The siren wailed, cutting through all other noise inside the firehouse.  Throughout the building, men and women paused in their current activities, their heads rising up like deer sniffing at the breeze.

In the break room, I cursed as I fought at the blankets on the cot that tried to ensnare me, wrapping around my limbs.  By the time I managed to fight my way free, I could already hear the rhythmic thudding of boots as the other firefighters hurried downstairs.

Scrambling up from the bed, I checked myself.  I wasn’t wearing much besides an undershirt and boxers, but that would just save me time in changing into my protective gear.  I sprinted out of the dark break room, grabbing the fireman’s pole and sliding down to the bay floor.

Expressions were tense as we all loaded up our gear and hurried to our trucks.  The last summer had been one of the hottest and driest on record, and the whole area was ready to go up in flames with just one spark in the wrong place.

We knew how much pressure rested on our shoulders.

I ran for my own truck, number nineteen.  A lucky number, according to Stephen King.  I enjoyed his books during my downtime, although some of the plots seemed a bit hackneyed.

I pulled myself up onto the truck, climbing into the cage on the back.  I caught Charlie’s eye in the rear view mirror, and he gunned the truck into life as soon as my foot left the cement floor.

Next to me, my fellow cage rider, Claire, gave me a chuckle.  “Just barely made it, huh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

Before answering her, I checked my equipment, patting myself down to make sure I had everything.  Coat, gloves, tank, mask machete.  Everything was in place.

“Not my fault – I was asleep,” I answered her, once I’d confirmed that all my equipment was in place.  I loosened the machete in its holster, just so that it would slide out easily if I needed it.  “I made damn good time for starting from being unconscious.”

Claire just smirked back at me.  One of the few female firefighters to make the cut, even with our limited manpower, she never missed a chance to deal out a stinging insult to the men around her.  Most of us, however, had learned to shrug them off, knowing that she just needed to keep on proving her worth.

We all wanted to belong.  We all needed to constantly validate that we belonged on the team.

The truck swung out, heading down the streets with siren wailing as Charlie steered us towards our destination.  “What’s the call about?” I asked Claire, my voice raised to carry over the rushing wind.

“Not sure – think it’s industrial!” she shouted back.  “We might have some Zees wandering around, too, spreading the blaze!”

I cursed.  I hated dealing with Zees.  Sure, they were an almost unavoidable part of this job, but they never quite sat right with me.

It wasn’t like they were dangerous, most of the time.  Sure, they’d try and take a bite out of you if they caught you sleeping, but most of them didn’t have much strength left, and they weren’t smart enough to get through a door or past a barrier.

Still, those dead eye sockets always gave me a little shiver.  I could never quite forget that they’d once been someone’s family, someone’s parent or friend, reduced to so little.

They were a problem for us, however.  All that dry, desiccated flesh was flammable – and even when they caught ablaze, they kept on moving, trying dumbly to get away.

I turned and glanced over my shoulder.  Soon enough, I could see the big, dark plume of smoke rising up from the buildings ahead of us.  The fire.  Charlie didn’t slow the truck, but he gave a toot of the horn to let us know to get ready.

As we pulled around the last corner, and the burning factory came into view, I noticed that there seemed to be a lot more Zees around than usual.  Most of them weren’t alight, at least, but they seemed to be everywhere; the truck crunched over a couple of them without stopping.

My radio crackled as the truck came to a stop.  “Call from Dispatch,” Charlie announced to us.  “Apparently, the Zees were being held somewhere around here.  Boss says to try not to kill them if we can avoid it.”

I saw Claire roll her eyes as she picked up her comm to respond.  “Don’t kill them?  Charlie, they’re a fire hazard, even if they can’t bite through our suits.  What are we supposed to do, politely ask them to stand aside?”

“Hey, just relaying orders,” our truck’s driver replied.  “Don’t shoot the messenger.  Just don’t cut them down if they’re not a problem.”

Raj, the co-pilot sitting up front, didn’t break radio silence.  But I knew that he had to be wearing a hell of a scowl right now.  Raj had his own vendetta against Zees, and we knew when he was driving – he always swerved to make sure he got them under our big wheels.

