Several Short Scary Stories

By Samuel Parkins

Scary stories (and a script) aimed at young readers.  If you produce a story from here, please send a copy of your poster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samuel Parkins
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201953638

Samuel Parkins

Sam Parkins was born and raised in Minnesota and now lives in Kansas. In between, he moved around for education, jobs, and military service.  His oath has no expiration date and he continues to serve as a life member of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Book preview

Several Short Scary Stories

by Sam Parkins

This book is dedicated to teachers everywhere. 

You may also create a script from any story as you please.

This is meant to make reading fun. 

Enjoy.

Any resemblance to real persons or other real-life entities is purely coincidental. All characters and other entities appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, or other real-life entities, past or present, is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

MALWARE

THE SAFEST MAN IN THE WHOLE WORLD

GROUP SHOT

THE CHASE

HE'S COMING

CAN YOU HEAR THE LIGHTS?

ALL THE ALANS

NIGHTFIGHTER

WHISTLE

NANITAQ

COST CUTTING

THE OURANG MEDAN

MAMA

LONELY

BUDDY

(One of these stories is true.  See if you can guess which one.)

MALWARE

Something lurks deep in the Internet.

Tom Silvers had been a mailman for many years and had gotten to know the people on his route well.  This was a small town in the Midwest where everyone knew (or suspected) everyone else's business.  Over time some had moved away and others had moved in, but still, he could tell when something had changed, or when something just 'felt' wrong.  This was why he knew something was off when the package he'd delivered yesterday to Hally Jacobs was still sitting just outside her door.  The package contained some computer supplies and Tom knew that with her love of all things 'Internet' she would never leave something like that outside.

Her car was parked in her driveway as usual and he had not gotten any notice to suspend deliveries as he would have if she had gone out of town for a while.  He became concerned and considered asking Sheriff Drake to do a welfare check. 

Drake thanked him for his concerns and promised to check in on her that afternoon or maybe in the morning.  This was the beginning of deer season and he was trying to keep out of town hunters with buck fever from killing each other.

The next morning was like any other in Tom's town until he turned the corner onto Hally's street and saw the blinking lights of Drake's squad car and the ambulance outside of her house.  They were loading a gurney into the ambulance.  A sheet completely covered the body.  His heart sank with that sight because he had always enjoyed her contagious joy of just living.  Sheriff Drake saw Tom and sadly shook his head.

They had entered the unlocked door when no one answered.  In a small town like this unlocked doors were common.  Hally was found sitting at her computer.  It had gone into sleep mode when she had not typed a letter or moved her mouse, and then had shut down.  She was in her 70s, so an autopsy would probably have reported her cause of death as natural causes, if there would be one, but with the tight budget they only performed autopsies if there were any suspicions about the cause.  If anybody had noticed the rise of 'natural' deaths around the country of women while using their computers, there would have been some suspicion, but no.

Life went on in the small town, but without Hally.

Susan Hill had worked long and hard for her promotions.  Now she was supervising delivery drivers for half of her state.  She treated her drivers well and they returned that by being better than those in other departments.  They delivered on-time.  Accident reports were down and customer surveys were positive.  This was why she noticed that one of her veteran drivers had not left from a delivery in a normal amount of time.  She tried to call the driver to see if she had a problem with her van, but there was no answer.  This delivery address in St. Cloud was only 20 minutes from the office, so Susan went to check out the situation.

She saw the delivery van still parked on the street just outside of the house.  She rang the doorbell, but there was no answer.  Then she noticed that the door was not completely closed.  It opened when she pushed.  She called out her driver's name, but the house remained quiet.  Her logic told her to call the police, but her concern for her driver made her go inside.  She's seen movies like this and almost turned around.  That was what she should have done.  Later, all three bodies, customer, driver, and supervisor were found in the computer room.  There were no marks suggesting foul play, just three dead women.

––––––––

Darla Rioth had loved numbers.  Her mother had played counting games with her before she learned to walk.  It was only natural that she would find her life's work in statistical analysis.  The consulting company that she worked for was a cover for her real work with the NSA.  The intelligence community valued her skills and paid her well enough to keep her comfortable and set enough aside to give her a good retirement someday.  For her playing with numbers was never work and spotting trends was like breathing.  She never had to think about it.  It simply happened.

Lately there had been an itch in her mind.  Something was happening and her subconscious was trying to get her attention.  A trend was forming, but she couldn't get it to focus yet.  It didn't keep her up at night, but was always there, just out of reach during the day.  It probably wouldn't have helped if she had discovered it earlier.  The plan had been set in motion before she had been born and becoming aware of it at this stage would not have been able to save anyone.  It was already too late.

Today was 'global' day at work.  This was when Darla would read news reports from around the world to see if anything might be connected and form a trend.  For some reason she noticed an increase in reports of deaths of women while they were online.  The number seemed out of place and appeared to be growing.  Then she saw the article about the three women in St. Cloud.

––––––––

That itch in her mind turned into that 'check engine' light that far too many people ignored until their car was completely ruined.  She checked her data and there seemed to be no other correlation.  The women were of all age and ethnic groups.  No geographic area seemed any higher than any other.  The majority were in