Deadlines are the worst.

The customer had been clear about one thing: the new website was going online at the end of the week, and he better made sure it was ready.

Being a freelance web-developer could be tough, especially when you were buried under unrealistic expectations and a list of ever-changing features.

He hadn’t slept in days. All he’d been able to do was to nod off for a few hours at his desk.

He wasn’t sure how many cups of coffee he’d drank today.

Hell, he wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore. This entire job was messing with his head.

“Freaking hell,” he cursed as yet another memo arrived in his inbox.

There was no freaking way he’d make it if things kept up like this. Yet, what was he supposed to do? He needed the damned money.

And so, after a few more minutes of resting, he continued his work.

He was just trying to wrap his head around a certain PHP-function and the resulting dynamic Html-block when he heard something.

For a moment the house was quiet but then he heard it again, the creaking of a door.

“Daddy, come quick,” his daughter called out from down the hallway.

In an instant, he was off his chair and out of the room. Yet, for a moment, the strangest feeling washed over him. Something about this felt wrong.

Yet, when he saw no hint of Clara and the wide-open door of her room, he pushed the feeling aside.

“Clara?” he called out but got no answer.

When he entered, the room was freezing, and the window was wide open. The window, why was it open?

Quick steps led him to it, but when he stared outside, nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Clara?” he called out again, but there was no hint of her. The bed was empty, so was the closet and the rest of the room.

He’d just crouched down to look under the bed when he heard it again.

“Daddy, come quick.”

It sounded exactly like before.

Sweat broke out all over his body as the strange feeling came back. This time he knew what it was.

Clara was with her grandparents. Marie had taken her to spend the week at their place so William could finish his project undisturbed.

Slowly, his entire body trembling, he turned to where the voice had originated from.

What he saw was a disgusting, spidery creature. Its limbs were too long, too damn long. Two of them were still holding on to the ceiling where the thing must’ve been until now.

Its head was nothing but a skull with paper-thin skin stretched over it.

Multi-faceted eyes focused on him, and when the abomination saw William’s terror, it giggled.

It’s grinning face shot forward and came to a halt mere inches in front of his own.

“Daddy, let’s play,” it whispered in his daughter’s voice.

Cindy loved long, hot baths. They were the best part of her day. There was nothing better than to soak your body in steaming hot water after a long, tough day at work.

She considered the bathtub her happy place. It was here that she could calm down, take a step back, and spend the early evening hours with a good book.

Today had been especially bad. With Christmas around the corner, online sales were skyrocketing. To say Cindy’s department was buried in work was an understatement.

It was already early evening when she finally made it home.

After a quick meal, she decided to soak her tired body for an hour or two. After picking out one of her many bath bombs, she undressed and watched as the water was transformed into a swirling, bubbling mess. When the hot water came to a rest, it had been transformed into a deep, starry blue.

Descending into the bath was heaven. At first, the heat stabbed at her skin, but after a little while, it changed into a soothing, pleasant feeling.

Cindy leaned back, closed her eyes and for a while she just lay there, enjoying the heat and sweating away all the workday’s worries.

She’d half drifted off when she heard running water. She instinctively thought of the drain. Had she accidentally opened it?

Her hand reached out for the drain stopper and turned, but it didn’t move at all. For all she knew, it was still closed.

Maybe it was something in the pipes? Or maybe her next-door neighbor had let in an evening bath of their own.

She laughed a little and wondered what kind of person her ‘bath friend’ might be.

“Well, hope you’re having fun,” she mused on.

It was right at this point that bath water started bubbling and Cindy noticed hair in the water. Not her own, she thought in disgust. At first, it was only a few here and there, but soon, thick strands came up. Right at that time, the strange sound from the drain started again.

The pipes, there’s something wrong with the pipes. All these disgusting hairs, it had to come up from down the drain! In disgust, she cringed back from the drain, tore off strands that clung to her, and finally decided to abandon the bath.

With her hands on the side of the tub, she suddenly heard another disturbingly long gurgle.

Then something emerged from the water in front of her, right where the drain was. At first, it was only hair, a giant, wet ball of hair, but then she saw something in-between. It was a disgusting, wrinkled thing, much too thin to be a human being.

