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...
Monday, June 6, 2011
What Are Friends For?
My friend John asked me to help him move into his new house. He asked if I could stay a few days, help him get his stuff in and sort through the old owner’s stuff that had been left behind. He asked me because I’m one of those people who can’t say no when a friend asks for a favor.
“Of course.” I answered. “What are friends for?”
The place freaked me out from the moment I laid eyes on it. It was at the end of a long winding driveway that ran through the woods, one of those 1960’s modern jobs, with angles and glass and strange little 5 step staircases all over the place.
“Why would you buy such a butt ugly thing?” I asked he parked the rental van next to my car. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it looks like something out of ‘A Clockwork Orange’.”
“The owners died, no relatives, so it was dirt cheap, and it came with all the furnishings.” He replied.
“If there’s a big rocking penis sculpture in there, I call shotgun.” I said, and we laughed as we walked up to the front door. He unlocked the door and proudly swung it open.
I tried to smile and praise the place, it was his first house, and he was really excited. But my guts turned to lead as soon as I stepped inside. It was like the air inside was pressing down on me. The furniture was a mish-mash of old Victorian stuff and 60’s “modern” plastic. Most of the plastic stuff was a sick flesh color. And the way the house was laid out was just bizarre. Instead of the central hallway running from one end of the house to the other, it spiraled inward, with rooms branching off in odd places, leading into a small guest bedroom at the center of the house. That was the strangest room in the house to me, there was some kind of religious shrine against the wall opposite the bed, with dried flowers glued to the wall in layers over a side table littered with candles and a wooden box the size of a toaster oven.
After my tour, we began unloading the truck. We piled his boxes in the living room and kitchen, and decided to start going through the bedrooms and load the truck up with all the stuff he didn’t want. We would start in the first bedrooms and spiral our way to the middle. Most of it was junk, boxes of old letters written in German or Polish or something, old pictures of the last couple to own the house. They were both short, fat and mean-eyed. There pictures of six different kids, but only up until they were toddlers.
I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor, and something about the carpet grossed me out. It was old shag carpeting, a dirty red color, but it felt grimy, sticky like a movie theatre floor. I told John to either have it steamed to death or to replace it.
“Really? Why?” He rubbed his hand on it.
“Ug, doesn’t it gross you out?”
“No.” He gave me a weird look and went back to sorting. I noticed that he was spending more time looking at the old pictures and letters than I was, even pulling some out of the garbage bag I’d been filling.
“Why are you looking at those? You don’t even speak German or whatever it is.”
“They’re interesting. It’s someone else’s life.”
“Well, if you keep screwing around looking at old photos of some ugly old people, we’ll be here for the rest of our lives.”
He gave me another look, this one kind of pissed, and I sighed.
“I’m going for a smoke.” I got up, stretched and went back to the living room. The floor to ceiling windows were dark, reflecting myself back from the light of the hallway. I found the switch and flipped it on, and now the window was a mirror of the living room. It was kind of freaky, seeing myself, but not knowing if there was someone outside, looking in. There weren’t any curtains or blinds, and I made a note to tell John to get some. I found a switch for the outside light and flicked it on, opening the door slowly and peeking out. Nothing but trees. This place was getting to me something awful.
I smoked my cigarette slowly, not wanting to go back into the house. Something moved in the corner of my eye. I turned quickly, and saw a cat, lurking just outside of the circle of light thrown by the patio light bulb.
“Here, kitty, kitty.” I bent down, rubbing my fingers together and making that “Psss, psss, psss” sound. The cat just walked around the circle of light, meowing softly. The meow sounded wrong, like the cat was meowing into a hollow gourd. I’m a big cat softie, so I moved closer, thinking the poor thing might be hurt.
I was still bent over, with my hand outstretched, when it turned to face me. The left half of it’s face was a ruin, the skin peeled away, the eye gorged out. It meowed again, and it’s mouth opened far too wide, like a snake unhinging it’s jaw. Blood began to run from its ears and mouth. Its remaining eye fell from the socket and hit the ground with a plop. I screamed, backing away and clawing for the door. I managed to get it open and still shrieking, scrambled in and slammed it shut.
