Welcome to Sixpenceee. You’ll find interesting content that ranges a wide variety of topics but our specialty is in creepy/bizarre/horror/paranormal & science. We don't claim any material here unless otherwise stated. For business purposes please contact us at [email protected].
![The Oddkidsby reddit user StealMyPantsOne summer, when I was a boy, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents for the break. Raised in the pacific northwest, a small town in eastern Mississippi might as well have been an entirely different country for all I was concerned. The instant we got out of the airport I was struck with the oppressive humidity, and I became convinced right then and there that my parents downright despised me.[[MORE]]Of course, the reality was much kinder than that. My grandparents were good folks, and thankfully I met a girl within a few days of arrival, and we became fast friends. Her name was Jessie. A local girl with long blonde hair and green eyes – the first pair I’d ever encountered. I was in love at first sight. Jessie was a year or two older than me, but that didn’t matter much to us.Jessie was the reason I got up every morning – not in a romantic sense, of course, but a very literal one. Sure, my grandparents were very hospitable, but they were old and southern, about as far removed from my narrow worldview as could be. They just had no idea how to entertain me, and I think Jessie was as much a relief to them as she was to me, taking me off their hands during the days and curtailing somewhat my boundless youthful energy.The place where my grandparents lived was about a mile out from a place called Ashbury Wood, and it was a mile I walked daily. I would always meet Jessie on the path, heading my way. On rare occasions she would already be at my grandparents’ house when I was leaving, and I never saw where she lived. It didn’t matter much to me, though, because the woods were our real home.Ashbury Wood wasn’t particularly dense, but boy did it seem to go on forever. Jessie showed me a few paths around the woods, unofficial trails to interesting sites like clearings, hollowed-out trees, or even just a place where a funny-looking bush was growing. We told each other stories of our hometowns, imagining what life would be like if one of us lived where the other did. Whenever we fantasized about having her come live with me she would get a strange tone in her voice, but I never thought much of it.While the woods were our home and playground, we still set limits for ourselves. If we went too long without seeing something Jessie recognized, we immediately turned around until we were in familiar territory again. She also set boundaries, significant features we shouldn’t go past for one reason or another; decades later and the only one I can remember is the creek.The creek itself was nothing to be concerned about. It was just a shallow stream of water that may have come up to my waist, with sloped banks on either side that were sheer but not insurmountable. The first time I discovered it, I immediately headed down into the water, just about ready to cross to the other side when Jessie cried out from behind me: “Stop!”I whirled around on one foot as gracefully as a young boy can and looked up at her. She stood staring across the creek and out into the woods on the other side. Her hands were balled into fists and kept straight at her sides, and I remember being worried that she might begin crying. I climbed back up the side of the creek, coming up beside her.“What’s wrong?” I asked.“We need to turn around.” Jessie’s voice was barely above a whisper. She looked terrified, and slowly peeled her gaze away from the trees and onto me. “We have to turn back.”Reluctantly, I agreed, but only because I could see how upset the situation was making her. Like I said, the water itself wasn’t that deep or rapid, and it wasn’t even that far into the woods. On the walk back I raised these points, but Jessie stayed quiet, leading me to a small clearing in the trees that we used as a sort of home base for our adventures. Sitting me down, Jessie stared into the grass for a long moment before she spoke.“Two years ago I had a friend named Emma.” Her hands were balled up in her lap, shaking. “We used to play in these woods, like you and me do. And one day, just like you and me, we found that creek.”I laughed; not because of the content of the story, but because I’d never heard someone pronounce it ‘crick’ before. Her head snapped up to look me in the eyes and I fell quiet.“Standin’ across from it was these kids who looked about our age, only… they weren’t right. That time there was only two: one of them, his head just hung to the side like this.“ Jessie let her head flop to the left, hanging limp. "Another was real tiny, and his hands and head were even littler, like tinier than a baby’s.“Now, I’m not proud of this next part, but we weren’t exactly sugar and spice to 'em, if you know what I mean.” I shook my head that I did not. She sighed. “We would call 'em names. Tease 'em, you know, because they was weird. Emma would throw sticks sometimes, though she couldn’t hit water if she fell out of a boat.” The story paused as Jessie smiled to herself, remembering her friend fondly.“Did they ever talk back?” I asked, bringing her back to reality.“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “Just stood there lookin’ at us and makin’ these weird squeaking noises. Emma and me, we started callin’ em 'Oddkids.’ 'Cause, you know, they were kids and they sure as shit were odd.” I blushed at such intense language, but Jessie didn’t notice. “But no matter what we did to 'em, they never came across the creek. Always just stood on the other side, staring and squeaking. Wasn’t always the two, neither. There was different ones, four or five in all, I think.”“What happened to Emma?” The direction the story was going was obvious, and I was eager to learn.Jessie stayed quiet for a long while, staring into the ground and absently picking at the grass beneath her. “So at first we were afraid, right? The Oddkids weren’t normal, and we would scare each other silly telling stories of how they eat people and like to run around naked together, just dumb stuff. But as time went on, we got less and less scared of 'em. It got to the point where we’d stand right on the other side of the creek and dare them to cross over, but they never would.“One day, we’re sitting there talking to ourselves, ignoring the weird-headed one like he’s just another tree, and Emma said something about him being too chicken to cross. We both looked at him, and he just… walked off. Turned around and went deeper into the woods, 'til eventually we couldn’t see him. And I teased Emma that he was daring her to follow him, that she was a chicken if she didn’t go.”I was listening with rapt attention at this point. To my young mind, this girl’s tale of terror more closely resembled a great campfire story, made even better by the fact that it allegedly took place only a brisk walk away from where I sat.“Together, the two of us crossed the creek, 'cause like you said it ain’t that big, and we climbed up onto the other side and chased after him. We went maybe a quarter mile in before we start hearing that squeaking again, only up close it didn’t sound like squeakin’ anymore. It sounded like… chittering. They surrounded us faster than either of us expected, coming out of the trees like ghosts."I was frozen in fear. I couldn’t move a muscle, just starin’ at the Oddkids and wondering what was gonna happen. Then one of them, the limp-headed one, he grabbed Emma and she screamed and that just… it’s like it woke me up. I tore out of there as fast as I could go, practically leaped the creek in a single jump, and ran all the way home. My lungs was on fire by the time I stopped and I was cryin’ all over the place, people trying to get me to tell them what happened, but…” Her voice trailed off and I could see tears welling in her eyes.“Did you?” I asked. She shook her head, blinking away the tears.“I felt guilty,” she admitted. “I felt guilty for leavin’ her, and I just kept thinking that she’d come home, that she’d be right behind me and we’d cry about it and never ever go across that damn creek again.”“But she didn’t.”Jessie shook her head again. “But she didn’t,” she repeated. “She didn’t ever come back. Nobody ever went lookin’ for her neither 'cause she was an orphan. I didn’t say nothin’ and so nobody even knew to look.” Staring out into the woods in the direction of the creek, Jessie’s voice cracked. “The Oddkids got her. I don’t know what they did with her.”“I’m… uh, I’m sorry,” I tried consoling her, unsure of what to say, but Jessie wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. She stood up, brushed the dirt off her denim shorts, and started walking towards town. I got up and chased after her. “Wait!” I cried. “Where are you going?”“Home.”“Home? But why?” The concept seemed alien to me – it was the middle of the day, who would want to stay indoors?“I can’t stay in these woods. Not today.” She paused. “You should go home too. We’ll meet up tomorrow morning.“"But-”“But nothin’.” She stopped and turned to face me. “Go home.” Jessie started to turn around again before something else occurred to her. “And don’t ever, ever go across the creek, you hear me?” I nodded silently and she reached out, grabbing my shoulders and giving me a firm shake. “Say it,” she demanded.