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F. P. Dorchak

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Fear

January 15, 2016 by fpdorchak

Never Look Behind You!
Never Look Behind You! (Image by “COS 09,” Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COS_09.JPG#/media/File:COS_09.JPG)

From whence comes fear?

Darkness?

Evil?

Ourselves?

I suppose there must be all sorts of “papers” written about the subject, but this image came to me one fine day, years and years ago, so I wrote it up.

This is my second publicly published work of fiction. It was published in Tyro #16, on January 6, 1989.

 

Fear

© F. P. Dorchak, 1989

 

It was the Devil’s own pitch

A darkness utterly corrupt and vile.

 

I couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t hear a thing

The silence absolute—except of that internal ringing sound.

 

I turned, slowly.

The only way I could know this

Was by the steps my feet made over each other.

 

That’s when I came face to face with it—

Teeth ripping my face apart.

 

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Filed Under: Short Story, Spooky, To Be Human, Writing Tagged With: Evil, Fear, Night Gallery, Prose Poems, Short Stories, Tales From The Darkside

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen Lin says

    January 15, 2016 at 11:56 am

    Like this initially enigmatic line: steps my feet made over each other.

    deliciously super creepy..

    • fpdorchak says

      January 15, 2016 at 4:28 pm

      It’s all about the drama, eh, Karen? ;-] Thanks!

  2. Paul says

    January 19, 2016 at 10:18 am

    Short and creepy, Frank! The last two lines made me think of some of the great jump scares in “Alien.”

    To quote from Rod Serling: “Fear, of course, is extremely relative. It depends on who can look down and who must look up. It depends on other vagaries, like the time, the mood, the darkness. But it’s been said before, with great validity, that the worst thing there is to fear is fear itself.”

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