The best #place to hide was in plain sight. It's what his dad always told him. So when one of the shooters dropped an empty gun to switch to one with a full magazine, he took a chance.
He pulled the hoodie up and walked to the front door with the gun.
A cop turned the corner.
#vsshorror #vss365
The value was one thing. The #cost another.
The child stood in front of their mother's grave, avoiding looking up at the ghost next to them.
"Do it, my love. Please," the ghost said, her voice whispery soft.
"Yes, mama," the child said as they put their favorite toy down.
#vsshorror #vss365
"As your prize, your deepest desire," the show host said with a theatrical spin.
The audience roared.
As the curtain drew back, the contestant flinched. He was spalled at what was before his eyes.
"It's a #product of your dreams. You and I both know you wanted this."
#vsshorror #vss365
The surgeon set the scalpel down, gesturing for the next tool. The assistant, hands slippery from blood, missed and jabbed himself. He gasped and set the syringe down, backing from the table.
The surgeon ignored him. This round of #segmentation would work. He could feel it.
#vsshorror #vss365
He handed his receipt over the counter with the spoiled food.
"I didn't notice the mold when I bought it. It's still in date."
"We will permanently resolve this," the employee said.
"Thanks?"
"Anything for the #customer," the cashier smiled with too many teeth.
#vsshorror #vss365
Millions of households had one. It made life so much easier. Nobody could imagine life before it.
It took years to recall them after investigators found the source of the strangulations.
When asked why the dangerous product was popular, the new CEO said, "better #marketing."
#vsshorror #vss365
The #pressure to succeed, to overcome, to win at all costs drove them forward.
Anyone standing in their way was the enemy. Anyone who so much as questioned their motives or methods was anathema.
Anything was justifiable to date their need for more. Until they had it all.
#vsshorror #vss365
The contestant stood on the dias, the wilting flowers sticky in her hand.
The producers promised her brother would stay alive as long as the show ran. She spent four seasons scaring her conpetitors.
They had entered a suicide pact that she couldn't stop at the #end.
#vsshorror #vss365
The storms got larger and washed more cities away more often. The fires spread faster and farther. Fewer and fewer places were safe from the disasters.
Eventually, there weren't enough people to rebuild.
Here's to a new #beginning with a new species.
#vsshorror #vss365
#nightmares were contagious after dark. People learned to stay home at dusk. Those desperate to shed their nightmares or deranged enough to want one went out after dark.
The nightmares became worse each time they moved between people. After a few years, people died of them.
#vsshorror #vss365
The Sleeper knew that everything they #dream was theirs to control.
The things they wished manifested in their sleep to affect the dreamscape.
The Sleeper wished to end it all one day. They found their dreamscape decimated when they lay down their head that night.
#vsshorror #vss365
Everyone was surprised at suddenly losing their rights. He wasn't a threat. How did this happen?
While you were distracted by the #noise, he stole everything from you. Down to the very air you breathe.
They had decades to prepare and he was the vessel for it. Now we all suffer.
#vsshorror #vss365
They sold bottles of emotions. Each person had a set quantity they could refill each month.
The most sought was #joy.
A manufacturer reported contamination. Half the global supply had to be recalled. Rather than give it back, people took the bad bottles. Suicides skyrocketed.
#vsshorror #vss365
"We're going to start a new #life, sweetie," she said as she carried the toddler into the house.
"Just you and me." She kissed his forehead.
Her phone screeched, an amber alert flashing across the screen. She turned off her phone and dropped it in the sink.
"Just you and me."
#vsshorror #vss365
Some punishments were too gentle. Each time I slipped into #death, it was a sigh of relief.
My torturer found a new technique to guarantee I never die.
Now I am forced to wander this scorched earth alone. My species is now annihilated and any remaining life scabbed and wilting.
#vsshorror #vss365
People clamored for opening night tickets to the gallery with the artist's latest works.
The final painting was in a separate room. The first guest to see it collapsed on the spot, spitting blood. After four guests died, the gallery closed the room to the painting titled #grief.
#vsshorror #vss365
"It's #time to go, darlings," the nanny said as she ushered the children to the door.
The children obediently formed a line and followed her.
The new owner of the house watched in horror as the ghosts stepped through the closed door and into the night.
#vsshorror #vss365
The adults he served were distracted.
The child judged the #distance to the dessert, then grabbed a morsel and popped it into his mouth.
His body twisted, bones snapping and skin tearing.
Someone turned from the table to look at the mess. "Told him not to touch the macarons."
#vsshorror #vss365
Literally devastating. One of my favorite hobbies is to release ideas into the wild and hope that whomever hears it in conversation is inspired and makes it happen
A child's ball sat in the middle of the abandoned gymnasium. A ghost gave it one experimental #bounce.
A ghost hunter across the room tripped, surprised. The ghost, curious, came over and played with the ghost hunter's skull, tossing it harder than the ball.
Brains splattered.
#vsshorror #vss365
The playground was covered in piles of #thread. Strands were wrapped around poles and the slide. The swings were tightly tangled together.
Some clumps went into the trees. The townsfolk chose to cut the thread at the treeline.
The cut edges curled and vanished into the woods.
#vsshorror #vss365
"So much emotional baggage. No wonder he doesn't love you," she said.
"I prefer the term 'one-of-a-kind vintage #luggage' to describe it," the other replied, smiling.
"You'll never get him to love you with that attitude. He's a serial killer, not a cartoon strip," she scoffed.
#vsshorror #vss365
That's so exciting! Congratulations on strangers bonding over your work!
Thank you! This one was inspired by a coworker repeatedly insisting that I needed to smile today. I just about screamed in frustration after the third time
"Smile, darling."
The person shuddered in their chair. The television blasting a children's show could not cover the groans.
The photographer adjusted the lens.
"Again, with more #euphoria."
The person turned their head, blood seeping out of the holes in their face.
#vsshorror #vss365
The bolts of fabric muffled the investigators movements. Wigs were stuffed between twill, the hairs staticky and tangled as the forensics team peeled each one out.
A stack of #velveteen toppled, revealing a door. The bodies in that room added fourteen more victims to the count.
#vsshorror #vss365
Nobody had seen the arachnologist in weeks. A neighbor noticed the smell and called in a welfare check with the police.
The #gossamer strands crossed entire rooms, connecting walls, furniture, and windows.
It took them hours to cut down the sac hanging from the master closet.
#vsshorror #vss365
Yellow star thistle is the plant rendering much of California land useless.
Kudzu is the vine that ate the American South.
But #mignonette traps souls with its alluring scent, infecting their victims through smell. By the time they register the fragrance, it's too late.
#vsshorror #vss365
The raven is wise enough to know the power of pizza, but not dexterous enough to manage a microwave. Here's hoping he makes friends with a cooperative marsupial capable of pressing the appliance buttons!
The couple was almost #canoodling, their hands shakily twining through hair.
"Stop," a watching man said.
The couple froze. One partner sobbed.
The man adjusted their position.
He stepped back and admired the artistic effect, snapping a photo with the Polaroid.
"Continue."
#vsshorror #vss365