“I-I promise, no going across the creek,” I said timidly. She stared into my eyes, as if searching my soul for a way to ensure my sincerity. Whether she found it or not, she eventually released me and headed off, leaving me standing alone in the woods with nothing on my hands but free time and my own thoughts. I looked back in the direction of the creek and the mysterious woods beyond. Were there really such a thing as Oddkids? I knew monsters didn’t exist in Oregon, but here in Mississippi it felt like anything could be true. Plus, Jessie had told the story with such conviction that it felt disloyal to be skeptical.I spent the rest of the day in the woods, wandering aimlessly. Part of me wanted to go back to the creek, but real or not, Jessie’s story had scared the hell out of me. At one point I got just close enough that I could make the creek out through the trees, and I peered as hard as I could at the bank on the other side. I wanted to make out a pair of eyes staring back at me, or hear that chittering Jessie had talked about - heck, at that point I would have accepted a quick blur between the trees as concrete evidence - but despite my willingness to believe, nothing came forward to present itself. The opposite bank was devoid of life, and I didn’t have the gall to investigate any closer.As the sky dimmed I reluctantly began the long walk home, unaccompanied for the first time all summer. I considered Jessie’s story of the Oddkids, and almost started to get a little angry with her. Of course they didn’t exist! She made them up just to mess with me, and threw in another girl, conveniently orphaned, to drive home the scare. I shook my head and laughed, thinking about how gullible I had been.Later at dinner, I ate with the ferocity of an animal. I hadn’t realized how hungry I’d become, alone in the woods all day thinking, and the chicken my grandmother cooked was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. It was only on my third drumstick that I stopped long enough to ask them a question.“Did you guys ever hear of anyone going missing in the woods?” I asked between bites, interrupting the regular mealtime silence. They looked at one another quizzically, as if searching their collective memory.“No, I don’t think so,” my grandmother eventually said.“Don’t ring any bells,” her husband agreed. “Why do you ask?”I shook my head, taking another bite to buy myself some time to think of an answer. “Just something I heard some kids talking about,” I told them. “Some jerks were trying to scare Jessie and me by saying a girl named Emma went missing.”Suddenly, my grandmother’s eyes lit up with recognition. “You know, I didn’t hear nothin’ about that, but I do recall that girl being terrified of those woods.” She nodded thoughtfully over a spoonful of corn. “Yeah, it was a couple years back that the girl come tearin’ outta the woods like the Devil himself is on her heels, screamin’ and cryin’. I didn’t nose my way into it on account of her father askin’ people if they would leave his daughter alone, but I overheard that the girl weren’t right for a couple weeks, just sittin’ in her room and not talkin’ to nobody.” She clucked her tongue and took another bite of corn. “Lord only knows what happened to that girl, but it shook her somethin’ fierce.”I suddenly felt a sick terror in my stomach, like the feeling you get watching a recording of yourself only to see something terrifying looming just out of your sight, something you never knew was there. Did this mean the Oddkids were real? Had they been watching me as I stepped into the creek?“So you never found out what happened?” I hesitantly asked, unsure if I wanted the answer. Grandma just shook her head, and the three of us continued eating in silence. Grandpa brought up a baseball game he’d seen on TV earlier that day and I feigned interest as well as I could, but I wasn’t all there. My mind was back in the woods at that creek, inspecting every square inch of my memory for a sign of something… else.Sleep didn’t come easy that night, and when it did it was wrought with nightmares. Thoughts of the Oddkids crawled through my mind, bringing me back to the creek. Looking deeper into the woods, I saw dozens of pairs of eyes staring back at me, slowly bobbing back and forth as though they were advancing towards me. My dream-self was paralyzed, helpless to do anything but watch as the monsters came out of the shadows. The one Jessie had described, with his head sagging to the side, lead the plodding advance. As a group, the Oddkids crawled down into the creek, dragging broken limbs and torn flesh behind them, each of them chittering off-tempo with the others to create a horrible cacophony of noise that filled my ears and bore into my soul, staring into the hungry eyes of the limp-headed leader as he reached out to drag me down!I awoke screaming. The noise still rang in my ears and, coupled with my panic, caused me to flail against my blankets as though they were trying to engulf me. I fell onto the floor with a hard thud, finally coming to rest. My grandfather burst into the room and my grandmother was close behind him.“Are you okay!?” he bellowed, still full of adrenaline even though he was beginning to realize there was no threat. Embarrassed, I kicked the sheets off of me and stood up.“Yeah, just a bad dream,” I muttered. As I came to my senses, I realized the noise I had been hearing was the sound of cicadas filling the room, broadcasting their mating calls to the world. Laughing off their overzealous response, my grandparents led me downstairs to breakfast, which I accepted readily.That morning, I walked all the way to the woods without running into Jessie. I stood at the edge of the path looking back down the road, trying to make out her figure, but nobody was there. Sighing, I walked all the way back to my house, then down to the woods again. There was no sign of her.My adolescent mind filled once more with nightmarish imagery, but I did my best to stay grounded in reality. She was the last person who would have gone across the creek, and if the Oddkids ever ventured out of the woods, surely people around town would talk about them, right?Armed with these rationalizations I decided to head to our favorite clearing and wait for her. She wasn’t there when I arrived - part of me had expected her to be waiting in the grass, ready to laugh in my face when she learned how I’d walked up and down the path two more times before thinking to check our spot - and as an hour slowly ticked by, I began to wonder if something bad really had happened to her. But, if something had, what was I going to do about it? I had no idea where she lived, and she was the only kid I knew in the area.Almost unconsciously, I began to head towards the creek. I had only promised I wouldn’t cross it, after all, and if she was so concerned about my whereabouts she should have let me know where she was going to be. Besides, if she had been able to outpace the Oddkids when they were right beside her, I would be able to get away long before they got close.My legs were filled with a giddy, nervous energy as I kept walking, sometimes at a quick pace and others at barely a shuffle. Once the creek itself was in view I began to move from tree to tree, using them like cover from whatever might lurk on the other side of the creek. I inched closer, cautious to not disturb even a single twig in my approach.Finally I was only a few yards from the near bank of the creek. I crouched down and quietly got to my hands and knees, closing the last stretch on all fours and keeping a close watch on the trees ahead of me. I hissed out Jessie’s name in a low voice, straining my ears into the woods to catch anything of interest, but nothing happened. It was just another ordinary day and I was just some weird little boy whispering into the forest.I was just about to turn around when a brief flash of movement caught my eye. I hadn’t noticed it before because I was scanning the ground, but turning my eyes up I saw a silhouette of something I couldn’t quite make out. It swayed gently in the breeze as though it was suspended from the branches. The leaves broke up the distant form, which must have been several dozens of feet away, and I immediately forgot my promise to Jessie; I had to know what that thing was. Just as I was about to swing my legs down the bank of the creek, a call startled me to my feet in an instant.“What are you doing?” Jessie was standing a ways behind me, clinging onto a tree as though she might fall without its support. Though her tone was one of anger, her face was ghost-white. She beckoned me towards her, clearly unwilling to go closer to the creek than she was. I twisted my body around, raising an arm to point at the thing I had seen in the treetops, but I couldn’t relocate it.“I… I saw something,” I said, scanning the leaves for the swaying form.“And with any luck, it didn’t see you!” she hissed, stamping her foot in the dirt. I shook my head, my boyish curiosity trumping her obvious fear.“Don’t be such a scaredy-cat,” I said, crouching down to see if I could find the figure in the branches. Briefly, I wondered if it had moved, but that seemed impossible. Whatever it was, it wasn’t animate. “I’m going across.”