F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Spooky

Love, What A Way To Go

by

Love Knows No Limits. (Image of "Cemetery Row," Alexandria, VA, May 19, 1990, © F. P. Dorchak)
Love Knows No Limits. (Image of “Cemetery Row,” Alexandria, VA, May 19, 1990, © F. P. Dorchak)

I’d almost forgotten about this story until working on “A Conversation With Hell.” And I didn’t remember how it ended, either, but I did remember one scene in this story, near the end, involving a projectile. Even felt my arm psychically “move” just as it did when I’d originally written this story, 26 years ago, to “feel” the action of the protagonist.

I love “undead” stories—notice I didn’t say zombie stories. To me there’s a difference. You just can’t keep a good corpse down. I also love a good love story…granted, I prefer a little supernatural/metaphysical element to the love story…but a good love story should stir the emotions and make you feel guilty for every wrong you’ve ever committed against anything or one. I don’t know that I attained that with this one…but, here it is in all it’s unvarnished gory….

This story has never been published.

 

Love, What A Way To Go

© F. P. Dorchak, 1990

 

“God, how I love you.”

Joey smiled back at her. “Feeling’s mutual,” he said, softly, squeezing her hand.

Looking into Lorna’s eyes, Joey was overcome by their passionate presence…large, painfully emotional eyes that constantly appeared to be weeping, though never actually wet.

Joey replayed the past two months of devoted togetherness that had quickly developed between them; from their first meeting as singular lonely people vainly searching the nights…to two…unable to live without each other’s touch. As far from perfect as their relationship might be, all that mattered was that they had each other.

Fiercely holding hands they both felt the internal buildup of emotion—and the tears that were sure to follow. Two months…that was all…two months and they had blended together like a lovers’ embrace. There had been the usual talk—that they’d never last, that it was all just a case of “can’t have” infatuation, but love didn’t have to last an eternity…just a lifetime.

Outside the night was steely gray, and they both shivered as they stared outside through the dirty coffee shop windows. There was a feeling of dread hovering in the air, and though neither would admit it, both knew it was there. It hung as thick as the fog they walked through.

“Think we’d better go now, honey,” Joey said, somberly forcing the words out. Lorna shook her head in agreement. Joey left the tip.

Cold. Desolate. Still that…something…hovered in the air…taunting.

Outside, the two stood beneath a lonely streetlamp, its obscure luminescence spilling out onto the sidewalk. The couple looked ahead to the fog bank before them…their grips on each other tightening. Lorna turned just in time to meet his same movement. Joey saw the tears…the soft wisps that rose from them as they channeled down her face.

“Don’t ever leave me!” she choked.

He said nothing, instead increasing his hold around her, and, smiling down to her, kissed her forehead.

They disappeared into the darkness.

Destination attained, they faced each other.

“I love you!”

“I love you!”

Both felt the chill across their faces as they now wept openly and kissed. Away Lorna walked…on up the path to her house, a dull yellow porch light whispering into the dark. Joey watched her until she got inside and turned off the light. He caught her face filling a window shortly thereafter…a small hand pressed against the glass in a beckoning, farewell call. He smiled softly, waving back.

Joey swallowed hard as he left.

Having made it some four blocks homeward, Joey reached a particular bend in the road, lost in both thought and emotion. He thought of Lorna…wondered when he would next see her. The thought turned out to be only momentary as a car came screaming around the bend and hit him full on, sending his body flying high into the air. He came back down hitting the asphalt hard, and lay crushed and face down in the rain gutter, a warm stain slowly forming a boundary between his body and the ground.

Lorna awoke abruptly.

She’d had the most terrifying dream of her life, but was suddenly unable to recall any of it—except for the uncomfortable feeling that Joey was somehow involved. Rushing out of bed, she frantically fumbled for the phone, a sickness in the pit of her stomach as she dialed his number. She waited. No answer. She continued waiting.

Still no answer. She hung up and tried again.

No answer.

Noanswernoanswernoanswernoanswer….

It never took him this long to get home before, and he always picked up by the third ring. Always.

Finding herself dressed before she was even aware of it, she flew out of the house, screen-door clattering behind her.

He was buried in a quiet ceremony. Lorna wore black. Her mom had died, she was told, from the trauma of Joey’s death, and, somewhere in the night, cruised a car with a pushed-in, left-front bumper.

That night Lorna went back to the old coffee shop and took their usual booth. Her coffee here was free tonight. Outside a car pulled into the parking slots, bright headlights beaming directly in through the shop’s high, open window panes. And they remained on, one slightly askew. Lorna was only in passing annoyed that the driver was so abjectly rude as to leave them on.

The driver entered at the distant end of the shop and approached the cash register. The diner’s owner returned a gesture, and there was conversation, but Lorna paid little attention. Only when the gun went off did she look up, upsetting the runnels of tears marking her face. The assailant also looked up, pointing something in her direction. She never noticed the .357, only the bright flash as something blew her chest all over the windows behind her.

Still wearing black she, too, had a quiet ceremony.

Her family gone, the county took care of everything. She had a nice casket. Thing was, she was buried in a cemetery on the other side of town. Clouds hung heavily, perilously low, a bone-chilling rain downpouring large, painful drops.

That night he was restless.

Something was wrong; something missing.

There was too much emptiness. He had to move. Good thing the rain had softened the earth.

Good thing, rain.

A drunk leaned against the cemetery’s rusted gates, bag in one hand, regurgitated meal in the other. Hearing a noise, he looked up, wiping his warm hand on a pants leg. Peering through the fog, the drunk spotted a lone, lumbering figure crossing the graveyard. The figure carried two objects, the smaller one undistinguishable, but the larger looking like a box the size of a man. Turning away, the drunk slouched back down onto the damp grass, nursing his condition.

A bruised car burned on through a stoplight, one of its headlights dangling. Massaging the gears, the driver raced down deserted roads. Taking one turn a little rough, the driver spotted something entering into his path…the figure straddling the center marker of the street. It was a dark figure…a box-like object behind him on the road. The driver reached for his gun, grinding down several gears for a better look. The unyielding figure held something under one of its arms. It was smaller. Slowing more, the driver strained the lower gears.

The figure suddenly raised its burdened arm, sending the object in a non-curving arc through the air…and impacting the driver’s windshield. It struck the driver square in the face, neatly slicing back the top-half of his head.

The headstone continued on out the rear of the car.

Careening, the vehicle slammed into a street post; shuddering, the light blinked on and off several times before going dead.

The next morning found people gathered around a burial plot. The Caretaker noticed it first, and he was not tight-lipped by nature.

