Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - Hate's Harvest | Part 1

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

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The checkout woman stares at me as she picks up the carton of eggs. Oops, she says, just a second before she drops the carton onto the barcode scanner. I can tell by the crunch that at least one of the eggs has broken. I return the woman's gaze. But she's not a woman. Not really. She can't be over 17 years old. Her makeup is tastefully applied, accentuating her blue eyes and hiding the beginnings of a pimple here and there.

Her name tag reads, Jenny. I can smell the bubblegum she's chewing. And if it weren't for the way she's staring at me, with unabashed hate, I wouldn't have given her much thought at all. She would have been just another daily interaction that was there and then forgotten. But now she's all but guaranteed I'll remember her. All I wanted to do was get my groceries in peace and go back to my miserable life. But of course, that would be too easy.

The gum crackles as the girl chews, her dead eyes. side stare giving me a glimpse of some poor Saps future. It's the same look she'll be giving her baby daddy one, two, or ten years from now. She scans the carton of eggs and then reaches for the loaf of bread that comes next on the conveyor belt. She punches it with one small fist, smashing a quarter of the slices, then drags it across the scanner, which beeps incongruously. I knew this would happen. I knew my actions would make me an enemy. Fuck them. I don't care. air. Smiling at the girl, I wait for her to finish ringing up my groceries. There was a bag boy here when I came up, but he's gone now. I'll have to bag my own groceries. After paying for the

food, I bag up my items and head back out of the store. I approach a woman and her young child coming into the store. The child looks up at me with wide brown eyes. Mama, he says. It's that man. I know, baby, the mother says. Don't look. Look at the bad man, okay? I pause as they pass, looking over my shoulder. The woman narrows her eyes at Maythen turns, dragging the little boy into the store with one hand while she grabs a basket with the other.

As I walk out into the afternoon sunlight, I see a store employee walking in, probably starting his shift. He's about my age, maybe a little younger, and he's staring daggers at me. A dark figure catches my eye near the back of the parking line, standing on a small strip of grass. I'm not surprised to see it. I've gotten good at ignoring them. We all have. I stopped suddenly in the middle of the crosswalk, putting my three bags down at my feet.

A minivan to my left stops, unable to continue across the face of the store with me in the way. Ignoring the vehicle, I reached down and grab the deformed carton of eggs out of a bag. I open it and see that two of the eggs are cracked. The guy in the van laid. on the horn, honking at me. Glancing up, I smile at him, and I grab a cracked egg from the carton and chuck it at his windshield. Splat! He throws the van into reverse, backing up several feet, and then putting it back and drive to gun it around me. I carefully retrieve the other cracked egg and throw it at the front of the store. After shaking slimy egg residue off my hand, I put the carton back into the bag, and I'm on my way. I can see the dark figure

out of my peripheral vision, but I don't look at it. It takes me five minutes to drive back to my townhouse. As soon as I pull into the parking lot, I know I'm about to get more grief. Official grief. There's a police cruiser parked directly in front of my building, taking up the handicapped spot and the one directly to the right of it, which happens to be my assigned parking spot. I maneuver my Tacoma into an uncovered spot further into the parking lot and sit for a minute after killing the engine. Once my breathing is under control, I remove the key from the ignition, grab the bags from the passenger foot well, and step out of the truck. Officer Underhill is standing at the bottom of the short stairs leading up to my town home. He has a downcast look on his

face. You're taking up my parking spot, I tell him, unable to help myself. Day now, Underhill says palms facing me. Let's not start things like this. You know what you did. Yeah, that's right. I know what the fuck I did. So why are you here? Going to arrest me? I step up onto the curb, now eight feet away from him. I stop, waiting for his response, although I already know the answer. Underhill says nothing. His eyes flick away from mine, unable to hold my gaze. He turns and glances up at the roof of my building. It's a a quick glance, the kind that people make a dozen times a day around here. Despite my best efforts

in self-control, I look up as well, seeing the dark figure perched on the roof. It looks like a hundred versions of the Grim Reaper seen in movies, shows, and artwork, pitch black robes over an unseen body, the empty hood staring, always staring. With some effort, I returned my attention to the cop in front of me. Yeah, that's what I thought. Now get the hell out of my way. Listen to me, Darren, he says. His tone harsh. I won't arrest you.