“No!” Jessie screamed, lunging towards me. I was already startled by her cry, and mid-turn she collided into me at full force, sending us both tumbling down the bank and into the creek. We yelled and flailed as we fell, both of us landing on my back. The muddy water babbled over us and I scooted away, pulling myself onto the far bank of the creek. Jessie followed, more out of a desire to get out of the water than anything.“Nice going,“ I said sarcastically. The water was actually a little refreshing in the summertime heat, but we knew that before long we’d be drowning in humidity, our damp clothes suffocating what little comfort sweating brought. I crawled up onto the opposite side of the creek, once again raising my eyes to the branches to find what I’d seen.“Please, please can we go?” Jessie was at my side, clutching my arm despite the fact that I was a good half a foot shorter than she was. “We really need to go, please!”“Come on, just a little bit further!” Wonder and excitement had overtaken all other emotions in my mind. Before, when the creek was just a memory, it was easy to picture a world of monsters lurking just across the way. Now that I was here, in the light of day, I felt empowered. I could see that there weren’t monsters, so obviously I was safe.I’m lucky to be alive.Tugging Jessie forward, I walked to the spot where I had seen the thing hanging from the trees, but now it was nowhere to be found. From where I was standing I could still make out the creek, and I tried to imagine myself crouched low on the other side, looking up into the branches. The wind blew lazily through the leaves, shaking them this way and that, but nothing unnatural hung from the canopy.“I saw something right here,” I said aloud, justifying my persistence to Jessie. I did feel bad for dragging her somewhere she obviously didn’t want to be, and I thought if I’d had something to show for it, maybe she would have understood. Instead here I was, staring up into the trees like an idiot with a terrified girl clinging to my side. Her eyes darted back and forth across the treeline, as if waiting for something to suddenly appear and attack us.Unwilling to leave empty-handed, I coaxed us slowly forward. As we pressed on, the woods around us seemed to get quieter, as if we were entering some sort of dead zone in the forest, a place where even the birds and critters refused to go. Jessie’s nails dug into my arm but she stayed right by my side, no longer making any noise except a small whimper with every exhalation.After another five or ten minutes of walking, we came across a rocky outcropping jutting out of the ground, and a small hole leading down. Intrigued as I was by the promise of more adventure, something else caught our attention: a strange doll layed propped against the mouth of the cave, facing us. Its elongated forehead drooped slightly over its face, making the upper right side of its head concave. Its eyes were small and beady and black, shining in the midday sun, and tufts of hair had been placed into its scalp in a disorganized manner. It was garbed only in small denim overalls covering grungy cloth skin. Before I could even draw breath to comment on it, Jessie was fiercely tugging me away.“That’s it! That’s one of them!” She was practically screaming, raw terror coming through in her voice, but her reaction was scaring me more than the object itself – that was an Oddkid? An oversized doll?“Calm down!” I said, tugging back against her. “It can’t be! Look at it, it’s not breathing! It’s just a doll!” Wrenching my arm out of her grip, Jessie fell face-first in the dirt, but was on her feet a second later. I heard her starting to run and turned to tell her that she didn’t have to get any closer if she was scared, that I would go examine it alone.As I stared in her direction, however, my voice caught in my throat. Standing where Jessie and I had been not twenty seconds ago was another doll, only this one was different. It was cleaner and more well-made, as if whoever had made the one by the cave had learned from their mistakes. This girl doll was standing beside a tree, watching us with those same all-black eyes, short brown hair matted with dirt and clumped to her head haphazardly. A tattered red dress clung desperately to her right shoulder, and beneath it the cloth skin looked much cleaner than the other’s, much more… real.Before I could say a word, Jessie broke the silence. I expected her to shriek, but instead what came out of her mouth was barely above a whisper.“Emma?”The girl doll took a step forward, and my terror levels shot up to their limits. I glanced backwards to see the other doll was pulling itself to its feet, awkwardly shambling towards us. Any doubt I had in Jessie’s story evaporated in an instant. The Oddkids were real, and they were right in front of me. Without another moment’s hesitation I grabbed Jessie’s wrist, suddenly becoming the one desperate to get us out.“Come on! Come on, let’s go!” I yelled at her, but she didn’t even seem to hear me. She instead began to walk towards the girl doll, towards… Emma, I guessed, though I couldn’t see how that could ever have been Jessie’s friend. I kept pulling at her arm even as the thing behind her got closer. Jessie was focused exclusively on the other girl, blocking out the whole rest of the world. The doll reached out to Jessie, and she raised her own hand out as well.“Jes-!” I began to say, but I was interrupted by a heavy object falling directly onto my best friend, sending her crumpling into the dirt. On top of her was a small, human-like figure, with the head and hands proportionally much smaller than they should have been. Finally observing one up-close, I realized their skin wasn’t just dirty cloth; it was rotten, mottled flesh.I scrambled backwards as the little creature gripped Jessie by the hair, tugging her head up painfully. Jessie screamed and clawed at the ground, trying to shove the thing off of her, but the creature she’d called Emma sagged to its knees, clamped a hand over her mouth, then turned its head to look at me.Energy surged to my legs and I shot upright. I was in full panic mode, operating on a primal instinct to flee, but just as I started to run I collided into a solid force that knocked me back down to the ground. Another one of those things stood before me, his head flopping awkwardly to the left just as Jessie had demonstrated. The one I had seen slumped by the cave came into my view, holding a large rock in its hands. Before I could roll out of the way the weight came down on my head, sending a splitting pain through my skull. My vision went white and a deafening ringing filled my ears, but I stayed conscious throughout.I could faintly feel things tugging at me, pulling me across the ground as I struggled just to regain my senses. The blinding white slowly faded to an impenetrable black, and the ringing dulled to formless shuffling and the Oddkids’ strange chitters echoing off the walls of the cave. I did my best to stay limp as I was dragged across rough stone, tearing into my shirt and cutting my flesh. I’m certain I whimpered in pain, but the Oddkids didn’t react to it, hauling me further into their lair.Eventually the motion came to an end. I was propped against a rough stone wall, and even in the darkness I could tell that one of them was just in front of my face, quietly muttering to itself in those strange, arrhythmic noises. Its coarse fingers grabbed my hands and it began stretching a strong, thin fabric around my wrists, binding them together. It wrapped for what felt like ages, until it finally seemed satisfied that my hands weren’t going anywhere, then moved on to my ankles to do the same.Once that was done the thing shuffled away, the noise of its movements getting gradually fainter before disappearing altogether. Meaning to breathe a sigh of relief, I instead let out a choked sob, finally letting myself express the terror I’d felt through the whole ordeal. I’m not ashamed to admit that I sat in that cave and cried, certain I’d never see my parents or grandparents ever again.Only when I heard more movement coming my way did I make any effort to quiet myself. I did my best to control my breathing, sucking in breaths through shuddering gasps and letting them out slowly through my nose. I tried to picture what the noises were; slowly, I put together that someone else was being dragged down the same rough path I had been.They were bringing Jessie back here, too.For a brief moment, I felt hope. As selfish as it is to admit, at the very least I took comfort in knowing that I wouldn’t have to suffer alone. Part of me even entertained the notion that perhaps together Jessie and I could escape this cave and never, ever come back to these awful woods again.Of course, the reality of this plan had many obstacles. The cave was utterly dark, something that didn’t seem to affect the Oddkids one bit. For all I knew there was one sitting in the room with me, silently watching and waiting for me to make a move so it could pounce on me again and finish the job. On top of that, they easily outnumbered us. The odds were stacked against us in every conceivable way.Jessie noisily entered the room in which I was kept, and her muffled screaming