No time to think about that now, though.  With the truck stopped, Claire scrambled back to get the hose up, focusing on washing down the outside of the building, cutting off flames before they could spread.  I, on the other hand, climbed down from the truck.

“Any word on people inside?” I asked in the comm.

“No clue,” came the response.  “Give it a check, best as you can, but don’t push too hard if you feel it’s unsafe.  It’s a factory, after all, and the place is liable to come down soon.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.  I could already feel the heat radiating out from the building, pushing against my exposed face.  I flipped my mask down to protect myself.

One of the Zees came tottering out of the building as I strode closer, waving its skeletal, emaciated arms above its head as it gasped out a soundless shriek.  I could already see the flames climbing up the left side of its body.

My machete slid smoothly out of its scabbard.  The first stroke took off the Zee’s head, and the counterstroke took off a limb and part of the torso.  The poor thing collapsed down to the ground, still blazing fiercely.

I shook my head for a moment, feeling bad for the dumb, now twice-dead corpse, and then headed into the burning building.

There’s a feeling, Elle considered to herself, that can come from darkness.

She clutched the slightly bent tire iron closer to herself as she tried to see further, blinking her eyes in a futile attempt to help her night vision.  All around her, the shadows grew deep and thick before congealing into a solid mass of impenetrable blankness.

Elle normally felt accustomed to darkness.  She was, after all, a creature of the half-dark, spending most of her waking hours prowling in the twilight.  It was always a delicate balancing act; she had to wait until the sun had sank down to kiss the horizon, to the point when most of the other bands of hunters would have already set up their camps and turned in for the night.

But Elle also knew that for each moment she waited, the sun grew a little dimmer, and her window shrank.  And if she waited too long, darkness would come sweeping over her like a crashing wave of surf.  That darkness brought its own terrors with it, far more ephemeral than the bands of hunters, but just as deadly.

Tonight, the darkness felt especially thick…

Up ahead, she spied the outline of a door, and Elle leapt forward.  The door was locked, of course, but she managed to dig the pointed end of the tire iron into the gap and wedge the door open enough for her slender frame to slip inside.

Out of habit, she hit the light switch, even though she knew the power had gone out years ago.  It was a habit, left over from those vague memories of when the switches had still worked, when humans had still held off the darkness.

She shone her headlamp around the room, taking in the disheveled appearance.  Someone had ransacked this little habitation already, but it looked like they’d just done a quick sweep.  There were always more treasures left behind, goodies that a little scavenger like Elle could use.

She was so focused on rummaging through the piles of disorganized goods that she didn’t see the darkness creeping in through the gap between the front door and the frame.

Behind Elle, tendrils of that curiously thick, heavy darkness crept in, sliding along the walls and ceiling.  They moved curiously, as though they were two-dimensional, only painted across the three dimensions of the room.  They slid over precariously balanced piles of junk without disturbing a single item.

Elle’s hands were deep in the pile, but she wrenched her whole body back with a cry of success as the dented but still sealed can came free.  The effort sent her tumbling backwards – and her cry died in her throat as she landed on her back and stared up at the tentacles rapidly combining on the room’s stained ceiling.

“What?” she gasped out, her voice sounding strangled.  She tried to aim her light up towards the ceiling, but although the darkness shrank back slightly, it didn’t peel and burn away under her light’s glare.

A scratching sound made Elle spin around, staring with wide eyes at the door.  Something was tugging at the door, trying to drag it further open.  Something out in the darkness.

“Is anyone there?” she half-whispered, trying to feel around for where she’d dropped her tire iron, her eyes locked on the door’s outline as it rapidly disappeared into that thick darkness.

“No,” came the whisper back, drifting in from a hundred dead, dusty mouths.

Elle’s head whipped around.  The words sounded as though they’d come from every direction at once – and as she tried to scramble back to her feet, tiny filaments slid out from the darkness that now painted every corner and wall of the room around her.

“No one’s here,” the darkness whispered softly.  The tire iron cut through a dozen threads with each swing, but a hundred took their place, moving in on the terrified girl.  “No one is here.”

