Close Your Eyes: A Horror Story Collection Read online

  Emilio began to sprint across the pier, past the warehouses, and towards the parking lot. His Subaru was there waiting for him. Safety was there waiting for him. The buzzing was very loud now and seemed to come from all directions. A few other workers had stopped what they were doing and looked at him curiously. As he ran by them he began to hear screaming coming from behind him. He didn't dare turn his head around to look. He pushed forward. Two-hundred feet. One-hundred feet. Each step brought him closer. Eighty feet. His legs ached and his lungs felt like they were on fire. No more than fifty feet now. He had to get there. The screams were louder now and more frequent. There had to be at least five or six different people screaming. Twenty feet. His breathing was labored and coming in short and rapid bursts. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out his keys. The familiar chirp of his fob unlocking his car greeted him. Less than ten feet now and the screaming continued behind him.

  His left hand which had come so close to being stung by those unknown assailants touched his car first. His fingers scrambled to open up the door. Even with the gloves they still slipped and missed the handle. Sweat poured down his face and brow. His heart felt like it was going to burst out his chest. On the second try his fingers grabbed the door handle and pulled. The door flew open. He jumped inside his vehicle and as he did the buzzing sound greeted him again. Emilio screamed in fear and slammed the door shut. He jammed his keys into the ignition and turned them as fast as he could. The Subaru roared to life and without a moment's hesitation he reversed out of the parking space, then sped out of the docks as fast as he could. He had to get the hell out of here. He had to get off of Dodge Island. As he drove, the screams continued like a perverse chorus.

  --

  Emilio crossed the bridge from Dodge Island back to Miami at break neck speed. The screams of his co-workers reverberated in his head over and over again as he drove like a song stuck on repeat. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, not by far. He swore that he could still hear that awful buzzing sound. That angry feral like sound of that unknown insect. Emilio reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He needed something to steady his nerves. He pulled out a single, popped it in his mouth, and with his other hand flicked the lighter. When the cigarette was lit he took as deep a breath as he could with his first drag. For a moment he felt like himself again, he felt like the past ten minutes hadn’t happened.

  As he drove further trying to calm down the buzzing happened again. He couldn't be sure if it was in his head or not. Was it his nerves? Or, did one of those things get into the car with him before he left? He shuddered at the thought of it. It couldn’t have followed him all that ways from the shipping container back to his car. No, there was no way. Unless…

  Almost as if on cue Emilio felt something land on his right cheek just below the cheekbone. He looked up into his rearview mirror turning his head slightly as he did. There, sure enough, crawling across his cheek was another one of those bugs.

  Emilio screamed and as he did the stinger of the creature lowered into the fleshy part of his cheek. He could feel it enter him. He could feel it pierce his flesh and enter all the way into and through his cheek. The pain started at his cheek and felt like his face was up against a fire. It spread through his cheek, through his face, and all around his body until it felt like his entire body was on fire. The bug lifted itself off of his cheek and began to buzz around his head looking for another suitable place to land. His cheek began to turn black almost instantly where he was stung. Emilio’s eyes began to swell shut and as they did his car swerved off the road and straight into Freedom Tower.

  Chapter 2 - Oil

  A few blocks away from Dodge Island and on that same morning only a few hours later James Roth was underneath his neighbor’s mini-van attempting to change the oil. He wasn’t normally the nice guy, especially on his days off. In fact, he was never the nice guy. The only reason he was doing this was for the small, but potential, opportunity for pussy. His next door neighbor, Amy, was the typical soccer mom with three kids. Her husband was always jet-setting or travelling to some far away place for ‘business.’ Who knew what he was actually doing. Either way it left Amy alone all by herself during the weekdays while her kids were at school. Since James had Fridays off he had somehow become her de facto handyman.

  He just couldn’t resist her. There was just something about her. Everytime she’d saunter her way over to his front door he would answer and be in awe of her long blonde hair, big breasts (that were almost always on display), and long legs. It had started with fixing her toilet a few months ago but now it had turned into a weekly occurrence. Every Friday she would come over sometime in the morning after her kids had left for school. She would do her little song and dance and he would dance right back. There was always the promise of something but so far, three months in, there had been nothing. And now, now here he was laying on his back staring up at this bitch’s mini-van trying to change the oil. He had tried telling her that she would need a specific filter and specific oil. He tried telling her that it couldn’t be done just like that with a snap of her fingers. But to his amazement she proudly pulled out from behind her back a new oil filter that was still in the box and then pointed to a shelf in her garage that contained multiple quarts of oil. She had the wherewithal to retrieve all of these things but she still couldn’t change the oil?

  They didn’t even have any ramps in their garage. He had to go back to his garage, retrieve them one at a time, and drag them over to her driveway. As he went back and forth between houses he grumbled and mumbled under his breath calling her every name in the book. When the ramps were finally secure he climbed into the driver’s seat of her minivan and drove it up so that the vehicle was propped. He found some old cinder blocks that were stacked in her garage and threw one of them behind each of the rear wheels. James grabbed his wrench and filter and then crawled under the car, being mindful of the ramps on either side.

