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Here, you will find a repository of my short fiction as well as summaries and extracts from the larger projects I am working on.

"Please come quickly" - An Unexplained Voicemail

This is a short horror story I wrote as a teenager. It is written in first person, and was originally posted on r/nosleep.

I found this saved voicemail on a 7 month old Samsung Galaxy S8. Below is an exact transcript of what I heard. Gave the customer $180 for the phone, factory reset it, replaced the cracked screen and got nearly $250 for it, but I don't think I'll be getting a good night's sleep for a while.

[Message begins]

Hi, it's Matt. Please call me back the moment you get this voicemail. It's urgent, it's really-

Don't come home. Don't come looking for me.

Stay at your mum's house. Or maybe with your sister? Forget about the house and your laptop and your jewellery, just please promise me you won't come home.

I've let something in, into the house, something from work, something I couldn't tell you about. One of those classified projects that’s been keeping me late. It was a mistake, I’m so sorry. I was so careless.

That's the thing. You work with anything long enough, it starts to feel normal. You get desensitised. The protocols and training gradually seem more like inconveniences than necessities. Doors get left open, gloves don't get changed, protective equipment stops being maintained properly.

I didn't expect to die of complacency.

You deserve to know. You have no idea of the number of documents I've had to sign, saying I won't tell a soul about this thing. The things the government does to anyone who gives away these secrets really don't bear thinking about. But now it's in our house, it's in me, and I'm a hell of a lot more scared of it than I am of the government.

You won’t see me again, but if you do, run. Don't let it trick you. That was my mistake. And, if at any point in this message, I start contradicting myself, start pretending everything's fine, stop listening right there. I won't be myself any more.

That's the infection mechanism of this thing, you see. It's a clever little creature, very clever. So clever only I could've invented it, or so you would probably say.

[Cry of pain audible from speaker] Sorry, I think I'm going to have to finish this message quicker than I thought. What did I need to tell you? Infection mechanisms, parasitism, neural pathway redirection oh my god oh my- [inaudible]

It mustn't spread, it mustn't escape. I can't kill it, there's no way to kill it. We made sure of that. I pray I can stop it from getting out of here but I don't know. I have a plan but I can't tell you, it's listening, it's here and it's listening.

Do you remember all the times I talked about Marie Curie? How she was an inspiration to me? She was a brilliant scientist, yet her work, as influential as it was, killed her. She kept radioactive sources in her desk drawer. To modern scientists, it's clear that her safety measures were woefully inadequate. But she never realised she was doing anything wrong.

Until it killed her.

But my discoveries aren't like hers. My legacy will not save lives or power innovation. Instead, I live with the knowledge that I have created a thing that will only destroy. But at least I won't have to live with it for very long.

God, I'm glad we don't have neighbours. This monster will have to go a long fucking way to get to another human.

I've created a monster, a real life monster and I'm so sorry that you live in a world where it exists. It'll kill me soon, very soon, and quickly too. My team designed it for maximum efficiency.

In a way, I'm rather proud. I spent months liaising with biochemists and neurologists to develop the neurotoxins it emits. This level of accuracy in neural pathway redirection is entirely unprecedented. I remember it being graceful too. Prior to contac, the creature appears hypnotic, even enchanting, to its victim. Like Frankenstein, I intended my creation to be beautiful. I have crafted something truly groundbreaking. Such a shame to have to kill it.

I have to kill it, you see, before it kills me. I created it. I gave it life and I will take it away.

Unless it kills me first.

I'm so scared, honey. I'm scared. I don't think I can do this. I've got a plan to kill it but I need more time, I need specialist equipment, I need help. Please believe me, please help me, I don't want to die. I can't kill it here, not on my own, I need you. I can contain it, I can keep you safe. Call Jamil and Esmé, tell them that it's escaped, that it's here. They'll know what to do. They need to bring the suppression kit. Between us we can fix this, before it gets to anyone else. Please, for me, hurry.

I love you, honey.

I don't want to die.

Please come quickly.

[Message ends]