Tragic endings, terrifying dystopias, gruesome deaths…
Let’s put YOUR grimdark prompt suggestions on the Wheel, spin it, then write some horrifying short stories together!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we come up with some grimdark story ideas, put them on the wheel, then spin and write them.
Watch the full stream here.
For those who don’t know, “grimdark” is a genre that is similar to horror (violent disturbing, gross), but without a happy ending. Quite often in grimdark stories, the monster isn’t defeated, it wins.
Chat came up with some excellent grimdark ideas like:
- The kid you have to babysit drowns ins in the tub.
- Ex-girlfriend takes you back after she wins the lottery… and as long as you do whatever she wants.
- A young girl being hunted down at night only to find out its her own father.
We put all the ideas on a wheel, spun it, and it landed on:
Every time someone makes physical contact with you, that part of you dissolves into nothingness
Here’s what we came up with:
As I lay on the hospital bed, my fingers touching Ashley’s, I felt them slowly dissolving, bit by bit. Tendon by tendon. Burning all the way down.
I wish I could say that her warm hand made the pain go away. That I could ignore the searing agony slowly rippling down my fingers like burning wax candles. But that would be a lie.
A lie that I’ve lived for far too long.
Ashley and I had been friends since even before I developed my disease in sixth grade. She was the only one who would still come over to hang out after I’d been wrapped in sterilized linens, the only thing that didn’t cause my skin to painfully dissolve away upon any sort of contact.
She was the only one who didn’t cry or scream when I showed my dissolved finger tips, the bones sticking out like fish hooks.
Now, the dissolving tissue has reached my palm. A fire line burning through a forest of my own flesh. It even smells like a barbeque gone wrong.
Ashley was the only one who put up with all the ridiculous crap I had to do to even interact with the world. Any touch had to be done through a sterilized linen sheet, whether it was holding a game controller or giving a high five with a skeleton-tipped hand. She was always smiling and willing to put up with it to hang out with me.
She helped me pretend it was okay for six years. That I could potentially live a life having tubes carefully siphoned down my throat spraying every liquid meal. That having waste bags attached to my front and back holes, that had long since disintegrated away any semblance of organs, was fine and dandy.
Honestly, if that was the extent of it, maybe I could’ve done it. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the pain.
The pain of feeling every cell of your skin screaming in agony as it ate itself away. The pain of knowing that it would never come back. The pain of watching yourself die in realtime.
Now Ashely’s fingers are wrapped around my skeleton hand. I can’t feel anything, except the heat now devouring my wrist.
Ashley knew all that. She was the only one who understood me. That was why, when I asked her to kiss me on the lips, she didn’t even hesitate.
The brief, wonderful flash of warmth lasted only as long as my lips did. A lightning crack of pain in my mouth killed it, electrifying my head and body. I screamed for it to stop, but my words were mangled by my dissolving lips and gums. My teeth spilled onto the carpet like bloody hailstones.
By the time my parents burst into the room, my tongue was writhing on the floor, a slowly dissolving worm of despair flailing in a hissing puddle of mucus.
Now, half of my arm is gone as Ashley pulls my limp bone-limb to help me sit up on the hospital bed, then stand as the doctors and my parents give us space.
Once again, she understands me. She knows what I want, even without a tongue for me to ask.
She leans in for a full body hug.
I’d forgotten what this feels like, the embrace of another person. The pressure. The sense of safety. The endorphins lumbering through what is left of my veins.
The instantaneous inferno that erupts on every inch of my skin.
Some sort of inhuman noise comes out of the crusted black hole of what used to be my mouth. I try to remember the brief joy of feeling Ashley’s hug, but it’s so far, far away now.
Her hands may not make the pain go away. But at least they’ll send me to Heaven.
…please. God. Hurry up. And send me. Right now Hell is taking its sweet time eating its way through me from the bottom up.
After that, we spun the wheel again, and it landed on:
A person out for a walk is stalked by a car.
