Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Peter Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

PETER

Laura Seider cradled her bulbous tummy as she rolled back and forth on the living room carpet. She was almost down from her high, thank god. Getting high was nothing new, but she’d never experienced the munchies quite like this before.

While a grilled cheese darkened on a pan, she’d shoveled pieces of broken Doritos taco shell into her mouth. When the sandwich was gone, she scarfed down half a box of Fudgee-oh cookies, six spicy pepperettes, and four Chapman’s gingerbread ice cream bars—her lactose intolerance completely ignored. What finally pushed her to pain-town was the ancient, freezer-burnt chocolate-stuffed crepes she’d discovered at the bottom of the chest freezer out in the garage.

Tears slipped into Laura’s hair as she rocked her body, wishing she’d gone to bed as usual instead of eating the edibles earlier than normal—typically, she popped them forty minutes before bed and slipped into dreamland on a tingly wave of smiles, sleeping through the hunger. It was now 3:30 AM and there was no way she’d sleep; she’d be calling in sick.

She never would’ve gorged, no matter how high, if she hadn’t seen Alisa Lemont during her lunch break. Alisa Lemont and her designer clothes. Alisa Lemont and her two perfect toddlers. Alisa Lemont and her ideal husband, Blake Keller. Just over a decade earlier, she’d received a phone call two nights before prom, Blake had changed his mind, was in love, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ Laura went with a boy from the social B-squad and had stared daggers at Blake and that slut cunt bitch whore, Alisa Lemont, he was tonguing on the dancefloor. That it still hurt was thanks in part to her marrying Michael Dahlin: bad at ass-kissing and, in turn, career advancement, useless around the house, and completely infertile. 

“Goddamn it,” Laura whispered as she rolled sideways like a turtle overcoming her shell. She hated Alisa Lemont all the more for making her resent her husband, even if it was passing. Michael was a good man, a man with morals and courage and strength, despite his many failings. Michael was a man she would’ve gladly gone to prom with, had they met sooner.

Walking was almost unbearable, but she managed to climb the stairs to reach the main bathroom. As the water filled the tub, Laura sat on the can, trying to push out something, anything that might vent pressure. When that didn’t work, she visited the medicine cabinet and located a bottle of off-brand Tums. She chewed and swallowed six of the chalky tablets before popping three Extra Strength Tylenol gel caps. Bending forward to cup water to her mouth nearly toppled her in pain.

“Sheesh,” she whispered, wiping water from her mouth as she waddled to the tub.

About a quarter full, the water helped buoy her drum-tight belly. A sigh wheezed free as the water reached half full. Once it began trickling through the safety drain, she used her right foot to stem the flow from the faucet. Floating oh so slightly, she closed her eyes.

“Laura, you awake?”

Freezing and no less bloated, Laura opened her eyes and looked up at her husband.

“No. I fell asleep.” She tried to move and gasped at the pain. “Help me; I ate something that isn’t sitting well.”

Michael bent to take her cold, wet arms in his dry hands. “Holy, look at your belly!”

“I know. I got the munchies and…I’m taking the day off.”

“You’d better go to bed. Can you—I’ll just help you.” He grabbed her towel from the back of the door.

“Thanks,” she said, shivering through the word, towel wrapped around her shoulders as she stepped gingerly to their bedroom.

“I’ll grab your phone. Then I gotta go. I slept in.”

Michael spun away once Laura tipped sideways onto the bed. Naked and wet, she cocooned herself in a partial roll and closed her eyes. Michael returned with her phone, the contact for the daycare where she worked already located. Her boss didn’t answer. Laura left a brief, semi-honest message. She hit end and lay on her side, already slipping into a dream, despite the pain. She heard the door close downstairs and nothing more for three hours.

As she typically did when she awoke, she rolled over…now, onto her ballooned belly. The pain made her wince and squeeze, jarring something loose. The result was a magnificent, boisterous, operatic fart that flapped her cheeks in a chainsaw rumble for more than three minutes—had someone from Guinness World Records been there, she would’ve surpassed the prior longest fart by close to twenty seconds.

Once it was through, Laura began to laugh madly, even as she grimaced at the stench. It was unbelievably ridiculous, so ridiculous she wasn’t sure she’d ever tell anybody, maybe just—

“Bonjour.”

Laura jerked around, re-cocooning her body in the sheets. Floating above the bed was a translucent man with beady black eyes, a pencil moustache, and a brown beret on his head. He was otherwise nude, green and blue swirls streaming through his hollow abdomen, hips, and legs. His body was hairless aside from the moustache.