gave me a sense of the dimensions of the room. It seemed smaller than I expected, likely only a little bigger than my own bedroom. Still, it was plenty big for storing the two of us.Just as I was wondering if they would leave Jessie and me alone together, the room was filled with a soft blue luminescence. One of the Oddkids - I couldn’t tell which with their back turned to me - was brushing their fingers against a strange kind of moss on the far wall, and the agitation sparked a chain reaction across the entire plant. Tendrils of blue light arced over the wall in a brilliant pattern, the illumination branching off itself like a snowflake before finally filling in, covering the cave wall in the most beautiful display I’d ever seen.And there, in front of the glowing moss, was Jessie. She had been laid out on an obviously man-made dirt platform, and her struggles stilled as puffs of spores from the glowing moss fell onto her. The Oddkid stood over her, observing for a moment, before bending forward over her.In my life I had never heard the sound of flesh tearing, but the very first time was unmistakable. I jerked at the noise, as if it had been my own skin, and my heart beat so fast I worried that it would give me away. I screwed my eyes shut and just listened as the Oddkid did God-knows-what to my helpless friend only a few feet from my face. Mustering up what courage I could, I began to work the bonds around my wrists against a jagged rock, working just slow enough to not make too much noise.The ripping noise soon gave way to gurgles and wet squishing, but I didn’t allow myself to picture it. Instead I thought about my grandparents, about seeing their warm smiles one more time. I thought about the airplane that would take me out of Mississippi, and I thought of every excuse I would ever use for the rest of my life to keep from getting on another plane back. I had to survive this. I had to.Sure enough, the ropes came free with enough effort. Once they were weak enough I managed to pull them apart with brute strength, the fibers tearing away from each other with a soft sound, something that was almost pleasing contrasted against the disturbing noises coming from across the room.I groped around in the near-dark, my fingers moving from rock to rock until I found something loose enough - and big enough - that I felt comfortable with it. I now stared directly at the Oddkid, its back still turned as it performed its macabre ritual on my friend. Sawing the rock across the ropes around my ankles, I worked my nerve up to what I was going to have to do next. Armed with a rock, I was going to attack the Oddkid, knocking them out with one good blow. Fair play, I thought to myself. Next I would grab Jessie and hoist her over my shoulder - she was taller than me, sure, but I wasn’t a weak kid. After that, we would sneak out of the cave somehow, then sprint back to my Grandparents’ house and be safe.The wraps across my ankles fell away, and I slowly stretched my legs out before getting them underneath me. The Oddkid was still oblivious to me, and part of me hated that. Here I was, about to bash in its skull with a rock, and it didn’t even consider me enough of a threat to turn around and check on me."Hey,” I whispered, the rock clutched tight in my fist as I held it out to the side behind my head. The Oddkid finally swiveled around and I stared into its soulless black eyes one last time before bringing the weapon across.The sensation was nothing like I expected. Instead of a solid blow and a resonating crack, my hand squelched through its blotchy skin with little resistance. I stood there, stunned and staring into its remaining eye as its face hung loosely around my wrist. Soft scratches made their way across my hand and I jerked it back, the force of my fist pulling out of its head tearing another gouge through the skin-that-was-not-skin.Looking down at my hand, I saw the single most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life. Instead of brains, blood and gore covering my hand, there were bugs. Centipedes, spiders, ants and more, too numerous to count, swarmed over my skin. The bag of flesh before me slumped to its knees before keeling over, its occupants surging out of the hole in its neck.I lost it. I screamed at the top of my lungs and beat my arm against the wall of the cave, shluffing off the vermin in sheets. Through the chaos I called out Jessie’s name, forgetting at the time that I had already expected her to be unconscious at best. Her head tilted to the side and she raised herself up onto her elbows, staring at me. My heart swelled, thinking for a moment that if nothing else, at least we would get out of this alive.When the azure glow of the moss reflected off Jessie’s all-black eyes, I ran.Through the darkness I ran, heedless of the frantic chittering that echoed off the stone all around me. I ran into every single twist and turn in those tight tunnels, still struggling to scrape all the bugs off my arm. With every passing moment I expected to feel the Oddkids’ hands wrap around my legs, drag me back to that room, and do to me what they’d done to Jessie. Turn me into one of them.Finally I saw a thin shaft of light at the end of the darkness. I scrambled out of the cave and into the open woods, the full moon giving me plenty of illumination to find my way. Through the entire sprint I tore at the flesh of my arm with my fingernails, scraping off the remains of the Oddkid as they wriggled and crawled across me.The entire run is mostly a blur now. I didn’t stop once, didn’t even peek behind me for fear of seeing thosethings one more time. When I burst into my grandparents’ house, the two of them were both awake, sitting up in the living room waiting for me. I must have told a tale with a single look, because their stern expressions melted upon seeing my eyes and they stayed up with me the rest of the night. Sitting on the couch and wrapped in a blanket, I just stared out the window at the dusty road that led from the house, praying that I wouldn’t see Jessie walking down it.The next day, after I’d slept and eaten, my grandparents tried to coax out of me what happened. I didn’t know what to tell them. Eventually, I told them I’d just fallen asleep in the woods and had a nightmare, freaked myself out and ran home crying. They hugged me and laughed gently, and my grandpa said I should call ahead the next time I’m going to worry them half to death. I smiled and Jessie’s face appeared in my mind’s eye.I didn’t let myself be alone for the rest of the vacation. This meant staying indoors for the most part, something I was more than fine with. When word got out that Jessie hadn’t been home in a few days and people started searching, my grandparents asked me if I knew anything about it. I wanted to tell them about the Oddkids - I should have said something, I know that now. But, like the scared child I was, I just said I didn’t and they left it at that. Three weeks later I got on a plane and went home, and for the first time since the cave I felt like I could breathe again. I no longer had the threat of the Oddkids looming over me, just waiting for a moment’s lapse in readiness so they could pounce.I’d like to say that I don’t know what happened to Jessie, that her fate remains a mystery, but that would be the coward’s way out. Jessie died because of me. Because of my hubris, my curiosity and my stupidthirst for adventure, Jessie lost her life. This is something I think about every day, even some thirty years later, and it hurts just as much as the very first time I realized it.Thousands of miles and a couple decades now lay between me and the worst summer of my life, but it isn’t perspective that’s prompted me to finally write out my tale. My daughter Maggie has been getting excited about collecting bugs, and as uneasy as it may make me, I’m not the kind to stop her. What really unsettles me about it is how her bugs act; every time she brings me one of her little jars, the bugs inside…watch me. I know how crazy this sounds, I know bugs don’t 'see’ like you and I, but… it’s like they want me to know that they know I’m there.I went into my daughter’s room a few days ago when she was out at school and picked up her ant farm to see what would happen. I expected them to freeze, to turn and look at me, but instead they went into a frenzy. Every last ant swarmed the side of the container, crawling over each other and climbing against the plastic that separated them from my right hand. The hand the bugs were on for minutes as I stumbled blindly through that cave, frantically clawing them off. I watched, horrified, as the ants literally tore each other apart to be the one closest to my hand.What did the Oddkids do to me?](https://sixpenceee.com/files/b28e63ecd465e98024c614c526a2b2f1/tumblr_np343uqh0u1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
by reddit user StealMyPants
One summer, when I was a boy, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents for the break. Raised in the pacific northwest, a small town in eastern Mississippi might as well have been an entirely different country for all I was concerned.
The instant we got out of the airport I was struck with the oppressive humidity, and I became convinced right then and there that my parents downright despised me.
