31 Short Horror Stories for Halloween

I am a thief

I'm a thief. I steal things. I go for the wallet or the purse. I never take anything else because it's too risky. You can grab a wallet, take the cash out, and then toss it away. No way to trace it back to you. The trick is knowing who to rob. Most people only carry a little cash in their wallets so you have to rob someone who might have fifty or more on him. It isn't easy.

It had been a tough week and I was going to be short on rent unless I got my hands on some serious cash. That's when I spotted him; big overcoat, deerstalker hat, and a walking cane. He wasn't old or anything. He carried the cane for style. Everything about him was pretentious and I knew he'd have a lot of loose change on him. It took very little subdue him and he was putting his stuff on the ground before I had even drawn my gun out. I took everything, even the phone.

It was an expensive phone and it would get me a few hundred bucks easy. I was so short on cash that I'd have to risk it this time. I called a friend up and promised him a cut of the money if he helped me unlock and wipe the phone. He agreed and the phone was ready to sell by the end of the day. I had a buyer lined up too.

That night I counted the cash. I'd survive another month and that was good. I picked up the phone and turned it on. I've never owned a decent phone and this thing was two month's rent. I took a few photos and then opened the photo folder to look at them. There was close to 500 photos in it. I hadn't taken that many. I looked at them; they were all photos of my apartment. They started in the kitchen. I got up, phone still in hand and walked to the spot in the kitchen that the photo was off.

I began to cycle through the photos and they weaved a trail through my little apartment; kitchen to living area, bedroom, back to the kitchen, bathroom, once more to the bedroom, and then the closet. The last photo was of the closet. I opened it and the pretentious man I had robbed stood there grinning.