Here’s what we wrote:
The first time I saw the car was after my mom died. I was back at school, the funeral over, walking home and holding back tears as I tried not to think about how I wasn’t going to get my welcome-home grilled cheese sandwich from her ever again.
I didn’t even notice at first. There were other cars, and my mind was elsewhere. But when I turned down the sidewalk off main street, and it turned with me, I couldn’t help but glance at it.
It drove by me, then slowed down to my speed. I thought maybe it was someone who was going to ask for directions, or offer me candy like they always taught us in school.
But the driver didn’t say anything. I couldn’t even see through the tinted windows. At one point in the far past the car itself must’ve been a nice blue, but now it was sunfaded and rusted around every edge, as if it had been lightly cooked over a fire.
It drove alongside me, then when I turned down my street, it stopped. I don’t remember if I tried to ignore it or glanced back at it a hundred times as I dashed up to my front door and went inside. All I do remember is locking the door and creeping over to the window to peer out at it.
The car slowly drove past the front of my house. It didn’t have any license plates.
I didn’t tell Dad about the car, he had enough on his plate as it was, and after a week or so I’d forgotten all about it.
Until I walked over to my friend Mason’s house and it appeared behind me, right out of nowhere. This time I booked it, and the car revved its engine after me. Mere feet before it slammed into me, I swerved into a yard and it stopped right at the edge of the sidewalk.
I didn’t look back as I cut through yards, and when I got to Mason’s house, covered in leaves and smears of dog crap, the car was there, idling at the end of the cul-de-sac.
I screamed, and needless to say, Dad came to pick me up pretty soon after.
I told him about the car, and we looked up records and pictures together, but we came up empty handed. With no license plates, we didn’t have much to go by. Even the police laughed us off when I couldn’t even tell them the make and model of the car.
It’s a 1979 Cadillac DeVille. I know because I’ve seen it enough god damn times to know. I stopped walking home from school, but on the bus I’d see it. On trips down the highway I’d see it. Even visiting family in another state, I’d see it slowly driving down the road from our backyard barbeque. I never had much of an appetite afterward.
It’s been ten years. I’m sick of it. Today, I walked home from school for the first time since that first fateful day. I’m not a little girl anymore. Whoever this creep is, I’m ready to punch him in his ugly face.
It didn’t take long for the car to show up. I turned down the same sidewalk, and it turned with me. Instead of running, I stopped in my tracks on the empty street and stood my ground. The car pulled up next to me and stopped too. I couldn’t help but notice that every window, every single rust stain, looked exactly the same as it always had.
Then, the driver side window rolled down. I’d been prepared to tell off some asshole. I hadn’t been prepared for this.
What was driving that car was barely human. It had a face, two eyes and a smile, but its skin was sickly white cottage cheese. A few thick, wiry strands of hair dangled off the side as it tapped its jagged fingernails against the steering wheel. Some sort of pungent acidic smell leaked out of the window into the fresh air.
Before I had a chance to scream or cough or cover my mouth, the thing spoke in a low, hissy voice like a gas leak.
“Burnt rubber.”
The window rolled back up, and for the first time, the car drove away, the exhaust sputtering as if laughing at me. I stood there watching it, until it was gone from view.
And then ran back home.
My heart pounded as I branded the image of that creep into my head, ready to describe him perfectly to the police. Not that it was hard to forget. It was a face I’d be seeing in nightmares forever.
I burst through our front door, then went to lock it behind me, but my hand stopped. Something was wrong.
A smell.
I shot a glance out the window for the car, but it wasn’t there. Instead, Dad’s car was in the driveway. But he was never home this early.
The smell grew worse and worse, thick invisible clouds suffocating me as I walked through the living room and into the kitchen.
Dad was there. He’d been cooking a welcome-home grilled cheese sandwich for me. Just like Mom used to do.
Before then, I never knew that charred flesh smelled exactly like burnt rubber.
Be sure to check out the video for some dramatic readings!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
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Hope to see you next time, friend!
Top image: Pixabay (edited by me)