![The Ant Kingby reddit user wdalphin“Buggy!”“It’s just an ant.” I remarked calmly as I felt it crunch beneath my shoe.“Buggy! Buggy!”I picked my foot up and watched as the maimed and dying ant twitched and tried to run away. My son screamed at the sight of it and fled to his bedroom. I couldn’t understand why he was so afraid of insects. Especially ants. He was eight years old for Christ’s sake.[[MORE]]He watched from the doorway to his bedroom, hugging a blanket, as I plucked the dead ant off the floor and took it over to the trash can.“You do realize that when you go outside, there are literally millions of insects out there with you, right? When you’re playing in the front yard, there’s probably hundreds of ants around you, you just don’t notice.”“I’m never going outside again!” he declared, slamming the door.“You’re being ridiculous.” I said through the door.“I hate buggies!”“You love caterpillars.”“They don’t count.”“Look, just use a shoe or a book or something–”“I’m not going near them!”My wife Lisa came up behind me. “What’s going on?”“Brandon saw an ant.”“Oh. Brandon, honey, it’s lunch time.”“I’m not coming out! There are buggies out there!”“I killed the ant, Brandon.” I said.“Are there more?” He opened the door and peeked out.“Not any that I can see.” Lisa said, pushing his door open the rest of the way and holding his hand. “Now, come on and have lunch.”I didn’t say anything as she lead him away, but I watched him looking all around desperately, sure that he was going to see another ant coming at him. Every spring, our house develops a bit of an ant problem. I don’t know where they get in, but we kill them left and right until Lisa gets fed up and calls an exterminator. They pop up for a couple more days afterward, then eventually disappear for the rest of the year.It was just the start of ant season.It was a Saturday, and I was coming upstairs from the basement where I had been handling a load of laundry when I heard Brandon screaming. I dropped what I was carrying and sprinted up the remaining steps, through the kitchen and into the hallway where I heard him in the bathroom.“Buggy!”Oh for fuck’s sake.“Just kill it, Brandon.” I said.“No!” his voice indicated full-on panic mode. “Buggy! Buggy!”I was determined this time to resolve this fear of insects and make him handle the situation on his own. “I’m not coming in. You’re just going to have to kill it yourself.”He started screaming, demanding I come in and save him. When that didn’t work, he cried, begging me. Save me, save me, buggy, buggy. I stood outside the bathroom door calmly, repeating to him over and over again, “I’m not killing it.”“Mommmmmy!” he started calling. “I want Mommy!”If his mother had been home, she’d probably have finally come to his rescue. “Mommy’s at the store, Brandon. You’re welcome to wait though. Or just pick up a book and squish the ant yourself.”“NO! Pleeeeeeaseee! Kill it! KILL IT!”I walked away. I didn’t say another word, I just walked away.He heard me go, and his screaming and crying got louder and more shrill. He screamed again. He said things I couldn’t make out, partially because he was halfway across the house, and partially because he was blubbering so much that he wasn’t making any sense.Then I heard it. The sound I had been waiting for. A loud WHUMP of something heavy and flat hitting the bathroom tiles and then the squeak of the door opening and the scamper as Brandon sprinted out like the devil was after him. He jumped onto the sofa and covered himself with pillows.“See?” I said, “You did it! Don’t you feel better now?”He didn’t say anything. He just sobbed and hid.I went into the bathroom to clean up the ant. He had dropped the biggest, heaviest book he could find on it, some fantasy novel Lisa had been reading. I picked it up to see what was left of the terrifying “buggy”.“Holy shit.”Jesus, it was a big. An orangish brown-looking monster of an ant, about as big as my thumb. There was a weird pattern on its back, like a series of pale yellow dots. It was crushed, but still struggling to drag itself away, only its thorax was mashed to the floor. I held the heavy tome over it, ready to put it out of its misery, and for a second it seemed to turn and– did it look at me?I dropped the book. Then I dropped it again, just for safe measure.Looking at it again, it was not like any sort of ant I’d seen in the house before, and it made me really uneasy. Where had it come from? And worse, were there more like it? I shivered at the thought of those things crawling in the walls. Good on Brandon for killing that behemoth. If I’d known how big it was, I would have been less inclined to make him do the deed himself, but I felt proud of him for taking care of it nonetheless.Grabbing my phone, I took a photo of the ant before wadding up some toilet paper and wiping it off the floor and book and then tossing it in the bathroom trash. Then I went and consoled Brandon in his pillow fort.“That was a big ant!”“I know!” he sniffled.“I’m proud of you for killing it.” I petted his head gently. “I didn’t know they got that big around here.”“It was going to eat me!”“No, buddy,” I sighed, “our ants don’t eat people.”After Lisa got home and I helped her unload the groceries from the car and get everything put away, I told her about Brandon’s run-in with the monster ant.“It was big.” I admitted. “I’ve never seen one that big.”I showed her the photo on my phone.“Jesus.” She stared at the picture. “I’m calling the exterminator.”It was two weeks earlier than usual, but I didn’t disagree.The next morning, Brandon woke me up, bursting into our bedroom screaming what was quickly becoming his catchphrase.“Buggies! Buggies!”I was still mostly asleep, so I groggily rolled over and brushed him away.“Come on, buddy, just kill it yourself. You can do it.”“No!” he shrieked. “Buggies! Lots of them!”Oh shit.I jumped out of bed, my mind whirling with thoughts of more ants like the one in the bathroom the day before, all crawling all over our house. I pulled on some pants, looking around my bedroom, wondering if there were any in there with us right then.Nothing.Brandon ran out of the bedroom ahead of me, leading the way. He turned the corner into the bathroom and started up his shouting again, “Buggies! Buggies!”I breathed a sigh of relief. A line of small, normal-looking ants were crossing from somewhere behind the radiator on the far wall, past the tub and up into the trash can. Just a procession of ants, moving with odd determination. What were they doing?“Buggies!” Brandon shouted.“Oh. Right.”I grabbed a book off the counter and started squishing. The ants scattered, running in their typical confused patterns. The ones that were on and in the trash can continued their march through, disappearing somewhere behind the sink. Within a few seconds, the parade dissolved into chaos with several dozen dead ants and the rest retreating or gone.Brandon was hopping around in the hallway in a panic, but he settled down quickly. I took him into the living room and got him set up with a bowl of cereal before going into the bathroom and cleaning up the dead ants.We definitely needed that exterminator. I had never seen the problem so bad before.Monday I went to work. It was a school holiday, so Lisa and Brandon got to sleep in and relax, but my office was still open, so I took the opportunity to go in early with the plan to get out early and go home and take Brandon to the park for an hour or so. It was a beautiful day.Around Noon, I called the exterminator to see if he could stop by the house later that day and spray for the ants. We’d been using the same exterminator for the past several years, so he knew us by name and knew we’d be calling some time soon. I told him that we’d had a run-in with a new type of ant. Something bigger like I’d never seen before. I told him how Brandon had squished it and I’d even gotten a picture of it.“Can you text me the photo?” He asked.“You bet.” I opened the picture on my phone and sent it his way. “Just FYI, that thing was about as big as my thumb.”“Hang on, I’m looking.”I sat there, the phone to my ear, waiting for him to express his shock at how big the ant was.“Mother of God,” I heard him exclaim.“I know, right?”“No, you don’t understand.” His voice sounded weird. I’d known him for years now, and he’d never sounded that… frightened. “This ant. Are you saying you killed it?”“Brandon squished it with a book. Why?”“Get your family out of that house, right now.”I felt a chill run over my entire body. “Are these ants poisonous? Is that a fire ant?”He didn’t answer me. His voice seemed to be trembling. “Call your wife. Tell her to grab your son and get out of there.”“What’s going on?” my arms were starting to tremble. I felt a wave of panic and confusion wash over me. “Is it some sort of infestation? Are there more like that in the house?”“No. There’s only ever one like this.”“Then what’s the prob–”“You never kill it.”“What?”“You never kill this ant. If you do…”“What? What happens?” I had my work phone in my other hand, desperately trying to dial Lisa’s cell phone number but at the same time my head was in a fog, and I wasn’t sure if I was punching the right numbers or not. On top of that, she has a bad habit of not answering her phone when I call. I don’t know why, she answers every other call, but when it comes to me, I always end up having to leave a voicemail.“Every colony has a queen, you know?”“Yeah, was this a queen?” Lisa’s phone kept ringing. Come on, pick up. Pick up!“No. This is more like the king.”“I’ve never even heard of a king ant.”“I’m not saying it is a king, just– look, get your family out of the house!”Lisa didn’t answer.I called the landline. It rang and rang and then I heard our voicemail intro and slammed my phone back in its cradle in frustration.“I’ve got to go.” I told the exterminator.