I stumbled down the hall, screaming for John. When I burst into the bedroom, he looked up from the photos he’d been looking at.
“What the hells gotten into you?” He said calmly.
“Didn’t you hear me screaming? There’s some kind of messed up cat outside! It’s bleeding and it’s eyes fell out! Right on your patio!”
He shrugged. “A coyote probably got it.” And went back to the box of papers he was sorting through.
“Are you listening to me? There’s a mutilated cat outside!” I was crying now, I couldn’t believe he was just sitting there looking through papers he couldn’t even read.
“Fine.” He snapped and threw the papers back in the box. “You want me to go look at a torn up cat? Fine. I will.” He pushed past me, slamming my shoulder into the door as he did.
“What’s wrong with you?” I yelled.
“You’re the one who wants me to watch some poor animal die!” He yelled back, and yanked the front door open. He stood looking out, then turned back to me. “This is sick.”
“I told you, it came up to me and-” I stopped next to him, looking out the door. There was a cat on the patio, but it had been dead for a while. Maggots crawled in and out of the patched remains of its fur. “That wasn’t there, John. We walked across this patio 50 times today, bringing in your boxes.”
“Did you put it there?”
“No! How could I? If you tried to pick that up, it would fall apart!”
“Whatever. We must not have seen it earlier.”
“How could we miss it? We would have had to step over it!” I was beyond scared, and getting panicked. “I’m going home.”
“Well, gee thanks for the help.” He snapped. “I guess this is what friends are for.”
“Come with me. There’s something really wrong here.”
“Screw you.” He said and slammed the door shut behind me. A second later, the patio light went off.
I ran towards my car, leaping over the cat, trying to dig my car keys out of my pocket as I ran. I kept jamming down the unlock button, making the woods seem to leer and reach towards me as the parking lights flashed on and off. Finally I reached the car, slammed the door behind me and locked the doors. It took me a full minute to get the key into the ignition, it kept straying off to the side and scraping across the dashboard. I finally got them in and burned rubber reversing, almost slamming into the moving van trying to turn around.
I forced myself to slow down on the driveway, it was narrow and winding, and I did not want to get wrapped around a tree out here. Suddenly there was something in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes, stopping less than 10 feet from a large, dirty pig. It stood on the cracked asphalt, nosing the air with its snout and making soft pig noises.
“What the fu-” I began, when the pig reared up, squealing madly. It stood on its hind legs, pawing at the air with its front hooves. A red line began to trace down its belly, and suddenly split open, slipping the pig’s guts onto the pavement. Screaming, I smashed my foot down on the gas, swerving around the pig, which was still trashing around on its hind legs.
I got home late, and spent the rest of the night in my bed, curled up and crying. I tried to call John’s cell dozens of times but got no answer. I managed a few hours of sleep, but kept being awakened by nightmares where the pig danced and jerked in my headlights while its guts and blood ran out onto the asphalt.
I called some of our other friends, but none of them could get through to John either. I was worried sick, and ashamed I’d left him out there, so I got 2 of my biggest, brawniest friends to drive back out to his house with me. There was no pig in the driveway, but the cat was still festering on the patio. We knocked and knocked, but he didn’t answer. We walked around the side of the house, to see if we could see him through one of the big windows. Around back there was a pool full of dark, filthy water. On the cracked concrete next to the later was the rotting, gutted remains of a pig. We went back to the car and left. I called the police from my cell phone.
They found the remains of hundreds of animals on the property around the house. Most of them had been mutilated in some way, then left to rot where they lay. In the wooden box in the strange center bedroom they found the skeletons of 6 toddlers. By translating and reading some of the letters in the house, they discovered that the couple who owned the house had had 6 children. They’d had parties on each child’s third birthday, inviting a select group of their friends from Germany. At the party the child was killed and eaten. The cops tried to trace the letters, to find their friends in Germany, but they never did.