Where she lay, at one time alone, now she had company, freshly turned earth and an accompanying gravestone alongside. They lay together.

One fathom into the ground, lay two bodies side by side, two hands clenched, tightly.

Love doesn’t have to last an eternity…just its lifetime.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

 

A Sermon Unleashed

by

You just never know who some people are when you meet them. Especially at night in a KOA campground. I remember one or two times our family stayed at some KOAs. It was fun…the six of us and our family dog. The smell and crackle of campfires and pine trees and grilled food. The conversations from faceless people who seemed friendly enough….

I’m so glad we never ran into any of the sort in this next story.  At the rate they were going, I don’t think they had many converts. Always keep your vehicles parked facing your getaway. Just sayin’.

This story has never seen the light of day…or been published.

 

A Sermon Unleashed

© F. P. Dorchak, 1989

 

A large part of his oxygen escaped, his knees rubbery.

“How do you know this?” Phil asked. It was dark, the smell and crackle of campfires in the air, and he and a guy named Darrell stood in an open area of a KOA.

Darrell chuckled again, and this one was much worse than before. There was no doubt as to the vileness in his tone. And the darkness just exaggerated everything.

“Because I made it all up!” Darrell said, his voice now rising above their personal conversation and carrying over to some of the closer people around them, including a group at a van. His laugh was unabashed and wicked and Phil’s eyes froze on Darrell’s shadowy face. He wasn’t sure…but it seemed like Darrell’s face was…changing? In the process of change? It had to be a trick of what little light there was. Why and how would Darrell’s face be changing, it didn’t make any sense, but that was how it registered to Phil’s mind.

“In a way, buddy, I feel sorry for you,” Darrell said. “You are not gullible and stupid like they are,” Darrell said, forcing thick words out of a now extending mouth. It sounded like his tongue was impeding coherent speech. And there were weird, abrading sounds seeming to come from Darrell. Like muscle and bone were moving around…pushing each other out of the way….

In the next instant Phil felt a powerful force strike him. Not that he knew it, but it came from a hairy but muscular hand and clobbered Phil like a flying slab of concrete. Bowling over, he smacked his head hard on a good-sized rock. That was the last he recalled before blackness….

 

Out from the shadows charged a figure.

He was tall…and he drooled as his face contorted and his cruelly clawed limbs completed their restructure. From under a quickly thickening mane hissed one word:

“Faith….”

“What’s going on here?” someone asked from the darkness. Flashlights clicked on everywhere at once. A girl named Brenda, from that group, whipped her head around and saw shadows running toward her group. She quickly made for her boyfriend’s truck. She’d just managed to dodge out of the path of some rushing thing that went past her for the group she’d just left.

“Phil? Phil?” Brenda called out. No answer.

The crowd behind her was hit by a rude flurry of fangs and claws. Their shrieks cut into the air as the group split up, people trying to outrun the faceless fury that ripped apart their bodies. No matter where they ran they all blundered into more of the same…it was like hitting a wall of rotating knives.

The attacks came from everywhere.

Sounds of screaming, tearing, and growling.

Brenda continued calling for her boyfriend. She never saw him…on the ground only ten feet away…unconscious.

The shrieks from the growing feeding frenzy increased. Other groups further up the campground’s road were going through the same agonies. Brenda saw several of the van group try to rush back into their van. One, a rather large lady, fell hard to the ground. She never got back up, as a closely following beast quickly fell upon her. Another growling shadow continued on to the van. It lunged inside it with the handful of people doing the same.

The van rocked

(don’t come knockin!)

violently.

Brenda’s voice was frozen in her throat.

She watched as silhouettes from the friends she’d just been with were being ripped apart into smaller silhouettes.

Something bump against her foot.

Whatever the thing was, it had hit her foot like a heavy, wet rag doll and she was afraid to look down. Rag dolls usually had more than just hair.

Gradually the sounds of struggle died…and all that remained were the sounds of quiet tearing. Squinting, Brenda saw several silhouettes run off into the night, but still saw no Phil.

The rocking van stopped.

Somehow spared, Brenda slowly backed up to the driver’s side of her boyfriend’s truck, and inched her way into it, ducking low. Silently she cried Phil’s name, tears running down her face. She fumbled several times with her keys before starting the truck. Dirt spat out from the tires and she dug two deep channels on her exit from the massacre. Several spitting stones hit Phil, who remained unconscious behind the van. A hairy head popped up from within the van, then went back to its business. Several of the other werewolves looked up at her as she sped away, one beginning to give chase…when Darrell called her off. She could go…they had enough for tonight. There would be plenty of time for her later.

There was always time.

Phil lay in the dirt. Blood pooled against his back as it sluiced out from the van. All around him lay the spoils of slaughter. The breeze was still warm, but it now carried a sickly sweet aroma with it. Amid the quiet sounds of eating, echoes of screams and agony still hung thickly in the air.

There were no more revelers, stargazers, or lovers.

Only mutilated bodies.

Phil slowly came to…his eyes painfully straining around in their sockets. His face was pressed into the dirt.

He was afraid to move.

But his consciousness was short-lived, and he again fell back into blackness.

A tall, naked, and muscular man emerged from around the van. A man with gray hair, his body covered in blood and gore. He came up to Phil’s position, his watery eyes looking down upon him. With one mighty, still-clawed hand, he lifted Phil’s unconscious form effortlessly into the air; examined it. A diseased grin formed beneath rabid eyes. What formed on its tortured face could have been called a smile.

“Phil,” the creature said, chuckling, “you always doubted me; doubted your girl. You never had the faith…but your girlfriend does…and to get her, I need you.” He chuckled. “Come along, my friend, we have much work to do!”

Dust whisked along the roadside. The blood that had been pooling up against Phil until now broke through the built up meniscus and branched out into chaotic little patterns in the sand.

“Faith, dear people…a little faith can get you through the worst of times!”

Darrell laughed into the morning dusk, returning back into the hills from which he and his kind had come, Phil’s unconscious form draped across his powerful and scarred shoulders. His followers grabbed their spoils, and quickly followed….

Amen.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

Shelf Life

by

If I remember right, the sign mentioned in this story was my inspiration for the story. Or at least a version of it that you see in everyday life. And who among us hasn’t visited a store not unlike the one mentioned here…a tiny, packed antique shop…with a forgotten corner inside it…crowded with all kinds of neat, old stuff…from the ends of the world…each with their own lives…their own stories to tell….

This story I do kinda remember writing. Not the specifics, not the ending (which I modified for this release)…but the overall effort.

This story has never been published.

