Half-Minute Horrors. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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      ARTHUR SLADE

       What’s Coming

      My father always used to say you’ll get what’s coming to you and I really didn’t like know what he meant until like this moment right now ’cause I can’t even move my arms and my chest it’s the pressure you see I’d decided to slip into old Widow Sturm’s house and I stole the heavy silver candlesticks and quiet as a rat I snuck back out the basement climbing over this container with old wood on top it’s for catching rain oh yeah it’s a cistern and the wood broke and I fell into this pit that just has thick slimy mud inside and I keep sinking and as it reaches my nostrils I start to bubble and I can’t help but wonder is it the candlesticks that keep pulling me down

      M. T. ANDERSON

       An Easy Gig

      Galv thought the Kennedys’ baby was being very good. He didn’t hear a peep from the kid all night. As babysitting gigs go, it was incredibly easy. The baby was already down for the night when he arrived. So Galv watched TV and talked to Raoul on the phone and ate the lasagna the Kennedy parents had left in the oven for him.

      He did not check the baby’s room to make sure the baby was still sleeping. He didn’t check the crib to make sure the baby was even still there.

      He lay on the sofa with his head hanging off the armrest and his lasagna plate on his stomach, making up song lyrics with Raoul. They laughed hard.

      And when the parents came home and said, “How was the baby?” Galv said, “Oh, he was good. Really good. I didn’t even hear a peep from him.”

      But Galv didn’t know how the baby was. He hadn’t checked.

      “No,” said Mr. Kennedy. “The baby was bad.”

      “Very bad,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “The baby cried and cried.”

      “No he didn’t,” said Galv, confused.

      “Before you got here,” Mr. Kennedy explained. “The baby was so bad he had to be punished.”

      “And when we punished him,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “we made a mistake.”

      “And then,” said Mr. Kennedy, “we needed somewhere to hide the body. And someone to blame.”

      Galv backed toward the door, terrified. He couldn’t speak.

      “You can’t run from it,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “The police will never believe you. The crime is already yours.”

      Mr. Kennedy smiled. “How did you like the lasagna?” he said.

      YVONNE PRINZ

       Mr. Black

      Every morning at seven sharp, my next-door neighbor emerges from the front door of his house. He has no wife, no kids, and no dog. He disappears up the street on foot wearing a black suit, black shoes, and a black hat, and carrying a black briefcase. We call him Mr. Black. One day my curiosity gets the better of me and I peek into his living room window. Through a crack in the blinds I see that it is not a living room at all. It’s a waiting room. Five more Mr. Blacks sit in a row of plastic chairs, not moving, not blinking, not breathing. I hear a whirr, and a small camera mounted up in the far corner of the room swivels and focuses in on me. A red light blinks. I run.

      M. E. KERR

       The Foot Dragger

      My father thought the reason my older brother was mean was that he was short. He’d grow out of it.

      When he came in late at night, while my parents were asleep, I would hear him heading toward our bedrooms. He would drag one foot and take his time climbing the stairs.

      Step . . . drag . . . step . . . drag. Heavy breathing. The door handle turned.

      I decided two could play this game. As the handle turned, I’d jump out at him. I was ready for him. Step . . . drag. The heavy breathing. He was there.

      “Gotcha, Paul!” I threw open the door and saw him.

      This very tall man.

      ADAM REX

       Trick