Category: Horror

Invasion of the Worm Men

(More illustrations in the post)

I’ve created an NFT card collecting adventure game.

“You, The Gate Keeper, look up at the sky. It is red tonight, red like blood. You haven’t seen this colour in the skies for decades. It can’t be good.

It is getting darker, and you light your lantern. You are the one who guards the gate, who makes sure people get through safely. Your profession has deep roots, back to the days when you would have guarded the gate against enemies. Monsters and people with bad intentions. Those days are gone. Now you live happily in peace, and you have for generations. You are at peace with all your neighbours, there are no monsters and crime is almost unheard of. These are golden ages, and you don’t want it to change.

You don’t like the colour in the sky.

A lady comes by with her little son.

“Goo’evening!” You nod politely.

“Good evening, sir.” She turns around, looks up towards the horizon. “Doesn’t it have a strange glow today, sir?” She looks worried. (more)

Romance

-Come on!

-Where are we going?

-You’ll soon find out.

-Woooowww…. It’s amazing.

-I told you! He smiled a big smile.

They could see everything from up here. A thin sickle of a moon lit up as if it was full, gave the landscape a magical shine

-Oh, Tim… It’s just so…

He took her in his arms, turned her around. His gaze sunk into her eyes, deeper then any man had ever seen.

-Only the best… He kissed her. Around them the bats flew on their hunt for bugs, the crickets sang their song.

-What’s that…?

She turned around, adjusted her eyes to the dark distance.

He moved her hair a bit to one side, exposed her neck. Opened his mouth wide.

She took a step down the path. -Look! There’s cabin down there! Let’s go!

She grabbed his hand, ran down the slope.

The cabin could hardly be seen in the dense vegetation. It was old and worn, almost falling down.

-What are you…?

-Come on! It will be fun!

She broke a window, went in.

-I’m not really sure about this… He had lived long enough to know what kind of things that could lurk in these kinds of places. -I’m not sure if….

She was already inside. His veins was screaming of hunger. He followed.

The place smelled of rot and horrors. It was dark, even his eyes had a hard time seeing anything.

-Here I am, she said with a soft voice. He turned around. She lit a candle. Her naked body looked fantastic in the flickering light. He even considered turning her for a moment, but he wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. She held her hands out. Finally it was time to eat.

-Aaaaaahhh!! Melanie’s scream made the walls shiver. A dead man was lying on the bed… (more)

Thicker Than Blood

This was where they had met, a cold winter night. It had been lying there with the others, another log in the stack. He had gotten it out, put it up on the chopping block. Grabbed his axe, lifted it high. The log spoke.

“What are you doing!?”

Gerald jumped back. Held his hand to the wall, catching his breath. The other hand tightened around the shaft. Was he going crazy?  Either that, or something fishy was going on.

“You… speak?” Gerald couldn’t believe what he saw and heard. “Logs don’t…”

“Yeah, I know. We don’t. But still, here we are talking, aren’t we?”

Gerald couldn’t argue with that.

They chatted for a while. The log told Gerald about his former life as a tree, and how he had ended up where he was. He asked a lot of questions, and seemed genuinely interested in Gerald’s life, his childhood, his marriage. Gerald told his story, and it felt good to finally have someone to really talk to again.

He took it in, cared for it. They became good friends, they were happy together. The log was a great pal, they had many laughs, so much fun.

His wife didn’t understand. She never saw the log speak, somehow it just kept quiet when she was around. She hated it.  She hated how her husband spent long afternoons in the sitting room talking to the stupid log. She hated the log.

The log was worried.

“She doesn’t like me, does she?” it would ask, looking out of the window. “I don’t see why? I never done anything to her.”

Gerald would try to make him feel better. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he would say. “She doesn’t even think you’re alive. Why don’t you speak to her?”

The log went silent.

Gerald spent more and more time with the log. Who would ever have guessed a log would have so much humour, be so smart? He knew things Gerald had never imagined.

He took the log on long walks. They went fishing together. It was driving his wife crazy.

One day she gave him an ultimatum.

“It’s either the log or me! Get rid of it! Chop it up and burn it, or I will!”

So here they were. He put the log on the chopping block, facing away. He couldn’t look it in the eyes.

“What are you doing, man? Why are we here?”

“I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…” Gerald couldn’t hold the tears back.

“It’s her, isn’t it? She told you to do this! Can’t you see? She’s manipulating you!”

Gerald grabbed his axe with a shaking hand… (more)

War of the Woods

Ling hid down by the river. Waited. Listened. All she heard was the breeze whispering in the treetops.

She got up on her feet. She was the only one who had survived the attack, the shame ripped her soul. Her troop was gone. Her Sargent. Her mates. She didn’t know where she was, the map and the compass had been in the backpack.

The sun was going down. Southwest. She knew the base camp should be to the east.

Darkness invaded the forest, the bushes got denser as she walked. She heard the sounds of little animals jumping from tree to tree, birds flying in the leaves. They sounded unquiet, stressed. Tree-trunks were scraping together somewhere in the dark.

There had ben gunshots, but she hadn’t seen any enemies. The troop had been separated by the dense vegetation. Then the shooting had started.

 Between some bushes she hid to sleep. The night was cold and dark, the moon could not be seen.

She hadn’t seen any enemy since the attack. Strange, she was deep into enemy territory. They should be swarming. She walked with caution.

Further ahead there was some kind of movement. She went closer. It could be enemies, or it could be her own. Maybe some large animal. She was starving.

She got down, crawled under the bushes. Got a view. There was a cluster of plants. Human bodies were hanging from the trees. Animals. The branches moved, but there was no wind. Roots unattached from the ground… (more)

Bonfire Stories

“Your turn, Nico. You tell a story.”

“OK, I’ll tell you a story.” Nico filled his cup from the bucket of water. How he loved being here, deep into the forest, where the water was fresher than any water you’d buy in town. “I’ll tell you a story you’ve never heard anything like. And it’s true. All of it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just tell the story, asshole.”

Nico shut up for a moment, took a deep breath. His eyes moved to Gerald, then back into the fire.

“There was a forest, pretty similar to this one. A forest where no one knew what lived and lurked. It was too dense, too strange, too dark.”

Gerald giggled. “Yeah, just like this one.” Nico sent him a glare. His smile faded. “Go ahead.”

“One night, a hunter went into the forest, walked far and long, looking for beasts for trophies. He went where no man had ever walked before. He found a lake. There he waited for the beast.”

“What kind of beast?” Bill was enjoying the story

“Any kind, just as big as possible. The biggest, fiercest beast in the woods.. And he waited. The sun went down.”

The darkness was getting denser. Gerald put some more logs on the fire. Nico stared into the shadows between the trees.

“He heard a roar. A deep, dark roar from somewhere far into the woods. He smiled in the darkness, knew the time had come. He got his horn out, blew it. It made a long, organic sound. The sound of prey.”

They heard something in a distance… (more)