Close Your Eyes: A Horror Story Collection Read online

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  As the finger inside his mouth moved back and forth the other fingers that were just outside his mouth were gently moving back and forth stroking his cheeks, stroking his lips, and his chin. It felt like a loving gesture, like an intimate gesture. He couldn’t be sure but he thought that he heard the faintest sound of humming coming from behind him. The kind of humming that you would hear a mother do for her baby. One of the outside fingers pushed itself in between his two sealed lips. It pushed and prodded its way in between them and as soon as it opened his lips a millimeter it dove in. Another taste of ash filled his mouth and the image of the burnt and blackened potato came back to mind.

  His gut clenched as a familiar feeling came to him. The feeling of vomit. It started low in his abdomen but it was slowly bubbling up like a water coming to boil. He was already frozen in fear but now that these horrible fingers were probing around his mouth filling his mouth with ash he couldn’t control himself. Every moment that they were in there he feared was every minute that he came closer to barfing. If his resolve crumbled and the spasms began who knew what this thing would do. Would it recoil and vanish back in the darkness? Or, would it become angry at him and lash out? His throat felt dry as he tried to swallow the acid and the feelings of nausea back down, as he tried to force them back to his stomach.

  Another finger left his cheek and made its way over to his lips. The two fingers that were already in his mouth acted like a prying mechanism and his mouth opened almost automatically. The third finger, and the rest, all dove into his mouth like it was some kind of fleshy glove. With all of the fingers in his mouth now only the thumb stood outside. The thumb gently caressed his philtrum as its fingers rooted and explored in his mouth. He tried clenching his teeth but one of the fingers was already between them. The thought again of biting occurred to him, but he shook it off. It wouldn’t help him here. It would only make things worse.

  The fingers moved back and forth over all of his teeth. They gently glided over each one and as they did sometime they left flakes of ash. A few of these flakes travelled down his throat. The feeling of nausea was still there. When one of the fingers got to the back his mouth where he had lost his tooth it stopped. It stopped right at the gap and began to move back and forth as if it was looking for it. The thought of the tooth in his nightstand kept coming to him over and over again. Why had he done it? Why had he moved it? Now this thing couldn’t find what it was looking for. What was it going to do now? He wanted to cry. He wanted his mommy.

  The hand and its fingers moved back and forth over the gap in his mouth where his tooth once had been. Kenny never thought it would end. They must have moved back and forth for at least ten minutes. He sat there trying his best not to move. Drool rolled down his open mouth, the taste of burnt flesh hung in his mouth, chunks of ash and grime slid down his throat as he tried to swallow. If he didn’t move she would go away. If he didn’t move she would leave him alone. He repeated this thought over and over again like it was a mantra. It had to be true. It had to be.

  The fingers eventually retracted from the gap where his tooth had once been and for a brief moment he thought the entire hand would pull out of his mouth once and for all. In fact, the hand did start to retract up and out of his mouth. It was when it was passing by his front teeth it stopped. One of the fingers had grazed his front tooth and he could feel it wiggle slightly at the touch. To his horror, he remembered earlier that night when he was brushing his teeth. He remembered how his front tooth had wiggled. He remembered how he thought that it would be next.

  At the very first moment of the wiggling tooth all of the fingers stopped and then pounced with amazing speed onto his front tooth. Even though the fingers were the size of an adult’s they all still somehow found room to grab on this tooth. All four of them grabbed the tooth with surprising strength. Its thumb was still outside his mouth massaging his philtrum just as it had before. The nausea vanished from his stomach in an instant. His body felt distant, the only thing he could feel was his face and mouth. Every part of him was focused on that tooth, that lone wiggling tooth.

  Without any warning the fingers that were now attached to his tooth all began to pull. There was a slight give on the tooth but then nothing happened. The fingers still gripped the tooth, his mouth still hung open, drool was still pouring out his mouth, and the tooth still hung there stuck to his mouth.

  Almost as if it was frustrated the fingers grabbed the tooth even tighter and began to pull. Kenny’s whole head raised off his pillow and into the air. He could see the thing, the tooth fairy, in his peripheral vision now. He glanced for only a second and then closed his eyes in horror. All he saw was a black silhouette but it was enough. It was enough for him to never want to see it again. His head felt like it was going to explode. The pain started right at the root of the tooth and spread out like fire all around his jaw and face. He tried to scream but nothing came out, his throat was too muffled by the suffocating hand. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he lay on the bed defenseless and pain shot through him each time it pulled.

  Then, with an audible POP, the tooth released. It came free from the top of his mouth, and as it did he felt his head land back on his pillow.

