A short horror story.
I can sense when something is off. Call it a sixth sense, a hunch, whatever you’d like. I can read a room. Tell how everyone feels, judge individual emotions. It has made life easy. I can manipulate people just with their emotions. But, something has felt off recently. Someone close to me, a friend, has an aura that I’m having a hard time understanding.
Usually they are the life of the party. Right now though they’re sinking into what I can only describe as darkness. Their mood has altered. Their responses are short and their look is distant. I find it unnerving. Almost like some dark presence has taken them. Like a dark passenger.
“Bill,” I shook him out of the trance-like state. “You ok? You’ve been acting weird all week.” Bill just continued staring right through me. He got up and walked towards the door. I could hear his car start outside.
Everyone else at the party didn’t seem to notice. Most people never seem to. I pulled up the last text conversation Bill and I had. It was a confusing conversation. I said: “Bill, would you like to come over to our party tonight?”. Bill replied: “I can’t, they will make me do bad things.” I didn’t understand that. “Who’s they?” Bill never responded. He made it to the party though. He sat at the couch, didn’t say a word, just looked ahead and now he was gone. At least he didn’t do anything bad.
Ding, dong. The door bell rang. Perfect, the pizza is here. I opened the door. “Bill?” My heart started to beat fast, the air was off. Tears fell down Bill’s face. “Sorry.” The last thing I heard him say before the flash from the gun.
Housed and Fed 