Seven Deadly Tales of Terror Read Online Free Page A

It was lodged dangerously close to critical areas such as his brain stem and spine. By trying to forcibly extract it, he might inadvertently cause some kind of debilitating and irreversible damage.
    John nodded, still staring at his reflection.
    What he needed was the help of medical professionals.
    On the other hand, what if his wildest imaginings were true and the object in his neck was some weird piece of alien technology? Once this was determined to be the case, he might be taken into custody by the military and shipped off to fucking Area 51 or some other secret place from which he might never return. Where once he might have dismissed such a notion as paranoid and absurd, it now seemed all too plausible.
    John Stark really didn’t want to spend the rest of his life locked away in a secret underground laboratory. He also didn’t much relish the prospect of doing nothing and leaving himself at the mercy of whoever had implanted the object, regardless of whether those responsible were actual creatures from somewhere beyond earth or some sinister and equally mysterious earthbound organization.
    Several more minutes of thinking it over resulted in no revelatory insights, but he did come to a conclusion about what he needed to do next. He shuffled back to his bedroom, grabbed his phone from the nightstand, and called Mike Carter.
    Mike was his oldest and most trusted friend. They’d known each other since elementary school. They’d been through thick and thin together. John had been best man at both of Mike’s weddings. Mike had bailed him out of jail a couple times back when he was still drinking and getting into trouble. His old friend might not have a solution for him, but he might be able to steer him in the right direction as far as what course of action to take.
    That initial conversation was brief. John didn’t want to tell the full story over the phone because it would make him sound crazy. Mike would think he’d suddenly started drinking again, which would be a logical enough deduction to make minus the visual evidence. Instead, John kept it simple, effectively imparting a sense of urgency and direness in just a few terse sentences.
    Mike said he’d be right over.
    He got to John’s house inside of fifteen minutes.
    At first he expressed the expected skepticism when John told him what had happened and his suspicions about it. The skepticism faded, however, when John showed his friend the object embedded in his neck and invited him to press down on the flesh adjacent to it in order to glimpse the silver bolt.
    They were in John’s living room at that point. The morning light spilling in from the sliding glass doors overlooking the patio and large, leaf-scattered back yard was muted, the day overcast and drizzly. Only a single lamp was on in the living room. The semi-gloom imbued the moment with a disquieting sense of the funereal.
    Mike drew a hand across his mouth and scratched at his jaw. “Maybe you’re not paranoid, after all.”
    John let out a shuddery breath and nodded in an emphatic way. “Damn right, I’m not. That thing is there. It’s weird, but it’s real. And I want it the fuck out of me. What the hell do I do?”
    Mike took his hand away from his mouth. “There’s only thing you can do.”
    John’s brow furrowed in confusion. “And what would that be?”
    Mike smiled.
    For the first time, John experienced a mild tingle of trepidation where Mike was concerned. There was something in that tight little smile that was not at all friendly. But surely that was just more paranoia, right?
    Mike reached inside his jacket and took out an automatic pistol. “What you need to do, John, is put this gun in your mouth and wedge the sight up against your soft palette. Once it is firmly in place, squeeze the trigger.”
    John laughed, albeit nervously.
    This had to be a joke.
    Only it didn’t seem like a joke. And that gun was very real. “This isn’t funny.”
    Mike nodded. “Unfortunately for