The Nightmare of Lost Creek and Other Strange Stories of Adventure and Horror.

By Laren Coe

Contains the following short stories:

Ixkrosa

The God of Memories records many strange events before they are lost to time forever.

The Mutt

A desperate man has a chance to finally strike it rich, but discovers there's a price to pay for his actions.

The Nightmare of Lost Creek

A young boy loves to explore the old woods behind his parent's house until he discovers something still lives in those woods, something that should have stayed hidden.

The Hermann Squad I

A member of a top secret government agency is tasked with hunting down a monster from another dimension, and eliminating the wormhole that it came through.

Junk

A man thinks he has an easy job patrolling an empty lot late at night, until a vengeful spirit has other plans.

The Frog King

A Prince thinks the warnings to avoid the swamp are foolish superstition, but soon learns otherwise.

Marco World

Scientists are stunned when they receive the first alien message coming from another star system, but the sender isn't what he seems to be.

The Unicorn Project

A reporter investigates an old naval base, and discovers a mad plot to release genetic monstrosities upon the world.

The Hermann Squad II

Another member of a top secret government agency is tasked with discovering the secret of a bizarre religious cult.

Hypohomicidal

A man with insomnia finally discovers a cure, but it comes with a price.

The Toilet Paper Tube Terrorist

A college student invents a device that can end the world, or possibly create a new one.

The Ghost Ship

A seemingly abandoned starship hides a terrible secret.

Minnie

A lonely special effects artist creates a robotic companion for himself, but when it takes over his life, things go horribly wrong.

The Hermann Squad III

Members of a top secret government agency attempt to intercept a powerful book before it falls into the wrong hands.

Rats

Ronald the rat and his friends are trapped in an endless struggle of survival and death until he discovers a better place, if they can just get there.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laren Coe
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215085691

Laren Coe

Laren Coe is a gamer, author and general weirdo from the Northwest.

Book preview

The Mutt

1.

You want to know my story?  You want to know how I ended up like this-dressed in rags, begging for change, sleeping in alleys?  Well, I'll tell ya all right.  It wasn't always like this.  My name is Chet Barrington, and once, things were different.  I had a successful life, a home, and a fortune, I tell you.

It started about three years ago.  Back then I was living in a second floor apartment on Hawthorne and working as a day trader.  By nature, it was a feast or famine existence, and I had done well so far.  But now, I was in a bit of a bind.  I had invested far too much of my money in what I thought was a sure thing, and it had flopped.  Hard.  That was the beginning of a downward spiral that caused me to eat through all of my savings, and now I was going to be short for the rent, which normally wouldn't be a problem, except I was already a month behind.  Out of desperation, I had had to resort to taking any work I could get, including menial temp work that was far beneath my status or qualifications.

Then, everything changed.  I was walking home from Starbucks with my standard morning six shot latte when I got a call on my cellphone from an old friend, George Stanley, another investor friend of mine that also dabbled in day trading from time to time.  Just as the phone started to ring, I was suddenly accosted by a scruffy vagrant asking for change.  My mood, soured by the stress of my current financial situation and suddenly angered at the interruption, caused me to overreact.  I shouted at the vagabond, Get away from me you trash!  He recoiled, but then replied angrily, I'm not trash!  I'm a person!  One day I was just like you, and if I can end up like this, you can too!  Someday, maybe soon, you'll see!  I hope you do!  I hope you do!

Not wanting to get stabbed by a crazy hobo, I hurried down the street toward my apartment building.  As I did so, I met old Jebediah shuffling down the street toward me, cane in hand.  He was well know by sight in the neighborhood, as he always wore a ragged great coat with a sea captain's hat, and as a result of this, he was called Captain Jeb by the locals.  No one knew his last name, but supposedly, he was once a sea captain of some worldly renown.  He lived all alone in an old shabby one story house across the street from me, and it was also well known by the neighborhood for its unkempt appearance, flaking paint, and overgrown lawn.  As I passed his house, I noticed that in addition to needing his lawn mowed, he also needed his gutters cleaned, as there were weeds, some over a foot high growing in them.

