Prompt: On an outing with their caregiver, a nursing home resident recognizes a “Missing” poster for something/someone.
“But she looks familiar…” I said weakly. The sun was getting to me, as were the hours in the day.
Just like the days themselves.
“Geraldine, we spoke about this yesterday. At your age, everyone may look familiar. Your brain is doing things I can barely explain… We can’t expect you to understand.”
Her baleful blue eyes stared at me from far away, like birds on a wire you saw across a field just the other day, but can’t quite remember.
“You’re right.” I sighed. The wheelchair creaked loudly as she pushed me along on my afternoon walk. I pulled my felt tennis hat lower. The sun was hot, but the tears in my eyes were embarrassing. Even though Nurse Clawson took me down the side route behind the apartments, shaded by quiet trees and silent bushes, I felt like I was being watched by the windows around us.
I swear I had seen her somewhere before, but the Nurse is right. How could I argue? I forget who I am sometimes.
“Just around the next bend, Gerry.”
Birds flew from the concrete as we squeaked around a bend, leading to my ramp. The Nurse was handy and I remembered her throwing it together one day. The car was a bit warm while she was inside of Lowes, but the music that played was the soft golden oldies I loved. Crooning at me, Frank always comforted me. The music reminded me of quiet times. Happy times. A husband?
“A family…” I said quietly, as I bumped off the top of the ramp.
“What was that?” Nurse Clawson smiled at me.
“…Nothing. Just some memory that probably isn’t true.” I didn’t know anymore. I just knew that I would be able to get to watch the TV during dinner, and there may be some cute animals on Discovery Channel. The animals made me feel better somehow.
The microwave dinged as I sat in front of the blank TV. The blackness stared back at me, as did a woman whose face I had seen somewhere before.
Hope you are all well! My wife managed to push me to publish recently, so while helping her watch the kids I edited what I had written so far and added a bit of changes throughout, and here we go!
If you were not a follower, it is a sci-fi / fantasy / horror about a man who ran from his life and got lost in nightmares (not really nightmares though lol)
Every time he falls asleep or gets knocked out he wakes up somewhere else… it is a lot of fun!
Help 2 teachers pay for their kids groceries and read some good science fiction! XD
Appreciate you being here, if you are curious I left the first few chapters up on my main page and all my short stories remain. Depending on how this goes I may get permission to make the time to write more 😉
I heard something heavy on the roof, crawling above us. I went outside to get a look at the thing, and I peered into the shadows above my house, trembling. An overwhelming sensation of being watched came upon me, stifling my breathing. I gazed upon nothing. But that feeling of being quietly observed made me sick to my stomach. There was nothing on the house… Not anymore.
I quickly went back inside. Bolted that door tight again. Moved the couch back in front of it. I wasn’t going to risk going outside again, not after what I did. Not after what happened. There was something primal about our interaction, like a story that had been told too many times already over the course of history, Us versus them. I can’t explain it, but there is a hostility innate to the interaction between us. Like homo sapiens forcing homo erectus into extinction. Who would have thought my high school biology class would become useful to me?
After the roof scare, we decided to take all of the animals and just go into the bedroom for the night, since the doors were locked and blocked. My wife took a pill to help her get some rest since she is a schoolteacher, and she can’t miss work since tests are coming up for the kiddos. I stayed awake, clutching my Mossberg. I felt pretty confident that all of the barriers that I made in the shed should keep the creatures in the ground. But as I sat there in the darkness, I found myself thinking of their eyes, glittering in the dark looking up at me.
None of the descriptions you folks suggested really looked like what I saw. The rake’s hands are much too big for this. These things had more… dexterity. Nimble fingers. And the eyes were not dark, at least not with a light shining at them. Seems more like some forgotten link between us and the primordial soup.