“Oh, yes, I’m having fun,” the thing cackled in a high-pitched voice.

Still in shock, Cindy felt a bony hand close around her ankle and a moment later she was pulled underwater and eventually yanked down the drain.

Oh, the word love. What does it truly mean? Is it something that should be whispered easily, or should it be held back and only told during those few special moments?

Eric thought about this, but he didn’t know anymore. The word love had lost all meaning, become part of the nightmare that was now his daily life.

Today was the same as every other day. He was trapped in darkness, and entirely alone. Yet, the moment he heard something, his body tensed up. It tensed up because he heard… her.

He knew what was coming long before she entered. It was always the same, always the same every single goddamn day. Eric knew he couldn’t handle it anymore, he just couldn’t, yet he had to.

There was no other way.

When the door opened, he clenched his eyes shut with all the force he could muster.

“Do you love me?” her guttural, hard voice echoed from outside and for a moment it filled the entire small room.

“O-Of course I do,” he answered in a trembling voice.

There was a giggle, a giggle that could’ve come from the throat of a little girl, if it hadn’t been so deep, so grating. Yet, it lasts only for a mere moment.

The voice turned hard again, hard and cold.

“Then why aren’t you looking at me?” it demands. No, almost shrieks at him.

And so, trembling in fear, Eric finally opens his eyes.

In the dim light that entered the room, he could finally make out his disgusting, putrid prison cell. He could see his own excrements, his blood, and what remained of his fellow captives.

But the worst, by far, was her.

The thick, bloated monstrosity of her body. She was a disgusting, humongous thing, her body more that of a worm than a human. Rolls and rolls of fat slithered inside, pushed through the door before she came to a rest in front of him.

Her fat sausage fingers reached out to hold his face in her hands. For a second her tiny, button eyes rested on his before she let him go again.

She was a creature of purest disgust. Her smell was so unbearable it made Eric’s eyes water. When she brought her mouth close to his, he instinctively cringed back, his body trying to flee, but the chains made any escape impossible.

Her lips came to rest on his and when her disgusting, bloated tongue pushed into his mouth, he almost gagged.

Instantly, her face grew hard again. Her body started shaking in anger.

“What’s the matter?” the inhuman amalgamation of fat demanded of him.

“N-No, it’s nothing. You’re beautiful,” he finally pressed out, contorting his face into the semblance of a smile.

The creature giggled again before she turned from him and slithered back towards the door.

As it fell shut, he was at last able to relax. For he knew, he’d live yet another day.

James Stirling was an odd man.

He’d been married three times and fathered more than a dozen children. Yet, what love he’d shown at the outset of these relationships soon waned and went away.

He wasn’t an abusive man, no; he was an indifferent man. All he seemed to care for was to sow his seed before he’d return to his family home.

It was an old, secluded mansion deep in the mountains that had been in the Stirling family’s possession for centuries. Out there, James would spend most of his days, far away from civilization.

Only when his grandchildren were born did the old man return. His fierce interest and warm care surprised everyone.

His favorite was his grandson, Thomas.

The boy’s parents were reluctant to let old James back into their life. More than reluctant, for the old man’s obsession with their son, scared them.

Yet, Thomas adored his grandfather. The more his parents tried to cut their bond, the stronger it became.

The old man would teach Thomas many things and eventually afforded him a scholarship to enter a prestigious university.

As the years went by, James Stirling grew ever older and weaker.

One day, when Thomas visited him at his home, he bid the young man to come closer. Without another word, he handed him an old wooden box.

“What’s that grandpa?”

“A present, my dear boy,” the old man said with a weak smile.

“Thank you,” Thomas said and was about to open the box.

The old man stopped him.

“No, please wait, only open it when the day comes, when I’m about to-“

“Nonsense, grandpa! You’ll live another fifty years, I know it!”

James Stirling smiled, but he knew better than anyone.

Four months later he was admitted to a hospital, one, the doctors made clear, he wouldn’t leave again.

When Thomas visited, the old man reminded him of the present.

“I guess, my time has come,” he started. “When you get home today, you might open the box, Thomas. After all, it’s my last present.”