“I said, bonjour.”

Laura swallowed, shook her head, closing her eyes. “It’s the weed.”

“Non, non, non, je m'appelle Péter.”

“What?”

“Quoi?”

Laura opened her eyes. “What do you…wake up! Wake up!” She slapped her cheeks. “Wake up!”

“Tu ne rêves pas, mon ami.”

“What?”

The floating Frenchman clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Your education system has failed you, mon ami. I can fix that, if you like?”

Laura put a pillow over her face, muffling the words, “You’re not real.”

No response came. Laura remained there, pillow over her face, thinking her mind had traveled with baggage from dreamland into reality, simple as that. She exhaled a long, easy breath. It was too early to get up; might as well make the most of a day off with an empty house.

The warm embrace of the blankets quickly carried her away anew.

Laura’s phone chirped. One eye open, she scanned the bedding for her cell. Located beneath Michael’s pillow, she pulled the phone out and checked the screen. A text from Michael: Working late. Be home after seven.

The floating Frenchman came to mind. Laura spun in the sheets, bouncing some, and letting her feet find the floor. There was no stinky fart zephyr hovering in her room. She began to type a response to Michael: I just had the wildest… Her fingers ceased their practiced motions as she sniffed. That scent lingered. She quickly flung back the covers, wondering if there was a mess from when she let out that massive ripper.

Clean, she huffed out a sigh.

“Was the fart even real?” she whispered, resuming her text message: dream. Seriously. Any ideas about—

“It was real. As real as moi, mon ami.”

Laura’s arms shot out, flinging her phone across the room into a wall. She jerked sideways, backs of her knees connecting with the edge of the bed, sending her sprawling. Eyes elephant wide, she watched the floating Frenchman re-enter the bedroom, bringing with him a scent that she could taste.

“What the fuck? Whatthefuck? Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck?” She covered her face, which only seemed to strengthen the scent. “I’m…I’m…”

“Hush, now. Is no reason for folie. I am ami—friend.”

Laura calmed by and by, peeking around her hand to the floating Frenchman—what did he say his name was?

“Péter,” he said, as if cued by her thoughts.

Laura breathed deeply through her nose, then gagged on the odor. “God, that stinks.”

“Stinks? I smell nothing but you…you focus on all the wrong topics. This is grande opportunité.”

Laura frowned, letting her hands drop. “Opportunity?”

Péter wagged a finger, swirls of green streaming about the walls of his bodily cage. “Oui, oui. Grande opportunité.”

“Who…what…fuck! What’s going on?” Laura slammed the heels of her hands into the sides of her head.

“S'il te plaît, arête—stop, please,” Péter said. “My appearance is opportunity.”

Laura stilled, frowning, shaking her head in minute strokes. “This can’t be. This…I’m losing it, talking to some useless fart cloud.”

“Useless? Non, non,” Péter said, wagging a finger. “I am a genie. I grant qua—four wishes.”

Tears had begun to spill down Laura’s face. This had to be a nervous breakdown. “I’m losing it. And what kind of genie grants four wishes?” she said. She sneered at Péter. “No, I guess I’ve lost it.”

“Non.”

“Yes.”

“Non.”

“Yes!”

“Make a wish and see.”

Laura huffed, laughing humorlessly. “All right, I want a million dollars cash in fifties and twenties; real money, that can be spent in real life.” Her expression was one of rage, at least until the mountain of bound cash began tumbling from her closet.

She leapt to her feet and raced to the half-closed doors. It was there. She picked up a banded rack. Ten grand in twenties. Her knees stiffened as she stumbled in reverse. A million dollars would change everything.

“Une.”

Laura stared up at the floating figure. She was either lost in a dream, 100% wackadoo, or she’d farted out a genie. If it was one of the first two, playing along like the third was true wouldn’t hurt her in the short run.

“Okay. I want to go back in time and…” she trailed as Péter was shaking his head. “What?”

“What’s past is past. Only the future remain within our grasp.”

Laura scrunched her mouth to the left side of her face. “Okay. I want Blake Keller’s and Alisa Lemont’s lives to be irrevocably ruined.”

“Deux,” Péter said.

“What? Just like that? How do I know you did anything?”

