body horror | Unsettling Stories

Conversations With a Mouth

I’m in pain.

Truth be told, I want to hurt. I like the idea of hurting. Of suffering. Of retribution. It’s my cross to bear. I should carry it with a smile.

But God, that smile. The one in the mirror. That gaping gash of a grin. Blood-tipped canines and gore-caked molars. Evidence of violence; evidence of depravity — all exposed in a smile of the purest, truest joy.

“Do you remember how she tasted?” my teeth ask. “Do you remember the texture and consistency? The chew?”

I do my best to ignore them, but they bite my tongue. I taste blood. Again.

“Stop,” I demand. “I can’t.”

My tongue, wounded, chimes in. Its voice is wet and heavy. “She tasted sour. And sharp, depending on the parts. But unique. Unique Monique.”

My tonsils giggle. A rush of saliva trickles down my throat.

“I loved her,” I whimper. Tears carve paths down my cheeks — hotter than the saliva in my throat, but cooler than the blood on my tongue.

“You still can,” my lips insist. “She’s still here.”

A Questionable Glory Hole

“We don’t have time for this!” Art shouted. “We’re almost home. Can’t you hold it?”

“Dad!” Reilly hollered back, his muscles tense, beads of cold sweat popping out on his pockmarked forehead. “It can’t wait!”

“Jesus Christ, we’re already a half hour late,” Art muttered, and swerved his old Subaru off the New Jersey Turnpike into an old rest area that’d been closed for as long as he could remember.

“If the door’s locked, you can shit outside around back,” he instructed, as Reilly bolted out of the car and waddled across the littered parking lot toward the men’s room. “Poor bastard’s not gonna make it,” he thought.

“Please don’t be locked, please don’t be locked, please d–” Reilly thought, clenching everything he had to avoid a humiliating disaster.

The door to the bathroom was not locked. Not anymore, at least. An old Master Lock lay in pieces on the chipped tile floor. There was no electricity; the only light coming in was from the clearly-unwashed skylights. The air, if what he was breathing could be considered such, was thick and fetid. Used.

None of that mattered. The nearest stall was open, and a grime-caked, waterless toilet, beckoned. He barged in, dropped his pants, and let go.

He sat, his elbows on his legs and his hands pressed against his eyes, until his body allowed him to move again. He sighed with relief and moved his hands, finally taking in the filth of the room around him.

It’d been a long time since anyone had cleaned the place, but not long since it’d been used. With a feeling of disgust, he glanced over to where the toilet paper should have been.

Then he saw it.

“What the fuck!” Reilly exclaimed, pulling the front of his shirt down and clamping his legs shut.

An eye was studying him from a jagged hole in the stall. Continue reading “A Questionable Glory Hole”

Never Ride the Subway at Night

From the moment I got on the train, I felt him staring at me. We were the only ones there. It was 2am.

“Just a random weirdo,” I thought. “Probably harmless.”

It was little comfort. I’d heard enough horror stories about the subway to know that if he wanted to hurt me, there’d be nothing to stop him.

I tried to focus on my phone while knowing he was still focusing on me. His glare was icy and dispassionate. Predatory. Despite it being late July in a hot subway car, I was covered in goosebumps.

“When’s the next stop?” I wondered. The ride felt like it was taking forever. Discomfort and fear began to swell inside my chest.

“Maybe I should sneak a picture of him, just in case he tries something. The cops can go through my phone and find out who hurt me. …or who killed me.” Continue reading “Never Ride the Subway at Night”

Are My Twins Spending Too Much Time Together?

This account was found in a data dump of the now-offline website, WokeMommies.com. It was a site dedicated to alternative medicine and natural treatments of illnesses. Its content was marked by an explicit distrust of modern medical science, claims of vaccine reactions, and corrupt doctors. No timestamps exist for the content, nor have any participants been identified in an official capacity.

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Hi Moms! My twin girls, Siobhan and Sharyn, are spending a LOT of time together. They’ve always been close, but it seems like they’ve really gravitated toward one another since they started getting their grown-up teeth. I tried looking to see if Dr. Wheeler’s website had any info about this and there wasn’t much. Does anyone else have experience with this?