  Mini-vans were the worst. Everything was so compact. Everything had to be pushed and nudged up against each other to make the nose of the car as small as possible. (God knows why.) James had his wrench up on the filter trying to unscrew the thing. The wrench wouldn’t stick. Every time he thought he had a good grip and would attempt to twist the wrench it would pop off the filter without warning. On his fourth or fifth try, he wasn’t sure which, the wrench slipped off yet again along with his hand. He was pushing with such force when it happened that his hand kept pushing even as the wrench fell to the ground. Before he knew what happened the back of his thumb pushed up against the car pulling up a significant amount of skin.

  “Son of a bitch,” James muttered. He withdrew his hand and brought it closer to him so that he could inspect it. The back of his thumb right above the knuckle was all skinned up with a large flap dangling there, waiting to be patched back on or torn off. Blood had begun to pool on the surface, but so far it was minimal. He studied it for a few seconds, then wiped it against his jeans, grabbed the wrench, and started at it again.

  As his hands raised back up to the filter he heard a buzzing sound. It reminded him of a bee flying past his ear but the sound was somehow deeper, more penetrating. It only lasted a second and then it was gone. He tried to ignore it and instead kept prying with the wrench. Finally, and without any warning, the filter came off and clanked to the ground next to him. Along with the filter popping off came a shower of hot oil. The oil landed on his hands and arms and started to roll down towards his shoulders burning all the way. He wriggled his way out from under the car, shouting and cursing all the way.

  It was at this very same time that the buzzing started again. This time it was even louder than before. He heard it but his mind was elsewhere. His mind was on the burning oil and trying to get out from underneath the mini-van. The buzzing noise had fallen into the background along with all of the other sounds. As he scrambled out from under the car something landed on his right arm just above the elbow. It had landed on one of the few part
s of James’ arm that wasn’t covered in oil. The insect with it’s dark blue color began to crawl up his upper arm towards his shoulder and chest.

  It took James only a few seconds to wiggle out from underneath the mini-van. He grabbed a nearby shop cloth and began wiping his arms vigorously up and down trying to soak up all of the oil. Both of his forearms had begun to turn a bright pink color. The trail of pink followed the path of the oil as it slid down his arms and towards his shoulders. He stood there towering above the car cursing and mumbling to himself while cradling his burned arms.

  It was then as the pain in his arms began to dull down that he felt the foreign presence on his upper right arm. The bug was nearly at his shoulder when James looked down at it. The first thing he noticed were the long and wispy like wings that were folded behind it. Then, the bright green stripes that lined the insect’s abdomen. It reminded him of the forests that he used to hike when he lived in Washington. He stood there watching the bug as it crawled up his arm mesmerized. As he stared he saw the bug’s lower abdomen arch up, saw the knife like stinger raise, and then saw it lower with such force that it caused his arm to spasm back and forth. The insect stood there for a second longer, retracted its stinger, and then flew off from his arm.

  James wasn’t concerned at first. He had been stung, bitten, and burrowed in by many insects over the years. It was a fact of life in Miami. If you hadn’t been stung before you weren’t doing things right. He expected the usual pain of a sting but as the insect flew away the pain only increased. Instead of the fast and short pain of a bee sting this spread and spiraled out from his shoulder and into his chest and lower arm. James watched with horror as the sting wound began to turn black. As the pain spread, the blackness that surrounded the wound began to spread with it. It reminded him of the sickly purple-black bruise that he had gotten across his chest from a car accident a few years back.

  James tried to reach into his pocket to pull out his cell phone to call for help. He tried his right arm instinctively but nothing happened. The arm only wiggled slightly. Moving his fingers seemed impossible. It felt like his right arm, and most of his chest, had fallen asleep. He was on the edges of panic now. What the hell was that thing? Everytime he tried to move pins and needles coursed up and down his arm and chest. His heart began to thump and tremble. He couldn't be sure if it was from the sting wound or if it was just his own nerves. He tried moving his left arm towards his right pocket to retrieve the phone. There was more luck with his left arm but even that proved difficult. It seemed that the dexterity that was required to move his fingers into his pocket was all but gone.

  He whipped his head back and forth looking for anyone on the street or if Amy was in sight either inside or outside of her house. There was no one. The streets were empty except for a stray cat meandering its way down the road. James screamed as the blackness and pain spread down his chest and up into his neck. His legs began to go stiff and the feeling of numbness spread into his thighs and knees as he collapsed to the ground in front of the minivan. He screamed out in pain and then fell all the way forward to the ground, crashing face first into the cement of the driveway. His face bounced when it hit the cement, then settled in place as the rest of his head and body began to turn the blackish blue color. A few minutes later he stopped moving.

