Free Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror by Unknown Page B

Hospital. They were coming; the Neurosurgeons; coming to cure him of his sickness; to scoop out the diseased meat of his mind and leave him hollow, like the rest.
    C razy . . . that’s what they meant, behind the pretty lies. He was crazy. But what chance did he have in a world where the dead were health-bringers, where eaters of minds were responsible for mind’s restoration? Ha! Crazy . . . if so, it just put him on even terms with the rest of the world.
    But not for long. They were coming, and soon, under their ravenous care, he’d be as sane as the rest . . .
    Pedro Iniguez lives in the small town of Eagle Rock, California where he reads and writes the hours away. He’s had a love of horror fiction since childhood, when he won the Best Horror Story contest in elementary school.

THE MAILBOX OF BROKEN DREAMS
     
    PAVELLE WESSER
     
    I knock on the door, waiting as it creaks heavily open. Nobody’s there.
    “Hello?” My voice echoes as I call into the darkness.
    “Fetch me the mail,” an ancient voice replies from deep inside. Before I can respond, the door slams shut in my face.
    At the end of the driveway, the brass number on the mailbox reads 206. This isn’t right , I think, reaching inside for the mail and withdrawing only a handful of bone fragments. I stare at them.
    Now this is truly odd.
    When I knock again, the door creaks open on rusted hinges, and a desiccated hand emerges. “Mail, please.”
    “Sure,” I step into the darkened entranceway, then turn toward a tapping sound at the window. I gasp at the sight of black moths beating their wings against the filthy windowpanes—then I throw my handful of bones onto the floor.
    “Sorry, that’s all I found in the mailbox.”
    “Because that’s all that’s left of you,” the voice informs me. As electrical charges pulse through me, the voice continues. “Why can’t you just accept that you’re dead?”
    “Because I’m not!!” I flap my wings, only to find them beating helplessly against a pane of glass. I’m trapped, I realize—just like all the others.
    Someone else knocks on the heavy wooden door. Slowly, it swings open and allows them to enter.
    “Hello?” This newcomer’s voice is an unsure, hollow echo that makes me long to beat my wings against the walls of their failing heart.
    On the front of the door, I glimpse the number 206. Now I recall that this is the exact number of bones contained in the human body. I reflect on this as the new visitors splinter into fragments.
    With the other moths, I take flight toward the sunlight. It is a fatal impulse, but then aren’t all impulses utlimately so? Together, we fly into the mailbox where the little door closes, leaving us enveloped in familiar darkness. Daylight is temporary, after all—just as life is finite. The next person who looks inside this mailbox will find wings instead of bones. Would that they could fly . . . and perhaps when their dreams turn to nightmares—as mine have—they will!
    Pavelle Wesser ’s fiction has appeared in many ezines, including Antipodean SF, SNM Horror and Eclecticism . She is included in anthologies such as the Flashshot 2010 Contributor Edition by G.W. Thomas and 66 Twisted Tales in 66 Words by Kimberly Raiser and is forthcoming in other anthologies by Wicked East Press.

NEIGHBOUR FROM HELL
     
    PAUL JOHNSON-JOVANOVIC
     
    Friday
    I was looking forward to a quiet night at home. After a hard day at work–hell, it’d been a hard week at work–all I wanted to do was to put my feet up and relax.
    So I made a shopping list and went to the supermarket for my bits and bobs.
    • Packet of salted peanuts
    • Pack of sweets
    • Horror DVD
    • 4-pack of beer
    I got back and kicked off my shoes, putting in the DVD before settling into the settee with a weary smile on my face. I opened a can of lager and savoured my first swig of cold liquid gold.
    That’s when the noise started. Coming from next door: the steady thump-thump-thump of music. It wasn’t