It wouldn't do any good even if I did. But that doesn't mean you're safe here. You should really think about leaving. Someone's liable to... He trails off. To what? Take a shot at me, I ask. This town is so full of chicken chits I would welcome the action.

Besides, where the hell would I go? There's no escape. You know that as well as I do. Underhill doesn't respond. Now will you get out of my way so I can go home? I say. It's been a long fucking day. Underhill studies me for a long moment.

His gray eyes searching mine. This is really how you want to play it? There's no other way. Underhill sighs, steps aside. I moved past him and to my front door. I step into my apartment and slam the door behind me. After flipping on the lights, I move into the kitchen, setting the bags on the counter. My house is dark because I've shut all the shades.

Not that I like the dark, but because I don't want anyone to be able to see inside. I reach behind my back and start to pull out the pistol I've been carrying. But I hear the low murmur of voices from outside. Underhill is still out there, and he's talking to someone. Pushing the pistol back into my waistband, I stalk over toward the door and look out the front window. Damn it, I say, shaking my head at one. what I see. Moving to the door, I unlock it and yank it open. Without saying a word, I move quickly

down the steps to Sandy. She is, was my girlfriend. Now she's nothing to me. Get the hell away from my house. I tell her. Underhill stands off to the side, watching. Disbelief settles on Sandy's beautiful face momentarily as she looks up into my eyes. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Didn't you hear me? me, I say, pointing a finger at her face. I don't ever want to see you again. Mercifully, my voice doesn't crack. Disbelief morphs into pain in her emerald green eyes.

She steps back and shakes her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. Then she turns to leave, heading back to her car in the parking lot. I watch her go. She stops and looks back before opening her door. I meet her gaze, unflinching. I'm sorry, think, but dare not say. They're listening. They're always listening.

She wipes at her eyes and then gets into her car. As her Honda bumps out of the parking lot, I look over it Underhill. Didn't I tell you to get lost? The cop shakes his head. You're digging your own grave, Thielen. If they don't get you, one of us will. I wave a dismissive hand at him and head back inside, closing and locking the door. I sit in the living room for a while, holding my Glock 17 in both hands.

The groceries momentarily forgotten. What would it change if I put a bullet in my brain? Anything? I doubt it. The terrible events I've set in motion will still come to their unavoidable conclusion. The least I can do is stay alive to see it. As the sun goes down outside, the sound of cars driving by on the road fades to nothing. Five minutes before dark, the streets outside are.

Everyone is tucked away in their homes for another night, getting ready for the ritual, and then the punishment we all know is coming. This is the way it has been for the last six months. This is the way it will be from here on out, as far as I can tell. Only there's not a punishment every night. Only when someone acts up, is there a reprisal. I feel sick to my stomach as I think about it. I can only guess who it will be.

The gun is on the coffee table as I step to the wall. window and part the curtains, looking out. They hide during the day, sending their dark sentinels out to remind us they're still here. But at night, they reveal themselves. One of them crawls on the sidewalk past my town home. I flinch back, closing my eyes. They're atrocious, the stuff of nightmares. Yet I still look. I can't help but look. Behind me, the television turns on by itself. It's time. First, the ritual. than the punishment. And there's nothing I can do about either.

I step away from the window. On the television is a countdown screen like you see in old movies. They give us 30 seconds to get ready. I step into the kitchen and grab my largest bowl from the drying rack on the counter. I put it down on my floor about halfway between my recliner and the television.

The countdown is currently at 23. Sitting in my lazy boy chair in front of the TV, I take one last look at the gun on the table my right. Eighteen seconds. Plenty of time to put a bullet in my brain. At least I wouldn't have to witness what comes next. Fourteen seconds. But what would they do? The last time someone committed suicide, well, I don't even want to think about that. I can still hear the screams and my nightmares. I can still see the face of the punished, contorted in agony. Eight seconds. The time has passed. killing myself would only give me reprieve.

