13 Night Terrors

They’re watching you. They see the way you clutch your blanket. They smell the sweat trickling down your back. They hear the fear pulsing through your veins…and they love it.

This is a collection of stories about what really hides beneath your bed, watching, waiting, listening to every breath you take. It’s about the creatures that come out to play on the full moon, and the things that wake at the devil’s hour.

Are you ready to find out what really goes bump in the night? The true reason behind your midnight tremors?

You’d better be.

13 is back—and it’s brought Night Terrors.

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The Day That...

By Samie Sands (Sample, featured in 13 Night Terrors)

 Miss Penley has given us this challenge for school. An essay titled ‘The Day That…’. The rest of that sentence is up to us, as is the style of the work. Basically, we can do what we want with this project as long as we’re busy doing something. Keeping out of the way, I suppose, that’s the main job of kids these days.  
Of course, it didn’t surprise me that everyone leapt up with excitement at the idea and declared what they would write about: ‘The Day That The World Ended’. It’s all anyone can talk about anymore. The end of the world, the day people stopped dying and started becoming something else.  
Some say zombies, some say monsters, some call them ‘infected’. I don’t call them anything because I haven’t ever seen one. Or if I did see any in the beginning, before we came to this camp, then I don’t remember. My brain has successfully blanked it out completely. I can recall our weird neighbor, ol’ man Hank, insisting that we needed to go to a refugee camp, and my mom agreeing with him. As a child, I had no choice in the matter even though I didn’t want to leave my home. I argued and pleaded, only to be ignored. Then again, that hasn’t changed with the end of the world. It’s always been that way.  
Apparently, it’s ‘much better’ that we’re here. That’s what Mom always says to me: ‘Gaby, it’s much better we’re here’ like it’s some form of mantra. Sometimes I think she’s saying it to convince herself as much as me. I’m not saying it’s terrible in this camp, I’m sure it could be worse—I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about what happens ‘out there’—but it’s never going to be home and no dressing it up will change that.  
Maybe I should write what the end of the world looks like to me in this place. That might be a slightly different essay idea. I might not remember the horrible bits from the beginning of the apocalypse, but I do know what’s going on around me right now. I know Miss Penley and the other children know what life’s like in this camp, so it’s a bit pointless. Still, I have to write something. Apparently, grades still matter, and I’ve never liked to fail.