As those threads wrapped around her limbs, leaching the life and light from her body, Elle tried to scream – but the darkness absorbed even that last cry.

“No one is here.”

And when the darkness in the room seemed to grow less oppressive, less heavy and dense, those words were true.

When I stepped outside, the squirrel raised its head to stare at me.  Even though I was close, however, it showed no fear as it watched me with unblinking eyes.

It wasn’t until the third turn of the key in the ignition, my heart pounding in my throat, that the engine finally turned over, coughing and sputtering to life.

I glanced down at my feet, only to see a winged shadow pass directly over me.  When I looked up, there was nothing in the sky.

She didn’t say anything, but I caught her looking at me out of the corner of my eye, a resigned frown on her face.

It wasn’t until I had closed my eyes and laid back down that I heard the sound again – a faint scratching from somewhere in the dark room.

As I felt my foot descend on nothing, panic blossomed in my mind.  There had only been twelve steps, I thought, not thirteen.

A smudge on my glasses, I thought, as the shape loomed at the corner of my vision once again – but then I remembered I was wearing contacts.

When I stepped onto the subway car, a dozen pairs of eyes scrolled over me.  One pair, however, seemed to linger far too long on my face.

Sitting uselessly in the waiting room, I stared blankly at the painting on the wall across from me.  Somehow, the face seemed to be sneering back.

A sudden, faint pressure against my skin made me jerk, as though I’d walked through a spider’s web, even though I stood in my own kitchen.

My eyes snapped open.  I was still in bed.  But for a moment, I felt as though the blankets were bindings, preventing me from moving even a finger.

From the moment I woke up, I knew that something was wrong.

Ever feel that prickling at the back of your shoulder blades, that phantom sensation that just won’t go away?  It happens when you’ve missed something, something important.  One time, I totally forgot about the fact that I had jury duty, and I walked around all day with this prickling in between my shoulder blades, sure that the Sword of Damocles was waiting just above my head, about to drop.

That was how I felt today, ever since I woke up.

Try as I might, however, I can’t remember what could be wrong, what I could have forgotten.  I caught my bus as I hid from the rain in the shelter of the stop, went to work, put in my mindless eight hours of sitting at my desk and transferring files between spreadsheets, got on the bus again, came home, cooked the last pizza in my freezer (I need to get more food), and went to bed.

The next day, the prickling was still there.

Now, I knew that something was wrong.  That sense of unease was stronger, as if there was something right in front of me that I should be seeing, that my eyes were just skipping past.

I knew that something was wrong.

I just didn’t know what it was.

I went to work again, putting up my coat to cover my hair against the rain.  I did my work, toiling away at those endless spreadsheets.  At home, I popped open my fridge, pulled out the frozen pizza (last one, I needed to go shopping), and tried to think as I ate.

What could be wrong?  I felt my skin was a size too small, like I itched inside of it.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep.

The next morning, the feeling was even worse.  Prickling all over, pins and needles coursing through my entire body.  I could barely think as I stared out the window at the pouring rain.  I knew that I had to go to work, but I felt as though my thoughts were moving through molasses.

Dash through the rain to the bus.  Open up my spreadsheets – sometimes, it seemed like I wasn’t even making any progress on them.  Eight hours and change later, I stumbled back into my apartment, going for the frozen pizza (last one) in the fridge.

I needed to go shopping for food, I thought blearily to myself.  I had a small pad of paper sitting on the counter, and I picked up a pen.  I noticed with annoyance that I was down to the last sheet of paper.  There was something written on it already, but I crossed that out and wrote “buy pizza” underneath.

I was already getting tired.  I collapsed into bed, but I knew that I was missing something.

I almost slept through my alarm the next morning.  Clamber up, pull on my coat against the pouring rain outside, and run for the bus.  Data entry.  Frozen pizza.  The prickling was still there.

I know something’s wrong.

Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

I just sat there, staring at her across the table.  Something was wrong, I knew it.  There was something off about her, something that just didn’t feel right.

It all started a few days ago.  She had gone to sleep before me, as usual, turning in and crawling into the sheets on her side of the bed while I stayed up late, trying to finish the never-ending pile of work.  But when I finally stood up, rubbed my eyes, and headed to the bedroom, something wasn’t the same.  Something was different.