It would make things worse for everyone else. It would be a coward's way out. Five seconds. I look up at the large mirror I hung above the television. At the bottom of the mirror, I can see my head and shoulders framed against the maroon recliner. The mirror is set in an angle, so I can see the section of the room just behind my chair.

Three, two, one. The countdown disappears, and the screen goes. goes black. My eyes flick up to the mirror. My heart booms in my chest at the sight of the creature shuffling up behind my chair. I force myself not to move. Moving only makes it worse. The creature's limbs are spindly. Its skin a shimmering yellow green like a frog's. It has two legs, but I can't count the number of arms that stick up from its upper body. The arms have three joints, each ending in a hand with six knobby fingers. These upper limbs flop around in chaotic fashion as it trundles up to me. I can feel the hate blossoming in my chest.

It combines with my fear in a sickening cocktail that makes me want to reach out and grab the gun and shoot at the thing until the magazine is empty. The creature looks at the back of my head over the top of the recliner with two wide, close together eyes. Two of its arms shift away from the rest and move down on either side of my head. It reaches its fingers out toward my ears and eyes. Just before it plunges the strain digits into my head, it meets my gaze in the mirror, and it smiles a ghastly smile with what passes for lips. Then the fingers are warming their way into my head through my ear canals. Two other fingers jam into my eyeballs, shoving them back into my skull. I open my mouth in pain, but I am no longer able to scream. Something shifts

inside my head. A sickening sense of vertigo overwhelms me as the threads holding me to this reality snap and I'm falling down into the darkness that isn't really darkness. I'm suddenly 15 years old again, coated in half of a chocolate shake as a couple of high school bullies laugh at me. The entire courtyard at my school is staring. I feel the hate bubble up in my chest as dark fantasies run through my mind, fantasies in which I unleash my anger on the two assholes standing there laughing. I'm 21 and at a bar, squaring off against some guy who pissed on my shoe in the bathroom that familiar hate swirls. I'm in traffic and some asshole has just cut me off. I'm 23 and walking in to find my girlfriend cheating on me with a guy from her work. I'm 25 and

listening to some idiot politician tell his lies while everyone eats it up. I'm 30 sitting in my recliner watching some otherworldly creature come up on me from behind. Every terrible interaction in my life plays almost simultaneously. The hands are hate and anger seem to build in me, increasing exponentially as I relive every interaction. It swells and swells until I'm ready to explode. I want to blow up the world. I want to inflict pain on every living thing. I want to torture and maim. I want to set fields of crops on fire and watch as people starve to death. I want to kick every animal I see. I want to rip limbs off and hoard wealth and make everyone who isn't me squirm under my thumb until I'm ready to crush

them to bits. And I hate myself for feeling these things. Everything I think I want to do to other people, I really want to happen to me tenfold. I want to ruin myself because I hate myself more than I could ever hate anyone else. Nightmare creatures swirl all around me in this place outside the physical world. They chitter and groan and scurry with delight. They grow fat on my hate. But this doesn't lessen it for me. Whatever they're doing, however they're doing it, It doesn't take it away. There's no relief. The feelings stay with me, making me shake and become ill.

Feelings that we're fleeting at the time are now stuck in an endless loop. A cycle that perpetuates itself beyond the rules of time. Feelings that are only possible through sentience, consciousness, and self-awareness. Soon, I find myself back in my living room, sitting in my lazy boy. I can feel the fingers, the things, retracting from inside. my head. But my ears ring and my vision blurs. My stomach convulses and I wretch, falling out of the chair and under my hands and knees on the floor. The vomit splashes into the bowl I set between me and the television. My arms and legs shake as I heave and spit into the bowl. All I want to do is

curl up and sleep, but I can't. So I spit the last of the bile into the bowl and raised my head to watch the television. It's blank right now, but it won't be for long. I know that. The punishment is coming soon. I managed to get back into my chair. I can see in the mirror that the creature is gone. Whether it was really here, and the form I saw in the mirror is debatable. There's no consistency in how they appear, not at night. During the daytime, their dark sentinel stand all over town, one identical to the next. Sometimes they appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. Sometimes they stay unmoving for hours at a time.