  Chapter 3 - Amanda & Tony

  Halfway between Dodge Island and James Roth’s home, Amanda and her three year old son Tony were in their second story apartment. There they went through their usual morning routine. Amanda’s husband, Frank, had already left for work hours ago and it was just her and Tony for the rest of the day. She didn’t expect Frank to come home until six, most likely seven.

  They had moved here from Council Bluffs, Iowa just last year. Frank had received a job offer that he couldn’t refuse. This job was the next step up. After he did this for a couple of years he could move into a director’s role or maybe even a vice presidency. These were all Frank’s words. Truth be told, Amanda thought it was a load of shit… but the thought of moving to a new town, let alone a new state, excited her. It would be an adventure. It would be something that would hopefully pull their family closer together.

  The plan was for them to move down to Miami and rent an apartment or condominium until they had enough for a down payment on their own home. The apartment that they settled on was a small and cramped two bedroom one bath unit. It belonged to a sprawling complex of apartments that seemed to go on for miles. Each building had three stories with a narrow set of concrete stairs stuck in the middle of each unit. Their apartment was on the second story of one of these buildings facing the parking lot.

  On this particular morning, Amanda was in the kitchen leaning against the counter next to the sink with both the window above the sink and the patio door wide open. The one thing she couldn’t stand about Miami was the heat. She was used to heat in Iowa but the heat down here was different. It was always around. It seemed like there was no escaping it. Even in January the heat would surface yet again at the peak hours of the day. The only solace that she had was in the mornings. The night before the temperatures actually had got down to high fifties. By the time morning had rolled around it was already above sixty but having both the window and the patio door open created a nice breeze that cooled the entire apartment and reminded her of cold fall days in Iowa.

  Amanda had an old clock radio plugged into one of the kitchen outlets and was listening to her new favorite morning talk show. It was a pretty generic show with the loud mouth politically incorrect DJ and his co-host, the easily offended middle aged woman. They would banter back and forth about the stupidest things, but they were funny. As she leaned against the kitchen counter listening to her talk show she had her tablet lying on the counter. There wasn’t anything in particular she was looking for but more just surfing the web. News articles here, FaceBook here, random YouTube video there. It helped pass the time.

  Tony was in his room just down the hall playing with some of his new mega blocks that he had gotten for his last birthday. The move was quite the change for him, and like all parents, Amanda tried to buy him off by tripling the number of presents that he got for his birthday this year. She could hear him clanking and clacking quietly in the room. She expected any minute now that he would either run out of the room to get her or he would call for her to come in so that he could show off his latest and greatest block tower creation.

  The sound of ambulance or fire truck sirens echoed in the distance but Amanda ignored them. It seemed like every hour she would be hearing another one here in Miami. There was always something wrong ,always something on fire, or always someone dying. It depressed her a little. These big cities always just seemed so soulless. Everyone was so apathetic towards each other. She turned up the volume on her radio and then left the counter she was leaning on to go check on Tony.

  The walk down their hallway, if you could even call it that, took only a few seconds. Before she knew it she was standing outside the doorway of Tony’s room. He was crouched in the far corner with a pile of blocks surrounding him. A wobbly, and surely to fall, tower loomed over him as he crouched. Any moment now he would make a wrong move and the tower would come falling down all over him. It was comical to watch.

  Not a moment later she saw the tell tale sign of the tower giving out. First the middle block began to shake back and forth. Then another. And then yet another. The pieces dominoed until the whole tower leaned too far forward and crash! The majority of the falling pieces missed Tony but a few of them clocked him pretty good in the back of the head. There was no crying to be had until Tony sensed that his mother was in the doorway. He turned, saw her staring at him, and then burst into tears almost like she was somehow at fault of his traitorous tower.

  Amanda sighed, and walked into the room. She bent over, picked him up, and then carried him off into the kitchen all the while patting his back and whispering that it would be ok. She knew that she coddled him too much but she just couldn't resist him. Wh
en she was back in the kitchen she pulled out one of the dining room chairs and plopped him down on it. She handed him some crayons, paper, and a small pile of graham crackers. When he seemed fully entranced in the objects that lay before him she went back to her tablet that was next to the sink. The two DJ’s were fighting back and forth about what a caller had said. It was then almost at once that everything changed.

  --

  The radio show Amanda was listening to suddenly went quiet. The radio was still on. She could still hear the static of the radio trying to play the station but there was nothing. It was just dead air. After what must have been a minute of silence a familiar sound came on:

  Attention. Attention. This is the Emergency Alert System

  Amanda rolled her eyes. Not these damn things again. Just the noise itself was enough to grab your attention only to find out a few seconds later that it was just a test. The only time she had ever even heard these be somewhat useful was when there was a tornado outside of Council Bluffs and as far as she knew there were no tornadoes or hurricanes coming their way. It had to be a test. The radio continued:

  Attention. Attention. This is the Emergency Alert System.

  This is not a test. We repeat this is not a test.