Channels: A Collection, page 1
Channels
A Collection by
Jason Nickey
Copyright © 2025 by Jason Nickey except:
'A Widower's Apathy', originally published in 'We're Still Here: An LGBTQ Anthology Of Horror'
'Spores' and 'Beware The Blowjob', originally published in 'Sludge Volume 2'
'Drink Before The War', originally published in 'Carnage Candy'
'The Passengers', originally published in 'Head Blown'
'The Christmas Guest' and 'While You Were Shitting', originally published in 'Reckless Abandon'
'Swallow Hollow', originally published in 'Seasons of Fear: A Holiday Anthology'
'Death By Pumpkin', originally published in 'Splatterpunk Dreams'
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Grim Poppy Design
First edition 2025
"Welcome to prime time, bitch!"
-Freddy Krueger
For Stuart, Dan, and Danielle
A stronger bond that came from the wreckage
Contents
1. The Line Begins To Blur
2. A Widower's Apathy
3. Spores
4. The Christmas Guest
5. Drink Before The War
6. The Passengers
7. Swallow Hollow
8. While You Were Shitting
9. Death By Pumpkin
10. Beware The Blowjob
11. Can't Fight This Feeling
About the author
Also by Jason Nickey
The Line Begins To Blur
Waking to the sound of the engine running, I sat straight up with a gasp thinking I had fallen asleep while driving. I had actually been dreaming that I was driving through a rainstorm at night. The rain was pouring down and visibility was extremely limited. The car began to lose control, I swerved off the side of the road and woke up here.
Hands gripping the steering wheel, it took me a moment to realize I was parked in a rest area. I looked around, there was a field surrounding the lot and a small, brick building behind me. The sun shone down on the surrounding field of lush, green grass gently blowing in the wind. My breathing had finally slowed to a normal pace.
When did I even pull off the highway?
The more I thought about it, not only did I not remember pulling off, but I also didn’t even remember driving in the first place. Cursing myself for beginning a trip while sleep deprived, I grabbed my phone. My hands were still trembling a bit from being startled as I swiped his screen to check my notifications, looking for something to stir my memory and brush away the temporary amnesia I seemed to be experiencing.
After swiping away numerous useless notifications from social media apps, I paused when I noticed an email notification for a hotel reservation. I quickly tapped on the notification to open the email.
The email was confirming my stay for the next few days at the Countryside Getaway, a place that billed itself as ‘A getaway like no other’. I looked to my back seat and saw my laptop bag siting there. This seemed to knock the cobwebs from my brain and confirmed the vague memory I had of booking a stay in the country to finish up the book I had been working on.
I looked at the clock to check the time. It was just past noon.
How long had I been sleeping here?
Looking at the GPS, I apparently already had the hotel’s address punched in. The ETA showed that I had about three hours of driving left.
I turned the car off and stepped out. My knees popped as I stood up and stretched. I lit a cigarette and leaned against my car as I smoked. My plans to finish the cigarette before heading to the restroom were quickly interrupted when the nicotine kicked in and got my digestive system moving by the before I was halfway through smoking it. I threw the cigarette down and headed to the restroom with a sense of urgency.
As I entered the restroom, I noticed a sign on one of the toilet stalls:
Out Of Order
Work In Progress
Aren’t we all? I thought with a laugh as I stepped into the neighboring stall.
I heard the sound of the bathroom door opening just as I was finishing up. I listened as the footsteps made their way across the bathroom, entering the stall beside me.
Can they not see the sign?
I laughed a bit at this, shaking my head as I reached over to grab some toilet paper. My laughter was quickly cut short when I noticed that the feet in the neighboring stall were facing in my direction. They were dirty, rugged construction boots. As I began to wipe, I caught a shadow in the shape of a head looming over the wall between the stalls. This sent my already confused mind into a tailspin. Not only was I unsure of why I was even here, I had some weirdo blatantly spying on me while I was wiping my ass.
My heart began to race, and I refused to look up and confirm what I already knew was happening. Instead, I finished up as quickly as I could and rushed out of the bathroom.
I stopped at the vending machine on my way back to the car. I was trying to shake off what had just happened, but I was also looking for something caffeinated to further knock the cobwebs that had seemed to form in my memory of the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
Why the fuck couldn’t I remember leaving the house? Why didn’t I remember driving or pulling off to sleep? The whole thing had me a bit weirded out.
I was startled out of my train of thought by a voice coming from behind me.
“Can’t decide?”
“Huh?” I asked, turning around.
A middle-aged man stood there. I scanned him up and down, making sure he wasn’t wearing the construction boots I had seen in the bathroom. Thankfully, he wasn’t, but something about him still made me feel uneasy.
