Horror Stories In The Dark

Go Play

A child's laughter bubbled in the air. A little girl was lost in play, twirling and dancing with a toy bear swinging from her grasp when she unknowingly wandered out onto the street. The whine of the breaks led in a grating shriek; it was all that she would hear before it happened. The scream of grinding metal turned her away from her beloved toy. It was all so sudden. Joy was still caught in her eyes even as the terror flooded in. Putrid smoke swirled from burnt rubber as the bulky tires slid across the asphalt. By the time the air-breaks hissed it was done. An old man came scrambling by as quickly as he could, dragging his walker behind him. He moved on pure adrenaline, ignoring the condition that has tormented his joints for most of his years as a senior citizen. He was screaming her name. The bus driver stepped out and threw his hands over his mouth as he heaved a lamenting chorus of guilt-ridden dread. He staggered back staring at her, eyes white and hands trembling. The old man cursed him as he went past, demanding that he contact an ambulance. The driver did, stammering panicked confusion to the operator on the line. The old man fell in beside the little girl. She held out a frail, tremulous arm, covered with bloody gashes and black grease from the radiator that had struck her down. She was pointing toward the heavens when she spoke her final words.

"Pa'pa... L...look," she said, her voice weak but touched by wonder. "There's a girl, she's beautiful...."

Then her arm collapsed, falling with the faintest thud beside a rainbow-colored teddy bear. Before long she was asleep, never to wake again.

#

One hundred and one.

Like a cruel joke, God had to add one more year. It was the morning of Gerald Heidrich's birthday, and as always not a soul came to visit him, nor would he receive them with warm praise if they had. These days he found the fair extol of one's success at escaping the ever-tricky hand of death to live yet another year upon this bleak and miserable earth a borderline insult, and he took it to mean as much. Most bothered not to disturb the wayward old man, even when he was exploring the vacant halls of the hospital with delight upon his haggard old face. If ever he did smile it would no doubt be perceived by now as a mere bait to offer him an ear to chastise; a honey trap if you will. Leaning over his walker and dragging along with him his IV pole he went about his business, carrying a gaily rainbow teddy bear by its stuffed paw. The dirty old toy dangled from his lissome fingers as he labored along his way, merrily forsaken.

Gerald was often misunderstood as a despondent fellow with little gratitude and a whole lot of temper. There were few that understood his truth. He had lived long enough to watch his wife, his daughter, and even his granddaughter pass away before his eyes. The latter of which, Macy, being the most vivid and tragic. While in his care an inattentive bus driver accidentally ran her down as she was playing in the street. He looked away for only a second when she disappeared from the yard. Before he could even rise from his chair the worst day of his life was already well underway. He never forgave himself for that. Having been forced to mourn all the people he ever loved on this earth he wondered even if forgiveness would ever be enough to heal his wounds or mitigate his losses. Though thankful he was to still have his wits about him at such a ripe age, the takeaway was that his well-preserved memory haunted his every waking hour with regret. He was beginning to believe that he had somehow outlived all there was good to live for. And so, for years, the only gift he truly wanted to receive for his birthday was the gift of death.

His final days were spent shambling about the hospital with a diagnosis of some queer bone disease, with a long and complicated name that he could barely pronounce. After all he has been through, to be slowly tortured and killed by something he could not name was probably one of mortality's greatest jests. Often his condition crippled him when he sought to use his muscles for anything more than to punch buttons on a remote in a foraging search for the damn weather channel; though why he cared to know about the status of a hurricane brewing halfway across the globe escaped even his own mind. He chalked it up to sheer, cold, unbiased, madness, being confined to his designated room nearly every day for three years. Recalling the astronomical fees, he had once gotten after spending the night at a hospital in his younger years, he wondered how much of his social security would remain once he finally kicked the bucket; or would they just pull the plug the moment the piggy bank went dry—either way, good riddance! Here, they just poked him with needles and prolonged his end. No end should ever outstay it's welcome, however; just ask anyone who watched that godforsaken Lord of the Rings movie.