“Go.” Was all he said.The house was eerily quiet when I pulled up. Only the sound of our air conditioning unit broke the silence. My stomach was in knots, but even with the confused thoughts rushing through my head, I could sense what was wrong. There were no birds chirping. No squirrels making noises from the branches of the trees.Everything was dead silent.Sitting out on the lawn was Brandon’s bicycle, tipped over. No, that was okay. He often left it like that when he had to run inside to use the bathroom or got called in for lunch. There’s nothing ominous about a tipped-over bike.The front door was unlocked. That’s okay, I thought, Just another sign he ran inside for some reason.Standing in the front hall where Brandon and Lisa’s shoes were, I called their names. Nobody replied.The living room was cold. Lisa usually ran the air conditioning on hot days like that one until the inside was a reasonable temperature, then she turned it off. Nobody had turned it off this time.“Honey?” I said loudly as I instinctively turned off the AC. “Brandon?”Our cat, Sebastian, was lying in the middle of the living room.Or rather, Sebastian’s bones were.He had been picked clean. Nothing left but tufts of black and white fur and his skeleton.“Oh my God.”I ran then. Ran into the dining room, where the two of them had abandoned a lunch of soup and sandwiches. The table was covered with a swarm of black ants, just a carpet of moving bodies as they picked apart the sandwiches and carried the crumbs off.The moment I entered the room, the army of ants dropped what they were doing and converged, pouring off the table in waves toward me. I’ve never seen anything like it before. They just tumbled over each other to get to me.I felt a scream lodge itself in my throat, and suddenly knew the terror that Brandon had felt when he had seen these “buggies”.Crazed and panicking, I stomped through the tiny attackers. They swarmed over my shoes, even as their brethren were crushed beneath them. They moved so fast. Oh God, they just kept coming, tearing at the fabric and laces and up toward my socks.I ran through them. Just charged through, shouting at the top of my lungs even as I felt them on my ankles and calves, swatting at my legs as I tried to keep them off me but prevent them from getting onto my hands. One giant Gulliver versus hundreds of Lilliputians.Somehow, I made it through, to the other side of the dining room, and into the kitchen. Ants were crawling up the legs of my pants, but I crushed them with my hands, never stopping to let the rest catch up. A dozen or so continued to pinch or bite at my ankles, and I tried to mash them against the insides of my shoes as I ran.In the far corner was a small fire extinguisher. I didn’t even know if it worked, but I planned to find out. Pulling it from the wall without stopping, I held it up as I continued to retreat into the back hallway, reading the instructions. Jesus, don’t let it be a fucking Mensa test just to use this thing. No, okay, there was just a pin I had to pull, and then it was ready to use.The tide of angry ants skittered across the kitchen floor. There weren’t many, just a hundred or so. Just the leftovers of the ones who’d stuck around to loot the lunch from our table.Something bit me near the back of my knee, but I ignored it. I angled the nozzle of the extinguisher at the mass of little fuckers and with a roar, squeezed the handle, dousing them in white foam.Their assault was slowed by the cloud of chemicals. The entirety of the attacking force got a good dose and with relief I watched as they reacted with confusion and then (hopefully) agonizing death. Within seconds, every last ant had stopped moving.I reached behind me and pinched the one on the back of my leg, squeezing it til it popped. “Fuck you.”Lisa and Brandon. Oh God, please let them be okay.I found them in Brandon’s room. Lisa had tried to keep the ants out by stuffing clothes under the door, but the ants had gotten in anyway. What was left of her was curled up in a fetal position in the middle of the room on a blood-soaked rug. I guess the ants had found her harder to pick clean than the cat. They’d given up halfway.When I saw her, I fell to my knees, crying and horrified. My stomach was a knot and I vomited before I even realized I was going to.A noise from the closet brought me back to my senses.“Brandon?” I whispered, still afraid that I hadn’t seen the last of the ants. “Buddy? Are you in there?”I crept past Lisa’s remains and pulled open the closet door slowly, fearfully.Brandon was propped up against the wall, seemingly unharmed. He just stared off into space, his mouth hanging open, his body slowly rocking back and forth.I stood between him and Lisa. I didn’t want him to see his mother’s corpse.“Oh God, buddy.” I whispered, kneeling down to try to get him to look at me. “It’s going to be okay. We gotta get out of here.”He made this noise, like a gurgling sound.“Brandon?” I leaned forward and touched his arm.And then I saw the way the front of his t-shirt was moving, and the dark, wet stain. And then I saw the ants. The ants in the far back of his mouth, and the ants that crawled out from under his eyelids, and the ants that started pouring out over the neckline of his shirt with pieces of his insides.And I ran.I ran out of that house, just got in my car and fled.I don’t sleep these days. There’s ants everywhere. I don’t know if they’re still hunting me.I kill them every chance I get. I don’t take joy in it, I do it simply for self preservation. So far, they haven’t tried to fight back. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever saw another one like the one in the bathroom that day, whether I’d let it live or kill it and run the risk of invoking their wrath again.I think I might kill it. For Brandon.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/1dbbf1a7524deaf70132dc3590b4cb2e/tumblr_np33wyhhro1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
by reddit user wdalphin
“Buggy!”
“It’s just an ant.” I remarked calmly as I felt it crunch beneath my shoe.
“Buggy! Buggy!”
I picked my foot up and watched as the maimed and dying ant twitched and tried to run away. My son screamed at the sight of it and fled to his bedroom. I couldn’t understand why he was so afraid of insects. Especially ants. He was eight years old for Christ’s sake.
![Possum by Jessica H.The nightmares have become more frequent in the last month, maybe because it’s December again. The cold now makes me nauseous and fills my head with confusion and an overwhelming guilt. My memory of that day is foggy and the dreams of it still make no sense to me. What I remember most is red, it has imprinted itself into my brain forever. It silently threatens me to remember details of my worst nightmare.[[MORE]] Being the abused, lonely eight year old I was, any sort of affection drew me in. When he approached me in the woods that day I was frightened, but his warm smile calmed my nerves. His sweet words sunk into my brain clouding my commonsense and causing me to follow his every step. He wore grey baggy jeans covered in mud, with a hole filled hoodie. His face was practically covered by a black, shaggy mop atop his head. But the one thing I will never forget is the illuminating yellow eyes that would bore into my soul, stuffing it with his unspoken demands; Follow me, or else. I can still hear the crunching of leaves beneath my bare feet as we walked for what felt like hours. He never once glanced back to see if I was continuing to follow him. He knew I would follow, he knew I wanted to know more about where we were headed even if it meant getting hurt. His breathing grew in pace and his fingers would fidget every few seconds as if he was anxious about something. We began walking slower and he gripped my hand softly. I visibly gulped at his eyes finally landing on me for the first time in hours. We shared a silent stare, but he was the first to look away. He tilted his head in a motion telling me to look up and I wish I hadn’t because I knew once my eyes fell upon the sight in front of me I was never going to get away from him. Bushes filled with yellow roses were surrounding the two of us, big trees over head only allowing me a small glimpse of the cloudy sky. It was truly a beautiful sight to see until I followed his stretched out hand pointing towards the center of the bushes around us. That was the sight to see, but I wouldn’t use beautiful to described it. No, maybe horrific, horrendous, terrifying, but never beautiful. The smile across his face was the most terrifying sight it was so wide you’d think his face was going to split in half. He walked closer to the center, his smile growing more wicked each step he took. I wanted to run, but my feet refused to move and quiet honestly, I wanted to see what was going to happen. He picked one of the animals up from the pile; a possum. He began cutting into it, breathing deeply as he did so. Tears were streaking my pink tinted cheeks and sobs left my mouth drawing his attention. “You look stunning when you cry, Phoebe.” He said my name in a mocking tone. This man, one I have never seen in my entire life, knows my name. He spoke again, “But you shouldn’t waste tears on this, he’s already dead.” He laughed at that. I took leery steps closer to him, cleaning my tears with my sleeve. He patted the ground next to him so I sat down and watched him take out the heart and begin burying it in the ground. I wanted to ask why, but the words were stuck in my throat. As if he could read my mind he confidently spoke “It makes me happy feeling the last bit of their life leave their bodies. One day you will be here, too. You’ll grow into a beautiful tree for everyone to see. They will see your true beauty then." That’s all it took for me to jump up and run in the opposite direction of the man. He didn’t try grabbing me or follow me. He stayed and began laughing, actually roared with laughter. I ran until I could no longer see my hand in front of my face. I knew I was lost, but all I really cared about was being away from that horrible place. To this day I haven’t told anyone what happened in the woods. I know I will one day experience what that possum did. He will come find me and take me there in the nicest way possible. Then he will cut me open and bury my heart into the ground while grinning that wicked grin and begin laughing as he does so. What scares me most is it wasn’t until now that I realized possums play dead.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/1bddda2fd464efb01bf4ac2d25eed924/tumblr_np3348xkkn1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
by Jessica H.