Tears were shed and goodbyes were whispered and the moment Thomas was home, he got a hold of the box.

“Thank you, grandpa,” he whispered as he opened it.

Inside was a gently glowing orb. As he stared at it, the warm light inside bid him to lean in closer. His eyes focused on it, and it almost seemed as if something was inside. Deeper and deeper he looked, was drawn in, and slowly faded away. A moment later, he passed out.

Hours later, the body of James Stirling drew his last breath, and at the same time, Thomas awoke.

With a wide grin on his face, Thomas closed the small box containing the orb.

“Thank you, Thomas,” he cackled.

Once more, the ritual had succeeded, and once more, the ghastly, centuries-old presence that had been James Stirling for the past seventy years would continue on, continue on for yet another lifetime.

“You ever heard about the mysterious locker?”

“What locker?” Cindy asked.

“Well,” Craig continued, “there’s supposed to be a locker here that makes people vanish.”

“That’s bullshit, Craig, and you know it,” Jerry cut in.

“Nah, man, I heard it from Thomas Wilkins!”

“Thomas Wilkins’s a liar and you know it!” Jerry retorted.

“Shut up, you idiots, what if someone hears us?” Lydia shushed them.

They both turned to her, only now realizing how loud their voices had echoed through the building.

For a moment, no one said a word, but all stayed quiet.

“Really, I can’t with you two, why are you arguing like that?”

“I told him about the mysterious locker,” Craig answered her.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “God, not that again.”

“What’s it all about?” Cindy pipped up.

She seemed to be the only one who hadn’t heard about that silly urban legend.

“All right,” Craig started in an ominous voice, prompting Lydia and Jerry to share a short, annoyed look.

“As the story goes, a couple of years ago, a group of teenagers snuck into this very pool at night for a swim.”

“That’s just like-“

“Yeah, Cindy, just like us. One of them, Andrew Miller, got so drunk he passed out. So his friends played a little trick on him. They locked him up in one of the lockers here, locker 207, and left him there for the night. The next morning, the locker was empty and Andrew was never seen again. He’d up and vanished.”

“What a bunch of bullshit,” Jerry mumbled.

“Oh yeah? You’ve heard about Andrew going missing, right?”

“I heard he skipped town and-“ Lydia started.

“Yeah, because no one ever talks about what really happened!”

“No one but you, anyway. So, where’s this mysterious locker?” Jerry asked.

Craig grinned and led them to the boy’s changing room and to an old locker with the number 207 written on it.

“Well, here it is, the mysterious locker!”

“Mysterious my ass,” Jerry cursed, pushed him aside, and ripped open the door.

What he found behind was nothing but a completely normal, albeit slightly rusty, locker.

Jerry reached his hand inside, shaking his arm, putting on a mockingly shocked expression.

“Oh no, Craig, look, the locker’s got me! Help, I’m going to be vanished away!”

Lydia started laughing, and even Cindy giggled a little. Craig, on the other hand, stared at Jerry in anger.

“Why don’t you go in for real?” Craig asked.

Jerry blurted out laughing and shrugged.

“Sure.”

With that, he stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind himself.

“Oh no guys, help, there’s-“

But he broke off when the locker suddenly started rumbling and shaking.

“Hey Craig, stop, what the hell are you doing?” he called out, trying to push the door open again, but it didn’t budge.

When he tried for the handle it wasn’t there and in sheer terror, he realized there was no sign of a door ever existing at all.

Amnesia.

A word most of us know, but few of us ever experience.

It was a few hours ago. I got up like every other morning, but there was this strange lingering feeling in the back of my head. I couldn’t put it anywhere and went about my morning routine.

I put up some coffee, went to the bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush, and froze in front of the mirror.

The face staring at me, I didn’t know it. My eyes grew wide, mouth opened, and the toothbrush fell from my hands.

Who was that I was staring at? Who was… I?

I tried to remember, tried to figure out what was going on, but there was nothing. My mind was a blank, entirely, and utterly empty.

I rushed from the bathroom and back to my living room. My eyes wandered around, trying to find something, a hint, anything that could explain who I was.

