Pandemonium: An Anthology of Chaos

By Krysteen Damon

Wendigos. Witches. Twins. Chaos.

When we are children, we are told stories of scary witches, hidden dark figures, and a variety of monsters who prey on the young and weak. As we grow up, we realize that the real monsters are the ones that hide deep within the ones that we love. Sometimes at a price.

In this collection, you'll find 11 stories that deal with the monsters of our youth, as well as the monsters of our adult nightmares.

So, grab your baseball bat and your favorite blanket and sink down in a chair. You're in for a ride.

**Warning: Strong, sometimes graphic, language is used in most of the stories. Do not read if this isn't your cup of tea.**

Stories:
1. Hunger
2. The Intruder
3. The Call
4. The Twins
5. Crack
6. Squeaky Clean
7. Eccedentesiast
8. Reflections
9. Marco Polo
10. Pandaemonium
11. I Am

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krysteen Damon
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370460311

Krysteen Damon

Krysteen Damon is a published author, an avid crocheter, and a mom to one crazy kid. She writes in the horror genre and loves to read books that mess with your head.When she isn't thinking about all the things she needs to be doing instead of the nothing she is doing, she likes to enjoy nature in any way she can, play Legos with her daughter, and pin everything on Pinterest.If you would like to keep up to date on her, your best bet of catching her is on Instagram. But you can also catch her on Patreon and Twitter.

Book preview

Pandemonium

An Anthology of Chaos

By Krysteen Damon

Copyright © 2018 by Krysteen Damon

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First Edition, January 2018

This book is dedicated to my sister, Jenniffer, for her consistent awesomeness and willingness to read everything I ever write.

Even if it sucks.

Contents

Hunger

The Intruder

The Call

The Twins

Crack

Squeaky Clean

Eccedentesiast

Reflections

Marco Polo

Pandaemonium

I Am

Thanks

Other Books

About the Author

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

Hunger

Her stomach grumbled at her as she walked through the haunted wood. The familiar pain coursed through, searing her ribs, as the echo grew in strength, her face scrunching in response to it. There was nothing to be done, she had to suffer through it.

The snow fell softly on the treetops before landing on the ground with a hush. The shadows of the trees seemed to loom over her, in protection or as a threat, she knew not. The moon was almost invisible that night, the small spurts of light calling for aid from the pure white snow.

With every step she took in the heavy snow, she mentally kicked herself for not following him that night. She could have walked in his footprints then. Now she wouldn’t even know if she was going in the circles or not. Pulling her cloak tighter around herself, she wrapped her arms around her middle, her fingers tips trembling with frostbite. Her hand clutched her only weapon, a spear, and wished for the ache to end. She pulled her head down and watched her drenched skirt push through the sparkling snow.

It had been three days since her beloved Robert had left her to find some food. The wildlife had always been sparse in the dead of winter, but this season had been particularly barren. The trees had long been stripped of their bark and not even the tiniest of animal tracks had been spotted in a month. As their food store ran dry, it appeared that other’s had as well.

It had been three long cold nights without him. Three excruciating hungry nights.

Without warning, her skin pimpled, her hair stood up, and her shoulders tightened. She halted and snapped her head up. A sudden fear of something sinister came over her from somewhere in the back. The shadows stretched their fingers into the darkness until everything blurred together. Her breath caught in her chest, a small frozen cloud wrapping around the last puff. She was tense and afraid, but knew she needed to turn around. With caution, she turned to face whatever caught her sense, her grip on the spear tightening.

Nothing. Her eyes met more snow and darkness. The emptiness did nothing to calm her down. Her ears perked, her breathing quickened. Her eyes darted around, looking for anything that might be there. She still saw nothing, but her gaze kept going back to the far spot in the dark where the emptiness seemed greatest. She stared at it for an eternity.

She was certain something was there.

She was certain she was being watched.

Her foot hesitated forward, her fearful curiosity grasped a firm hold on her. Before she could complete the step, a small emaciated rabbit darted in front of her, his wild eyes not seeing her. With the skill of a long time huntress, she hurled her spear and struck him dead through one of his twitching ears. Forgetting herself for a moment, she grabbed the rabbit by the middle, and tore her teeth into his fur, vigorously ripping tufts off before getting to the small amount of meat he had to offer.

She noisily stripped the sustenance from his bones, groans of long awaited pleasure snaked past her lips. Licking them, she tossed the carcass aside and went forward on her original path, rubbing snow in her hands to rid herself of the sticky blood. Her fingers dripped pink droplets as she clasped her cloak around her middle once again, completely unaware that her ready spear ran more blood down her hands.

The darkness weighed heavily on her now. The absent moon cast long shadows far ahead of her, beckoning, almost as if they were leading her in a certain direction.

Her stomach grumbled again, louder this time. Though the rabbit was the largest feast she’d had in days, it did nothing to appease her hunger. If anything, it seemed to have only made it worse. Desperate tears began to stream down her face. She was just so hungry. Her thoughts no longer dwelt on her missing husband, she only cared about finding food.

She kept her eyes searching the dark as she trudged on, looking for anything else to eat. Bark. Grass. Another rabbit. She even briefly wished for another human to just appear. She needed to eat before the snow buried her own corpse.

She walked on into the far reaching shadows, the fear on her back getting closer. The snow had stopped falling now but the silence that came with it became deafening. She could hardly bear it.

She hated it. The nothingness that pounded her ears. The frozen tips of her fingers and toes. The hunger in her stomach. Her knees began to buckle. Moans escaped from somewhere deep inside her.

She needed to eat now.

Her head began to swim as her legs gave out underneath her, her hands sluggishly moving in front of her to stop the fall. She landed hard in the snow, a small crack resounding from somewhere in her body. The pains from her stomach and frozen limbs prevented her foggy brain from figuring out what she broke. She could only hope it had been a buried twig.

Hopelessness overcame her and she laid down in the snow, her hair quickly freezing into crunchy icicles. One last tear escaped from her eyes before she closed them, the silence endlessly roaring in her ears.

But then, far off to her left, she heard it.

It was only small at first, but her ears picked it up right away.

It was a glorious sound. Curious, but glorious. It sounded to her like something was being eaten. She could hear the small grind of tooth on tooth. She could faintly smell the blood of a fresh kill. She could taste the iron on her tongue.

Forcing herself to her feet, she ignored everything that had been driving her forward and headed toward the curiosity. She stumbled over hidden roots and her hunger pains, though not taking notice of her struggles. She could only hear the chewing. She could only imagine the feast. She only cared about eating.

She soon entered a tiny clearing directly under the moonlight’s path. She froze in her tracks, hardly daring to believe what she was witnessing.

A creature. One she had only heard about from the natives.

He stood a glorious ten, maybe fifteen feet high. She could easily count every single one of his ribs through his deathly grey skin. His wolfish snout protruded from his face, twitching as splattered blood dripped on the feast below him as his long claw-like fingers tore into the limbs of an