I was taken aback a bit by how generic this man was. Plain t-shirt and jeans, short hair, clean shaven, and no stand-out facial features. He looked like what you would get if you asked an AI generator to draw a typical white man. For some reason this gave me the willies.
“The machine. Trouble deciding on a drink?” He continued, gesturing toward the machine.
I shook my head and snapped out of my stupor.
“Sorry. Just woke up a few minutes ago. I kinda spaced out for a minute there.”
He nodded. “Happens to the best of us.”
He smiled at that, a mouth full of the straightest and whitest teeth I had ever seen. It was like a mouth full of Chiclets.
I turned back to the machine and put my dollar in, settling on a Mountain Dew for the caffeine content. I grabbed my drink and headed toward the car. I nodded as I passed him. “Sorry again. Have a good one.”
He nodded and gave that smile again. A chill went up my spine as I walked back to my car. I didn’t know why the dude gave me the creeps, but something about that interaction just didn’t feel right.
As I got back in my car, I looked in the rearview mirror. The guy was nowhere to be seen. I started looking around the parking lot and just then noticed that there were no other cars parked there.
“What the fuck?”
I got out of the car and looked around once more. Not a car or person in sight.
There’s no way that dude pulled off that quickly.
I hopped back in the car and started it, quickly pulling out onto the interstate to get away from the empty rest area and the creepy guy, wherever the fuck he had gone after our interaction. I ended up lighting another cigarette after merging onto the highway, breaking my rule of not smoking in the car. At this point, I didn’t really care. I wanted another one, and I certainly wasn’t going to linger around there any longer.
As I continued my drive, my nerves calmed some, but a sense of unease still lingered. The weird interaction along with feeling like I just randomly woke up in the middle of a road trip I don’t remember starting kept me from being able to fully relax.
I did my best to distract myself as I drove on. While I was usually more of a true crime fan, I queued up a few episodes of a funny podcast that discussed random ‘Am I The Asshole’ posts from reddit instead. I wanted something funny and light to put me in a better mood.
There was about an hour left in my drive when I passed through a small town called Prosper. With my stomach rumbling, I was hoping to spot a place to eat in this little one-horse town, but it didn’t look promising. The town was actually kind of creepy. I didn’t see a single person outside, and the few businesses along the road appeared abandoned; the paint on the signs and storefronts peeling and faded.
I had just about lost all hope of finding a place to eat, but on the far end of town, I spotted a truck stop. Figuring I could at least get a snack cake or candy bar there, I decided to pull in. The place was almost as desolate as the rest of the town. It was all but empty, save for a few cars and tractor trailers.
Walking in, I was relieved to see that the place had a restaurant inside. It had a diner set up with a long bar along the kitchen and a few tables scattered nearby. I grabbed a seat at the bar and waited for the waitress to come around.
Looking to my right, I noticed a trucker sitting at t
A few moments passed before the waitress finally came over to me. In a very flat tone, she asked “You need a menu?”
“That depends. Do you serve a Monte Cristo?”
She nodded.
“Cool. I’ll take a Monte Cristo with a side of fries and a coke if you don’t mind.”
She nodded again as she wrote down the order. “That be all?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rather than responding, she just walked back to the kitchen.
If this is how the service is in this town, no wonder it’s just about dead.
I chuckled at this thought. I looked to my right again, almost forgetting about the trucker at the other end. I expected to see him still glaring at me, but he was gone. There wasn’t even a glass or plate where he had been sitting. I never even saw him get up, and I certainly never saw anyone grab his dirty dishes. The theme song to ‘The Twilight Zone’ began playing in my head as I thought about how odd this day had been so far.
About ten minutes passed before the waitress came back with my food and drink. She set the plate and my drink on the bar in front of me.
“Thank you.”
She turned and walked back to the kitchen without saying anything or even acknowledging me.
While the experience so far in this place was strange, it was quickly forgotten, at least for a few minutes, as I scarfed down my food. I’m not sure if it was because I was starving or not, but that sandwich was amazing. It didn’t take long for me to inhale the whole thing.
After I finished, I sat at the bar waiting for the waitress to return with the check. After a few moments of waiting, I said, “fuck it” and just sat $20 on the counter and walked off.
I decided to use the restroom before heading back onto the road. I had almost completely forgotten about the incident at the rest area earlier, but had a quick reminder as I was pissing in the urinal. I heard heavy breathing and noticed movement in my peripheral. Looking to my right, I noticed an eye staring at me through that awkward space between the door and stall of one of the toilets. The man in the stall was a larger man, and I wondered if it was the trucker I had seen before ordering my food.