When I got home, I called George back.  Hey George, what's up?  Sorry I missed your call, I said.  Hey Chet, he replied, how's it going?  Could be better, honestly, I answered, kind of in a slump.  Well then, he said, I've got good news for you!  I just got a hot tip on a score.  Don't you always? I laughed.  No, seriously.  This time, it's the real deal.  I've got an inside source.  Some scientist guy I know, but that's not the important part.  The important part is that he works for a startup company called Rebornagen.  They've got a patent on some kind of anti-aging cream that uses some kind of revolutionary stem cell technology or something to visibly reduce the signs of aging on the skin, but unlike most other products, this one really works!  Anyway, the company is having a meeting in two weeks, looking for investors to raise funds to go into nationwide production, and you have a real opportunity to get in at ground level and really hit it off, you just need as much money as you can get your hands on.  Trust me, the payoff will be huge.  Thanks man, I replied.  Of course this had to happen now, right when things are tight.  Hey, said George, you got a couple weeks.  Just scrape together anything you can.  I'll send you their info.  Don't miss out on this!  All right,  Ill come up with something, I said. Thanks George."

Great, I thought.  Now, that I'm broke, I get the tip of a lifetime.  I called the temp agency.  Hey Maxine, This is Chet.  Got anything for me?  Hey Chet, she answered.  I've got Riverpoint again, but they don't need anything til tomorrow.  All right, I replied  I'll take it.  The usual time?  Yeah, she said, the usual time.  Thanks babe!  I hung up the phone.  Riverpoint paid $20 an hour-I'd get a decent check for a weeks worth of work.  Maybe if I invested the whole thing, and got a lucky streak, I could raise enough money to be worthwhile, but that was a pretty iffy maybe, but for now, I had the rest of the day off.

2.

I stood up and walked to the living room window of my apartment and surveyed the scene before me.  Not much was happening, but I saw old Captain Jeb shuffling home.  That gave me an idea.  A few minutes later, I was opening the rusty gate that led to Captain Jeb's front yard.  I proceeded down the walkway and up the rough, peeling stairs to the front porch.  Feeling more than a bit self conscious, I knocked on the front door.  It seemed to take forever, but I eventually heard a shuffling sound from within, and the door creaked open a few inches on rusty hinges.  Yes? Captain Jeb asked, peeking out.  How can I help you?  I went for the direct approach.  I'm Chet.  I live  across the street and noticed your gutters need to be cleaned.  In desperation, I gave him an inflated price.  I can do it for you, for $200.  He laughed and grinned at me. You'll do it for $100 or not at all. He had me.  I really needed the money.  Fine, I said.  Got a ladder?  He motioned for me to follow him around to the backyard, where, from a crumbling, unpainted shed, he produced an old wooden ladder and a rusted spade with a cracked wooden handle.

I got started.  The front of the house went pretty fast, but by the time I started on the back, the noon Sun was out and I was getting tired and hot.  I climbed down from the ladder to take a break and sort of sat on one of the ladder rungs, surveying the back yard.  It was in need of a mow, but had been done fairly recently.  Perhaps one of the neighborhood kids had done it.  I'd have to ask.  I was climbing back up the ladder to resume the job, when something caught my eye.  It was a flash of light below me.  Looking down, I saw that I was right above a bedroom window, and something inside was causing a bright reflection.  Moving down the ladder a couple of rungs, I took a closer look.

Right inside the window, was an old bed near the wall, but there was a gap between it and the wall, and from my position on the ladder, looking down, I could see something bright and yellow, gleaming in a box under the bed.  I put my face closer to the window and had to stifle a gasp when I realized what it was.  It was a coin, a gold coin, of some very old looking type, reflecting the Sun's noontime rays back upward at me.  But it wasn't the only one.  The box was full of them.  I looked around.  No one had noticed my discovery, so I climbed back up the ladder and got to work.

After I finished the job and got paid, I decided to reward myself with a lunch of a bagel and lox from the cafe down the street.  Once again, as I was heading home, I got accosted by one of the aggressive panhandlers in my neighborhood.  Soon, I thought, if I could just manage to hit it big on this investment, maybe I could move out to the country, into a big house someplace peaceful, where I wouldn't have to deal with this kind of homeless scum every day.

