Martin broke up with his girlfriend because he thought she was a witch. #ScaryStories #horror #rt @gothamghosts 
He didn’t like to be manipulated—he was independent, if a bit scattered: the piles of newspapers in his apartment organized; the clean cat food tins destined for the recycling bin; the ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.
To his friends he was an eccentric—quick to anger, always with a smoke in his hand, but a man that would give you the shirt off his back.
He was the kind of guy who would answer the door on Halloween bobbing up and down to the Grateful Dead, his shirt threadbare and crooked, but with full-size Snickers, such a bounty.
He was forgetful, and a little blind, which is why he didn’t notice the small changes at first, the way the apartment became something else, as the rooms hummed, continuously snuffing out the light.
At first he just chalked it up to the rattling windows, a cool breeze slipping in now and then, the candles flickering out in quick succession.
When he decided to unclog the trap in the shower, the long black hair mixed in with soapy residue, it was just the last in a series of memories he’d rather forget.
He didn’t even like to say her name out loud—Bethany.
The dead flies on the windowsill were common in cold weather—until the day they came back to life in a tornado of buzzing anger.
He stood on the back porch, listening to the city around him, his brow furrowed, teeth grinding, the cigarette in his right hand snaking down to ash, but not before burning his dirty fingertips.
The tiny sculptures were discovered over the week leading up to Halloween—creations that had been nestled into the shadows, suddenly revealed.
The first was in the bathroom—old remnants of the perfumed soaps that Bethany liked, in elderberry, sandalwood, and patchouli—molded together by unseen hands into a tiny, winding serpent.
The second rested in a corner of the back porch—twigs and branches bound with stained twine, a lump of something red resting beneath the pyramid of wood, feathers, and fiber.
The third was under his pillow—a bound satchel made of odd parchment, filled with teeth and red hair, fingernails ringed with dirt.
They all burned, eventually, in the barbeque pit he had out back, his eyes glassing over as the flames hypnotized, whispers that Bethany used to tongue into his ear at night flickering over the darkening stage.
When Halloween finally arrived, and the children came and went, Martin breathed a sigh of relief, his bowl of candy empty.
As he washed the sticky residue off of his hands, he noticed tiny cuts on his fingers, little teeth marks, and mottled spots that spread like a disease.
Looking in the mirror at the dark circles under his eyes, he suddenly felt tired—his longing for Bethany a distant ache, his sadness over their last fight a tension in his gut.
He could only remember her anger—saliva spattering his face, her fingernails scratching down his arm, muscled hands moving quickly in odd gestures as she drifted out the door into the night.
The coroner said heart attack, and in many ways they were right, but it took three attempts for the aging mortician to close Martin’s eyes—his wide gaze filled with horror, a tiny silhouette etched upon each blood-filled cornea.
@threadreaderapp unroll