They never found John, either. I’m still ashamed and sad that I left him there that night. But I’m glad I left. God knows where he went to. I’ve drifted away from most of my other friends, too. They think I’m depressed over John. But honestly, I’m scared that one of them will ask me for a favor. Like helping them move. Because I’m the sort of person who can’t say no. Because, really, what are friends for?
*This was actually the (much) embellished version of some spooky shit that happened to me in 2 different modern architecture houses. One that my friend had just moved into and one that I cleaned when I used to work for Merry Maids. I am NOT a fan of that style, those houses ruined it for me, and now I think all those angles and glass are sinister as fuck.
“Of course.” I answered. “What are friends for?”
The place freaked me out from the moment I laid eyes on it. It was at the end of a long winding driveway that ran through the woods, one of those 1960’s modern jobs, with angles and glass and strange little 5 step staircases all over the place.
“Why would you buy such a butt ugly thing?” I asked he parked the rental van next to my car. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it looks like something out of ‘A Clockwork Orange’.”
“The owners died, no relatives, so it was dirt cheap, and it came with all the furnishings.” He replied.
“If there’s a big rocking penis sculpture in there, I call shotgun.” I said, and we laughed as we walked up to the front door. He unlocked the door and proudly swung it open.
I tried to smile and praise the place, it was his first house, and he was really excited. But my guts turned to lead as soon as I stepped inside. It was like the air inside was pressing down on me. The furniture was a mish-mash of old Victorian stuff and 60’s “modern” plastic. Most of the plastic stuff was a sick flesh color. And the way the house was laid out was just bizarre. Instead of the central hallway running from one end of the house to the other, it spiraled inward, with rooms branching off in odd places, leading into a small guest bedroom at the center of the house. That was the strangest room in the house to me, there was some kind of religious shrine against the wall opposite the bed, with dried flowers glued to the wall in layers over a side table littered with candles and a wooden box the size of a toaster oven.
After my tour, we began unloading the truck. We piled his boxes in the living room and kitchen, and decided to start going through the bedrooms and load the truck up with all the stuff he didn’t want. We would start in the first bedrooms and spiral our way to the middle. Most of it was junk, boxes of old letters written in German or Polish or something, old pictures of the last couple to own the house. They were both short, fat and mean-eyed. There pictures of six different kids, but only up until they were toddlers.
I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor, and something about the carpet grossed me out. It was old shag carpeting, a dirty red color, but it felt grimy, sticky like a movie theatre floor. I told John to either have it steamed to death or to replace it.
“Really? Why?” He rubbed his hand on it.
“Ug, doesn’t it gross you out?”
“No.” He gave me a weird look and went back to sorting. I noticed that he was spending more time looking at the old pictures and letters than I was, even pulling some out of the garbage bag I’d been filling.
“Why are you looking at those? You don’t even speak German or whatever it is.”
“They’re interesting. It’s someone else’s life.”
“Well, if you keep screwing around looking at old photos of some ugly old people, we’ll be here for the rest of our lives.”
He gave me another look, this one kind of pissed, and I sighed.
“I’m going for a smoke.” I got up, stretched and went back to the living room. The floor to ceiling windows were dark, reflecting myself back from the light of the hallway. I found the switch and flipped it on, and now the window was a mirror of the living room. It was kind of freaky, seeing myself, but not knowing if there was someone outside, looking in. There weren’t any curtains or blinds, and I made a note to tell John to get some. I found a switch for the outside light and flicked it on, opening the door slowly and peeking out. Nothing but trees. This place was getting to me something awful.
I smoked my cigarette slowly, not wanting to go back into the house. Something moved in the corner of my eye. I turned quickly, and saw a cat, lurking just outside of the circle of light thrown by the patio light bulb.