Péter floated over to where Laura had tossed her phone. He scooped it up and floated back, handing off the device with a video running from the CBC News app. Laura watched in delighted horror as Blake Keller was being taken through the front doors of a coffee shop. Running along the bottom, the chyron read: CHILD SEX-TRAFFICKING RING DISCOVERED, THIRTEEN MEN ARRESTED.

“Holy god,” Laura whispered. “You’re real.”

“Oui. You have deux more wishes.”

Laura stood, indifferent to her nudity. She had to be dreaming anyway, so who cared?

“Okay, I wish Michael, my husband, was fertile,” she said, feeling a cloud of hope rising in her chest—what if this was real?

“Trois.”

Laura smiled, eyes bright, face glowing. She touched her tummy. “Am I pregnant?”

“You did not wish that.”

She nearly wished for it then but stopped. Michael could impregnate her now and she had one wish to go.

“You have but a single wish remaining, mon ami.”

As she racked her mind, the phone in her hand continued through the news story and she heard one of the station’s talking head say, “…received the names of the men…”

Laura turned the phone in her palm to watch and listen. The woman read Blake’s name, nine others, then Michael’s name. Her legs went al dente and she stumbled backward until she had to brace herself against the mattress.

“No. No,” she said. “Go back. This is wrong. I wish Michael wasn’t involved.”

Péter shook his head gently. “Impossible. What’s past is past, only the future remain in our grasp.”

The news continued from the phone, and one of the anchors said, “And we’ve just received word concerning a bank robbery where a security guard, the bank manager, and two children were gunned down by this as of yet unidentified woman.”

Laura looked at the screen and saw the grainy image of herself holding a shotgun while patrons and employees loaded cash into her car.

“That’s…that’s…what the fuck?”

Pounding landed against the downstairs door and a voice shouted, “Come out and we won’t shoot!”

Laura stumbled to the window and looked out. There were dozens of cop vehicles, three news vans, and at least one hundred spectators. She glanced to the screen and saw drone footage of herself through the window, nude and on national television.

“Your final wish?”

Her chin quivered, her hands shook, her legs wobbled. “I want…I want everything to be perfect, enviable even, for the rest of my life.”

“As you wish,” Péter said, then lost form, dissipating into nothingness, not only in sight but in smell—just another fart.

Laura looked around. She was in her bedroom, but it was not the same as it had been. The bed was huge. The furniture was plentiful and designer. The room itself was twice the size. She took a step and only then noticed a long, perfect leg. She took another step and put a hand to her perfect tummy—pregnant, despite zero outward signs, she knew, knew, knew the genie had given her this. Her phone rang in her hand—no three-year-old iPhone, she now had a Samsung S24 Ultra. She hit the green answer button after registering the name on the display: A. Bremner.

“Hello?”

“Don’t worry a lick. I’ll have Michael out and we’ll sue every agency that published, said, even thought his name on air. All I ask of you is that you do not speak to anyone in the media. Michael will be freed, his reputation made whole, and you will both be paid for the damage this circus has caused.”

“Okay,” Laura said, thinking, is this my lawyer? Hey…wasn’t it a woman named Bremner who kept Michael Jackson out of jail?

“Imagine thinking Michael Seider is a child trafficker or that you robbed a bank, absurd. Anyway, I only wanted to touch base. There’s work to do.”

The light static in the background of the call ceased. Laura looked at the device; the call had ended. A smile crept onto her face. She’d done it, she’d outsmarted that sonofabitch genie.

From her well-stocked walk-in closet Laura grabbed a Chanel robe—pink, silk, fabulous—and headed out of her room. The house was no house at all, but a mansion. After passing six empty rooms, she reached the head of the stairs. She could hear a voice speaking Spanish from somewhere on the main floor.

“This marble sure is chilly on the tootsies,” Laura said, then cackled maniacally as she moved about her dream home.

“Oh, Mrs. Seider, you’re up,” said the squat brown woman wearing dark green scrubs and disposable gloves, accent Southeast Asian ESL. “Do you need anything?”

Grin splitting her face, Laura said, “Not at the moment, thank you. Think I’ll take some air.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The housekeeper nodded, then hurried off as if suddenly recalling a smudge she’d missed while polishing the good silver.

Laura walked slowly through her home, admiring all that had come of her existence: art, furnishings, construction, square footage, it was perfect. She headed into the kitchen, discovering patio doors that led to a magnificent backyard: pool, garden, palm trees, a gardener trimming roses. She stepped out, closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and thought, my god, this is—

She never saw the baseball-sized meteorite that struck her forehead, instantly killing her.

XX