cry out or grab the rope at his neck. She always held his hand and waited for it to pass, and then, when the Other Things left back out the window into the night, he was still once more.
She would clean up the metal basin, then, preparing it for tomorrow night’s meal. She would hug the man, though she could only reach his legs, and she would thank him for being there with her. Then she would go to bed, and sleep until the next morning, when she would wake up and begin the process anew. In this way she would keep them both alive and well. And, at least for a time, the Other Things would be happy.
But it would not last forever.
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