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Hi Moms! I wrote the other day about my little Siobahn and Sharyn who’ve been spending what I feel is too much time together. I think it’s gotten worse. Now they cry when I separate them. I don’t want to make my girls upset, but they even insist on sleeping in the same bed and going to the bathroom together. I homeschool, of course — I’ve read too many scary stories about vaccines and vaccine reactions that make me want nothing to do with vaxxer kids — but I’m worried that’s making them get more dependent on one another since they’re in the house all day.

By the way, I want to thank the Mommy who replied last time with the recommendation to use that special root extract on the girls’ loose teeth. I was able to find the root in the backyard and it’s helped with the inflammation and pain.

Continue reading “Are My Twins Spending Too Much Time Together?”

The Black Balloons

“Balloon!” Janie shouted, pointing out the window.

Angie and I ignored her. We were arguing with Adrián, the hotel owner.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see your reservation here,” he repeated.

“Typical,” I muttered. “God damn typical.”

I’d spent a year getting this vacation planned out. Angie’s wanted to go to Costa Rica since she was a little girl and saw a documentary about the rainforest. It was our third anniversary. I was hoping it would be a special trip. The start was inauspicious.

“Balloon!” Janie yelled again, giggling and tugging my pant leg. I glanced over my shoulder through the picture windows overlooking the forest below.

“There’s no balloons, sweetheart,” I informed her, and turned back to the hotel owner.

“Look, I have the online confirmation right here. That’s the name of the hotel, yes? And that’s the address? And there, where it says ‘confirmed?’ Can that possibly mean anything else?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re just not in our system. If you and your family would like to go out on the patio and rest for a little while, I will see what I can do. I’ll send over a couple glasses of wine and some fruit juice for your beautiful little girl, okay? Just give me a little time.” Continue reading “The Black Balloons”

The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Surgeon’s Nightmare

“The Secret Doctors of NASA” is a series of memoirs, diaries, and reports from actual doctors employed by an undisclosed arm of NASA between 1970 and 2001. These writings contain true accounts of the unusual and often highly-classified medical conditions experienced by astronauts during and after their space missions. Following the defunding of the clandestine medical program after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the majority of these accounts were left, forgotten, on tape drives in a NASA storage facility. In 2016, a former intern, whose job was to clean out one of these facilities, discovered them. Two years later, he is ready to release what he found.

Thus far, the following reports have been released: A Dentist’s Discovery, A Psychologist’s Suicide.

Releaser’s note: This account is from a post-surgery oral memoir dictated by an unnamed surgeon to an anonymous NASA official. The background circumstances are unknown.

A Surgeon’s Nightmare

Look, I’d been awake for two straight days. You guys have been putting us through hell with all the injuries from the Hephaestus Project, so forgive me if my results weren’t as great as they could have been. But come the hell on – what do you expect when someone comes to me in that condition?

So you want to know what happened in my own words? Fine. But don’t get pissed when I call your practices into question.

The patient was admitted with significant injuries to his legs, torso, arms, and head. On the surface, they appeared to be lacerations, which was strange because their severity would have caused near-instantaneous exsanguination and they would’ve gone straight to the morgue, not to me. Closer inspection revealed the wounds had been sealed by intense cold, as if the patient had been frozen either while being injured or immediately after. He was still clinging to life.

Continue reading “The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Surgeon’s Nightmare”

Randall’s Chatty Leg

It’s been just me and my brother for the last fourteen years. No one else. He’s Randall. I’m Joe.

Randall thinks his leg doesn’t belong to him. I thought he was crazy. He is, of course. We both are. We’ve always been. But this seemed different. Still, I didn’t believe him until his foot started to talk.

“I’m gonna hurt you, Randall,” the foot announced. It was the middle of the night. The voice woke us both up.

“See!” shouted my brother. “See!”

I bolted upright and turned on the bedside lamp and looked across the room. My brother’s fat foot was sticking out from underneath the sheet. His toes were wiggling.

“I’ll walk you off the roof and you’ll go splat all over the sidewalk. Just like your Daddy did.” Continue reading “Randall’s Chatty Leg”