The nightmares have become more frequent in the last month, maybe because it’s December again. The cold now makes me nauseous and fills my head with confusion and an overwhelming guilt.
My memory of that day is foggy and the dreams of it still make no sense to me. What I remember most is red, it has imprinted itself into my brain forever. It silently threatens me to remember details of my worst nightmare.
![The TranslatorBy Tumblr user bluewhiteskies. Edited by Sixpenceee.m one of thoseannoying smart people who learns everything fast. I ended up enjoying languages and now specialize intranslating old documents. Old. Really old. Dead language level old.[[MORE]]Nothing’s moreboring than old stuff, right? But hardly anyone alive put in the student debtto learn to read the ones I can, so when the rare grant comes up for this kindof translation work I’m one of a handful of people they go to.About a year ago anodd scrap came to me from a collection of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts,written in Arradian B-2. It contained specific instructions for some kind ofblessing ritual for a good harvest. That’s what I thought it was, anyway.In English it wouldbe something like “Two wooden rods joined as the first plant rising fromthe ground, the signs of order and chaos in opposition, and then call ‘Chooseme. Choose my life, for I will give it to you.’ If the offer is accepted, thegods will move one rod.”I always follow thedirections when translating instructions like this to make sure my translationmakes sense, so I grabbed a couple of toothpicks from my lunch order, used someblack and white magnets from the board, set it up as best I could according tothe diagram next to the text, and repeated the phrase. It wasn’t ablessing ritual.This thing, I don’tknow what to call it, just, I don’t know, appeared as soon I finished the lastword, standing behind me, so close I could feel it leaning over my shoulder. Itwas wrong. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever felt.It said that itheard me, in this low, mumbling voice that sounded like a body being draggedacross pavement. It said it was here for me. It said it had waited a long, longtime for someone to call it and make the old sacrifices.There was no way tofight this thing. I couldn’t even turn to look at it. I knew if I did it wouldbe this awful shape as tall as the ceiling, maybe with teeth to match. But I’m smart,remember? So I asked it if itwould spare me if I could bring it other people.It asked how manypeople, in that awful voice that felt like bloody smears at a crime scene.I thought as fastas I could and said dozens, maybe hundreds.It agreed. It’sgiven me more time. And thanks to the Internet and an upgrade to paper andpencils, I’ve given it lots of people. I don’t know when it’ll collect all ofthem, but I’m just glad it’s not me.Do you want to knowwhat the original Arradian phrase was for “Choose me. Choose my life, forI will give it to you?”“Char li, charli, ar yuhir.”So, have you playedmy game? Hope your pencildidn’t move.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/10556eda7dcf0548d0579a2ee5bf853e/tumblr_np8ot3bipb1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
By Tumblr user bluewhiteskies. Edited by Sixpenceee.
m one of those annoying smart people who learns everything fast. I ended up enjoying languages and now specialize in translating old documents. Old. Really old. Dead language level old.
![MeatBy Tumblr user zombiesatemycreativityWarning: This story contains goreIt had been snowing for almost two weeks. This sleepy town in the deep, heavy air of the Appalachian Mountains had never seen this much snow in a full winter, let alone less than a month. [[MORE]]The general store was nearly out of food, the streets were barren and buried in ice, and cars had stopped being able to run as of three days into the storm. It was in this hidden, barren wasteland behind hills and frozen trees that a small cabin sat about 15 minutes away from the town. In this cabin lived Miss Ethel Jones, an old maid who had lived in that house for nigh on 17 years. Her husband Hugh had been killed in a logging accident no more than two years after they had been married, and she’d lost her two boys to the fever a few months later. No one knew loss and coped with loneliness like Miss Ethel Jones. She had kept things up through the snowstorm, wading out into the frigid air every morning in her heavy winter coat and galoshes to fill her apron with small, shriveled potatoes for her bubbling pots of stew. Except this morning, on the 14th day of snowfall, she forced open the brittle wooden door of her shed to find out that the few potatoes left had all frosted overnight. Ruined. She shook her head angrily, turning back and stalking angrily to her cabin.Without ingredients to make a fresh pot of stew, she began to nurse her current one as much as she could while waiting out the storm. She began to eat only once a day, and sparingly at that. “Any day now,” she told herself, “the snow will let up, and then I’ll go into town and get myself a big chicken and some corn. Any day now.” One week after discovering her spoiled potatoes, Miss Ethel Jones ran out of food. She had scraped every last drop and morsel from her pot of stew and had searched through her house for anything edible; corn, beans, anything at all. But the cold was cruel, and she found nothing. The days dragged on in slow, torturous misery as she stayed inside her cabin. By the fifth day, the hunger had grown to such a fierceness that her stomach felt as if it were being pierced from the inside. She melted snow for water over her weak coal fire, but it wasn’t enough. She had to have food.Eight days later, the snow was showing no signs of stopping. Ethel sat in her cold, dark house listening to the wind hiss and howl around the roof. Her already-frail frame was now painfully thin. She hadn’t moved from her rocking chair in three days. A particularly strong gust of wind came rushing through her chimney, and she wrapped her arms around herself with a shudder. She was so cold… So hungry and so cold… She just wanted something good, something–Something warm.She stopped, her shivering coming to an abrupt halt. ‘No. No, that’s too far, Ethel. You couldn’t possibly.’ She wanted to laugh and shake her head, she wanted to push the thought out of her mind and never let it come to light again. ‘But…’ She unwrapped her arms from her small torso, looking at her left hand. ‘I never use it. Right hand’s my strong one.’ She pondered, gazing at her fingers. She watched the supple flesh move easily over the muscles. The warm, smooth muscles dripping with hot juices and glistening with moisture… And the bones, the bones that were filled with rich, supple marrow. A thin river of saliva was running out of her mouth as she imagined the crisp skin, dripping with grease as it was pulled off the meat… Meat. She needed meat.It wasn’t until spring that they found what was left. Miss Ethel Jones was strewn across the kitchen floor, a carving knife in one hand. She only had one hand. Her left arm had been chopped off up to the elbow, the flesh torn eagerly leaving ragged ribbons of flesh hanging from the stump. The flesh had been stripped off the front of her thighs down to the bone. She had evidently died of frostbite, but the men that found her would drunkenly tell stories for years after of how her face had still been stretched in a tight, satisfied smile.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/2128760e2ba6fa14f9101cfbb7cf39bc/tumblr_np8p61yca21s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
By Tumblr user zombiesatemycreativity
Warning: This story contains gore
It had been snowing for almost two weeks. This sleepy town in the deep, heavy air of the Appalachian Mountains had never seen this much snow in a full winter, let alone less than a month.
![All Employees Must Wash their HandsBy reddit user StoneCliff. Pay attention to each sentence in this story. Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. *Shower. *Put on street clothes.It was a simple set of instructions, but one we at the CDC must follow to the letter every time we leave. We did work with some dangerous stuff: Smallpox, malaria, you name it.[[MORE]]Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. Shower. Put on street clothes.I know how important it is to remember these instructions, especially since I can be so absent minded. Oh well, my mother always said that forgetting simple things was just a sign that I was a genius.Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. Shower. Put on street clothes.I remember when I first got into microbiology. I only signed up for the class because this girl I had a crush on, Cindy Sanders, was taking it. It’s a shame things never worked out.Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. Shower. Put on street clothes.I shook my head as images of Cindy flooded back into my head, with her long legs and emerald eyes. She’s moved on, I said to myself as I left my workstation, you deserve to as well.Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. Put on street clothes.I walked down the street to my favorite bar, where I caught a glimpse of some beautiful blonde sitting in a booth alone. I’m not sure if I should go for it, though, I might be coming down with something.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/38282cd85310b9a6df13bbaa1fec1116/tumblr_np8qq9jrvq1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
By reddit user StoneCliff. Pay attention to each sentence in this story.
