The creature in the pail

One evening you stay out too late and it's ten minutes to midnight. You reach the train stop and realise your wallet's gone; probably that man who bumped into you earlier took it. The tracks beneath you shiver as other trains pass by. You dig your pockets but there's not enough money to get a ticket. There's no one else around. You go up the staircase to the street to see if there's anyone around, and beneath a flickering street lamp you see him. A man wearing a coat and a scarf with black glasses. He has a red pail in front of him. Something about him beckons you to approach. You step close, checking the watch. There's five minutes to go. The ground shudders again. The air is cold, and you can see why he's shivering.

You ask the man if he has a dollar, and if he can loan it to you for the ticket for the train. He looks at you, and says no, but he thinks there is a dollar coin in the pail in front of him. He says you can put your hand into the water and dig it out.

You stare down into the water of the pail, and in the black water you realise there's something inside. Something sleek and dark and coiling. You can't see exactly what it is, but you can see as it moves about, a coin at the very bottom of the pail, flickering and enticing.

"Does it bite?" You ask the man.
"When it's hungry," the man replies.
"Is it hungry now?"
"It hasn't eaten for two days."
"What does it eat?"
"Oh... anything and everything," he says, smiling, his hands still buried in his pockets. You can't see his eyes.

"The coin is yours if you put your hand in," the man says.
There are about three minutes left. Your hand is poised just above the pail. The black thing inside appears to be squirming more. You ready, and stick your hand in, and suddenly there is an electric sting in your fingers, like they have been pricked.

"What did it do?" you ask.
"I don't think it did anything," the man replies. There are patches and holes in his jackets, and his glasses seem to be cracked, but you can only see the fine web of lines if you lean close.
"You better hurry boy," he reminds you.
You get ready, aim for the coin, and stick your hand down. There is a loud splash, and you dig at the coin. You think you have it, and you feel string-like tentacles gripping at your hand. You pull your arm out quickly, and open your palm victoriously, but there is nothing.

"I guess you missed. Water does that," the man says.

The black thing inside is twisting and turning, making increasingly rapid circles. You can see the coin move towards the center of the pail.

"Quickly. Quickly," he says. You can feel the last train approaching. The ground is shuddering and ripples radiate in the pail.

You close your eyes and stick your hand in. The creature has closed its coils around your arm. Your fingers dig at the coin. You are sure you have it now. You pull your hand out and feel it being tugged. For a moment, you look into the eyes of the creature that has your arm, whose tentacles embrace it as though black string had been poured all over. It opens it's mouth, gasping.

You have the coin and the creature disappears back into the water. The man laughs and you run to the staircase, insert the coin into the machine which gives you a ticket. You run pass the gates and just manage to get through the train door before it closes shut. Only then do you dare look at your arm, and notice that it is bruised and black, and covered with fine bites and cuts, as though it had been dragged through glass, but that is nothing compared to the sight of the creature that had your arm in your grasp a minute ago, with it's sharp, pointed teeth, ready to cling and eat and devour.

The troll

Nizgark spun the motor on the computer. It was annoying that ten minutes of turning would only give a half-hour of time, but it would be sufficient for him to check on the new posts on the half-broken monitor. It was getting lonely under this bridge, and there were few walkers, only those metal carriages, that sped past. So he occupied his time trying to lure folks here by persuading them that the fishing nearby was great, and there were scenic menhirs around. No one was ever persuaded though. He typed in the URL and ventured into the Faerie forums, where he kept in touch with all the various trolls, pixies, brownies and sprites from all over the world. Pickings were slow, magic was fading, and forests were being destroyed. It was depressing to read through the news and posts. Nizgark wandered into the thread where he and the pixie Solthan had been arguing for the past two months about the worthiness of moon mushrooms. He studied the screen as he prepared for his next post.

The Monster's Ball

Jeremy 7-leg had been practising all year for the ball, but never with a live partner. He had been too shy, so he made a figure about his height and danced with her to the tango and the rhumba. The last two months, after he had caught enough giant flies to feed on, he had been spending most of the time in an underground barrow, listening to an old tape recorder play Astor Piazzola and watching the dance instruction tapes over and over again. Soon he knew he could be good at it. Previous years he had just watched, but this year he was determined not to be a spectator. He would ask Rosalind 2-heads to dance, and he hoped at least one of them would consent.