I barely noticed it, then.  I saw her in the bed, curled up, and just felt uneasy.  Sometimes, when a roach crawls on my skin, I just barely feel it, something wrong moving about on me.  That’s the best way I can describe the feeling.  Something about her wasn’t right.

That night, I was too tired to think much of it.  I shrugged it off, crawled into bed beside her, and fell asleep without much issue.

But the feeling didn’t go away.

For the next few days, it just grew stronger and stronger, every time I looked at her.  She wasn’t the same.  Oh, she acted like nothing was wrong, smiled and joked with me, but sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I thought that I could see her expression melt away into blankness.

I began staring at her, watching all of her little habits closely.  The way she pushed back her hair – had she always done it like that?  Did she always curl her finger around the strands as she tucked them up behind her ear?  I couldn’t remember.  But it wasn’t right.  It was somehow off, different, a mocking imitation of what I remembered.

It crept into her speech, too.  When I asked her a question, something about our history, our past, I could see it.  For just an instant, she’d freeze before answering.  She almost looked like she was thinking.  Like she was recalling the answer.

But I could see that brief moment of total blankness in her eyes.

There was something in her head; I was sure of it, convinced of it.  Something on her brain.  Or in it, pulling all the strings to make her move like a marionette.

I began staring into her ears, into that hole of blackness.  It’s such a big hole.  Any number of things could crawl inside of there, could invade through those open gates.

We went to the doctor, under the guise of a yearly checkup.  The doctor checked for brain tumors, at my request.  He saw nothing.  But I didn’t feel reassured.

See, it’s getting worse.  Every time I talk to her, I see that moment of blankness.  I’ve trained myself to spot it now, to see it whenever she tries to get near me.  She says she just wants to comfort me, to hold me in her arms like we used to, but I don’t remember that.  It, that thing inside her, can’t truly pretend to be her.

I know it’s inside her.  When I look at her, I see a roach, a nasty little insect inside her brain, scuttling around and making her dance.  I shudder, I look away, but I still see it inside of her in my mind’s eye.

I am positive it’s there.

Please, you have to believe me.  I knew it was there, but I knew no one would believe me without proof.  If I could just find it, could cut it out and hold it aloft in triumph as I crush it between my fingers, I would finally be able to rest again, to sleep.

It’s in here, somewhere.  I had to cut in, to search for it.  I know it’s here.

I was careful.  I used plastic sheets, made sure that it had nowhere to escape.  It must be in one of these pieces, hidden away like a roach.

It must be here.

Horror is usually achieved through creeping suspense.  Can flash fiction successfully capture horror?  I think so!

1.
I hadn’t realized how far the raft had drifted out into the lake; we seemed to be at the center, surrounded by inky blackness. My friend had jumped in a couple hours ago, promising to swim to shore to get help. She still hadn’t come up for air…

2.
With a hiss, the shuttle detached from the space station. Inside, Davies breathed a sigh of relief; the virus had been contained before it breached the shuttle. But as the shuttle drifted away, something was still scratching at the outside of the airlock.

3.
Somehow, I seemed to have far more karma on Reddit than I remembered. I had definitely blacked out last night; had I posted something? It wasn’t until the /r/gonewild comments started that I realized what I’d done.

Author’s note: /r/gonewild is a place where people post naked pictures of themselves.

4.
Ironically, I’d been reading about aneurysms when the nosebleed started. “How annoying,” I thought to myself as I reached for a tissue. But now the box is empty, and the blood isn’t stopping.

5.
I stared down at my daughter.  She looked just how I remembered her, wearing the same pale pink dress the mortician had picked out.  “Daddy?” she whispered out of the darkness.

6.
I stared around at the people as they passed, spinning in circles on the crowded sidewalk.  No one else but me could see the demons, writhing beneath their skin.  I would have to burn them out.

7.
The man grinned as he closed in on her in the alley, a vicious and sadistic grin. She could feel her limbs already getting heavy; there must have been something in that last drink. “Now,” the man leered as he pulled a knife from his pocket, “I think it’s time to have some fun.“