  He opened his eyes as he felt the hand leave his mouth entirely. He closed his mouth as fast as he could trying to prevent the fingers from entering again. Something began to pool in his mouth and he realized at once that it was blood. The thing had pulled his tooth right out. The hand was directly in front of him now and he watched as it held his tooth like some kind of twisted prize. It rolled the tooth around in its hands. The brilliant white of the tooth matched against the bunt black of the skin made the tooth glimmer and almost shimmer while it moved back and forth across its palm.

  Kenny closed his eyes in hopes that it would be over, in hopes that it would go away. It got what it wanted now. He prayed to god that it would go away, that it would just leave him alone.

  --

  The next thing he knew he was waking up with the sun shining into his room. It was Saturday morning and the normal sounds of the house greeted him. He could hear his parents in the lower level talking. He could hear the rumbling furnace blowing through his room’s vent. Kenny breathed a sigh of relief. Had it all been a dream? Had it all been a horrible nightmare?

  He sat up from bed and looked around. There was no trace of anything out of the ordinary. There were no black ashen marks across his bed or pillow. There was no record of someone or something standing beside his bed. There was no record of anything.

  It was then as he was surveying his room that his tongue moved instinctively across his mouth. His front tooth was gone. It was gone and it had been replaced with yet another gap. A chill began in his tailbone and traveled up his spine causing his whole body to twitch suddenly. It had been real. His tooth was gone.

  He stared at his pillow. It looked like it always did in its red casing. There were no marks or anything… but he hadn’t checked underneath of it. Slowly he reached his hand out towards the pillow. Fear ran through his body. He didn’t know what he expected and at this point he didn’t want to see. His arm seemed to be moving automatically though, still continuing to slowly raise the pillow up and off the bed. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

  He screamed. The bottom of the pillow and the sheet beneath it were ash laden and black. As he screamed, a five dollar bill fell from the bottom of the raised pillow and slowly floated its way down to the bed. He had gotten his surprise.

  The End

  Baby Teeth Author’s Note

  I’d like to tell you that this story came from some great idea or traumatic experience I had as a child but truth be told I have no idea where the hell the idea for this story even came from.

  The idea of a terrifying tooth fairy popped into my head on one of my hour drives home from work as do so many other stories that I have yet to write. It seemed like a fun story along with one that made me uncomfortable. I mean, who wouldn’t be just a little nervous of a burned
stranger leaning over your bed. It’s hand searching under your pillow looking for teeth? It’s fingers entering your mouth and probing around looking for loose teeth?

  Needless to say I will not be reading this story to my four year old in a few years when she starts losing teeth. Her tooth fairy will be normal, at least I hope so...

  I hope you liked the story. I had a lot of fun writing it and hope to write many more similar to this one in the future.

  Thanks for reading,

  Alec John Johnson

  Sledge

  Alec John Johnson

  Chapter 1 – College

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t. He had done everything he was supposed to. He had received good grades in school, he went to college, he had gotten two bachelor’s degrees along with a shit load of debt. But now, now it all seemed like it was a pack of lies. It was some big elaborate lie that dozens of people throughout his childhood was a part of. They would say, ‘If you want to make something of yourself than you need to go to college,’ or, ‘employers won’t even look at you if you don’t have a college degree.’

  Well, now here he was on a Thursday morning sitting in his room. It was the same room that he had slept in when he was five while his parents read him nighttime stories. It was the same room that he had hidden out in as a teenager. It was the same room that he lost his virginity in on a late summer’s night. Here he was at twenty-four years old still living with his parents and still living in that same damn room.

  Allen looked around and noticed how untouched everything looked. He had left everything the same as it was when he was a teenager when he left for college. Why bother changing it if he was going to college and then moving out? It didn’t make sense. So, the room sat there unoccupied for four years as Allen attended Kansas University. Sure, he came back for the weekends and holidays here and there but for the most part his time was spent at the campus either going to class or working on classwork.

  At the time graduation felt like an enormous accomplishment. Here he was at twenty-two with two bachelors under his belt and a three point six grade point average. He was ready to tackle the world. He was ready to start his career. He was ready to start his life, or so he had thought. This is where things went sour.

  Allen had graduated in 2007, right at the peak of the housing crisis and the country wide recession of the United States. After graduation he moved back in with his parents under the impression that he would be out of there in a few weeks, worst case a month. By then he would have a job offer and be able to move out on his own.

  Over the next few weeks Allen spent his time applying anywhere and everywhere within the city. He would find a lead, attach his resume, fill out the online application with the exact same information that was on his resume, and the hit the APPLY. Each time he went through the process he felt, no he knew, that this was the one. This was the job that would start his career.