My thoughts were a whirlwind as sleeplessness began to catch up to me in a wild delirium. The faintest brush of a wind in the bushes made my heart flutter, and my muscles tense. And that FEELING! The one of being watched. Even the walls of my home seemingly could not keep those prying humanoid eyes from whispering into my mind. The darkness itself seemed to hold them. The shadowy corner, black in the room. For all I could tell, there was something crouching in my room now —
Scratching began anew.
The location made me feel a new fear. The walls!! The WALLS!! I have heard rats in walls before in apartments I lived in during my youth. Light scratches and tiny scuttles. This, was completely different. It must be Them. Scraaaaaaatch scratch. Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch. Long, subtle scratches. Like dragging long nailed fingers lightly over drywall. I could picture the creature, skinny enough to slip into the frame of my home, grey skin pallid in the dusty darkness. I loaded my shotgun with buckshot. There was no question in my mind now, that there was something there. And it was the thing that I saw. There are no coincidences on a moonless night like that one. There were no cute mice in my wall. I knew. I could not bring myself to pump shells into the walls, lest it let the creature spill into the bedroom. Luckily my wife was out cold, but the dog was whining and growling again — like before. I sat on the edge of my bed, feet hanging over the side to the ground, cradling my shotgun at the origins of the hellish sounds.
When the scratching first stopped, I went out into the living room to see the other side of the wall, to make sure it was within the thin frame and it hadn’t gotten into the home itself. Surely, it was where I suspected. But this gave me more scares. The angles that strange body would have to twist into to get to where it is now are wholly unnatural. It took all my strength left to not vomit, thinking of the disgusting being covered in dirt that had lived so close to me for so long. And then I noticed that the cat had come out with me, and was at the window looking out intently at something. I slowly walked over and I swear I caught a glimpse of a face peeking into my home. A face not devoid of reasoning. A face looking for something, someone. Me. As I got closer it was nothing but reflections and shadows…
I waited all night for something more. But the scratching would stop, I would begin to drift off to sleep and then they would begin anew. Toying with me. As if it could sense my sleepiness and was playing with my mind. Psychological warfare. It is now almost 8 am, and the scratching has been gone since just before the sun rose. They must be nocturnal.
I sure hope so.
I am going to take a quick nap, then go out into the shed.
If my hands will stop shaking.
Alone and writhing in the obsidian emptiness of space, Robert James strained to breathe. The vacuum of darkness pulled at his lungs with furious persistence. His lungs burned for oxygen and his mind screamed:
PLEASE GOD LET ME WAKE U–
Eyes opened to what looked like some dark corridor with holes dotting the walls and ceiling, light poking through them all into the dusty gallery. Robert could hear whispers echoing from every direction, the languages twisting between each other like tangles of smoke. Forgotten tongues blended with the arcane, and they all reached into his mind with each opaque syllable. Inhuman laughter let loose, laughing at him. His hands clutched at his ears to stifle the sounds, but they crept from within his skull. Heart heavily thumping a primal rhythm to accompany the intoxicating multitude of forbidden sounds driving him unceasingly to madness and he felt a scream begin to erupt from his mouth –
He was staring at an old ceiling, a brown-green-black blotched work of shitty abstract art. Heat filled the dry air as an ancient ceiling fan lazily rotated above him with infuriating slowness, creaking.
This is not my house… This isn’t even the place where I fell asleep…
He sat up to look at an obviously abandoned and ancient hotel room, completely dilapidated and… plain nasty. There were some big black bugs on the rotting dresser, and a dirty grey rat sitting propped up in the corner… Relaxing?
Oh… The dream. Right. Time to wake up.
Robert pinched himself as hard as he could and twisted a large fold of flesh on his forearm with all of his might, digging his nails in with extra force he summoned with desperation.
A desperation that comes from fighting a descent into psychosis.
Well…
Blood spotted on his arm. It continued to ache as he waited to wake, and he noticed the amount of dust and sand covering the floor. The mattress he was on, more a pile of springs and cloth, creaked with his standing up. The corner-rat scampered off into some hole, leaving Robert alone with his confusion. Shoes gritting the sand he walked to the window, covered by blinds that seemed dozens of years his elder.
