Horror - Flash

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. Come Straight Home Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

COME STRAIGHT HOME

It wasn’t fair, not even close. He’d always been good, always did his best. His parents said it wasn’t grounding—he had to understand that, they worried, it was just safer.

It sure felt like grounding.

“You comin’ or what, Pas?” A small boy in dirty blue jeans and a stained white tee looked over his shoulder. His name was Mikey Rivers, his mother died a year earlier and his father wasn’t big on laundry.

Pascal’s parents told him it was cancer, told him to be nice to the boy despite his grubby nature and his underachieving. Told him it was such a sad thing to have a mother die.

Pascal grunted to his friend, “Yeah, cool it, ‘kay?” He was only nice to Mikey because his parents told him to be, even if doing so contradicted what they told him a day earlier.

“Pascal, now I know it’s not fair, but you need to come straight home after school,” his father said, eyebrows lifted in the I’m serious, pal angle.

“Just until everything settles,” his mopey faced mother added.

Pascal thought about the satisfaction of storming to his bedroom and slamming the door, it had nothing on his current satisfaction. Defiance was a drug.

It was the rundown part of town, the area where the buildings crumbled on top of luckless hobos and rusty rebar shot from the cement like permanent weeds.

“How far we gotta go?” Pascal asked.

Mikey had promised him a great surprise, something ultra cool. Pascal didn’t really care what it was, only wanted to challenge the curfew. Still, he felt a twinge of worry; his parents would be mad—he’d push it, but only so far. Also, he had chapter work to do on The Thief of Always before Friday and he liked to do that work right after he read, so the information was still fresh. He’d finished the third chapter at lunch.

“What, you gotta get home to mommy?” Mikey said.

He brought up the thing everyone pussyfooted around whenever he wanted to end a discussion. Nobody liked a dead mother or a motherless child. Both were nasty topics.

Pascal followed through the gravel paths between the dilapidated buildings. He looked at his watch, should’ve been home 20 minutes ago. He’d follow for 10 more minutes, at most, and then circle home before his parents really grounded him; maybe even took away his computer or his PS4.

Their voices echoed around in his head. “Do you understand why it’s so important?” his mother had asked through the bedroom door he’d slammed. “We only want you to be safe,” his father had said, voice next to his mother’s.

“Leave me alone!” he’d shouted. So they had.

He came out at breakfast, sleeping off his anger, his mother sat at the table about to fold out the paper, his father fussed with the coffee maker.

“Another one, another one!” she yelled stabbing a finger into the front page.

Pascal’s father rushed to her side and read. “You remember, straight home,” he had said to Pascal, a good boy considering turning bad to teach a lesson in fairness.

“Just up here,” Mikey said, it had grown cooler, closing in on night.

Pascal thought it might still be all right, he’d have time to see what he’d see and get home before total dark.

Ahead, a doorway stood amidst the rubble, everything around it fallen and broken. It was pretty cool that the door remained when the building fell, but hardly cool enough for the trouble.

“That it?” Pascal was indignant.

“Just a sec.” Mikey stepped to the door, rapped 10 times, counting under his breath as he did, and after the 10th, turned the doorknob. “Comin’?”

Pascal nodded, amazed by the door. It no longer led to nowhere.

Acid jumped from his gut to his throat and his mouth dried, slack and open. He had a bad feeling about going through. A bad feeling about the damp pale walls inside. A bad feeling but followed the boy nonetheless. There were worse fears than parents, or schoolwork, curfews, and creepy doors. There was rep, there was looking like a wussy in front of a tough kid like Mikey Rivers.

They stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind them. “Follow me, best part is down here,” Mikey said as they continued on a gentle slope.

The temperature rose around them, the soft clay walls dripped with sweat and something metallic filled Pascal’s nostrils. It was familiar, but impossible to finger.

“What is this place?” A quiver danced in Pascal’s words.

“Why, you scared?” Mikey said—the taunt half-hearted. He quickened, leading the way through the hall into a wide cavern full of pale figures lounging on chairs, children chained from the ceiling in their underwear, scabs about their flesh, jaws dangling, unconscious.

“Why?” Pascal whispered, understanding that this is what his parents had meant.

Straight home.

23 missing children. 19 empty children returned, breathless, lifeless, exsanguinated. That was the word his father had used. “Exsanguinated, I can’t think of anything more horrifying. Pascal, promise me, you’ll come home right after school.”

Mikey turned to his friend. “They said they’d bring my mom back if I got enough of my friends.”

Three pale and smiling creatures approached, they didn’t move like normal. They glided inches above the floor, eyes wide, licking their black lips, horns jutting from their skulls glowing cold blue and hot red.

Just what his mother had said, “…monsters, to do that to children, absolute monsters.”

Pascal looked at Mikey and then over his shoulder, two more figures approached from behind. “I can’t—”

“I’m sorry, but they told me I could get my mom back,” Mikey whined. He took three steps away from Pascal and the encroaching figures.

“You promise us you’ll come home right after school,” his father had said, demanded.

“Promise us,” his mother had seconded.

It wasn’t grounding, but it felt like grounding, but it wasn’t. It was for his protection, his safety, he understood that now, wished he meant it when he’d answered their demands with, “Mom, Dad, I promise. I swear. Straight home.”

XX