 

Shelf Life

© F. P. Dorchak, 1991

 

“CJ, come over here and take a look at this!” Allison Bundle shouted.

CJ looked up from the pile of ancient Turkish rugs he’d been examining, annoyed at the mere sound of his wife’s voice.

“Come here, look at what I found. Look at this.”

He came over and found her holding up an old oil lamp into the light.

“It’s just an oil lamp—”

“No, not the lamp—the shelves. Look.” Allison directed CJ’s attention to the corner in front of them. It was an altogether normal enough looking setup of plain boards covered with odd knickknacks, and attached to the setup was a scribbled message, barely legible. The sign hung from one of the upper shelves and had a ragged bottom edge.

“What do you think it means?” she asked.

“Well, Allison,” CJ said, barely able to mask his annoyance, “I think it’s rather simple enough, don’t you? I mean it says ‘Don’t Buy.'”

She could be so dense sometimes.

He began to wander off, wondering why he even let her take him into these places. Why he even stayed married to her. One day, just one day, he’d love to lose her in one of these places and walk out the door…and just keep walking. Forever, How their marriage had gone sour, he couldn’t recall, didn’t care, it just had. He guessed he’d always seen the ‘bitch-streak’ in her from the beginning and had just chosen to ignore it. Because of the sex. Yup. That had been his first mistake. The second was in staying with her. Yes, he’d been nothing more than an ape when he’d married her, an ape wanting sex…but he’d since evolved…she hadn’t.

“Yeah, but why have all these things here, then put up a sign that tells you not to buy them? And you can barely read the damn thing,” she said tapping the sign.

“Well maybe they belong to the owner and are just there for display,” he said, finding himself drawn back to the shelves. “There aren’t even prices on most of these things up—”

“I don’t think so,” she said. CJ had found that her disagreeing with him was usually more of a reflex action than of legitimate discussion. She always loved to (immediately) counter anything he had to say.

CJ examined the shelves. The sign and its accompanying display case were clearly showing its age, and the objects themselves, like the rest of the curio-slash-antique-slash-rip-off shop were all eclectic and queer-looking. Unable to discern anything more about the shelves or their construction, CJ turned away…when he was overcome by an acute feeling of dread. He didn’t know where the feeling was coming form, but it suddenly changed his entire perspective on the subject.

“I don’t know, Alli, but all of a sudden I’m getting a very funny feeling about all this. Let’s just put it back and find something else, okay?”

“Oh, give me a break, dearest, it’s probably just a joke. I’m going to take this,” she said, and again hefted and examined the oil lamp.

“No,” CJ insisted, perhaps just a bit more sharply than was his norm, but he did notice it stopped Allison in mid-action. She looked at him, surprised, and he discovered he liked that look. It was the first time he could remember where she actually looked frightened.

“Look, Alli, I really don’t think we should. Okay?”

“Why are you acting so weird? I like it, so I’m going to buy it. That’s that.”

“I don’t like it. There’s something off about it…and this whole place as a matter of fact…that just gives me the creeps—and it’s giving it to me good. How about this instead—we put this back,” he said, and took the lamp away from her, setting it back up on the shelves, “and we look around a little more. If you still want it, fine, you can come back and get it, but let’s at least ask the owner about it before we buy it. Deal?”

Allison looked strained. More than annoyed. Mega-pissed.

“Okay, but I think you’re being very stupid about this. It’s only a dumb old genie lamp and I want it.”

CJ remained silent, almost embarrassed. He couldn’t believe his behavior. He could believe his wife’s…just not his. He really needed to leave her. And one day, one daaay—

“I am coming back after we have a look at the rest of this stuff,” Allison said, defiantly, and strut off down the aisle. She bumped into something in the narrow aisle, which fell, but she never looked back.

CJ watched her as she stormed off. He knew how much Allison hated being told what to do. He also knew how she usually ended up finagling her own way later on, anyway, but nonetheless he felt uncharacteristically relieved.

This is stupid—what’s the matter with me?

He followed her on down the cluttered row…picking up what she’d knocked off the display and replaced it back to where it had been.

The corner shelves

(Don’t Buy…)

trembled.

Browsing through the antique shop took longer than anticipated, and CJ quietly hoped that Allison had forgotten all about that stupid genie thing. But his mind, however, was still very much on the matter. All through his browsing he had stolen glances back at that corner. It was more than mere apprehension that now gripped him…it was more like some irresistible force was carefully…subtly…funneling him in deeper, pulling him back….

He didn’t know what it was he saw…or thought he saw just now…but something had suddenly flashed in his peripheral vision…something he had only been barely able to catch. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. He was probably kidding himself, but he thought he had seen a person within that flash. A flash of…red?

CJ looked back to Allison and saw she was busily dickering with a lady about something, as she was usually want to do, and he turned back to the bookcase. He decided to have another look. He was sure he had seen someone standing there by that case only moments ago…then…nothing.

Something wasn’t right.

He wove with intent up the aisles toward the bookcase. One more shot, then he’d washed his hands of this entire matter and Allison could buy whatever the hell she wanted.

There was dust on the floor before the shelves (and it had been recently disturbed)—but he already knew that. Somebody had been here. His eyes immediately went to where he had earlier placed the lamp and he saw that it was still there all right. But he also saw something else he hadn’t seen there before…a watch…a woman’s watch. Then, upon closer examination, he noticed an interesting, if somewhat hallucinatory effect about the wood. He couldn’t be sure if it was a trick of the light, or a trick of his own mind, but he could swear he saw tiny fibers, cilia, moving along the wood. Like seaweed tossing about in an ocean current.

CJ leaned closer and carefully brought a hand up to it, finger extended. He felt sweaty and warm.

This is stupid, they’re only shelves—

CJ was suddenly thrown off his balance. He’d been hit from behind and his entire body had been thrown into the wooden bookcase.

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

CJ regained his balance and lifted a hand to his forehead. Sore. Tender. Stars. He shook his head and looked up.

“Goddammit,” he said without looking up.

When he did look up, his eyes focused in from their confused, star-studded grayness…and he found himself looking into the eyes of an attractive woman in her twenties or early thirties. She stood before him…mouth open…her arms still wrapped around one end of a large, rolled up Turkish rug, which stretched out behind her. She stared back at him, startled. CJ thought he was looking into the large, warm eyes of an angel.

“I’m so sorry—I was trying to move this thing and I guess I…I kinda slipped!” The woman said. She noticed him rubbing his forehead. “Oh, you’re hurt! I’m so, so sorry!” She dropped her end of the rug and rushed to him.