I quickly turned my head forward and finished pissing as fast as I could, but not before noticing movement through the space in the stall door. I knew what that movement was. I had done it on a toilet before, however, I had never done it in a public restroom.
I shuddered as I finished up, hearing his heavy breathing continue. I turned away so this weirdo couldn’t watch me shake off my dick. I quickly zipped up and headed towards the door, skipping washing my hands for a faster escape. I could swear I heard laughter coming from the stall as I stepped out of the door. I made a bee line to my car, immediately starting it and pulling back onto the road.
As I drove the last leg of my journey, my mind wouldn’t stop racing. The events of the day, as strange as they were, didn’t weigh as heavy on my mind as the fact that I still had no recollection of the first part of this trip. Outside of a faint familiarity with the thought of planning a getaway, I didn’t even have any memory of booking this place for the next few days.
The more I thought about it, I couldn’t really understand why I had planned it in the first place. I mean, yeah, I wanted to finish working on the book I had been writing, but it wasn’t like I had some shitty job or chaotic home life I needed to escape. My home life was actually quite peaceful, and I had a pretty sweet set up going on as far as income.
I inherited my house from my grandparents after they died. The property held two houses, the one I lived in, and the one behind it which was split into two small rental units. I had considered turning the two units into an Airbnb style set up, but upon mentioning this to my friend Dan, who was the manager of a contracting company, he ended up making me an offer that was even better.
Dan’s company often required his contractors to travel to a city near my house, so he basically had a rental agreement with me to consistently put up two to three of his contractors in each apartment during the week. This arrangement was not only cheaper for Dan than putting his guys up in a hotel, but it also allowed me to quit the nine-to-five routine I had been working so I could focus on my writing full time. The extent of my work outside of writing was cleaning the units up on the weekends when the guys were gone.
With all of this considered, I couldn’t really figure out why I would have felt the need to book a trip to get away. All I could hope is that the rest of this trip wouldn’t be as bizarre as the day had been so far.
I was almost to the hotel when I realized that I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t even have the reddit podcast playing anymore. I couldn’t believe an hour had already passed since I had left the truck stop. It felt like it had only been a few minutes.
I looked up at my GPS and saw that I had a turn coming up in less than a mile. I couldn’t help but wonder where this hotel was, considering that all that surrounded me was cornfields.
When my turn finally came up, I sat there in the road in a state of confusion for a moment. The road was fairly narrow, barely wide enough for two vehicles. It led for what looked like a mile through the cornfield to a small cinder block building. I shrugged as I made my left turn and began traversing through the cornfield.
The road ended at a small parking lot in front of a two-story building that looked like it used to be a school. If it hadn’t been for the sign by the door that read ‘Countryside Getaway’, I would swear I had come to the wrong place.
“Here goes nothing” I said before turning the car off and getting out.
I leaned against the car and smoked a cigarette as I looked at the building.
How the fuck did I even find this place?
I grabbed my laptop bag out of the back seat and headed to the trunk. I half expected to find it empty, but upon opening it, there sat my suitcase.
“What the fuck did I even pack?” I said, not even remembering packing at all.
I unzipped the suitcase and opened it, staring in awe as I looked at the contents. There were more than enough changes of clothes, cigarettes, and even some soda and vodka to last the next few days. I shook my head in disbelief before zipping it back up and pulling it out of the trunk. I flicked my cigarette out into the parking lot and made my way to the entrance.
The doors opened to a small lobby with a desk at the opposite end. I approached the desk and stood there for a moment to take in the surroundings. There was a staircase next to the desk that led to the second floor, and a hallway on either side of me that extended the length of the building. The hallway to my left ended at a set of double doors that opened into what looked like a dining room.
“Can I help you?”
I was startled when I turned to see a woman standing at the front desk. I hadn’t seen or heard her approach.
Where the fuck did she come from?
“Um… yeah. I have a reservation for Paul Weston.”
She opened a folder and flipped through some pages. It was then that I noticed there wasn’t even a computer at the desk.
Similar to the man from the rest area, she had a very generic look to her. Shoulder length blonde hair, blue eyes, and a slim build. She was wearing makeup, but in moderation; nothing in excess. She was wearing a light blue sundress and sandals. When she smiled, it was also similar to the man at the rest area. A mouth full of straight, white, Chiclet teeth.
“Ah, here we are. Paul Weston. We have you here for three nights?”
She said it like a question. The bad part is, I didn’t really know the answer.
“That sounds right” I said, going along with it.
“You’re in room 203” she said, handing me a key. “It’s upstairs and to the left. The men’s bathroom is just a few doors down from your room.”