“Might as well see where I am…” R.J. whispered into the musty air. Droves of dust flecks that were dancing slowly in the strips of light became erratic with this sudden gust. The pane of the window was covered in grime and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his suit, a dry cough escaping his mouth.
Robert James looked out upon a desert scene, sand dunes reaching to the horizon, the area near the old hotel could only be recognized as a former parking lot by the tops of cars peeking out of the drifts. The place was apparently named “Hotel Kansas”, as the sign sticking out of a golden heap read.
Looks more like the Sahara than Kansas. What happened here?
Robert ripped the hotel room door open after it stuck for a moment and it flew open abruptly. Sand spilled into his shoes from the mound that had blown up against the remnants of the building.
“Great.” He stepped outside, crunched up a hill, and looked around with eyes reaching for the blurred horizon: there were no other ruins in sight. He strained his eyes to the distance where motion glimmered through waves of heat rising off of the sand. The sun was beating down on a mass exodus of people.
Where are these people going? Why are they here?
Robert’s curiosity suspended his disbelief, and questions flooded his mind. He slid-walked down the dune he was on, and hiked carefully up the next one. His feet slipping down with each step, laboring to climb what seemed to be a disintegrating hill. Reaching the top, he crouched to hide his profile from the crowd and looked on. Hundreds of dusty people with down-turned faces slunk in huddled masses, all lurching toward some unknown refuge off to the empty horizon to his right.
As R.J. looked closer, he could see that there were military personnel urging the people forward, his ears catching the echos of men speaking to the crowd in a mix of English, Spanish… Chinese? Further ahead of the crowd, Robert saw a small detachment of desert fatigues talking together on a crest of a dune, pointing farther to R.J.’s right. He followed their gaze, and saw a massive wall of sand hanging on the horizon. It was so colossal it seemed to be still, but they all knew it was moving. Quickly too.
The men slid back toward the main group in a tumbling rush, and met with the other soldiers. They all seemed skittish, pitching glances around. One pointed in Roberts direction, and he felt the icy hand of a chill brush down his back. They dispersed and herded the crowd slowly toward where R.J. was. The sandstorm was closer now, the people were moving along faster with the soldiers trotting beside them. A baby’s cry carried over the sand and through the shimmering heat, wailing forcefully.
Robert stood and looked up again to see the storm, now noticing flashes of lightning within, and in the blink of an eye it seemed to change the direction it was heading, turning now toward him. The icy hand cemented its grip around R.J.’s heart.
Why can’t I wake up Jesus God please let me wake up I want to go home to my wife an–
A hollow, mechanical drone violently filled the air, echoing into the expanse like a foghorn. It was distinctly artificial, and loud enough so that R.J. was forced to cover his ears, but the vibration was so low and loud that he could still hear it no matter how hard he pushed his hands against his head. Sand slipped in tiny avalanches on the dunes all around him. The bones in his body shook, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the sound or the fear. The horrible tone lasted for a full minute.
The people all stopped silently in a valley between dunes, for just a moment, and looked around. The soldiers frantically urged them to continue, each holding a gun in one hand while windmilling their other arm fervently. As they saw the sand storm crash over the hills around them, spilling over them, they broke into a frightened sprint.
Like… roaches…
The baby continued to cry, but was cut off by another drone. Robert felt that the sound sounded ancient, somehow. Primeval. The sandstorm ceased along with the hellish tone, and there was a second of false silence as his ears rang. The chilling screams of the forsaken filled the air, drowning out the cries of the child. Robert beheld something which defied logic, and his eyes locked with horror on something that should never be able to exist.
A silver serpentine behemoth looked down at the crowd, and towered above the landscape. Sand fell from it as the harsh sun reflected off of chrome and it made a series of sounds: Horrifying whirrs from unseen gears, disgusting clicks from a gaping maw where dozens of cold steel mandibles slammed together in hungry anticipation. Hundreds of bright red eyes covered what could only be its head, flashing and darting in all directions. Robert fell to his knees in terror, as he watched the extermination of his species.
