Shadows of a Nightmare by Scott G. Gibson

Author:Scott G. Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shadows Nightmare horror short stories fiction
Publisher: Scott Gibson
Published: 2019-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

Instinx

I COULDN’T BREATHE. A cloud of poisonous fumes attacked my face, burnt my nostrils. My lungs struggled to suck in air, my airways constricting. It smelled sickly sweet, like sugar mixed with chemicals.

Somebody had sprayed an aerosol deodorant, sparking an asthma attack, and I was dying.

“Are you okay, Liesel?” my best friend Willow asked, patting my back unhelpfully. I gasped, motioning for my inhaler with my hand. Willow’s mouth formed an O of surprise, and she rifled through my bag for the puffer. Standing straight to open my airways, I tried to slow my breathing, hoping it would help me get air into my lungs.

“I have it!” Willow exclaimed, holding the inhaler up in the air and passing it to me. I gave it a shake, placed the nozzle to my lips, and sprayed. It had a bitter, metallic taste which I never enjoyed. I breathed it in deeply, allowing the mist to go as far down my oesophagus as I could get it, and felt the burn recede.

Finally, I could breathe more easily. “Thanks, Willow. I couldn’t breathe with all these aerosol cans,” I said, sounding like I’d just been for a run. “It’s these cans of Instinx. Everyone seems to be wearing it. I mean, have you seen the ads for it? Amazing! Even I wanted to wear it, and I know it’d kill me if I did.”

“So... I should probably get rid of this, hey?” Willow said, looking sheepish. Usually she was great at remembering my severe asthma. But today...

“You can wear it, but you know better than spraying it around me,” I said, still trying to get my breath back.

“No, I should’ve just stuck to my roll-on. But those ads. I felt, like, hypnotised or something. I just had to get some! I haven’t even opened it.” Willow chucked her can, unopened, back into her bag where it clunked to the bottom, releasing the smallest hint of a spray, and became buried beneath piles of unfinished – and unmarked – homework sheets. No way would we do it if our teacher, Mrs Johansen, never bothered to check. I looked around the eating area where kids were scattered munching on varying degrees of tasty sandwiches and tuckshop food. It seemed that a deodorant haze was settling around them as they shared their cans of Instinx and, following the directions, applied it liberally to their armpits and torsos. Willow and I kept our distance, hoping the wind wouldn’t waft the fragrant fug our way. I could smell it on me already, sticking and cloying.

As we spoke, a menagerie of insects attempted to invade Willow’s bag and buzzed around our heads.

Flies, gnats, mosquitoes, moths. All performing aerial acrobatics as we tried to swat them away in vain.

“This is bizarre!” I said. “I’ve never seen bugs do this before in such huge numbers.”

“I know, right,” Willow agreed. “Moths usually hang around streetlights at night, but never fly around during the day like this.” After a few minutes of swatting, the

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