I joined the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge mostly to do something fun with my husband; honestly, I had no idea what to expect. So it was a fun surprise when I made it to the second round with him (I had no doubts about his going deep into the contest).
We eagerly awaited our second-round prompts. Several genres made me nervous, but one I wanted nothing to do with—horror.
That was the one I got.
I don't read horror, I don't watch it, and I certainly had no intention of writing it. So I closed my computer and went to bed.
To my great surprise, the moment my head hit the pillow, I felt like God was speaking. Asking me to do it. And to my even greater surprise, I felt like He downloaded an idea for a story that would fulfill the genre's description while overall casting hope and light.
What came next was the following story. I wrote it, submitted it, and continued in the contest. This story won third place in my group and got me into the third round of the challenge.
What is most satisfying to me is that regardless of how it was received by the judges, I love this story. And I never would have written it had this contest not made me try the horror genre. Who knew???
—Lana
Written for the 2024 NYC Midnight Fiction Writing Challenge. Round 2.
Assignment: to write an 2,000 word (or less) short story in three days that featured the following —
Genre: Horror
Character: Nominee
Plot Line: Chance of a Lifetime
By Lana Shaw
Immediate claustrophobia. Flashes of heat. Dizziness. Stale air.
I try to move, but my limbs are trapped. The concave lines of the walls are curving in; they become the deep throat of a snake swallowing me whole. They shift and shape around me. I am the prey, alive in the belly of a beast.
I have woken up in a coffin.
They did this.
I knew they were out to get me. I could see it in the side glances they gave each other whenever I tried to tell them what was happening. I could hear it in their condescending tones as they spoke--at me, not to me--from their settled, lofty perches.
They took advantage of my vulnerability, my desperation. Tricked me with their chicken pot pies, which always reminded me of my grandma. Still, I knew. I should have let my gut lead like always, instead I listened to their golden-spun words.
Chance of a lifetime, they said.
You’re the perfect candidate, they said.
I want to scream, nothing comes out. I gasp, frantic for air. I’m sure they’ve drugged me; they do this often to their victims.
I feel myself begin to hyperventilate.
Smell the cake, blow out the candles.
Smell the cake, blow out the candles.
Smell the cake, blow out the candles.
A therapist taught me this exercise and I do it at least fifty times, trying to delay the inevitable and not choke on my panic.
How does one calm down trapped in a coffin? How does one find breath?
I shut my eyes. I try to see it: the waves coming in and out, their soothing whispers washing over me, belly to toe, pulling all terror from my body with the ebbing of the tide. But within seconds the waves become menacing: underworld spirits grasping at my last bits of life, their wispy fingers crawling all over me.
I scream again. NO!!! But nothing comes out.
~~~~~~~
“How do we get her to do it?” Three says to One.
“We tell her that these opportunities don’t come around often, that it’s for her good. You know she’s the best choice for this. They wanted the worst. So we tell her as much as we think she will believe. And then we put her to sleep.” One is taking notes.
“You know with her that usually only lasts about 20 minutes.”
“That will be enough to get her in.” Three looks dubious. One reassures. “We’ll also give her plenty of Versed.”
~~~~~~~
I drift in and out of nightmares, waking and sleeping. I think I prefer sleeping, but in that place beady green, hateful eyes bore into me, hungry for my soul. Soon I’m right back in my roused reality of dread. I hear high-pitched screaming sounds, laughter even. Cackling. I hear the muffled, low voices of my enemies, discussing the victory of my demise. Exchanging toasts to my torment, giving eulogies on my gullibility. They morph into flickers and shadows and press in to feast on me.
Oh god get me out of here! Panic overtakes me again and again; there’s no rise and fall, just a steady summit of horrors. I have no moment’s relief. There is fire in my blood, cotton in my throat, poison in my air. My lips are cracked wood. My body feels like lead. I am cold and hot all at once; I can’t stop the shaking.
Next, the creatures come. Deconstructed insect parts, they appear in bits, disconnected from any whole. Spindly legs race across my cheeks. Chestnut, glossy abdomens gather like fallen leaves at my feet. Globes of multi-irised eyes narrow in on me from all sides. Fangs pierce the skin of my arms, their burning stings echo indefinitely.
God, please help me, I pray to one I haven’t given much thought to since I was wide-eyed on my grandma’s lap. I remember pieces of the stories she told, part of one comes to mind: Jesus asleep in the boat while his so-called friends get abusively hammered by a violent storm.
Feels familiar.
~~~~~~~
“Something’s off. I don’t like this.” Three shakes her head.
“We stay the course.” One attempts resolve.
“There’s too much at risk. If we pull back now it might be okay. But if we get too far in there’s no going back.” Five agrees with Three.
“This is happening. End of discussion.” One says no more because it’s already been said.
“Yes, but we can't be sloppy about this.” Three now has her head in her hands.
“FOCUS! We’ve come this far.” One’s words seem punctuated by a knock on the door. “Come in.”
“What is this?” Three and Five look at One.
“We’re not nixing the plan. But I have an idea.”
One opens the door to the room with the intercom and nods at the old woman. “Let’s hope this works.”
~~~~~~~~
My coffin fills with dirt. Oh, the weight on my chest! I struggle again to breathe. They’re burying me now, and the earth is seeping in. I hear the metal of the shovel cling as it finds its way through stony ground. Sandy dirt and fine gravel shower me before the hard, stark clumps of earth hit. It resonates like thunder after lightning. It states matter-of-factly (it has no need to shout), You are mine.
