Lincoln Michel - Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Tales of Horror

ALSO BY LINCOLN MICHEL AND NADXIELI NIETO

Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of

Mystery & Murder

Gigantic Worlds

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Anthology selection copyright 2020 by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-948226-62-2

Interior illustrations by Daehyun Kim

Cover and book design by Nadxieli Nieto

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931219

Printed in Hong Kong

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For all of us, screaming in horror

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS DAEHYUN KIM

An argument can be made that fear made humans what we are. Literally. Our eyes evolved to see monsters lurking in the grass, our ears to hear creatures going bump in the night. Fear is also, for better or (more often) worse, the dark force that shapes society. Whether its politicians spreading hatred to scare up votes or the passive fear that keeps so many of us from risking change in our lives, our communities, and our world.

In Tiny Nightmares weve asked some of our favorite authors what scares them. These storiesfrom forty-two of the most exciting writers of horror and literary fictionwander through a vast forest of horror: from ride-sharing murders and mind-reading witches to fears of childbirth and funhouse marriages from which there is no escape. They wrest from the shadows not only vampires and werewolves but also the terrors of the waking worldracism, sexism, online radicalization, economic instability, environmental disaster.

In the shadow of these larger systemic horrors, tiny nightmares breed. These nightmares, masked and unmasked, provoke a deeper dread and implicate the reader. We are often the very thing another rightfully fears.

For creatures shaped by fear, horror stories hold a unique place. They can explore the dark cracks and dank corners of life, making us see more clearly. Many of our oldest stories are, in a sense, horror stories. Fairy tales and myths are full of terrifying transformations, hidden evils, and dire warnings about what lurks in the dark woods just outside of town. Despite this, horror fiction is still too often dismissed.

For Tiny Nightmares, we wanted to poke another hole in the artificial barrier between literary and genre fiction. Weve collected more than forty stories from established authors of both worlds as well as emerging writers who were confident youll be seeing more of in the years to come. We have divided the book loosely into four parts, four body parts naturallyHeads, Hearts, Limbs, and Visceraloosely held together by sinews of weirdness. The stories here are small in sizeeach under 1,500 wordsbut the nightmares are large. Each story is a tiny crack in the door to which we press our eye, unsure of what we will find staring back at us.

We hope you enjoy.

Sincerely,

Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

N obody likes it when were right. Not the guess-your-age guy, not the guess-your-weight guy, and certainly not me. The age guy, well, hes never right. Because people are more likely to play along if he guesses theyre ten years younger than they are. He loses bullshit eight-cent prizes made in China and he keeps taking a dollar from every idiot in his line. The weight guy is right more often. He gets away with it because the skinny people are proud of themselves and the fat people are a source of entertainment, no matter what he says. Hes right, hes wrong, theyre still fat.

Then they come around to me. And I am never wrong.

Sometimes I think I can do some good. Whenever I say lung cancer, the person Im talking to says theyll quit. If I say liver failure, it goes the same way. That one guy I told it would be a plane crash said hed never fly again, but I dont know if he stuck by it. I also dont know if a plane crashed into his house while he was asleep. But what about the ones I tell itll be a car accident? What the hell are they supposed to do?

When Dad did it, he told people to try to take comfort in heart failure, in knowing how the end will come. Its the one thing in life you can count on, hed say. And now youll know its name when it shows up. Isnt that the definition of comfort? Familiarity?

Dad didnt do it at the carnival. Dad had a real job. Hed do it for friends and family, hed do it a year before it happened, or twenty. He was right about everybody, including himself (pancreatic cancer). After he was gone, I saw that he was right about his sister, his best friend, our dog. Thats how I know I am never wrong.

I dont know how we count as fun, us guessers. It isnt a game. Theres no clown to shoot with a water pistol and theres no ring to toss. The prizes are shitty and the truth is nobodys friend. And tonight smells like candy corn and puke, and this town is like every other.

Patty, 48, 287 pounds, will die of complications from an amputated foot. She leaves with her face in a twist and goes straight to the cotton candy man. I never know when, but I suspect for her that it will be soon.

Bill, 36, 215 pounds, will die in an industrial accident involving molten metal. His face when I say that to him. Jesus.

Alex, 23, 117 pounds, will die of an autoimmune disorder. Does not seem surprised.

Gus, 14, 98 pounds, will drown. God, I hate it when kids walk in here.

On and on, every night, their dazed faces all blurring into one.

Except.

Except the carnival is heading south as the summer ends. Were chasing the heat and barreling toward our stopping point in Galveston. Im working a cruise ship when we get there.

The age guy changed his accent to sound Southern as soon as we hit the Mason-Dixon Line. The weight guy is gearing up for Southern women who dont ever wanna play at all, and most certainly dont want to hear the truth when theyre made to.

And I cant do accents and I cant lie, so the last few weeks on the road have been real weird for me. Ever since Tulsa, Im stuck.

Shirley, 56, 186 pounds, will die of thirst.

Caiden, 21, 125 pounds, will die of thirst.

Evan, 28, 146 pounds, will die of thirst.

My line dries up right away. They think Im being an asshole. I can feel sweat collecting in the small of my back and rolling down. The night is way too warm. My mouth feels sticky like cotton candy.

Oklahoma City and its midnight and still above ninety degrees.

Lorna, 39, 159 pounds, thirst.

Jake, 47, 180 pounds, thirst.

Bobby, 5, 41 pounds, thirst.

This crowd is drunker and thinks Im joking. They drink more, they suggest I drink more. I am beginning to think we should drink all there is while we still can.

Galveston is where I figure it out. I havent kept up with the news while weve been on the road, and when I get it, its almost too hysterical to figure out. All the papers are saying the same thing. The bill is coming due. Weve been putting off doing something about this for years and now its too late.

I look up at the seagulls at the marina and I know what theyll all die of. Thirst.

I never make it to the cruise ship. Some asshole sees me doing my act at our last stop and he finds me. Tells me hes too smart to die of thirst, and hes right. He says he knows what I am. He says I need to come with him and he says a number that makes up my mind for me.