But at night, they take many forms. None of them good. My breathing and heartbeat are finally returning to normal when the television screen comes to life. The scene there is one I expected. It's the little town square near the courthouse, the library, and the police station. There's a small wooden platform in front of the...

bronze statue of the town founder, Silas Dreiston. Two thick wooden columns stand about four feet apart on the platform, waiting for the next victim. Right now, the stage is empty, but it won't be for long. I shake my head, trying to clear the hangover-like feeling I have after every one of these little sessions. I need to remember that what's about to happen on my television is because of me. It's my fault. There's movement on the left side of the screen. and a woman steps onto the platform. No. It's Sandy.

No. She's crying, looking back over her shoulder at whoever or whatever is off screen, prodding her on. She's not tied up yet, and she won't run. She knows what will happen if she does. Then she looks at the camera. She looks at me. I had feared my little outburst earlier wouldn't work. When I told her I never wanted to see her again,

it was a lie designed to make the creatures choose someone else, but they saw right through it. I jump out of my chair and grab the gun off the coffee table. I look out my front window to see if the coast is clear. It isn't. Officer Underhill stands at the end of my stubby walkway with a shotgun held across his body. Two other police officers, Riley and Ahmed, stand on either side of him. At first I wonder how this is possible. Everyone's supposed to be at home for the feeding. but these three men clearly wouldn't have had time to make it here from their respective houses. Then it dawns on me. They told them to come here, the creatures.

They're allowing it. But why? It doesn't make sense. If I'm allowed to make it to the town square to save Sandy's life, the cycle will continue. They just pick someone else tomorrow night. The town would continue hating me, which is exactly what they want. They want us all hating each other. which is why they never punished the doer.

They pick someone from the town and punish them. Until Sandy came on screen, no one in town knew who it would be, which was why they were treating me like dirt at the grocery store. For all they knew, I could have killed one of them with my actions last night. And if I go save Sandy, the creatures will pick another person from town. Hell, maybe they'll pick Sandy again, unless I can find a way to stop them. But first I need to deal with the third. three cops blocking my route to the parking lot. I move to the front door and yank it open. I don't

point the gun at them, but I make sure they can see it. Get back inside, Darren, Underhill says, I ignore him, hurrying directly toward the three officers, who all tense up as I come. Underhill racks a shell into the chamber and points the gun at me. I freeze, despite my best efforts not to. You know what will happen if you interfere, Underhill says, so I won't let you. I can't live like this anymore, I say. It's only a matter of time before they come for us all. Even if we behave just the way they want, you know it's true. No, I don't know it's true, Underhill says.

As long as we do what they say, we can live our lives in peace. You call this peace? I shout. We all fucking hate each other. We're consumed with hate every single night, and it spills out every day. It's poisoning us. Don't you see that? That's what they want.

A blood-curdling scream pierces the night. I whip my head toward the sound. Sandy, screaming from the town center a half mile away. The sound gets my legs moving again. I move forward, toward the cops and my truck beyond. Don't! Underhill shouts. The other two officers look at each other, uneasy.

They have their hands on their weapons, but they haven't pulled them out yet. Shoot me if you have to, I say. The group breaks up as I approach. Underhill backs away, turning to keep me in his sights. As he leaves my peripheral vision and I step into the parking lot, I expect to hear a blast and feel my body being ripped apart. But I don't. As I open the door to my truck, I glance back and see the three cops staring at me.

