Insatiable

content warnings: general horror, implications of torture, mutilation and gore these prompts can be taken as direct dialogue, part of a description you’d use, or just as a prompt. feel free to change pronouns and input names as you see fit. taken from stephen jones’ edited collection, a book of horrors, and slightly edited in some instances.

———

and then it all started to come back.

“almost there, baby. almost home.”

“you been away someplace, [name]?”

“i’d kind of figured i was done, but two more won’t hurt.”

“you go on – ain’t like you’re gonna be going anyplace once you get there.”

“oh, he’ll already know.”

“where’s she gone?”

“she can’t have disappeared.”

“huh, i thought that place was empty.”

well, what are poltergeists?

“they’re here, [name]. all of ‘em! they’re all here.”

“i thought i saw someone at the window.”

“nobody there now.”

“you are tired, aren’t you, sweetie?”

“what did she mean – ‘they’re all here’?”

“she didn’t seem happy about it, that’s for sure.”

“looks like i got the wrong end of the stick.”

“naughty girl.”

“yeah, my fault. don’t get pissed at her.”

“it was raining in your house?”

he’s in the house, a little voice whispered at the back of her head. this isn’t a good idea.

“unless you’re dead.”

“didn’t make it into the newspapers yet. or on the tv. will, though.”

“uh, huh. took her near on twelve hours to die.”

it’s not true that poltergeists are just mischievous, not at all.

imagine if you had a whole family of poltergeists.

the audience laughed.

poltergeists are not the kittens of the spectral plane, they’re more the… raptors. like in jurassic park. ghosts with teeth.

there was nobody there.

“of course there’s nobody there.”

what do you say to all this, [name]?

“oh, that’s typical. typical of you, [name]. you try to belittle people who are trying to discuss something.”

“i think you’re getting too much sex.”

“and don’t do that, either. that hurt thing. that expression you use when you’re trying to make out you’ve been wounded.”

“jeez, but these cookies are good. where’d you get ‘em?”

“[name]?” her full name… the one he always used on the rare occasions he was angry with her. or scared, a voice whispered in his head.

you talk about ghosts as being infestations.

“let me turn off that fucking radio.”

“you didn’t— didn’t have a fight, did you?”

“here we all are again.”

“you’re having quite a day of it.”

“did you say goodbye to your friends, [name]?”

“oh we are multitudes, [name]. and we’re gonna have ourselves some fun. after all, ain’t like you’re gonna be going anyplace.”

“or you’ve made a mistake in one or more parts of your story.”

“you mean, ‘or i lied’. that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“we have to keep all options open.”

“you might even have a poltergeist.”

ghosts with teeth, a voice said at the back of [name]’s head. that’s what he said, the guy on the phone. ghosts with teeth.

“the fire’s not even lit.”

“let’s talk about poltergeists.”

it looked like they had come to do some kind of repair work, for they carried all manner of tools – saws, hammers and drills, plus coils of twine.

the light was still on.

there was silence, but it was not a good silence, not a calm or quiet silence. rather than it being simply nothing – just a quietness with nothing added – this felt like a quietness with its very soul removed.

“i did lock it. i did call out. but you didn’t answer.”

“she’s with you, [name].”

“where do you keep your knives, [name]? ah, okay… i got them.”

what? what was it exactly? halloween? the boogeyman? a gen-you-whine ‘thing’ from someplace where there were no lights and no smiles, no love and no softness, only pain and grief and sadness, loss and regret…

“because i’m a sheriff. an upholder of the law.”

“my friends and me, we’ve been educating. and i think it’s fair to say that our students have been fascinated with what we had to show them. yes, indeedy. oh, they’ve occasionally been surprised and… well, often they’ve been a mite uncomfortable. but, you know what they say: ‘knowledge is power. and strength.’ they do say that, don’t they, [name].”

“did you know the small intestine is twenty-two feet long? i didn’t know that. and [name] didn’t know it either. believe me. oh, but you know, it does so make for a swell wall display.”

“who are you?”

“you, dear [name]? oh, there’s nothing wrong with you. not yet, anyways.”

“the tools of my trade,” he said, and he set all the knives out in a line next to each other.

“and i don’t respond to the things you would expect a thinking, caring person would respond to. what do they call it? sociopathic tendencies? something like that, i think. the thing is, the things i do, i don’t do simply because i enjoy doing them – though to be fair about this, i do – but rather i do them because i have to do them. does that make sense?”

“no… no it doesn’t make sense.”

“you’re trying to multi-task here, aren’t you?”

“[name], let’s pretend i can’t see you and can’t tell you’re shaking your head. let’s pretend i can only hear your voice… and that if i don’t get a good answer, then i’ll go right ahead and chop off that finger. and what you need to worry about then is where do i stop. you understand that, [name]?”

“yes. yes i understand.”

“because i am one of the pain people, [name]. in fact, i am the pain man. delivered to your very door, agonies beyond belief. beyond even your most fevered imagination. it’s what i do, [name]. you understand that? it’s my job. what was it they said on the radio? ghosts with teeth? i like that. i do like that.”

“causing pain is what you do.”

“i don’t want to go downstairs.”

“i don’t want to go—”

“welcome, my friend, to the show that never ends.”

“i seen this in a movie one time.”