“Here, kitty, kitty.” I bent down, rubbing my fingers together and making that “Psss, psss, psss” sound. The cat just walked around the circle of light, meowing softly. The meow sounded wrong, like the cat was meowing into a hollow gourd. I’m a big cat softie, so I moved closer, thinking the poor thing might be hurt.
I was still bent over, with my hand outstretched, when it turned to face me. The left half of it’s face was a ruin, the skin peeled away, the eye gorged out. It meowed again, and it’s mouth opened far too wide, like a snake unhinging it’s jaw. Blood began to run from its ears and mouth. Its remaining eye fell from the socket and hit the ground with a plop. I screamed, backing away and clawing for the door. I managed to get it open and still shrieking, scrambled in and slammed it shut.
I stumbled down the hall, screaming for John. When I burst into the bedroom, he looked up from the photos he’d been looking at.
“What the hells gotten into you?” He said calmly.
“Didn’t you hear me screaming? There’s some kind of messed up cat outside! It’s bleeding and it’s eyes fell out! Right on your patio!”
He shrugged. “A coyote probably got it.” And went back to the box of papers he was sorting through.
“Are you listening to me? There’s a mutilated cat outside!” I was crying now, I couldn’t believe he was just sitting there looking through papers he couldn’t even read.
“Fine.” He snapped and threw the papers back in the box. “You want me to go look at a torn up cat? Fine. I will.” He pushed past me, slamming my shoulder into the door as he did.
“What’s wrong with you?” I yelled.
“You’re the one who wants me to watch some poor animal die!” He yelled back, and yanked the front door open. He stood looking out, then turned back to me. “This is sick.”
“I told you, it came up to me and-” I stopped next to him, looking out the door. There was a cat on the patio, but it had been dead for a while. Maggots crawled in and out of the patched remains of its fur. “That wasn’t there, John. We walked across this patio 50 times today, bringing in your boxes.”
“Did you put it there?”
“No! How could I? If you tried to pick that up, it would fall apart!”
“Whatever. We must not have seen it earlier.”
“How could we miss it? We would have had to step over it!” I was beyond scared, and getting panicked. “I’m going home.”
“Well, gee thanks for the help.” He snapped. “I guess this is what friends are for.”
“Come with me. There’s something really wrong here.”
“Screw you.” He said and slammed the door shut behind me. A second later, the patio light went off.
I ran towards my car, leaping over the cat, trying to dig my car keys out of my pocket as I ran. I kept jamming down the unlock button, making the woods seem to leer and reach towards me as the parking lights flashed on and off. Finally I reached the car, slammed the door behind me and locked the doors. It took me a full minute to get the key into the ignition, it kept straying off to the side and scraping across the dashboard. I finally got them in and burned rubber reversing, almost slamming into the moving van trying to turn around.
I forced myself to slow down on the driveway, it was narrow and winding, and I did not want to get wrapped around a tree out here. Suddenly there was something in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes, stopping less than 10 feet from a large, dirty pig. It stood on the cracked asphalt, nosing the air with its snout and making soft pig noises.
“What the fu-” I began, when the pig reared up, squealing madly. It stood on its hind legs, pawing at the air with its front hooves. A red line began to trace down its belly, and suddenly split open, slipping the pig’s guts onto the pavement. Screaming, I smashed my foot down on the gas, swerving around the pig, which was still trashing around on its hind legs.
I got home late, and spent the rest of the night in my bed, curled up and crying. I tried to call John’s cell dozens of times but got no answer. I managed a few hours of sleep, but kept being awakened by nightmares where the pig danced and jerked in my headlights while its guts and blood ran out onto the asphalt.
I called some of our other friends, but none of them could get through to John either. I was worried sick, and ashamed I’d left him out there, so I got 2 of my biggest, brawniest friends to drive back out to his house with me. There was no pig in the driveway, but the cat was still festering on the patio. We knocked and knocked, but he didn’t answer. We walked around the side of the house, to see if we could see him through one of the big windows. Around back there was a pool full of dark, filthy water. On the cracked concrete next to the later was the rotting, gutted remains of a pig. We went back to the car and left. I called the police from my cell phone.