That evening, as I laid in bed, I couldn't help but think about those gold coins I had seen.  So, that was how old Jeb paid for his groceries!  But there weren't that many, otherwise you'd think he'd have a lot nicer place.  How many were there?  It was hard to tell, but there was quite a few of them.  He probably just dug into them once in a while when he needed extra money.  But where had they come from?  He'd spent a lifetime sailing the world, so he probably just picked them up somewhere on his travels.  I thought for a second that maybe I could ask him for a loan.  That seemed unlikely, but I'd think about it if I got desperate.

3.

The next week, I took all the money I had scraped together and invested it.  Things went well the first few days-by mid week I had doubled it.  But then on Thursday, the stock crashed, and by Friday morning, most of it was gone.  Another string of bad luck!  If only this opportunity had came along six months ago, I would have had the money, but fate was unfair and cruel.  That night I laid in bed thinking again.  The investor meeting was Monday and there was literally nothing I could do by then to come up with the money, especially on a weekend.  In desperation, I thought of calling in loans from everybody I knew, but it still wouldn't be enough.  And then I got to thinking about old Jeb and his coins.  I knew I didn't know him well enough to ask to borrow the amount of money I needed from him, but what if I borrowed it?  He had more than enough in that box, and if I borrowed some of them, I could just pay him back anonymously once I made the money back.  If this was as sure of a thing as George said it was, it would be no problem at all.  I could just leave the money in an envelope on his front door and he'd be none the wiser, and probably wouldn't even notice any of the coins had even gone missing.

I spent entire weekend thinking about it and the more I did, it seemed like my only chance.  I watched Jeb's place from my window and he seemed to go to bed fairly early, around 10 PM every night.  Finally, Sunday, I decided to give it a shot.  I'd wait until about 2 in the morning, try to sneak into the house and grab a big handful of coins and get back out in a hurry before old Jeb even noticed or woke up.  I was sure if I was quiet and fast, I could pull it off.

That night, I watched old Jeb's lights go out around 10 PM, as always.  About midnight, I had a few martinis to help myself relax.  Finally, 2 AM rolled around and I decided I'd better give this my one and only try.  If anything went wrong, I would abort with nobody the wiser.  I certainly didn't want to get arrested or hurt anyone, or worse yet, get myself killed.  Dressed in nothing but a pair of dark sweatpants, a black hoody sweater, and a pair of soft soled casual shoes,  I stole out of the building and headed across the street to Jeb's house.

The street was deserted, so when I got there, I loitered a bit, checking things out.  Everything was dark and quit, so I hopped over the low fence and headed for the front door.  Gently, I tried the front door but it was locked, as I half expected, but I knew from the day I spent working there that he left the back door unlocked, at least it was the one time he came out and checked on me.

Slowly, I crept around to the backyard.  Still seeing or hearing no signs of activity, I crept up to the back door and gently tried to open it.  Even though I expected it, I was still slightly surprised, when the knob turned and the door silently opened.  This was it.  The turning point.  I could still go home right now and pretend nothing ever happened.  But I'd never have another chance like tomorrow, and I was going to pay the money back anyway.  He'd never miss just  a handful of those coins.  I swallowed hard and told myself that everything would be fine, and crept inside.

The inside of the house was dark and I had to pause to let my eyes adjust.  Fortunately, there was a main hall that led through the house from the front door, and some light from the streetlamps was shining in through the front door windows.  The house was old and pretty smallish, and I knew that the last two doors I came to were the bedrooms, one on each side.  Carefully, I approached the one on the left, and saw that the door was ajar an inch or so.

I didn't know for sure, but I always just assumed that old Jeb slept in the bed I saw in here, as that would make sense, and my assumption was confirmed when I saw a dark shape lying on the bed.  Fortunately, he was lying os his side, facing away from me, so I quietly stole up to the bed in a crouch.  Now was the tricky part.  As the box was underneath the bed, I had to pull it toward me in order to be able to reach into it and grab a handful of the coins.  I got down on one knee and reached under the bed.  The box was heavier than I hoped and I had to pull much harder than I would have liked, while at the same time, trying very hard not to make any noise.  Finally, after an eternity, I got it close enough to edge of the bed where I could reach in.