I stumbled to my bookshelf and read the titles of the many books I owned. They were all in English, all American. Twain, Pynchon, Melville, Stephen King, and on it went.

Was I American? I wondered, but still nothing.

I rushed to the kitchen and found an assortment of empty beer bottles. I frowned. Was I an alcoholic? Was this the reason for all this?

With shaking hands, I opened my fridge only to be greeted by some fermented abomination at its back. My stomach churned, and I felt my mouth water as I stared at the abominable meal and threw it shut in an instant.

I went on the internet, started to investigate. Transient global amnesia, they called it. A sudden, temporary episode of memory loss.

As I read the article, fear overtook me. What was this, why was this happening, what was going on?

Then I got a new idea. Maybe it was temporary, maybe if I just waited, my memory would return. Maybe I could somehow trigger those memories lost.

I opened my word processor and started typing. Slowly and steadily letters appeared on the screen.

Click, clack, click, clack. More of them filled the screen. An endless barrage of letters all forming together in a senseless amalgamation so long no other word I’d seen could compare.

And then, to my sheer and utter horror, I realized I could read it. I could read this horrible, alien creation and even… make sense of it.

At that moment, in that instant, it all made sense. Everything was clear to me.

The beer, the fermented cabbage in my fridge. Once more I read the word I’d written.

Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft

Oh god, it was true, without a doubt. In shock, I set in front of my computer, stunted and sweating.

I. Was. German.

Insomnia’s a bitch, John thought as he sat in front of his computer.

It would be one of those nights…

For a while, he browsed Netflix before he watched a few funny videos on YouTube.

Before long he grew bored with funny fail compilations and silly jokes and he hit up a few more… adult-themed pages.

While he was browsing and checking videos, a new tab opened out of nowhere.

“Freaking pop-up bullshit,” he cursed in annoyance.

He was about to close the tab when a video started to play. A feeling of apprehension washed over him and he froze.

This video was different from what he’d expected.

What he saw on his computer screen was his very face, sitting in his room at this very desk.

At first, he was perplexed, then scared, then utterly confused. He didn’t own a webcam, never had, and told himself he never would. So how in the hell was this even possible?

His eyes wandered to the position where the camera would’ve to be, but there was… nothing. All there was, was the bleak, white wall.

He returned his attention to the screen, unnerved before he got an idea. He leaned forward, blinked, then moved his head from left to right.

Instead of following suit, his alter ego seemed to continue browsing.

A recording then, he realized. Was this some kind of joke by one of his friends? But why’d they do that and more importantly, HOW?

As he watched the video, his alter ego was clicking, moving the mouse, and every once in a while entering something via the keyboard.

Then the footage changed. His alter ego’s face grew annoyed as it mouthed a curse. Then it grew apprehensive before confusion washed over it.

For a while his alter ego stared directly at the camera, focusing on it before his attention returned to the screen.

John watched himself leaning forward, watched himself blink before he saw something else from the back of the room.

While his alter ego on the screen moved his head left and right, he saw how the closet was pushed open.

At first, there was nothing there, but then a mass of shadows seemed to seep from it.

John’s eyes grew wide as the shadowy mass contorted and wavered before it formed into a vaguely human shape. Long, pale, spidery limbs pushed from the darkness, their proportions all wrong. Then a head followed, a white, pale head. It was entirely smooth, but then the skin tore apart, revealing a ghastly, gorging maw.

On the screen, the creature inched closer towards his alter ego. John’s heart was beating in his chest. He started sweating, shaking, and told himself it was nothing but a fake.

Yet, when he finally closed the damned video, he felt long spidery fingers close around his shoulders and felt a disgustingly warm breath on his neck.

It started as a habit, but has almost become a fetish. Popping pimples, that is. I love it.

There’s a sort of twisted satisfaction to bringing forth the horrors that are hidden deep inside your own body.

Whenever I find a big fat one, I almost can’t resist.

Today, though, today was entirely different.

For a few days, I’d had this strange feeling in my left arm. At times, when I moved it, there was a sharp, stinging pain. It was only there for a moment, nothing but a short, blazing flash. At others, there was a tingling sensation.

