Adrian Chills

@adrianchills

Short horror stories written for Bluesky directly inspired by the Guardian columns of Adrian Chiles. Created by @scsheil.bsky.social

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Adrian Chills@adrianchills· 23d

#77: Wind

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I am used to hot days now. But the warm wind has really panicked me.'

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Dear Peterson, My Brother in Magic

I can only hope this missive finds you. I have prepared the parchment on which I write with a protective hex which should shield it, at least temporarily, from the all-seeing eyes of Professor Deacon, The Black Mage, and entrusted it to the hands of Archibald, the young boy whom I rescued from the burning ruins of a local orphanage. I myself am still hampered by my physical deformities and unable to travel freely—though your spell to free me from the pigeon curse wrought on me by the Professor was mostly effective, I still possess, from the right knee down, one pink, four-toed foot which makes walking extremely difficult and quite extraordinarily painful.
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I wish so that we had not been parted, but when the demented Deacon cast his Grand Enchantment and plunged us—and thousands of other innocents beside—into this bleak and fiery shadow realm which I have named Infernal Albion, both time and geography seemed to turn topsy-turvey. I find myself now in some shadow version of Slough, populated by a few disoriented survivors alongside roaming hordes of Deacon’s monstrous demon hogs. I pray that you are still in the environs of Rathbone Street. If you are, and Archibald manages to find you, please return with him to find me. I fear that it is only by employing our combined arcane knowledge that we will be able to combat Deacon’s pestiferous sorcery.
The fires which burn eternally here are now just part of the landscape—I no longer even feel their heat. What worries me more are the warm winds which have begun to waft through the abandoned church in which I have taken temporary sanctuary. The winds seem to emanate from no meteorological source—no sun or moon shine in Infernal Albion, no clouds drift, no rains fall—but instead bear the whiff of an animal’s fetid breath. I fear that the prowling demon hogs, some of them as large as houses, have tracked me to my hiding-place and nightly come to toy with me.
I still have some defenses—my magics and some spears newly whittled from the pews—but I sense I do not have much time.
Please hurry to me Peterson, and let us once more take the fight to the Dark Mage!
Yours, A

Adrian Chills@adrianchills· 24d

#76: Video

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'In the bizarre world of short-form video, nobody is allowed to take a breath.'

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I shouldn’t have clicked on the link, I know that now. But I did, and now it’s too late, the seven days are almost up. And there’s nothing I can do, nothing.

A dark image, barely lit. An industrial space; concrete floor, windowless walls, a ceiling crossed with pipes. The camera’s point of view floating slightly, as though handheld. A low hum that you almost feel more than hear. It runs through your bones, shudders your blood.

There’s something wrong here.
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A light flickers somewhere overhead, out of sight. A sickly green glow, sputtering into life. In its spasmodic flashes we glimpse the architecture of the space; three columns, left (near), right (near) and centre (far). The light paints blocks of thick shadow across the grey concrete. Three columns, three pitch black trenches.

With each flicker comes a buzz of sound, an electrical crackle, embedded in the low hum like barbed wire in flesh.

Your throat already feels tight, your windpipe constricted as though a hand were gripping your neck.

And then, behind the centre column, a glimpse of something moving. A hand, little bigger than a child’s, crawls round to grip the column’s edge. Above it, the corner of a face, a single eye beneath a curtain of long dark hair. The eye stares at you, unmoving, unblinking.

The light begins to flicker again. The barbed wire buzz grows louder. In the stutters of illumination, more hands appear, now on the left and right column edges, closer to the camera, closer to you. The thin white fingers grip the concrete, fingernails scraping back and forth against the surface. You can feel the tips of them against your throat. Your windpipe is little more than a thread, not wide enough to hold a single breath.

In the last second of the video, all goes dark again. The low hum fades away. All you can hear is the scratch of the fingernails. Skritch, skritch, skritch.

I only saw it once, but every second of it is imprinted on my retinas. There’s no way to escape it.

My throat has already begun to close. I can feel the grip of the hands, the sharp point of the fingernails against my skin. I desperately try to suck in a breath, but there’s no longer any place for the air to go.

I see the light above me flicker, hear the electrical buzz, and I know that it’s nearly over. I let myself succumb to the darkness.

From out of the darkness, three columns appear in front of me.

Adrian Chills@adrianchills· Jul 17

#75: Survey

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads: "I started filling out a survey-and was plunged into serious soul-searching."

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“Do you have time to fill out a short survey?” She was on my doorstep, a woman in her late forties, swamped by a yellow hooded cagoule, her washed-out face a picture of resignation.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“Attitudes and opinions,” she said, flatly.
“You’ve hit the jackpot,” I told her, “I’ve got both.” She gave a thin smile, humoring me. I invited her in anyway. To tell the truth, I felt sorry for her. Can’t be an easy job.
The form she handed me was filled with questions and a grid of dots. Mark according to the strength of your feelings: Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neutral, Somewhat Disagree, Disagree.
She passed me a pencil, surprisingly weighty and solid. “Just fill it in yourself,” she said.
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I did as she asked. She sat opposite me, perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, still wrapped in her cagoule. I began to regret asking her in. It was hard to put my finger on, but there was something about her which seemed to suck all the life out of the room, a kind of dark cloud. It was like she was the company that misery loved.
The questions were peculiar. Mostly pretty inarguable, I’d say.
The innocent should suffer. Disagree.
Evil should be punished. Agree.
A man’s life can be wholly dictated by his actions in one single moment. Neutral.
I didn’t think about it too much, just tried to bounce through them as quickly as possible. Any attempt at friendly chit-chat, meanwhile, seemed destined to fail.
“You live round here?”
“No.”
“Been doing this job long?”
“Long enough.”
“Married? Got family?”
“Had a husband. Three kids. All gone now.”
Finally I was done. As I looked over the sheet of filled-in dots, I noticed that they seemed to make a kind of pattern. Almost like a symbol of some sort.
I handed her the sheet. As she looked at it, relief seemed to flood through her.
“Finally,” she whispered.
“I thought I was pretty quick about it,” I said, somewhat put-out.
She shook her head. “The curse” she said, “Finally lifted. Finally passed on.”
As she spoke, the cloud around her seemed to dissipate. At the same time I felt the air around me thicken and grow dim.
She stood up to leave. “Get another to draw the sigil in your presence,” she said, “That’s the only way to free yourself.”
As she walked out of the house, a hollowness began to manifest itself within me, while all hope, all joy, all positivity faded away.
I still gripped the pencil between my fingers, and realised only now why it carried so much weight.
It was my only hope to regain my soul.

Adrian Chills@adrianchills· Jul 16

#74: Annoyed

$A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'My neighbours and I were left with no water this week. Why was I the only one who seemed annoyed?' Alt-text for next image: It’s been fifteen days since the heatwave first began, fifteen days of cloudless, pale blue skies, of an unrelenting sun cooking city and town alike. For me, it’s been close to unbearable. The night before the heatwave hit, I returned home with my ankle—broken that morning while jogging around the park, victim of an errant Dachshund pulling its lead taut across my path—encased in a fracture boot, with orders not to place any weight on it for at least two weeks. Luckily I’d had a big Waitrose delivery come in the day before, so I was stocked and ready—all I had to do was to see out the next couple of weeks. Then came the heat. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, not just the intensity of it, but the whole feel of it. It was like the sunlight had a texture—thick and heavy, soupy. I could swear it had an odour too. Though I kept the windows closed and fans on during the day, I could smell it seeping through, intoxicating like a perfume. Come to me, it seemed to say, worship in my presence. (continued on next alt-text)$