“It’s nothing, I-I’ll be all right, really. Do you need some help with that or something?” he asked, almost angrily.

“I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I’m so sorry. Yes, I could use a hand.”

CJ forgot about his injury and grabbed the rolled up end, pulling it free from the rest of the pile.

“Couldn’t you have picked something just a little less difficult?” he asked. He turned back to the woman, who was now quite embarrassed. He saw the affect his words and attitude had had on her.

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I was just … oh, never mind. Here you go, I didn’t mean to jump on you.” CJ set the rug down on what little floor space there was, and brushed himself off. “My name’s CJ.” He extended a hand.

“I’m Cheryl. Pleased—and embarrassed—to meet you. And thanks for helping me with this. There doesn’t seem to be much room here, does there—”

“—it depends on what you have a mind to use it for,” came the sharp, distinctly enunciated words from behind them.

Allison.

“Allison, meet Cheryl—she just knocked me up against the bookcase with this rug.”

“I’ll bet. Nice to meet you, Cheryl,” Allison said, and over graciously shook her hand—with her left hand, exposing the wedding ring.

“You’re married,” Cheryl made a point of saying.

“Yes,” Allison said, and gave CJ a strained look. “Well, honey, I think I’m through here, and I do want that little ol’ oil lamp we talked about earlier.”

CJ suddenly remembered what had brought him back here.

“Alli, I wish you’d reconsider. I really don’t feel good about this. I came over here because…well, because I thought I saw something.”

“Yeah, and I think I know what it was you saw, too, my darling.”

“Well, it certainly was a pleasure meeting you both,” Cheryl said, “and thank you, again, CJ, for helping me with the rug,” Cheryl said.

“Sure, no problem,” CJ said.

“I think I’m going to take this lamp. Now let’s go, shall we?” Allison said.

CJ went to say something when his throat constricted and his breathing suddenly became labored. He grasped at his collar and cast a troubled glance to Cheryl, who made a most splendid sight as she bent over to once more attack the rug. But she, too, had stopped, and he noticed how uncomfortable she also appeared. She felt it, too. She stood back up without the rug and also began to loosen her blouse about her. CJ watched as she turned around to look straight at him.

Something isn’t right, he thought, something’s going to happen….

Before he knew what he was doing, CJ began backing away from his wife and the display case. He held Cheryl’s gaze and saw her rub her arms. No doubt feeling the same prickly sensation I’m feeling.

Allison felt nothing.

In some distant corner of his mind CJ vaguely recognized Allison’s voice as she continued to ramble on about the lamp and her right to buy it. CJ was now completely behind Allison, standing next to Cheryl.

The two watched Allison as she turned slightly away from the bookcase, remained totally focused on her little trinket, and continued on her right-to-buy tirade.

Watched as the display case began to shimmer and…

Come to life.

Watched as the entire store seemed to darken and take a back seat to the wooden shelves and become all but nonexistent.

Out from the middle of the case, like a nightmare, extended out what looked like a stretched-out leg-hold trap…jaws wide and deadly. There were sharp, jagged objects projecting outward from the ring, or whatever it was…teeth. The image extended forward as Allison continued to talk. She finally took a breath and looked up.

The thing from the shelves morphed into definite shape…huge jagged teeth.

Allison brought her hands up before her…

But it was too late.

The circular orifice had already come down and encompassed her head, shoulders, and arms…and clamped down around her waist. The powerful jaws neatly separated her at her narrow waist. There was a spray of red that was immediately sucked up by the creature. The remains of Allison’s beautiful body fell to the floor.

As the teeth came together Cheryl and CJ saw the face that was behind it, stretched out from the wooden bookcase that was its body. It was indeed made of wood—and there was an unimaginable rancor that emanated from it, as mold spores flaked off everywhere around them like dust. CJ and Cheryl covered their mouths and noses. The remainder of their attention was then diverted to the crunching and grinding sounds of the creature’s jaws. Allison’s skirt hung loosely from the creature’s mouth as it consumed its first mouthful. It then shot forward and consumed the rest of Allison’s body.

Then it grinned…an open, hideous smirk that creaked and snapped…and withdrew back into the shelves.

Wooden claws then shot out from underneath the case and retrieved what was left of Allison, withdrawing her spoils into the base of the bookcase.

All that remained at their feet was one slightly battered and orphaned oil lamp. They both looked to it. Both backed away from the corner.

Don’t Buy…

Again that small, ominous sign.

CJ had a hard time breathing at first, and Cheryl had to hit him on his back a couple times. When he finally caught his breath, he crouched down to look at the base of the book shelves. A little ways off to the left of that damned oil lamp he spotted what looked like the bottom half to that torn

Don’t Buy….

sign on the shelves. He leaned quickly snatched it. Wiped off the dust from it. He held it up before him and Cheryl, toward the one on the shelves. This was the bottom half to that sign. The words on the torn-off part of the sign caused CJ to visibly shiver, and he threw it away from him.

Cheryl began shivering. CJ threw his arms around her and brought her in to himself, as he looked around the store.

Really? Had no one but them seen what had just happened?

Cheryl stared blankly down to the floor before her, eyes unblinking. Trembling.

“Cheryl. Look at me,” CJ said, and took hold of her shoulders. He turned her around to face him. He looked at her. Himself. Neither of them had any blood or gore on them. “Look at me,” he commanded.

She looked up.

“I—I don’t know what happened here. I can’t even attempt to explain it…but look around. Look.”

Cheryl did.

“What do you see?” he asked.

Nothing. She saw nothing.

She saw people looking at rugs and clocks. People looking at paintings. Even saw one look up to her and smile. But nobody fainted. Nobody screamed. No one called the cops. Nothing appeared to have changed.

Except that there was no longer an Allison Bundle.

“Cheryl, I can’t even begin to understand what happened, or why no one could see what we saw—but it’s over. Do you hear me?

“Over.”

“O-over?”

“Yes. Now I think it would be in our best interests…if we got the hell out of here—”

“But—”

“Forget about her. She was not a good person. I was going to leave her, anyway.”

CJ pulled off his wedding ring. Held it up for Cheryl to see…then tossed it over his shoulder. It landed at the base of the very same bookcase.

“Come on,” he said, “we’d better go—I don’t know if this thing is going to, you know—activate again.” Cheryl didn’t move.

“Are you with me?” he asked Cheryl, taking hold of her shoulders and looking her firmly in the eyes.

Cheryl again looked around. No one seemed to have noticed a thing, not a goddamned thing. It was like nothing had ever happened. CJ nervously followed her gaze around the interior, edgy to be gone…out of this place.

