She walked by the same wall Lana had not long ago, pausing at one 
of the professional photos taken by Lana's current agency. She was 
skinny back then, six months ago, but even more skinny now. Yet 
she insisted on going days without eating, and, when she did eat, it 
was always low fat, low calorie, tiny portions. Maria had lost count of 
the times she had told her girlfriend she was skinny enough, 
beautiful enough - that it wasn't sexy to have clumps of hair falling 
out and be too tired for anything more intimate than a kiss. The 
arguments were wearing them both down, but Lana was always 
exhausted now, it seemed, and it made Maria not want to say a 
word to her, especially not one born of anger. 


Maria continued on her short journey to the en-suite. Lana would be 
in there putting her face on, preparing herself for the day ahead, and 
Maria just wanted to tell her how beautiful she was before she was 
covered in slap and her girlfriend wrongly believed Maria's attraction 
was just due to her make-up, and another fight started again. 


Maria knocked on the door gently, and, when there was no reply, 
tried the handle and opened the door. What she saw there nearly 
made her pass out from shock; she had to clutch the counter-top to 
stop from falling to the ground. 


Lana stood in front of the mirror but instead of blotting on foundation 


or finishing her eyeliner, there was a set of pliers in her hand. Blood 
dripped down them slowly and then ran onto the pale hand holding 
them. Lana's eyes were focused on the mirror - she hadn't even 
looked away as Maria came in. 


There was the soft noise of a tooth ripping free from its gummy 
surroundings - a horrible noise of something breaking, fleshy and 
raw, and the metallic scent of a newly-opened wound. It must have 
hurt, but Lana didn't make a sound. She simply kept her mouth 
wide, wide, wide open so as not to miss a single tooth. The most 
recently removed one clattered into the sink with a handful of its 
brothers, all bloodstained and some cracked by the pressure the 
pliers had delivered onto them. 


As Maria started to call to her, in a panic, Lana calmly went on to the 
next tooth, and gripped the pliers around it, imagining a future her 
with an amazing figure and false teeth that were perfect and straight 
and white, because they never chewed food, just sipped her meals 
through a straw. This was the answer she wanted and she was 
going to take it. 


To Maria, it was a horror show. To Lana, it was simply the price of 
beauty. 


The Ragdoll 


When | was a small child, | was terrified of the dark. | still am, but 
back when | was around six years old | couldn’t go a full night 
without crying out for one of my parents to search beneath my bed 
or in my closet for whatever monster | thought was waiting to eat 
me. Even with a night light, | would still see dark shapes moving 
around the corners of the room, or strange faces looking in on me 
from my bedroom window. My parents would do their best to 
console me, telling me that it was just a bad dream or a trick of the 
light, but in my young mind | was positive that the second | fell 
asleep, the bad things would get me. Most of the time | would just 
hide under the blankets until | became tired enough to stop worrying, 
but every now and then | would become so panicked that | would 
run screaming into my parents room, waking up my brother and 
sister in the process. After an ordeal like that, there would be no way 
anyone would be getting a full nights rest. 


Eventually, after one particularly traumatizing night, my parents had 
had enough. Unfortunately for them, they understood the futility in 
arguing with a six year old and knew that they would be unable to 
convince me to rid myself of childish fears through reason and logic. 
They had to be clever. 


It was my mother’s idea to stitch together my little bedtime friend. 


She collected a large assortment of random pieces of fabric and her 
sewing machine and created what | would later refer to as Mr. 
Ickbarr Bigelsteine, or Ick for short. Ick was a sock monster, as my 
mother called him. He was made to keep me safe while | slept at 
night by scaring away all the other monsters. He was pretty damn 
creepy, | had to admit. Honestly, looking back on it all now, I’m still 
impressed that my mom could think of something so strange and 
disturbing looking. Ickbarr had the stitched together look of a 
Frankenstein gremlin, with big white button eyes and floppy cat ears. 
His little arms and legs were made from a pair of my sister’s black 


and white striped socks, and the half of his face that was green was 
made from one of my brother’s tall football socks. His head could 
have been described as bulbous, and for his mouth my mom 
attached a piece of white fabric and sewed in a zigzag pattern to 
shape a wide grin of sharp teeth. | loved him at once. 