Slowly, I pulled out a sock I had brought and started slipping coins into it, one at a time, slowly, so that they wouldn't clink together.  Finally, I had a pretty good sized wad of them, and decided that better be enough.  I didn't want to get greedy and push my luck, and there were still enough in the box that hopefully, he wouldn't notice any missing until I paid him back.  Slowly pushing the box back under the bed, I turned to leave, feeling pretty pleased with myself about how smoothly things were going.  I think I made it about halfway to the door when the hands grabbed me by the throat.

I instinctively grabbed the wrists and tried to pull the hands away, but the grip was surprisingly strong for such an old man.  I tried using both hands to try to pry one of the hands off, to try to twist loose, but that didn't work either.  Now I felt a weight on my back as I was dragged down to the floor on my knees.  By this time I had been struggling to breathe for some time and knew I was about to pass out.  Finally, in desperation, with one hand, I found the coin filled sock and swung it hard over my shoulder.  I kept missing because we kept moving around, but the third time I felt a solid connection.  Instantly, the hands released their grip, and I pushed them off and I scrambled away on my hands and knees, gasping and trying to regain my breath.  When I turned around, I saw the figure of old Jeb, lying slumped on the floor.  Hopefully, I had just stunned him, but I didn't stick around to check.  Heart racing, I went out into the hallway and headed for the back door, and that's when I saw the mutt.

It was just standing there, outside the back door, looking in, and it caught me completely by surprise as I hadn't ever seen a dog, either with Jeb on his walks, or anywhere around the house, even on the day that I worked there.  I froze, trying to decide what to do and waiting to see what it would do, but it just stood there, not barking or growling or anything, just staring at me.  I tried to identify what kind of breed it was, but it just seemed to be a mutt, having the kind of mishmash of general dog features of the feral dogs that breed in the wild streets and alleys of cities the world over.  The mutt's head was about waist high and it was skinny, with shortish, wiry, uneven hair, pointy ears, and a scruffy, bushy tail.  And still, it just stood there and stared.  But as I looked, I noticed something weird—it's mouth was moving, constantly, twitching, chattering, opening and closing, repeatedly, almost like it was silently saying words that I couldn't hear or understand.  And now that I looked closer, its whole body was trembling slightly, shifting in a weird way as if it was having some kind of seizure, and the short fur was standing up and rippling, roiling, like the surface of boiling water or as if it was being buffeted by an invisible wind.

Seeing that the way out the back door was blocked by this unnatural looking, diseased mutt from Hell, and not wanting to try my luck forcing my way past it, I backed toward the front door.  As I did so, the mutt entered the hallway, following my retreat.  I somehow knew if I took my eyes off it for a second it would be a mistake, so I kept backing slowly, all the way until I had the front door at my back.  As the mutt advanced slowly, still not making a sound, I kept eye contact, while slowly reaching around with my free hand and unlocking the door.  Fortunately, I also knew from my previous visit that there was no deadbolt on the front door, only a simple thumb lock.  The mutt paused about five feet away, and that was my cue.  Quickly, in one motion, I pulled the door open and stepped to the side, then jumped through it, pulling it shut after me, then I ran like hell down the street.

After a couple blocks, I slowed to a fast walk and caught my breath.  A quick look around had confirmed I had no pursuers or witnesses, so I continued to the next block and turned right, then took a zigzagging roundabout path away from, then back to my apartment building, to shake off anyone who might be following me.  Finally, as I approached the door, I took a last look around.  Still seeing nothing, I went inside and up to my apartment where I shakily made another drink and tried to relax.  Things hadn't gone well, but could have been worse.  I didn't think my face had been seen by anyone, and I was pretty sure I just knocked old Jeb out, but the worst of all, the thing that my mind kept going back to, was that weird mutt, and the creepy way it stared and moved toward me without making a sound.

The next morning, I took the coins to the exchange and got nearly $30,000 for them, way more than enough to invest.  And invest I did.  If George was right, this was as near a sure thing as you could get.  That night, I celebrated my hopefully newfound wealth by treating myself to