A Shot of Horror

By Aria Zimin

Twenty super short stories come together in this anthology, each story unique but united by a common goal: to send shivers up your spine.

 

The grotesque, technological, supernatural, and downright horrific come together in this horror anthology.

 

Are you brave enough to read?

 

*FEATURES MATURE CONTENT, sex, violence, and gore. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aria Zimin
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215158654

Book preview

The Strange Succubi Case

It was the only hospital in the city, and it was small.

I was studying there when I learned the most important thing I could learn during my residency: things aren’t always as they seem. People seem to think medicine is an exact science, but now and then . . . there are things outside of this world that modern medicine cannot cure.

I had my first such case after my second month. This patient was only fifteen years old and wasn’t technically my patient. Still, word went around the hospital: don’t take her phone.

The word was that she fainted whenever she didn’t have it in her hand because she couldn’t think without it. A couple of times, she had even lost consciousness without it.

Her parents knew she depended on the phone but brushed it off with a shrug. It was this generation of kids.

Before we could move her to the psychiatry ward, I had an intense curiosity.

It was midnight, and I was exhausted when I felt an inexplicable pull to the girl’s room. She was lying there, her phone lying right next to her hand.

It was like there was a little voice whispering in my ear: pick it up. Just try it.

I couldn’t resist.

I picked up the phone, careful not to wake the girl, and noticed her phone unlocked for me. That’s weird, I thought, but I was already distracted by her DMs.

She was messaging someone on Instagram. Their handle was @LuvLuvLuv_293801829, and they were asking questions about her friends, her family, or school . . . this texting had been going on for months, almost as long as she had been sick. The messages said the person on the other end wasn’t a classmate of hers or a relative.

I FEEL LIKE I CAN TELL YOU ANYTHING, the girl had texted earlier. PLEASE DON’T EVER LEAVE ME.

Before I could say or do anything, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

An older doctor, Doctor Pethos, was standing behind me. Put the phone down, she said before leading me out of the room.

I’m sorry, I said. I just —

I know, Doctor Pethos said, "the phone, it . . . it calls to vulnerable people. It just does."

Is the phone what’s making her sick? I asked. It just seemed like a weirdo was messaging her.

No, Doctor Pethos said as we walked down the hall, look, not all medicine is exact, and not all of our patients can be cured through scientific means.

You’re saying —

It’s a succubus, she completed for me. Then, she explained that succubi were a species that fed off of the life force of humans, often through sex. But, they had evolved with technology, and the more modern ones found new life within our cell