I soon found the cause.

It was the mother of all pimples. A giant one, buried deep in my armpit. It was nothing but a giant treasure trove of pus ripe for the taking.

At first I stared at it in abject horror. Then I pushed against it with my fingers carefully. I rubbed over it, poked it and could almost feel the enormous amount of pus inside of it moving.

The urge of popping it came up right away, but I forced myself to go slowly, to enjoy this.

For a moment I applied a bit of pressure. I felt the skin stretch as the pus pushed against it. Again and again I did it, almost like following the steps of a ritual.

Then, finally, I pushed as hard as I could. There was a sharp pain, skin burst and pus and blood gushed from it. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, and I loved every single second of it. Again and again I pressed against it until nothing was left. Then, I slowly and deliberately cleaned my arm pit of the disgusting liquids and fluids.

That’s when I saw it. Where the pimple had been, there was a hole, a hole below my arm pit. I stared at it in horror, disgust, but also, curiosity.

Almost in trance my finger went forward. At first rubbing against it, probing the edges, before I pushed against it.

There was no feeling, no pain, just the strangest sensation.

I felt goosebumps all over my body as my finger slowly slid inside. For a moment, my left shoulder started tingling again. The feeling spread throughout my entire arm as I buried my finger deeper and deeper. Soon, more than half of it was gone.

And then it was back, the sharp, blazing pain. This time, though, I didn’t feel it in my left shoulder, neither my left arm. No, this time, I felt it from the finger I’d pushed into the hole.

Cursing, I pulled it back, but as I stared at it, all feeling left me and I felt a scream of pure and utter terror rising inside of me.

For what I saw, what had caused the pain, were two rows of tiny, bleeding bite marks.

Jerold was sitting in the same chair, at the same window, staring outside, waiting.

The first snow was falling, and he remembered the time when he’d played out there with the neighborhood kids all those years ago. He remembered it so vividly that afternoon.

The sun had been bright, just like today, but its light didn’t reach him. Not anymore. Not up here, in this ghastly room.

He didn’t even notice the single tear that streamed from one of his eyes. Thick, yellow, and almost syrupy, it carved a path down his sunken cheek.

The shaking came over him like an avalanche, burying his thoughts. The pain that follows was worse, cutting through him hot and ragged.

It lasted for almost a quarter of an hour.

The third time since noon, the seventh since he awoke this morning. It’s gotten so much worse this past year.

“You there?” he called out when as he watched the few lonely snowflakes twirling through the air.

“Of course,” a rattling voice reached him.

“So, is it finally time?”

The voice behind him turned into guttural giggling.

“No, Jerold, you aren’t ready yet.”

“Oh goddammit, I’ve been ready for the past three years! I’m ready now, so why don’t you just take me already?”

“Were they ready, Jerold?”

He was about to reply, but a terrible, wet cough rattled through his body, shaking every brittle bone in it.

“Damn you!” he screamed, but he got no reaction to his outburst.

He tried to dig his fingers into the armrest, tried to will himself to get up, but, however much he tried, there was nothing. He had no energy left, no muscles to serve him.

And so he stayed where he was, in his terrible, lonely prison.

Slowly anger rose inside of him, burning anger, fiery, hotter even than the pain he’d felt mere moments ago.

“Why don’t you just take me already?” he screamed at the quiet room.

“You know why, Jerold,” a bodiless, grim voice whispered into his ear.

“Yes, I know, but I couldn’t help it! I tried, but couldn’t wait anymore, I just couldn’t.”

“You murdered them, Jerold. Three little boys, whose life you cut short that afternoon,” the voice continued.

“I know, goddammit, I know! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, so take me already! Just, please, please let me move on!”

“No Jerold, you’ll wait and you’ll continue to wait. For I’m going to let you live in their stead. What time you took from them, I’ll added to yours,” the voice trailed off, a hint of devilish glee hidden behind its words.

“I shouldn’t even be alive anymore! The heart attack, the cancer, this rotting body here, there’s-“

But he broke up, for he knew he was gone again.

Once more, the Reaper had abandoned him, and once more he’d left his soul to linger in his own rotten body for yet another year.