We are… vermin…
The mechanical colossus curled, lowering itself to the sea of humans trying to escape. Arms appeared, like titanic scythes, and began to slice into the crowd with the quick, efficient strokes of a skilled surgeon. The dunes surrounding were painted with splatters of red, turning the sand dark like mud. Sparks erupted all over the monster’s body as the soldiers began to fight back in vain. Robert cowered as bodies were tossed like insects into the air, the air whooshing around him with each methodical pass. Blood flecked across his face as a lone officer shouldered a rocket launcher and looked up to fire, hands shaking. The fear forced his aim to land only a glancing blow off what must be the being’s torso. It turned to focus its ancient gaze on the mortal, and another drone echoed out, freezing the rest of the humans where they stood.
An all-too-brief moment passed, and with strange intelligence, the thing leaned down further. The baby had survived somehow and was crying again into the macabre silence. A tumultuous sound creaked from the silver horror and its body opened to allow mechanical tendrils to spread from within. They reached, spreading around the baby to cradle it carefully and bring it back inside. Its desperate mothers’ arms were outstretched instinctively as the steel mountain confirmed the child was tucked safely within the darkness of its frame. With stoic professionalism, the carnage began with a new sincerity. Robert turned down the dune he was on to run somewhere, anywhere but here.
Silence. A gunshot, a loud thump of a muffled blow against the sand which peppered the back of Robert’s neck. Overwhelming silence. His feet scrunched the ground. There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to go. He was not sure if he could die anymore, but if he could he did not want to go like this.
My wife has no idea what is happening to me. How long have I been out? Am I even alive anymore? I want to go home…
The ground rumbled and he looked back, against his better judgement. Through tears of fear he caught a glimpse of shining silver as it slithered back into the dunes, whispers of sand moving and becoming louder, taunting him. It was coming for him now. It knew.
He looked down at the roofs of cars just under the sand in this desert of a parking lot. Roberts mind sparked with some understanding now, he had to go to sleep, and fast. He had to get back home, back to his wife and his life – however bleak he thought his existence to be, it was worlds better than where he was now. Worlds. His mind filled with thoughts, images, feelings of his wife. Her long, black hair. Those big, dark eyes. The beach at night when he proposed. He forced his mind to fill with only thoughts of her.
Her.
Dream to escape. Escape to dream.
Robert James jumped as high as he could for the first time in over ten years. As he guided his body, a fraction of a second he wondered if he had died and this was his hell. His hands clasped behind him as he flew head first toward the roof of a rusted car. His wife’s face filled his mind’s eye.
Going to take a minute to help the community here, I promised myself this blog would be ONLY for my short stories… But I really like helping people too… So.. I apologize profusely to both myself and you, dear reader.
You’re gonna be just fine, tiny dancer. You can write, you haven’t hit a block, you haven’t lost your skill. It’s aaaaalllllll good. You are a great writer, don’t worry. I believe in you.
What you dohave to do is this — and trust me I know it sounds too easy, and oversimplified. But bear with me.
Step 4?
Just write ANYTHING. If you’re typing, just start typing something relevant to what you are writing about. A general outline works great, especially for academic writing where you have to clearly organize your thoughts.
If you have a pen and paper drawing helps too, even if you aren’t an artist.
Just the simple act of scribbling gets rid of the blank page. If you are writing a story, or a poem, try to draw an aspect of the subject. Try to make it relevant.
Keep that process going until the juices flow.
Step 5:
Once the juices are flowing, and you are writing something relevant to what your topic is, KEEP WRITING UNTIL YOU CRAMP UP. You can always go back and whittle off what is useless, or rearrange the ideas.
But turning a blank page into anything else at all helps me tons.
And I hope it helps you, too. Good luck, and for all the gods’ sakes –
Tales of a Travelling Salesman 