Creepy horror tales

Grinner

I have to get out.

The walls, twisted rebar and cracked concrete, seemed to stretch on forever. I can’t remember where I am, why I came to be here; I can’t even remember my last name. All I know is that if I get out, I will live. If I don’t…

I have to get out.

I can hear it behind me, that accursed chuckle echoing down the hallway. Oh god, it’s coming for me.

An exit, to the right!

My jog becomes a sprint once again, a parade ground drum booming in my ears.

So close. I’m yards away; feet from the door.

Suddenly: ground. My face smacks into the dirtied concrete hard enough to feel something break.

I turn, looking for the object that tripped me. Blood gushes from my nose, staining my shirt and pants, but I don’t have time to care. One thought takes control of all others, one motive guides my body with an otherwise unnatural will.

I have to get out.

In my frenzied state it takes me a moment to focus on the figure limping slowly towards me, to realize the danger.

He is tall, thin as a corpse and white as a sheet. His dark suit is immaculate, his long limbs seeming to stretch beyond the right proportions. A long black cane, topped with a metal figurehead, is clenched tight in his fist, too-long fingers overlapping the pommel like a bad Halloween glove. Wispy white hair cascades around his balding cranium, draping over his shoulders like unkempt vines.

His face is the worst, with few features that seem to only highlight the wrongness of the absent ones.

Twin ovals, set deep into the too-high eye sockets. Twin pits from the abyss stare into me, into my soul.

His smile is too large, too wrong. Overcrowded teeth line a lipless maw that stretches the length of his head. Saliva leaks through gaps in his teeth, caught by the polite tapping of a kerchief in his free hand.

The fiend takes a few steps towards me, his gait awkward, like a teenager that hasn’t quite come to grips with a growth spurt. I back up, turn, furiously crawling toward the door; crawling toward my salvation.

I grasp the handle, pull madly at the doorknob. The door swings open, to reveal-

Nothing.

A wall, like something out of a lurid comic strip, lies before me. Crudely daubed on the surface is a pictogram of a smiling face, surrounded by tallymarks that are too numerous to count. The pigment dried as a dark brown, but I know its original color would have been red. Sanguine.

A titter, a mad giggle from behind me. Awkward footsteps, helped by a cane close the already negligible distance between us.

Oh God.

I can’t get out…