Drinks from Strangers

One of the characters is invited to a convention for occultists at a hotel. During the event, a character encounters a woman who invites him to have drinks with her and her husband. After some drinks, the couple invites the character to their three-story house in a nearby bedroom community.

Possibilities

1 The couple has been enslaved by an undead sorcerer who thrives on draining psychic energy from unsuspecting victims. Victims are reduced to dust by the creature. The couple chose the convention because what little free will they possess is bent on getting free from their condition.

2 They are dangerous serial murderers seeking prey. The man, who is deranged, favors victims that have what he thinks are reservoirs of personal energy that he can harvest to prolong his life. The character is in for a bad evening unless help arrives.

3 They are harmless swingers. The husband wants to watch from the closet while the character has sexual intercourse with his wife. Unfortunately, burglars in the employ of a rival occultist who wants a rare occult manual owned by the couple choose to raid the house during the “festivities.”

© Brian Woodman

Footsteps

You are staying in a small rural hotel. You awaken at night to a strange sound, slow, even footsteps. Bright moonlight streams in through the partially open window. Bright enough to penetrate the thin curtains and illuminate the face of the alarm clock. It reads three o’clock, you rise and peer through a gap in the curtains. Below you, crossing the cobbled yard at a slow, almost funereal, pace are two men.

Both men are dressed in dark clothing, their faces muffled. They carry what appears to be a coffin, and for several heart-stopping moments you watch them as they make their slow way across the hard surface. They stop, their backs to you, as if aware of prying eyes, then their heads turn towards you. Still unable to see their faces, you feel a cold wave of fear run down your spine as one of them points in your direction then motions toward the coffin.

Possibilities

1 You are seeing a premonition of your death. How and when? There is no clue.

2 The two figures are smugglers moving a wooden crate of illegal goods. They are unaware of you and are merely gesturing to an accomplice at a window further along.

3 The ‘coffin’ contains the gagged and bound body of an investigative journalist who got too nosey. The ‘gesture’ is a warning that you have been seen, and that if you know what’s good for you, you’ll go back to bed and forget what you’ve seen. The ‘coffin’ is being transported, with its cargo, to the small cliffside cemetery where it will be disposed of.

© Andrew Parfitt