The night of the dance came under a full moon. The Bug Orchestra came together and tuned their strings, while the Borg Flea had harnessed fresh spider silk for the strings. When they started to play, Jeremy couldn't stop tapping his feet (all seven of them), but he did not move from his perch. Young bugs in love started flooding the dance hall, and as he listened to the joy in their cries, he wished he was down there as well, showing off his moves. He knew he could do it. But where was Rosalind 2-head? Maybe she was still doing her hair; the blond curled tresses of her left head and the deep red hair of the right. Jeremy tapped his feet.

The moon hid behind clouds and the berry liquor was passed around. Jeremy still had not hit the floor and Rosalind had not emerged. He became to worry.

Then he felt a breeze behind him. He turned and saw it was Sahila broad-wing, the butterfly with glass-like wings. He had known her before she had gone into a chrysalis. The moonlight passing through her wings threw out strange bizarre images, like staring into a kaleidoscope.

"Care to dance Jeremy?" She asked.

Jeremy nodded, and Sahlia grabbed him up. And they danced; and Jeremy showed off his moves and they burnt up the dance floor.

His legs moved vigorously and swiftly. She let herself be led. Soon people were noticing them. They stopped and let them have the floor, clapping along.

And Jeremy smiled as he danced. This was his time; what he had been waiting for. At the end of the night, he was exhausted. He sat in a corner and let Sahlia drape her colours around him, content. She would eat him up by the morning, but he didn't mind. Bugs never lived long anyway, not even the giant dancing ones.

Jigsaw

Her parents didn't believe her, but there was a monster under her bed. Every night she would scatter the jigsaw puzzles on the floor and the creature would spend the entire dark putting it together, picking up the pieces with its gigantic gnarled hands that were the size of tree trunks, with fingers each as long as a new pencil. It never managed to finish it before morning though, so she was safe. But she kept on buying jigsaws with more and more pieces, just in case.

The knitting monster

It hung around Mrs Doughty's flat, and it was glad when she turned on the television, which meant there was something to watch. The monster was now a bit old, and could barely even outrun children. It still liked to eat cabbages and carrots, which Mrs Doughty had lots of, so it just stayed close to her. Mrs Doughty was old, so she never quite noticed it in the house. She would just sit in front of the television and knit, watching an endless stream of gameshows and soap operas, many which made her weep, but never cry. Crying was reserved for those phone calls, but sometimes she would laugh too. Mrs Doughty would always be knitting when she watched the television; slow strokes of the needles, the ball of yarn just moving. She looked like she was making a sweater, one of those things that kept humans warm in winter, just that it was about half her size. She was almost done one day, watching television and having tea, when suddenly she began to shake, like having her own earthquake. The monster wondered what was happening. She suddenly stopped, and saliva dripped out of her mouth. The sweater was in front of her, 3/4 done. The monster approached her, wondering if she was sleeping, but she didn't make her usual sleeping noises. It shook her for a bit, and she did not move.

The monster knew what it had to do. It took up the needles, and from the vast amount of times it had watched her, understood what it had to do. The needles clacked and clacked slowly, as it watched television, even when it looked like there was a blizzard on the screen, finishing the sweater.

Smoke

He saw the patterns within the incense, and let it flow up. He would make wishes before the smoke, and even though they were mostly small tasks, they would be done. Like finding a lost pen; the smoke would weave its way to it and he would follow.

One day, after a hard day's work where he was scolded by his clients, he just wanted to rest at home. But his neighbours upstairs were arguing again. He was so angry he lit a joss stick and wished that they were dead. The smoke traveled up the ceiling, and soon after, everything went quiet. Hours later, an ambulance came, and he found out that his neighbours were dead. They had been asphyxiated. Their faces were bright red when they died, and the others in the apartment said they had died arguing, as they had lived.

The man was aghast, and surprised. That was the power of the smoke. Soon he wished it upon his stingy boss, or a difficult client. One day, he wanted to turn it upon his wife, but before he could reach the altar, he found the smoke weaving towards him. He saw his wife bent before it, praying, and with a sad smile. The man rushed over but it was too late, as the smoke made its way into him.

The dog by the garden

In every culture, there's a story of a girl who wants to cross into a beautiful garden. But between her and the garden is a vicious dog tied to a rusting chain that's just about to break. The girl takes a step closer on the broken, overgrown weed path towards the garden, but the dog sees her and jumps hard towards her. The chain is straining like a wire pulled taut, though you can't hear it over the barking of the dog. The girl takes a step back. In some cultures, the girl returns with meat for the dog; in others the girl forgets the path altogether. In one, the girl returns with a gun and shoots the dog three times. In those stories where the girl makes it to the garden, she smells the flowers and lies upon the warm, fertile soil. The blood of the dog nourishes the garden, and the flowers will once again attract little girls into braving the horrors of the barking, angry, red-eyed dogs.