Crabs

    Why is he here?  In this house, so empty, so silent, with his Yorkie, Kip curled by his feet.  He is lying in a bed, white sheet on white sheets.  He sits up, sees something move on the opposite side of the room, and starts, making Kip growl slightly.  He sees it was only his reflection in a mirror.  He looks around the room, taking in the clean white walls, the swept floor. 
    He tries to remember why he’s here, the fight comes back, the screams of his parents, as he cowers in his closet, squeezing Kip to his face.  Finally, he had leapt up, sprinted past his parents and out the door.  He’s not sure if they even saw him.  He had run, and run, finally stopping by the abandoned house downtown, ignoring the childish voice inside that said, ‘everyone says its haunted’.  He had peered in the window, and seen that the inside was clean, the walls a fresh white, the floors newly swept.  He had crawled in this bed, the sheets new and clean, and slept.
    He patted Kip.  ‘It’ll be ok.’  He caught another glimpse of movement in the mirror.  He looked up, something was moving on the wall.  He squinted at the mirror.  It was a crab.  A brown and red speckled crab the size of his hand.  He whipped his head up, looking at the wall.  There was no crab, crabs couldn’t climb walls anyway.  He shook his head.  Stupid ghost stories.  ‘It’s ‘cause a crab selling guy disappeared by this house.  Mom said it once, and my subconnie-whatchamacallit remembered and seen a crab.’  He stroked Kip again.
    He felt something move near his knee.  He moved the sheets away, and there was the crab, scuttling across the sheet towards the edge of the bed.  He squealed with revulsion and flapped the sheet, flinging the crab across the room.  It hit the floor and began creeping towards him again.  Kip began to bark, his high-pitched yipping echoing in the room. . .which was changing.
    The crisp white walls were turning yellow, then brown, the paint peeling, the floor began to accumulate dust, the crab was wading in dust by the time we was half-way across the room.  And the sheet-  the boy screams, it is covered in bugs, all shapes and sizes, and crabs, those disgusting mottled crabs, and other creatures so disgusting his panicking mind can’t put a name to them.  He leaps from the bed, Kip is already gone.
    ‘Kip!’  he cried, and heard the dog’s frightened yip.  Somehow, Kip has gotten into the bathtub, in a small bathroom off the now crumbling bedroom.  The fixtures are flaking with rust, a shattered bulb hangs from the ceiling.  And something dropped from the bathtub tap.  The boy edges closer, trying to see his dog.  Another shape drops from the tap, and another.  He peers into the tub and sees his poor dog struggling against dozens of snakes.  They are wrapped around the small, furry body, their fangs deep in his skin.  The dog’s struggles weaken, and his eyes begin to turn glassy.  The boy screams, fleeing down the hall.  The house is awful, pipes jut from walls like bones, wires hang like moss, the walls have crumbled in places, showing the lattice inside.  The door, where’s the door?!
    He turns a corner, and there he sees two figures.  He recognizes them immediately.
    ‘Mommy!  Daddy!’  he cries, and runs to them, his fear of them is great, but the fear of this house is greater.  He throws his arms around his mother.  ‘I’m so scared!’  He sobs.
    ‘Don’t be afraid, dear.  None of these things can hurt you.  They’re all someone’s fears.  You can’t get hurt by someone else’s fears.  The crab man was scared of crabs, he’d seen them all day for years, and he grew to loathe them, so only his crabs could hurt him.’  His mother rubs his back soothing.  ‘Kip was scared of snakes, remember when he got bitten?’
    ‘So only my greatest fear can hurt me?’  The boy says, ‘Then what-’  He tries to pull back, but it’s too late, his mother’s hands have clamped around his neck.
    ‘Stay, darling.’  She whispers, but her voice has changed, and her breath stinks of rotting meat.  Her skin changes, becomes putrid, ‘I’m ever so hungry.’




*Heeheehee, this is a giant nostalgia bomb for me. I wrote it when I was 13! I found an old CD of stuff I wrote back in high school, most of which sent me into cringes so hard my eyebrows broke, but this one wasn't too terrible for 13. I'm pretty sure it was the first scary story I ever wrote...