  Starting out he only applied at a few places here and there but as time went on and the calls never came he began to spend most, if not all, of his day holed up in his room on his computer applying to every position he could find. It was an almost obsession. On almost all of them he never got call backs. There were a few recruiters that called him and wanted to conduct phone interviews. The first few of these he felt like a novice trying to navigate all of their questions but after a while he was an old pro. He could nearly predict every question they would ask and he had an answer written down and laid out in his head.

  Even with his finesse on the phone he had only had a total of five in person interviews over the next year and a half. The first one was a disaster. It was for some sales position that he didn’t really want in the first place but he went to it anyways. He remembered walking into a towering skyscraper of a building, walking towards the elevator, and taking it all the way up to the eleventh floor. When he stepped off into the lobby of the company a tall boisterous man greeted him. They shook hands and then he led Allen into his office.

  There were the stereotypical questions asked of him as the interview started but as the meeting went on some of the questions became more direct, more confrontational. On a few of these Allen just sat there in silence staring blankly at the interviewer sitting across the desk. Allen didn’t have an answer and truthfully didn’t know what else to say. There was a period of awkward silence where neither one of them said anything to each other. They just stared at each other. The silence felt like it lasted for minutes. For a second Allen thought of something to say and began by clearing his throat… but as soon as he began to talk he realized he had completely forgotten what he was going to say. Instead of enduring anymore silence between them Allen stood up, reached his hand out over the desk, and said “Thank you for your time.” The man didn’t say anything in response but instead just watched him leave in silence. He cursed himself the whole way back home.

  The other four interviews went much better. There was one as an analyst for an internet marketing firm. He felt like he had gotten close with that one. The phone interview went amazingly well and he was invited in for an in person interview right away. He met with some of the managers and directors of the company and interviewed with three of them… but they never called back. It was the same story with all of the other interviews. He thought they went well but that elusive job offer never came across his table. His phone never rang. He felt lost, he felt left behind.

  After a year of searching and coming up empty his parents began to lose patience. Well it was mainly his father that was losing patience. His mother enjoyed having Allen home all the time now after being gone for four years. A few times a week he even made dinner for the family to the delight of his mother.

  Every day, if not every other day, Allen’s father would tell him to go out and start working somewhere. It didn’t matter where. It could be McDonald’s for all he cared. Just go out there and get something. While you’re working something better will come along. That’s what I did he would say. It worked just fine for me, so it’ll work for you too. Allen fought him for a while until he was given an ultimatum: Either you get a job or you’re getting kicked out.

  That was it. There wasn’t much choice left in the matter. He had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to sleep. Most of his friends from high school had already moved away to different states. The ones that hadn’t were in just as bad of shape as he was, some even worse. Begrudgingly, he walked into the nearby big-box retail store and applied.

  Within a week he had a job. Allen wasn’t sure how he felt about this. Sure he had a job, but the pay was terrible and it wasn’t the job he wanted. There was no future here. There was no room for advancement. He felt like a mindless drone clocking in and clocking out every single day. It was the kind of place that you got yelled at all day by customers or managers. It was the kind of place that you were treated like dirt.

  In his off time he still did applications but very few called him back. It seemed like with every passing month and year he went without having a job the less and less desirable he became.

  --

  It was now, on this Thursday morning, that Allen sat on his bed staring at the white wall before him. He was wearing his work darkgreen smock and his hair was still wet from his shower. The bright yellow name tag was clipped to his smock’s breast pocket like a Scarlet Letter. He would be going to work in twenty minutes. He would be going to the hell hole again known as retail. He felt trapped, like he would never get out of this endless circle. He would always be having angry and irate customers yelling in his face. He would always be working night shifts, weekends, and holidays. There was no escape.

  The thought had never crossed his mind before but now like an intrusive thought that he couldn’t push out of his mind the idea of suicide kept creeping up on him. What did any of it matter? He couldn’t hope to build a career off of this. With no career what woman would want him? How would he even begin to have a family, let alone support one? What was the point? If something didn’t change he
would become one of those lifers that are in their fifties and still working the same dead end retail job. Their faces showing a look of defeat and depression almost like a caged lion at a zoo. Allen shivered at the thought of it.

  Thoughts of how to kill himself were popping into his mind over and over again as he stared off at the wall before him. Drugs. Gun. Jumping. They all sounded better than one more day.

  It was then, almost like it was fate, that his cell phone spring to life with an incoming call. Allen cocked his head slightly, wondering who it could be. He didn’t get calls nowadays. He stood up and walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. It was a local number but it was one his phone didn’t recognize. With nothing else to lose Allen answered it.

  “Hello, this is Allen.”

  “Allen! How are you buddy?”

  “… I’m good. Who’s this?”