Enter locker room. Take off scrubs. *Shower. *Put on street clothes.
It was a simple set of instructions, but one we at the CDC must follow to the letter every time we leave. We did work with some dangerous stuff: Smallpox, malaria, you name it.
![Blood Red LipsBy Jack G (awaiting link to tumblr url)Warning: This story contains a hint of goreShe always had this lipstick on, this ruby redlipstick that encapsulated the impression that she gave off, at least that shegave off to me. See, her outfits changed daily and I often wondered whether shewashed her clothes as I never seemed to see the same item of clothing on hertwice. However, the one thing that never changed were how they made her look;graceful, elegant and above all, dangerous. I can’t say she wasHollywood-standard beautiful; she was a little chubby, her hair was short andmessy, her make-up was smudged more often than not, with dark circles under hereyes and a flicker of that mesmerising lipstick above or below her lips. To me,this just made her more enchanting.[[MORE]]I’d love to be able to say that the firsttime I spoke to her was under a stormy sky, or some other dramatic weather thatwould complete the pathetic fallacy of the moment. However, it was yourstandard grey Wednesday morning, with a chilled breeze that makes you wish yourcoat would zip up that little bit tighter. She sat next to me on the bus, and Iturned and smiled at her as she sat down. She glanced at me and smiled back.That smile sticks in my mind; it seemed almost… predatory. I must be amasochist or something, because that just drew me in further. “That lipstickmakes you seem like you could kill a man.” I joked, feebly; what would she careabout my opinion of her make-up? However, instead of snubbing my dumb comment,she laughed. “How do you know I haven’t?”Her name was Evanna, she told me. I said myname was Liam, stuttering and seeming the most awkward man on the planet nextto her easy confidence. She turned to face me, glancing up and down at me asshe did so. Despite the fact that I was wearing a shabby grey hoodie and someformless baggy jeans, my appearance didn’t make her turn away in disgust of mylack of style. I guess she knew that she had enough of that for the both of us.I told her I’d seen her on this bus before a few times. She smiled, and said she’dseen me looking at her before. Electric ran through my veins; how do I savethis now? Now that she knows that you’ve been looking at her, now that sheknows that you’re a creep? Clearly this feeling of shocked horror showed on myface, as she laughed and said “Don’t worry; I was looking back most of thetime.” I chuckled weakly, and stammered “Hope you like what you’ve seen.” Shesmiled that same smile again in answer.Evanna and I continued to speak on the busfor the next few weeks, small talk usually on my behalf, questions on hers.Where did I work, what did I like to do, who my friends were. Of course Ianswered; by this point the tendrils of Evanna were entangled through my brainand I’d have given her anything she asked. I was infatuated, that intensefeeling of desire that so many teenagers mistake for love. Despite my dorkylooks, my obvious lack of anything resembling cool, and my half-terror offucking up every time she looked at me, I actually thought I had a chance here.Evanna got on the bus two stops after me, so it was down to her to choose tosit next to me. Which she did, everytime the seat beside me was free. I asked after her as well, but she alwaysdismissed my questions with a laugh and a look into my eyes that made metremble. I didn’t mind; as I said, I was infatuated. Of course I wasn’t goingto let something as small as shutting down every attempt I made to get to knowabout her ruin this tremulous friendship building.A month after that first conversation, sheasked me to get off at her stop.I’d been at a job interview that day, so Iwas wearing my suit. Nothing expensive or particularly nice, just a standardblack trousers, black blazer, white shirt combination. I was certain that thiswas why she had asked me to join her though. ‘He’s not looking like he crawledout of the gutter today, maybe he’d likea drink’. She led me by the hand down a kind of dilapidated street, sayingnothing when I spluttered out “So you live down here?” just smiling andcontinuing to lead me. Of course I had internal warfare over what a stupidquestion I’d asked. She took me to a faded blue door about three-quarters ofthe way through the street and took me inside. It was not at all what Iexpected her to live in. From her constantly changing wardrobe, I’d thought shewas quite wealthy, but the house was in tatters. Torn up wallpaper, bare woodenfloors that hadn’t even heard of a broom. I sat down warily on a creakingwooden dining chair while she got herself a glass of water. “So, uhm, what do you wanna do?”She turned towards me and smiled. Not herusual half-mouthed smirk, but a full, toothy grin. Her teeth were weird. Theyseemed too thin, almost too long for her mouth, and they shone like polishedpearls. “I was thinking of getting something to eat,personally.”As she leapt on me, I remember thinkingthat she’d said her very first clichéd phrase. Of course, it was better tothink about that than about the fact that I’d shat myself in front of the girlI’d hoped to seduce. See, the weirdest thing about the entire thing, weirderthan the fact that she was currently gnawing through the arteries in my neck,was that it barely fazed me. I accepted it as just another quirk of thisbeautiful girl. Afterwards, as she climbed off of me and I began to fade awayinto the abyss, I saw her wipe my blood from her face.Except for on her lips; she just used thatto replenish the slightly faded red.———–“That weird girl I was telling you aboutgot on the bus again today. I mean, she’s got some weird taste but I swear shewas wearing the same suit as the guy she got off with yesterday.”“Ah I’m sure you’re just imagining thingsJim.”“Yeah probably. Y’know, I think I have abit of a thing for her. She’s got this magnetic thing about her.”](https://sixpenceee.com/files/ca5634faf64098f2a2d25f12e8d17c9a/tumblr_np8ruizxls1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
By Jack G (awaiting link to tumblr url)
Warning: This story contains a hint of gore
She always had this lipstick on, this ruby red
lipstick that encapsulated the impression that she gave off, at least that she
gave off to me. See, her outfits changed daily and I often wondered whether she
washed her clothes as I never seemed to see the same item of clothing on her
twice. However, the one thing that never changed were how they made her look;
graceful, elegant and above all, dangerous. I can’t say she was
Hollywood-standard beautiful; she was a little chubby, her hair was short and
messy, her make-up was smudged more often than not, with dark circles under her
eyes and a flicker of that mesmerising lipstick above or below her lips. To me,
this just made her more enchanting.
![Forbidden Fruitby reddit user GotMyQuillWeaveDidSarah missed the taste of her favorite candy. Creamy and chocolatey and salty; every Easter a basket overflowing with it, every Christmas a stocking bulging with it. But now, none of it. Mommy and Daddy said no more, not ever, not for a long time. Find something else, sweetie, there’s other candies out there.[[MORE]]She didn’t want other candies. She still saw her friends at school with them every day, sneaking bites when the teacher didn’t notice. What had she done that they hadn’t? Was her spelling not good enough? Was she not taking good enough care of her goldfish? What had changed? They said she wouldn’t understand, they were just bad now. Nobody in the family could have them anymore.If Sarah’s teacher knew why, she had forgotten; a perfect math score was awarded something more precious than gold, the golden foil of a perfect little cup. She saved it, and she savored it on the bus home, taking slow, tiny bites, and hurriedly discarding all the crinkled evidence in a trash can before she got home.The taste of the candy still fresh in her mouth, she bent down upon arriving home, to give little baby Jojo a kiss on his big pale forehead.By the time mommy returned from the kitchen, alerted by Sarah’s confused cries, his head was red and lumpy, then purple and hot in the car, and finally grey and cold, at the hospital.From that point on, Sarah was allowed to have peanuts again. Too bad she didn’t want them anymore.](https://sixpenceee.com/files/07dedab5d79992a7d83137415ab371df/tumblr_nox5d2medw1s1vn29o1_500.jpg)
by reddit user GotMyQuillWeaveDid
Sarah missed the taste of her favorite candy. Creamy and chocolatey and salty; every Easter a basket overflowing with it, every Christmas a stocking bulging with it.
But now, none of it. Mommy and Daddy said no more, not ever, not for a long time. Find something else, sweetie, there’s other candies out there.