From then on, Ick never left my side. So long as it was after dusk, of 
course. Ick didn’t like the sun, and would get upset if | tried to bring 
him to school with me. But that was okay, | only needed him at night 
to keep away the boogeymen, which was what he was good at. So 
every night at bedtime, Ick would tell me where the monsters were 
hiding, and | would place him near the section of my room closest to 
the spookiness. If there was something in the closet, Ick would block 
the door. If there was a dark creature scratching at my window, Ick 
would be pressed up against the glass. If there was a big hairy beast 
under my bed, then under the bed he went. Sometimes the 
monsters weren't even in my room. Sometimes, they would hide in 
my dreams, and Ickbarr would have to come with me into my 
nightmares. It was fun bringing Ick into my dream world, as he and | 
would spend hours fighting off ghouls and demons. The best part 
was, in my dreams, Ick could talk to me for real. “How much do you 
love me?” He would ask. 

“More than anything.” | would always tell him. One night in a dream, 
after | had lost my first tooth, Ick asked me for a favor. 


“Can | have your tooth?” 
| asked him why. 
“To help me kill the bad things,” he said. 


The next morning at breakfast, my mom asked me where my tooth 
went. From what she told me, the “tooth fairy” didn’t find it under my 
pillow. When | told her that | gave it to Ickbarr, she just shrugged 
and went back to feeding my little sister. From then on, every time | 
lost a tooth, | would give it to Ick. He would always thank me, of 
course, and tell me that he loved me. Eventually though, | ran out of 
baby teeth, and | was beginning to get a little too old to still be 
playing with dolls. So Ick just sat there on my bookshelf collecting 
dust, slowly fading away from my attention. 


Over time the nightmares, however, became worse than ever. So 
bad that they even began to follow me to the waking world, 
terrorizing every dark corner or rustle in the bushes. After one 
particularly bad night biking home from a friend’s house where | 
swore a pack of rabid dogs were chasing me, | got home to find 
something strange waiting for me in my room. There, on my bed, 
standing fully upright in the soft glow of the moon light from my 
window, was Ickbarr. At first | just thought my eyes were playing 
tricks on me again, they had been all evening, so | tried to flick on 
the lights. Another flick of the light switch. Then another, and 
another, with no change to the darkness. It was then that | started to 
get nervous. 


| backed away slowly towards the door behind me, my eyes never 
leaving the shape of Ick’s silhouette, my hand awkwardly 
outstretched behind reaching for the doorknob. | was just about to 
get my ass out of there when | heard the door slam itself shut, 
locking me into blackness. In nothing but shadows and silence, | 
stood frozen in place, not even breathing. For how long | can’t say, 
but after what felt like a lifetime of cold fear, | heard the shrill, 
familiar voice. 


“You stopped feeding me, so why should | protect you?” 
“Protect me from what?” 
“Let me show you.” 


| blinked once, and everything changed. | wasn’t in my bedroom 
anymore, | was somewhere... else. It wasn’t Hell, but the 
comparison wasn’t far off. It was some sort of forest, a horrible, 
nightmarish place where partial embryonic abortions hung from the 
canopy, and the ground swarmed with carnivorous insects. A thick 
fog wafted through the air and with it the stench of rotting meat, 
while chartreuse lightening flashed across the night sky. In the 
distance, | could hear the agonizing screams of something not quite 
human. My head throbbed like it was about to explode, the pain 
forcing out a river of tears. In my mind, | heard his voice again. 


“This is what your reality would become without me.” 


| felt earth shaking footsteps approaching fast. 

“I’m the only one who can stop it.” 

It was behind me now, huge and angry, hot breath across my back. 
“Bring me what | need, and | will.” 

| woke up before | could turn around. 


The following day | raided my parent’s closet for my brother’s baby 
teeth, giving them all to Ickbarr. Almost immediately the night terrors 
ceased, and | was more or less able to go on about my life as 
normal. From time to time, | would have to sneak into my little 
sister’s room and snatch what was meant for the tooth fairy, or 
strangle one of the neighborhood cats and pry out its sharp little 
incisors. Anything to ward off the visions, anything from a shark 
tooth necklace to a cavity ridden bicuspid. | also began to notice that 
Ick would move about my room whenever | left for any length of 
time, rearranging my stuff and hanging additional curtains. He was 
even beginning to look more lifelike, somehow. In the right light his 
teeth would glisten, and he was warm to the touch. As much as he 
creeped me out, | couldn’t work up the courage to just destroy him, 
knowing perfectly well where that would leave me. So | went on 
collecting teeth for Ick throughout all of high school and college. The 
older | got, the more things | would learn to fear, the more teeth Ick 
would need to keep me safe. 


