Fulciscape

Ian watched from his slouch in the backyard hot tub as lights snapped on one by one in the windows of the house he was being paid to watch over for the week, the house that had been empty a few minutes ago. Behind the curtains of each room, gaunt silhouettes leaned and shifted uncertainly, moving with the sluggishness of the prematurely awakened. When he heard the latch of the patio door click open, he tried to make himself as small as he could, hunkering down in the churning water, but not too far, because there was no way he wasn't going to finish off this bowl before whatever was about to happen happened.

Self-Actualization

Penelope was feeling pretty good about her first few steps toward a new "under her own control" life, and it wasn't until the crescendoing shriek of the town's emergency siren, carried through the afternoon on a bed of choking black smoke laced with screams of agony, was cut off by a shuddering roar that cracked half of her carefully polished windows that the first traces of doubt creeped into her thoughts. Had she been cowardly to invoke the wrath of Zalgrath the Devourer upon the entire town just to avoid the awkwardness of quitting her job at the county records office with no notice?

Gourmets

Frank had a long history of letting his temper overwhelm his common sense, so when the cold glare of the basement fluorescents revealed a hideous figure crouched on his freezer, stuffing a mouth like a demonic garbage disposal with handfuls of the Kobe beef he'd left out to thaw, he launched into a fit of bellowing outrage that the more rational parts of his brain were too paralyzed with terror to prevent; the creature, in turn, was so startled by the outburst that Frank lived a full six seconds longer than any previous human who had encountered one of its kind.