Nobody’ll miss her, he thought. I just hope that damned thing doesn’t get heartburn and spit her back out.

Cheryl couldn’t believe what it was she was seeing, reached a hand up and out to CJ.

“Y-yes.”

“Come on, then,” CJ said, and took her hand and pulled her away from the shelves. Took her to the front doors…then out beyond them and forever away from the building.

Together they disappeared into the sunlit and sane world outside….

CJ’s wedding band lay up against the base of the display case, resting in a leaning, vertical position.

The baseboard of the bookcase bulged and squeaked…formed itself into another, smaller, wooden claw, and wrapped itself around the ring. Another claw also formed and grabbed the oil lamp. The claws then placed the ring and lamp up on the shelves…then quickly withdrew…only to again shoot out and grab and withdraw with the fragment of the sign CJ had dropped.

“Don’t Buy. Not responsible for shelf life,” the torn-off sign fragment had read.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

Seeing Things

by

I do like to make things subtle, if at all possible. Today’s story might be a little too subtle? I don’t know…you’ll be the judge, as is usually the case with this kind of thing.

I vaguely remember writing this back in ’91. Changed a few things in it…added the very last line. I love leaving things to the imagination. Sometimes it’s far creepier that way. I love this line that I added in my rework:

Sometimes they looked like people.

Isn’t that just creepy?

This story also reminds me of Ray Bradbury Theater…and hold on—no, I’m not comparing myself to Mr. Bradbury in the way you’re thinking! I found that, at least in the TV series, some of his stories were so “thinly written,” I’ll call them that they left a lot to the imagination. And I kinda liked that. That he’d given just “enough information” to get you to thinking…then he’d leave you high-and-dry to work out the depth of the story on your own. Almost like vignettes…short story vignettes, if that makes any kind of sense: like he’d written a short story, then cut out the real beginning and ending and just presented a portion in the middle of the story.

Anyway, here is subtle creepy story for you to also read just before going to bed. Gah! Maybe it’ll also give you the “chicken skin” I’m feeling crawling all over me now as I write this….

This story has never been published.

 

Seeing Things

© F. P. Dorchak, 1991

 

Clarence McPeak had visions.

Not the kind of visions that foretold the future or anything, but the kind that occurred out the corner of his eyes. The kind that gradually caused one to backtrack and see if what one saw was indeed true. Indistinct, weird images…sometimes amorphous…sometimes they looked like people.

That last one was important.

 

Clarence had just locked his condo door and was on his way to his three-year-old Corvette coupe. He tossed his briefcase into the back, and jumped in. The throaty roar of the engine as he started the machine (it was far more than just “a car”) made him feel good…he loved the feeling of power. Maybe that was why he loved selling burial plots to people. There was such a feeling of power as he talked to families and couples into buying his plots. He was good, the best in the region, and he controlled his clients like mice in a maze. No one was allowed to deviate from the path Clarence McPeak blazed. He didn’t care if you needed the plot or not. If you came to him…you bought one. It was that simple. He was very tactful, if not forceful on that point. And if someone tried to deviate…well, they simply weren’t interested in what this Very Important Person had to say and he would spend no further time with them—thank you, good-bye.

As Clarence pulled the ‘vette out into the road and past his condo building, he glanced up to the door. As he turned away, a chill ran down his spine.

A smiling a man standing at his door.

And it was a smile that seemed too big for his face.

His entire body went “chicken skin,” and he slammed hard on the ABS, bringing his red beast to a halt. He shifted into reverse and brought his condo back into view.

No one. He saw no one—smiling or unsmiling—standing before his condo.

Clarence shivered and made an unintelligible sound.

“Goddamned it, not enough coffee in the veins….”

As he put it back into gear (in which he could easily hit fifty, he chuckled) and lurched forward, he thought it was probably just his neighbor.

But she was female.

 

Clarence opened his briefcase on the nearly unstable card table. This morning would be off to a slow, if somewhat boring start with a meeting from their regional head. Yeah, he was a “head,” alright…a pecker head (okay, he really wasn’t, but he just liked to think this when he thought of the term “head”)…he knew of no one who actually enjoyed these meetings, including those who gave them…but some things you just gotta do.

Leaving his card table niche, Clarence headed off for the bathroom and, later, coffee. Yeah, he needed more caffeine. Who didn’t?

People were starting to transition in for the honcho meeting (and, curiously, he did see more of his “shadow people” out of the corners of his eyes…but when he’d look back…they’d be gone…or a real person would be standing there, instead), so he was decidedly glad he got a relatively good seat before the best-seat rush.

“Clarence—how ya’ doin’, old buddy?”

It was Neil Furst. Gold chains, watch, and all. There was even something shiny in his teeth.

“How ya’ doin’, Neil,” Clarence said, dryly.

“Hey—why didn’t you wave to me the other day?”

Great, now he wanted conversation.

“Wave to you when?”

“Thursday. Up at Chapel Hills, around four-four-fifteen.”

Clarence stopped to think. He was surprised at himself that he was actually pausing to give Neil the time of day. Neil knew why people didn’t wave to him, knew damned well. They chose ignore him. It was always one’s best option. If you gave him the time of day…you couldn’t get rid of the man. Neil stopped and badgered people because nobody else would talk to him if he didn’t.

“Neil, sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about—I wasn’t anywhere near Chapel Hills Thursday. I was out of town. Utah, actually.”

Clarence wasn’t lying this time.

“Huh—no way, dude—”

“Dude” and gold chains. Bad combo.

“Look, Neil, baby, I gotta bad case of a loose lizard and I’m not about to argue with you, but I wasn’t in town this past Thursday. Really.”

“Huh. Well, okay. But someone was wearing your power suit and talking to that blonde. And what a looker you had there—”

“—it wasn’t me—”

“Yeah, but you woulda’ wished it was!”

Fuck you.

Had he said that out loud?

No. Good. For now. Don’t push it “buddy”….

“Well, thanks for your vote of confidence. Gotta go meet some porcelain. See you.”

My suit? Blonde? Guess I ought to have been there, damn it….

The meeting went off without a hitch and Clarence was out on the streets within an hour and a half, selling plots to people who both did and didn’t need them. The rest of the day was rather slow and uneventful, but no one deviated from the Clarence McPeak Path of Fame and Power….

 

Clarence approached his condo door, and for the first time that entire day thought about what he thought he’d seen that morning. Grunting, he turned the key and entered. Nothing was out of place, and all the lights were off—

Except one. Putting his keys away he entered his apartment and closed the door. It was the bathroom light. Slowly walking to the doorway, he peaked around the corner.

Empty.

What had he expected?

