We’re All Running Scared

 

This year I decided, late in the game, that I would write a horror story, only problem was, well, I was more dedicated to the idea than the story was to be written. Only a few weeks ago had I completed it, and I’m hoping this week sometime that it will be ready for publishing.

I love the idea of this story. I like the twist ending that I think actually hold well, even if I thought I was making myself to obvious. However, it has worked and it’s so close to being ready that if I didn’t care enough about spelling and grammar it would already be out.

This book, and the bonus story you’ll even get with it, or as a separate free download, hold the same type of run. Because that’s what this short is. Running. It’s being shit scared, running, and finally making it to the end to realise…shit. Was it worth it? Was it?! Well you’re going to have to read it to find out

Anyway, I’m hoping it’ll be out by the end of the month, because it’ll be a great little read to get you in the Halloween mood.
 

                Excerpt

The trip to the bathroom happened quickly. I woke up in a fury of limbs and flesh with a bladder pressing at me to move.

Once the stream started, the pressure eased, my shoulders relaxed and I winced before rolling my shoulders against the stiffness, making me realise it wasn’t only my shoulders that hurt.

My arms felt heavy as they dangled at my side, shifting pulled muscles from wrist to elbows. My thighs bunched as I shifted, fatigue making them twitch as I groaned while turning from the toilet to the sink.

My fingers curled around the cool edging, my head hung low, trying not to hurt when all I felt like doing was crumpling onto the ground and going back to sleep.

“What the fuck happened to me?” The words whispered against the tiles, bouncing back at me making me flinch from the loudness, the stupidity of the statement.

The dream flashed at me, tying me down in a world that wasn’t real, and yet it felt that way. It felt as if something had shifted themselves into my body and experienced a life I hadn’t been a part of.

Yet, I couldn’t remember, couldn’t understand what was happening, couldn’t get away from an impression of death and pain, but the vision in colour never came. I never saw anything I could link to.

Dreams were powerful, I understand that; this hadn’t been the first time a dream had felt as if I’d walked it, rather than slept through it. My eyes gazed up into the mirror, habit really, I system of vanity we were all caught up in, like checking yourself out as you walked passed a shop window.

I gasped at what I saw. Adrenalin pushed up through me fast. The mirror was smashed, as if an ashtray smashed into the shiny surface at least twice, only with the bloodstain splattered here and there, it became obvious that a fist made those marks, and made them without a thought of the pain it would cause.

I stumbled back trying to get away from the image. Trying to get away from the jagged spikes that had tumbled onto the floor, making it look dirty and used.

My arms hit the doorframe as I pulled myself through the door, trying to get away. I needed to get away.

My body froze as I got one step into the main room. I felt nothing, thought nothing as my heart beat, hard, heavy, the only sound coming from the vein in my neck.

The room was trashed. How I didn’t see it when I first got up I don’t know, but then I didn’t remember anything until this moment, and even that was sketchy.

The bedding was twisted up on the bed. for some reason that was the first thing I noticed and though it wasn’t anything different than what I’d normally be looking at after a night slept in a bed, it seemed to make my stomach bubble.

The small table that had been in the corner near the windows was missing three legs as it rested against the wall where the head of the bed was. I realised one corner had to be sticking into the wall.

The chair, I’d guess, was the scattered wood near the door, the little screen that held the fire-drill, hidden behind a scratched up plastic had been ripped off.

The cupboard had been turned inside out, one of the doors taken off its hinges.

The picture had been cut up, one side flopping down against the top of the headboard. The walls were smeared with a light brown colour that I was reluctant to call blood, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep my stomach content down otherwise.

What had happened here? Had I done this? Did I lose my sanity for a moment where I went ape shit and just picked up everything there was and turned the pain in my chest into something physical? I didn’t think so, even with my arms throbbing at my side as I took in the damage. There’d be something there, a memory. Something was missing, something obvious and pointed, and yet I was shying away.

Or had a rock band come in and partied hard while I was sleeping? Gang banged me until I passed out? It definitely would have been the better option, though again I would have had some form of memory—mostly because I’d want to keep hold of it.

What the fuck was going on? Why was I caught in the middle of some madman’s schemes? What had I done in my life to deserve this?

A spider crack in the window caught my attention, I swallowed hard around a lump as I stepped closer to the window, and the bright red smudges that slid down the…outside.

I sighed; it was on the outside. Thank fuck it was on the outside. I just wish the guilt from that sigh wasn’t starting to pinch at my gut.

A fly to shit, my eyes caught on the blood, curiosity and I was a fucking cat, as my feet moved closer and closer. I was at the point of putting my nose against the glass, hell I could feel the cold licking at my skin as I tried to look past the window. I may not be the best at savvy quotes, which seemed to directly relate to me thinking I could see over and around the lip of a closed window, smothered in blood and cracked glass.

The window clicked open, I knew it was me, but I still couldn’t help myself from continuing to open it. I could give the excuse of never been able to pass by a crime scene. It would be true, if I’d ever been in the vicinity of a crime scene, which I hadn’t. Maybe that was why I was so curious of what was on the other side of the window. What had made that damage?

I ended up opening it all the way, each inch the window went higher the need to see grew stronger, and I couldn’t stop.

I was oddly nervous, as I got closer, having to in order to get the window all the way up. The wind blew against my skin, cool and crisp, with an underlying smell of garbage. It was dark, inky black with a light glow just along the bottom line of the window. I understood that came from lights on the street.

Licking my lips, I looked over the edge, and saw something... I couldn’t be sure what it was, but the shine had me guessing a shoe.

My head went next, my fingers linked against the sharp wood. The air got dense as the weather and smell pushed at me. I leaned over, needing to see, needing to know what had landed on the ground.

The body looked fake, something out of a crime show. I even got the flash of bright yellow outline, though clearly, the line wasn’t there, but the fakeness lingered.

It seemed that out of everything that happened on cop shows, there was definitely one thing they’d gotten right, because the body on the ground looked like a rag doll all crumpled up. With a dark pool around him that couldn’t have been anything other than the blood and guts of the body above it.

 “Do you like it?” a voice sounded behind me.

 

You always say you’d stand and fight, but when you witness the death of your loved ones, are you curtain your feet won’t take off and lead you on a merry-go-round?

Witnessing the murder of my family had me on the run. I didn’t know where I was going, or why I was left standing, but that didn’t stop my flight instinct from kicking in. I ran screaming, but he found me, and now I’m trapped in a hotel with a madman. What does he want from me and am I going to survive long enough to find out?

 

Running Scared by Bronwyn Heeley

Publish October 2014 by Bony Dee

Contemporary Horror

Goodreads

Note: Hunted is being released at the same time as this book, it is a free read on every site but Amazon where they will be combined

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