I’m 22 years old now, with a decent job, my own apartment, and a 
set of dentures. It’s been almost a month since Ick’s last meal, and 
the horrors are starting to crowd around me once more. | took a 
detour through a parking garage after work tonight. Found a man 
fumbling with his car keys. His teeth were stained yellow from a 
lifetime of cigarettes and coffee. Even still, | had to use a hammer to 
get out the molars. When | got back to my apartment, he was 
waiting for me. On the ceiling, in the corner. Two white eyes and 
mouth of razors. 


“How much do you love me?” He asks. 


“More than anything,” | reply, taking off my coat. 


“More than anything in the world.” 


The Real Monsters 


When | was a little boy, | was afraid of monsters. 


They always lurked in the dark places where the light didn’t reach. It 
didn’t matter how many times my father shone a flashlight into the 
dark corners of my closet; | knew, the moment that the light was 
gone, that the monsters would come back. They would lurk in the 
darkness and whisper to me. | would cower under my blanket and 
hope they would go away. Sometimes, they would, when the 
morning came, but | knew that the moment the darkness came back, 
the monsters would return too. 


And they always did. 


When | grew up, | learned why: the real monsters don’t hide in dark 
corners and closets. The real monsters are the ones that live behind 
your eyes, in the darkness of your mind, and it takes more than a 
flashlight to send them away, more than a blanket to hide from them. 
They're always there, whispering to you, saying terrible things that 
children don't understand. 


After enough listening, you'd do anything to make them stop. 


You'll find what you’re looking for in the basement of the abandoned 
Murphy house. She’s still alive - at least, the parts that | still had 
were alive the last time | visited her - but the others are long dead. 
I’ve kept their teeth in ziploc bags in the old file cabinet. Maybe you 
can identify them from dental records. 


Anyway, she hasn’t eaten in days, and she’s lost a lot of blood, but 
she might still live if you hurry. If she wants to live, that is. The 
others didn't want to, in the end. 


All | ask is that you leave the light on when you go. This prison cell is 
very dark, and I’m afraid that the monsters will come out when you 
leave. 


The Runner 


There is, in a small national park somewhere in the US, a bike path. 
This bike path is hardly unusual: it is roughly twelve miles long, and 
makes a circuit around a small lake. Most of the path is wooded, and 
it is regarded by the locals as a beautiful little place to take a 
breather and catch some peace and quiet. 


Many who jog or bike along the path observe nothing out of the 
ordinary. But there are those lone bicyclists who happen across the 
Runner. 


Mark coasted his bicycle to a stop on the side of the path. Standing 
astride it, he drank eagerly from his water bottle. Finally, he was 
able to enjoy a day off, instead of staying home and paying bills, or 
mowing the lawn, or fixing the roof. And he was at the park at the 
perfect time, too: he was practically the only one there, besides a 
few families in the picnic area and the old men who fished from the 
pier. 


Wiping his mouth on his arm, Mark put the bottle back and was 
about to pedal off, wnen someone ran up behind him. 


“Nice day, eh?” the young man said. He was tall and thin, and wore 
a hooded grey sweatshirt and black running pants. His face was 
concealed by a scarf and sunglasses. Since summer had yet to take 
the place of the mild spring, Mark saw nothing unusual about this. 


“Yeah. It’s perfect out.” 


The young man nodded. He swayed when he stood still, as if he 
was anxious to keep moving. 


“You up for a race?” 


“A race? That'd be pretty unfair.” 


“Maybe. But so is life, you know?" 

Mark couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Okay. You're on. Where to?” 

The young man thought for a moment. 

“Right past the tenth mile marker, by the old storm shelter.” 


“Fine by me. That’s a pretty good distance from here, though. You 
sure you can keep up?” 


“l’ll give you a ten-second head start, even. Just go whenever you’re 
ready.” 


While Mark did host some suspicions about the strange young man, 
he brushed them aside. Sure, he was a bit odd, but he seemed nice 
enough. 


Mark put his foot to the pedal and rode off. His speed was almost 
casual, and with good reason: the ten second head start would let 
him build up enough speed to leave any jogger in the dust. 


“You know, you’re going to have to do much better than that.” 


Mark looked to the left to see the young man there, keeping an 
equal pace with the bicycle without moving at much more than a 
light jog. The ten seconds had achieved nothing. 


How did he do that? 


Mark immediately shifted gears and began to put some force behind 
his pedaling. The bicycle shot off down the path. Mark kept his head 
low, cutting through the air with aerodynamic precision. The wind 
whipped around him, filling his lungs with cool air. The trees went by 
in a blur of green and brown. He kept pushing himself further, faster, 
faster, faster. There was no way the jogger was anywhere close to 
him. 


Turning his head to the side, Mark saw to his dismay that the young 
man was still there, matching his speed perfectly. But now he wasn’t