Clarence looked at his own reflection. Smiled.

Such a handsome devil.

“Well, what the hell. Left the damned light on again.” Turning it off, he returned to the living-room and removed his coat.

Clarence dreamed about the blonde he was supposed to have met. Dreamed about confronting the smiling man at his condo door. Clarence dreamed about himself doing things that he normally didn’t do…dreamed he was Clarence-but-not-Clarence…then dreamed about an accident in some other time that involved him. There were knives and monsters. Maybe a toy clown or two. Smiling.

He awoke.

The room was dark and there was a little moonlight poking through his mini-blinds. His mouth felt like he had sucked on bark all night, and he reached over to the nightstand for the red plastic cup he kept there, room temperature water waiting for him. He took one sip, then gripped the bed in terror.

Something moved in the hallway.

The cup spilled from his hands and onto the rug.

There it was again—a shadow!

Clarence bolt upright.

What should he do?

He wasn’t a Navy SEAL, like every hero in today’s world seems to be or have been…but he worked out and was in his early thirties.

What if it was nothing more than tree branches passing between the window and the moon?

He grabbed his Beretta from his nightstand and leapt out of bed. Grabbed his flashlight. Held it like they always did in the movies. Those Navy SEAL movies.

Yeah, that’s it, just a branch by the window. Sure, nothing else. This is silly. It’s only a branch.

But just in case, he undid the safety.

Only branches.

In the moonlight.

He had about ten feet before he even got near to a light switch. A lot could happen in ten feet if

branches

someone was really out there. Clarence stopped and peered into the dark depths of his condo. There was no movement. Flipping on the flashlight, he ventured forward. Still no movement. Not a sound.

His feet hit something.

Directing the light down to his feet, he saw nothing, then swishing it back and forth found the small plastic cup his toes had hit.

Clarence got to the wall switch and flipped it on.

Light.

“Well what the hell’s going on with me? Nightmares?”

Switching off the flashlight, he picked up the cup and placed it on the sink. He walked through the rest of his place and found nothing. He was just about to hit the switch and return to bed, when he suddenly stared at the blue plastic cup that sat on the edge of the sink, where he’d just put it two minutes ago.

How did that get on the floor?

Clarence never made it back to bed.

 

Short Story Links

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Werewolf

by

The Werewolf of Ponkert, by H. Warner Munn, © 1976 (My book photo, © Sept 15, 2016)
The Werewolf of Ponkert, by H. Warner Munn, © 1976 (My book photo, © Sept 15, 2016)

When I found this story—which I don’t even remember writing!—there was no copyright date on it, but it must be in the 1987 or 1988 timeframe; had basic writing errors in it, and the “look” of all my other works from that time period. It was one of the five files I have in which there were no dates in any of the file’s metadata.

Werewolves—the traditional kind, not today’s pretty, glittery kind—are, along with mummies,  my favorite monsters. As a kid, The Werewolf of Ponkert was one of my favorite novels. Here’s a little more information on that novel.

I’d written about mummies and vampyres, so here’s one of two werewolf tales I’ve found I’d written.

This story has never been published.

 

Werewolf

©F. P. Dorchak, 1988

 

I just kept running.

I didn’t know if I could ever get away from what I’d seen. I knew that physically I could probably—eventually—get away, but the horror I’d witnessed would remain with me forever….

It all started innocently enough. I was walking home late one moonlit night after a movie, taking the proverbial short-cut. I was thinking about how great my life had been going…of my new girlfriend, Shelly, especially. We’d met about a month ago, and it had been love at first sight for the both of us.

I was thinking about her hair…of how it shined in the light—any light. Of her soft beautiful features…the way she walked….the way we held each other. It was a feeling I wished on everybody! Everybody should have a mate, someone to hold and love. I was walking on air! It seemed as if nothing could bother me—nothing!

Well, it was then that I heard a commotion up ahead of me.

My head was still muddled with sweet thoughts of Shelly, but not enough to cloud my mind. I knew what the sounds of a fight sounded like. There was a scuffle going on up ahead, and though I hadn’t been in a fight since grade school, I still somehow wasn’t all that comforted by my physical size and capabilities.

As I got closer, I was able to distinguish the sounds better. I heard a high-pitched screaming which no doubt came from a woman…and some deeper grunts that sounded like a man exerting himself. But I also heard something else…sounds much deeper than the rest of what I heard, sounds that sounded like…an animal.

An angry, ravenous animal.

Instinctively, I reached for my side, my hand coming to rest on my encased buck knife. Still there, at least I wouldn’t be totally unaided if necessity reared its ugly head….

The female voice raised in pitch, crying out for help from anybody…but nobody seemed to answer her call. The male voice was wavering. I stopped in my tracks. There was no mistaking it now, people were fighting for their lives. I felt something twist in my stomach, sweat seep out of my pores.

I withdrew my blade, extending its four-inch, shiny blade. On the blade itself was an engraving commemorating the men of the sea. The engraving had been done over in pure silver; the knife was never intended for use, but for display only. I got it from an old buddy who sails, and liked it so much I came to carrying it around.

I approached the fray, blade glistening in the moonlight. The woman saw me and stepped back to allow my entrance, pleading for help. I’m not sure what she was wearing, but her attire was in tatters and she was bleeding. She held a broken tree branch. I approached hesitantly, steel pointed forward, and looked at the scene. Two figures struggling, one appreciably larger than the other—and naked. And there was a growling coming from the naked, larger one that stung my soul; it was that animal sound I’d heard.

I got closer, unsure of what to do, though at the same time knowing perfectly well what needed to be done. The man was being ripped to pieces by his naked attacker. I thought back to Shelly—what if this same thing happened to her? The woman continued to plead for my assistance, calling to any others who might be listening. She again approached the thing atop her man and pounded mightily with the branch that had finally shattered apart in her hands on a back-that-wasn’t-a-normal back…a back that was…changing….

I was frozen!

I watched helplessly as the boyfriend was mutilated.

How could I just stand there and watch?

I grew angry with myself!

This man was already beyond any help that might arrive…his woman not much better—but I couldn’t let what was happening to this man happen to the woman…I had to try something!

I grasped my knife tighter, allowing my anger to fill me…it was the only way I could get myself to leap forward…which I did.

My steel buried itself into the thing’s side.

I felt my whole body trembling as the act was completed.

I had done it!

The beast uttered a pained howl, throwing the now dead body of the man away—then turned on me. It didn’t have to hit me to physically knock me over, just seeing it’s face was enough.

The face I looked at was not like my own, or any other man’s.

And it was still transforming.