The storm dances around, it moves in and out of me. Now it rushes through my eyes, I give into the sobs. My tears become a flood and I am drowning, I am gasping for that final bit of oxygen before the waters eclipse my breath.
The silence that comes when I’m underwater is both welcome and haunting. There’s a sense of suspension, zero gravity. Perhaps this is it. I feel myself begin to surrender, to give into the fade.
But then my heart jolts. I feel impending horror, like it’s on my skin, or even trying to become my skin, and it’s worse than any I’ve known living.
I realize it: I am afraid to die.
Oh God.
Panic. Adrenaline explodes like a bomb inside. My racing heart is a boxer punching my chest, going for the knockout.
I am eyes-wide-open again now and I hear murmurs. They glide and twirl and morph.
What am I hearing?
The words feel otherworldly, and yet oddly familiar.
“…the tempest is raging, the billows are tossing high, the sky is overshadowed with blackness, no shelter or help is nigh…”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s not working! And now it’s too late to do anything. If we don’t get her to calm down, she could be lost forever. You read the warnings, she has to be in alpha wave mode when the treatment ends.” Therapist Three is sweating. Therapist One is pacing back and forth. The stark room is abuzz with teams of white, looking at screens and making jots on clipboards.
The patient thrashes violently against the straps that hold her down in the cave of the MRI-like machine.
“Increase her Versed! We have to get her heart rate and beta activity down, STAT.”
“We’ve already maxed out; she’s resistant to all of it.”
“If this doesn’t work, and she is trapped in psychosis the rest of her life, I’m blaming you,” Three, red with fear and looking to wash her hands, narrows on One. “I thought from the start this was too great a risk.”
“We had to try! She’s already been trapped for nearly a decade! With her relentless delusions and hallucinations--she’s been in a living hell. You know as well as I do that every mental illness treatment center wanted to be a part of this round of beta testing because they saw the success of the initial trials. This could be life-changing for her, give her a chance to actually live!” One is near tears. She says, as if in effort to comfort herself, “Her family was supportive.”
They look over at the intercom room.
The old woman hasn’t let what’s happening phase her. She steadies on.
~~~~~~~~
I have been sinking for a hundred years; the seaweed wraps around me. It’s on my head and chest. It is the thorny kind and their barbs pierce my arms. I keep hearing that sound from above the water line.
“...carest thou not that we perish? how canst thou lie asleep, when each moment so madly is threatening a grave in the angry deep?...”
Something about the words, I have heard them before. But it is more than that. There is a gentle ring, an echo, an energy to the sound. It vibrates through the water and gently caresses me. I desperately want to let it but instead my body jerks and cowers. I involuntarily thrash and push it away.
But the sound doesn’t recoil. It doesn’t back off. It pursues me.
“...whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea, or struggles or evil, whatever it be, no water can swallow the ship where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies…”
I am dizzy with the wrestling. Flashbacks of another time wash over me. I am eight. I am running barefoot in the true green grass of my grandma’s yard. The sun is shining and the whole world is open before me. I hear my grandma’s singing, her old hymns. She is sitting in the dirt. The world breaks and out of her comes the music. My dad dies, she sings. My mother overdoses, she sings. They turned off our electricity, we sit in the dark, open a can of beans for dinner, and she sings. She whispers languidly, “They always say, dear Lizzie, ‘with music we rise from misery to hope.’ Singing is gratitude in the form of music; gratitude and anxiety can’t both exist at the same time. Might as well befriend the kinder one.”
The memory goes awash. I reach for it, I don’t want it to leave. I see diamond dust particles dancing in the ripples, it’s the sound again. The sound is a presence. The sound is a song. And I realize: It’s her voice pulsating through my watery grave. She beckons me. I try to make contact. I try to push myself up to the surface so I can better hear.
“...the winds and the waves shall obey thy will.
‘Peace, be still!’
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
"Peace, be still!’
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
"Peace, peace, be still!"
My beloved grandmother’s voice singing that old hymn is a radio dial, fine-tuning my battered heart to the frequency of her peace. She sings it over and over, I’m not sure how many times, and like a newborn baby on her momma’s chest, my heartbeat synchronizes with the rhythm of her song. All other sounds have retreated, the water flows down with them. I breathe in deep, taking my fill of air.
Soon even the shadows cower. I blink.
I look around--there are traces of light.
I am not in a coffin.
The light in the room triggers light in my mind, and I remember.
This new treatment will give you the chance to be free. To really live. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and you have been chosen. There are so many who want this. You will have to be very brave, and remain very calm to the end, but you can do it.
I have lived with a broken brain for so long I could never imagine anything else. I remember wishing for a shattered leg or even a hole in my heart--any problem that could be seen, or that had a tangible path forward.
I want this.
I breathe deep.
Smell the cake, blow out the candles.
I remember the rest of that story from my grandma: Jesus didn’t leave his friends to die in the storm. He got up and he told the storm off. And the oppressive wind, the abusive waves, the narcissistic lightning, and the threatening thunder all in unison said: Yes Sir.
How can You have a known what's it like? My Sleep App Plays a green Light 18---20-23 hours a Day Decades Pass and then One Line From Dear Old Friend...I Renember HIM Who Suffered So Deeply Filled With Compassion. . If He Can Rise Up in Him SO CAN I!
I remember Lana Reading Scripture While I went Through The MRI.
This Treatment is it Real?