Underhill looks defeated, but the other two look relieved. I tear out of the parking lot and toward the town center as Sandy screams grow louder and more frequent. By the time I turn to make the final approach to the square, my jaw muscles are burning. I put the pedal to the floor as soon as I see Sandy there, arms bound to the two wooden posts flanking the center of the platform. But it's only the top half of her body I can see. The rest of her, from the waist down, has been pulled into a fissure in reality, a crack in the fabric of this world that is formed just behind her. She's being pulled backward from the legs, her body nearly parallel to the ground. The reality wound looks like an optical

illusion or a particularly good special effect. It's a ragged, vertical tear, like a wound, wide in the middle and tapering at the top and bottom. The edges of the gash flicker with sickly white light. I can just see inside, past Sandy's body. A carnival of terrible creatures grops and grabs and gnaws on her legs and feet as she screams. There's a man from the local news station behind the camera. Nearby is a news van that's doing the transmitting, with a couple of other people inside, manning the equipment. The people who tied Sandy to the posts are nowhere to be seen. I cry out as I speed toward the woman I love, unsure how I'll stop what's happening. This isn't quite what I did yesterday, what I did for Sam. This is different, but I have to try.

I lay on the horn as I approach, heading directly for the large camera set on its tripod, broadcasting this horror to the whole town. The cameraman turns just as my front wheels hit the curb, ten yards behind him. He does the smart thing. He gets the hell out of the way. Just before my truck smashes into the camera, I grab the pistol off the seat beside me. The camera flies back and smashes my windshield

before flying up and over my truck. I slam on the brakes, coming to a sliding sideways stop in the grass just in front of the stage. I jump out of the truck, not bothering to put it in park or turn off the engine, not caring as it rolls away

under its own power, heading toward the side of the square and the library beyond. Sandy's eyes meet mine as I jump up under the platform. I can read the pain in her face. She's half crazy with torment. I wrap my arms around her, just under her outstretched arms, and work to pull her legs out of the hellish fissure behind her. The creature is feeding on her snap and snarl and scream.

The fear in me nearly overflows as I look at them, with their dripping flesh and savage claws and impossible bodies. I have to look away, putting all my effort into pulling Sandy out. She moves a few inches forward, but then she's pulled back in, her arm stretching,

the ropes around her wrists, digging deeper into her flesh. She continues to scream. This isn't working. Suddenly, with the clarity blinding in its brilliance, I know what I have to do. A sense of calm washes over me and what I can only equate

to stories of people who've survived, In the moments after immense panic and before death's cold grasp, there's apparently a staggering serenity that settles upon those who have tried to take their last breath only to feel water rushing into their lungs. With this immense quietude, I let go of Sandy and turn toward the fissure, ducking low to move under her. Shoving my way head first into the world of monsters, I feel the air grow thicker. My skin prickles, as if thousands of dull needles are poking at my skin. My eyes burn. The ground is squishy, and each step elicits a puff of yellowish dust from strange little holes in the uneven surface.

I still have the gun in my hand, and the first thing I do is fire it at the nearest creature. It's a large thing, with three stocky legs and an upper body made of mouths snapping at the end of long stalks. The bullet goes through its bulk, blowing a couple of those mouths away and tearing a chunk through its body. Black blood pours from flesh that looks like dark sponge cake. It scampers off into the smoky distance, crying from dozens of mouths. I fire again and again, attacking the creatures that pull on Sandy's legs. As I do this, smaller monsters come to attack me, scurrying up my pant legs to bite me or stab me with spikes at the end of their tails

or strange, segmented limbs. Still, I work, barging my way around, elbowing or shooting creatures until I free Sandy. these legs. Now that she's not being mauled, she's able to get her badly damaged legs out of the fissure and back into our world. As I go to follow, a huge claw at the end of a thick tentacle comes out of the mist behind me. I don't see it at first. I'm just trying to get out of here. I'm one step away from the fissure when the crab-like claw clamps around my right leg, crushing my shin bone like it's made of rotten wood. I yell a cry of pain just before the thing yanks me backward, further into the hell.

I lose my grip on the gun as I scramble for purchase on the ground, binding none. As I'm pulled along, I managed to catch one last glimpse of the fissure, which seems to be closing. On the other side of it, I can see Sandy. Her arms are still bound. Her head twisted around to look over her left shoulder. Our eyes meet. The fissure closes. Lasagne sur-gilled, puissance-moyance-moyerned for 15 minutes. We'd say that's their dojo. Pre-to-jew? The casino in-line that proposes the most recent machine-ass-sou and the games of casino in direct.

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