A transformation between a man and—and a monster.

The face contorted with thick animal hair and leathery skin sprouting all over it…long, razor-sharp teeth completing extension from within an angry lupine maw. A far-too muscular and brutish lithe form taking hold over the soft, sallow flesh of a man.

I was knocked to the ground as the beast ran past, clutching it’s side. As it got past me it stood for but a moment in the pale moonlight and shook its hairy, narrow, and wholly wolf head back and forth as the contortions continued to torture it. His hands—which were now actually claws—went up to his “face.”

The whole of this thing’s body was ripping itself to pieces!

As it fell to all fours, rippling muscles and fur now covered it. This was clearly no longer any kind of a human being I’d ever before known.

The woman stared, unseeing, at the wolf—the werewolf. She’d stopped screaming a long time ago.

The wolf licked its teeth. Looked back to me.

I saw some stickiness along its side—the side I had knifed. The blade still gleamed in my hand, some of the beast’s blood on my hand. The wolf looked toward the girl. Before I could react let alone think, the beast had leapt towards her and knocked her over—intentionally avoiding my blade.

The silver. The silver in the engraving, that’s what kept it from me.

The wolf gave one well-placed bite on the woman before continuing onward into the cover of night.

Her throat was gone.

As was the wolf.

I stood there…I stood with my bloodied and gleaming knife still outstretched, my senses traumatized. I couldn’t do anything for her boyfriend…and now I’d been similarly cheated out of her life, too! I didn’t know what to do.

 

So I ran!

At first I ran after it, but then thought what would I do when I caught up with it? What would it do to me? Surely it wouldn’t stay afraid of me and my puny weapon for long. It was larger than me…quicker than me. Far more lethal.

So I hid.

But I can’t stay here forever…alone and terrified. It’ll find me. The wolf has my scent.

It’s only a matter of time.

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Plaything

by

Things That Go Bump In The Night (Image by By Alec Perkins from Hoboken, USA, 80 SAM_3196 [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Things That Go Bump In The Night (Image by By Alec Perkins from Hoboken, USA, 80 SAM_3196 [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
I actually vaguely remember writing this. And its inspiration is the obvious: things that go bump in the night.

We’ve all heard the unexplained sounds that always assail us in the weird hours of the night. Was it the house settling, a stud contracting from the cold, nighttime air…or something else?

And what really lives in-between the walls of a house or apartment?

Do we really wanna know?

This has never been published.

 

Plaything

© F. P. Dorchak, 1987

 

Mrs. Agnes Helderman lay in her bed, thick comforters her only guard against the night. Alongside her, the Big Ben ticked quietly away into the two-thirty a.m. morning. A waxing moon shone through the blinds, winds tussling branches outside her window.

In her kitchen dishes sat in the sink, bits of oatmeal crusted in a pot, several cups filled with dirty water adjacent to it. A nightlight dully illuminated the hallway leading into the living room.

The furnace suddenly hummed to life, preparing to spew heated air out into Agnes’s cramped living quarters.

Agnes snoozed.

Until the noises again woke her up.

This was the second night in a row. It was quite distressing, especially when she needed her sleep. She wasn’t young anymore, and what with a weak heart to begin with (ever since the death of her husband, Edgar, her health had been rapidly failing), well suffice it to say she didn’t need this.

Her eyes popped open.

The clock tick-tocked.

Clutching her comforter closer, Agnes scanned the bed-room.

Nothing.

Listened…

Nothing.

Klink!

She reached for the lamp at bed-aside, knocking it against the wall, and nearly off the nightstand. Her light now on (all the better to hear with…), she strained her ears—

There…inside a living-room wall…something…thudded!

Rats.

Had to be rats, they do that sort of thing you know, she told herself.

Wide awake, now, she sat up in bed, listening for more noises…but, nothing came.

She didn’t fall back asleep until nearly four in the morning.

Agnes got up about six.

Exterminators, that’s what she needed.

Throwing on her robe, she cautiously entered the living-room, a wooden backscratcher her only defense. She stopped in the entrance-way.

Peered about its walls… nothing.

Fully entering the living room, she began knocking on the paper-thin walls, testing their integrity, though she didn’t know what she’d do if she found something within them anyway…or something knocked back.

She’d probably have a heart attack.

Get to be with Edgar that much sooner.

 

It was about two that afternoon when someone finally arrived. “We kill bugs” was painted on the van’s side, an upturned cockroach with an “x” for each eye, emblazoned at the end of the words.

“Well it’s about time you fella’s got here!” she scolded the two thirty-something’s.

“We’re sorry ma’am, we got here as fast as we could.”

Agnes went back to her television while they worked.

The exterminators attacked every nook and cranny they could get their tools into, spraying all sorts of wonderful poisons into and around her place.

“Fred, I don’t think there’s anything in these goddamn walls,” one exterminator said to his partner.

“I believe you, Lou,” said the partner. “I think she’s just losing it, know what I mean?” he said, making coo-coo motions with his finger beside an ear.

Finished with poisoning the apartment, the men told Agnes to have a nice day and packed up. Agnes, relieved, sat down with a triumphant smile upon her wrinkled face, “Got you, you little bastards,” she said with more than a little relish.

 

After her cup of warm tea, Agnes crawled into bed and pulled the comforters up and over her deteriorating body. She lay there with the light on, not quite wanting to sleep.

What if they hadn’t gotten them all…or whatever they were supposed to have gotten had gone out for the day?

Or was immune to the poisons they used?

Opening her nightstand, she took out a romance novel. It occupied her mind for the next hour or so, however sleep won out in the end, her book falling to the floor.

Tick-tock, tick-tock went the merry, merry little clock….

 

Then from the linen closet it came.

A rustling.

At first she didn’t hear it…dreaming about her wedding night, fifty years ago. But the rustling…again…transmogrified into an all-out THUMP!

Agnes jolted upright.

Her heart raced.

She listened.

THUMP!

…and again…

THUMP!

The noise traveled along the hallway walls…getting closer.

As if something was looking for something…but was coming from the inside of the wall rather than outside….

Agnes had had it.

She’s paid good money (from her fixed income!) for those two bug killers to do their job and do it properly—but, that was the problem with today’s world. No one cared about quality and doing things right the first time. Always in a hurry, even though they’d spent two hours at her place.

Yes, Agnes had had quite enough.

Mustering her resolve, she crawled out from underneath the blankets and went to her bedroom closet. She emerged with an old golf club that belonged to her Edgar. The 1 wood, but she didn’t know this. He’d always been quite handy with “the sticks,” as he’d called them.

Edgar.

Turning on her main bedroom light, she went after the hallway noise, turning lights on as she went. The noise persisted…jumping around from top to bottom, side to side…wall to wall….

But her resolve never wavered. She’d had it. She’d show it what-for.

Finally at the entrance way coat closet, the noise ceased. She flipped on the closet’s light with the end of the driver. Agnes scanned up and down the closet, poked around inside among the coats, but found nothing.

Angered by her fruitless search, she closed the closet door and braced a chair up against it.

Damn this was getting old.

 

The next morning, she called the same exterminators, complaining they didn’t know their job from a

(18-hole...)

in the ground. Threatened to take them to People’s Court. The head bug-killer said he’d be right over to check it out personally. He arrived an hour later.

“Mrs. Helderman? Tim Spanner. May I come in?”

Without saying a word, Agnes hobbled aside to let him in.

“You gonna fix it? Get rid of the whatever it is?” she asked, eying him. She coughed, pulling a tissue from her wrist’s sleeve, using it, then stuffing it back into her wrist’s sleeve. “And I ain’t paying a penny more.”

“Mrs. Helderman—”

“—don’t ‘Mrs. Helderman’ me,” she said, shaking a crooked finger at him, “I don’t need double-talk, I need results. Now are you going to kill this thing or not?”

Exasperated, the exterminator said, “Where were the noises coming from?”

Humphing, Agnes led him to the linen closet in question.

“It started in there,” she said, pointing the golf club she picked up from against the wall, “and ended up at the coat closet up front,” she said pointing to where they’d just come from.

“Thank you, Mrs. Helderman,” Spanner said, stepping past her for the closet. He opened the door and took out a flashlight, poking around inside and in between the folded and ironed linen. It smelled as if none of the linen hadn’t been used in years and looked as if they’d all contained permanent folds. Spanner started to feel sorry for the old lady. Thought about all the life she’d been through and the fact that her husband was dead (she’d mentioned three times over the phone…how if her deceased husband, Edgar, had still been around she wouldn’t have needed their services) leaving her all to herself.

Lonely.

“Find anything?” she asked. She got right up behind him and he could smell a really sour smell coming from her. “Anything?”

“No, Mrs. Helderman, nothing yet.”

He banged about the walls, checked the shelves and anything else that could have the possibility of making a sound…movement…anything. Nothing. For another hour or two, with Agnes in tow, they searched the entire collection of corners and dark places the apartment had to offer.

Not one trace of vermin.

Not one.

They had, however, found an old neckless Agnes had thought forever lost. Why hadn’t the first group found this, she wondered?

Because they hadn’t properly done their job, that’s why.

The bug man left. He was glad to be rid of her. Some people can really get on your nerves, and others can really get inside your skin. Mrs. Helderman was the latter.

And she smelled.

 

Before turning in, Agnes took one more look into the closet before closing it. After her tea, it was beddy-by time. Lights out.

And as usual…2:30 in the morning…the noises again did their thing. This time they were much closer…in the hot-water heater’s closet.

Agnes arose quietly this time…tried to sneak up on it. She got up to the door of the unit, put an ear to it…when the sounds stopped. She stood back up, grasping her club and reaching for her sore back. Mustn’t do that again.

Childlike laughter erupted from the water heater’s compartment!

Kids?

What and how would kids be in there—and at this time of the morning?

“Get out of here, you rascals!” she said, shouting at the hot-water heater’s closet door, “Get out and get back home where you belong!”

But the giggling continued…only to fade out a few minutes later.

Agnes went to a window and looked out into the night-time parking lot.

Had some hooligans actually gotten into her apartment?

And how had they done so?

That must be why no one had been able to find anything—kids…it’d been kids all along! Coming out to harass her!

Well, at least now she knew.

Rats of a different sort.

She’d get them for what they were doing….every last one of them….

 

The next day, Agnes kept a wary eye on every child that looked at her or her apartment…telling them to shoo and be-gone. Some of the much younger ones she’d actually made cry.

Served them all right. All of them!

A rat was a rat.

Agnes hadn’t always been such a bitter person, but ever since the death of Edgar she’d taken a big dislike to youth and life in general. She secretly wished she could join her husband.

Why had he left her?

They’d been married almost fifty wonderful years! How dare he leave her!

Growing old was scary and hard…and doing it alone….

She’d lost sight of the former person she once was. Fun loving, friendly…attractive. She used to catch the eye of many a man in her day….

But not now.

Now she was old, withered, alone…and bitter. Had a bad case of IBS.

Well into the night did Agnes keep her vigilance. Tonight was the night. She was going to catch them come hell or high water.

Well, she was going to…but sleep has this unnerving way of sneaking up on you.

Again her book fell to the floor.

Two-thirty.

And again the noise.

This time, it came from her very own bedroom closet.

Agnes lost no time in getting out of bed (damned back…she tweaked it again). She fumbled for her club, alongside her bed, but in her sleep must have knocked it over, because it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

She’d moved just a little too fast in getting up and was already out of breath…and she couldn’t seem to get it under control, her heart rate increasing. She pushed away from the headboard and lay back down, comforter yanked back up around her neck, eyes bugging, struggling for a breath.

The panic rose in her chest and she was unable to stop it.

“Go-go away! Go away, I said!” she said, wheezing, “Leave me alone!”

Her heart-felt like a brick in her chest. Felt like she was trying to breathe through a plastic bag.

“What do you want?”

The noise continued, now sounding more like rummaging than anything else. Child-like giggling filled the air, she could hear boxes and things tumbling about—

Golf balls came rolling out of her closet.

Agnes clutched her chest, panting.

Air felt like so much mud in her lungs.

More scrambling and giggling came from the darkness, bits and pieces of her things—her things!—came flying out of her closet.

Agnes bicycled her varicosed legs, trying to get away from whatever it was in there that was trying to get out…and knocked over a nightstand picture of her husband, shattering the glass.

Edgar..!

“G-go awaaay, I say!”

The child-like laughter continued getting closer with each giggle. She swore she saw something move in there—

The shadow now threw entire boxes out into the bedroom, laughing.

“Please, please…leave me alone! I-I c-can’t take this, please—”

From out of the closet bounded a creature the size of a large stuffed animal. I flew high through the air and onto Agnes…landing square on her chest. It stared down at her and looked a cross between a gremlin and a teddy bear, with big brown eyes. It’s head twisted back and forth, then it jumped up and down on her chest.

“Let’s play! Let’s play!” it squealed, “Let’s play! Let’s play!”

Agnes had her heart attack.

“Let’s play!”

 

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Links to all my posted short stories are here.