They found the remains of hundreds of animals on the property around the house. Most of them had been mutilated in some way, then left to rot where they lay. In the wooden box in the strange center bedroom they found the skeletons of 6 toddlers. By translating and reading some of the letters in the house, they discovered that the couple who owned the house had had 6 children. They’d had parties on each child’s third birthday, inviting a select group of their friends from Germany. At the party the child was killed and eaten. The cops tried to trace the letters, to find their friends in Germany, but they never did.
They never found John, either. I’m still ashamed and sad that I left him there that night. But I’m glad I left. God knows where he went to. I’ve drifted away from most of my other friends, too. They think I’m depressed over John. But honestly, I’m scared that one of them will ask me for a favor. Like helping them move. Because I’m the sort of person who can’t say no. Because, really, what are friends for?
*This was actually the (much) embellished version of some spooky shit that happened to me in 2 different modern architecture houses. One that my friend had just moved into and one that I cleaned when I used to work for Merry Maids. I am NOT a fan of that style, those houses ruined it for me, and now I think all those angles and glass are sinister as fuck.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Report, Soldier
Credit to: Sgt Hoffman
*A few people asked if they could add their own stories, and this was the first to send one to me. Send in one and I'll add it to the blog.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Tape Log
START TAPE:
Male voice:
I didn’t see the end of the world. I heard it. I haven’t seen anything since I was 4. I kind of remember seeing, but I’m 25 now, and most of the stuff I remember is blurs of color. I remember color. Red fire trucks and the endless expanse of blue that was the sky. But I don’t remember my parents’ faces, or what color my big sister’s eyes were.
PAUSE (BREATHING)
I killed her. I didn’t push her off a roof, or shoot her, but it‘s my fault. I promised her, but I broke that promise, and it’s my fault she’s dead. She came home one day, about 18 months ago, when the Stone began to spread. She was babbling, screaming about people standing stock still in the streets, and killing anyone who touched them. She had bags and bags of canned food, and began tearing the furniture apart, nailing the pieces over the windows. I’d heard a lot of commotion that day, but figured it was just people getting excited over the Sox being in the World Series. I liked listening to baseball game son the radio. I wish the radio towers around here still worked. There’s no more Red Sox to cheer for, but I guess I could have learned to like the Twins or something. (LAUGHTER) At least I know New York went down, too. No more fucking Yankees.
(MORE LAUGHTER, BECOMES WEEPING, WEEPING CONTINUES FOR 10 MINUTES)
Kris had always taken good care of me, and she was reeling off instructions to me as she boarded up the house. Things were getting louder and crazier outside. I was begging her to slow down, she didn’t make any sense, I didn’t know what she was talking about. She wouldn’t, though, not until she’d sealed off all the windows, and the dim grey that I think of as ‘daylight’ had become the black of ‘nighttime’. She pulled me to her, and told me she’d seen men and women standing still as statues in the streets, and when people touched them, they’d attack them. And then the people stood up and stood still in the streets, even though they were dead. She’d been running in the park when she saw the first one, and as she ran first to the grocery store to get supplies, then home, she’d seen more and more, more dead people too.
“You can’t touch anyone but me, do you hear me? They kill people who touch them! People tried to attack them, but nothing happened, not until they touched them, so you can’t touch anyone but me! Promise me you’ll never touch them! Promise me! Promise me!” I promised. I … promised her…
(TAPE PAUSES, THEN RECORDING CONTINUES)
We stayed in the house for 4 days, eating canned food, she said she couldn’t hear much through the boards, just the really loud screams, and gunfire, sometimes men yelling over megaphones. I heard things, though. I heard lots of things. Dry snaps like sticks being snapped over a knee. The far-off grinding of heavy equipment. Lots and lots of trucks, military trucks, it turned out. And many times I heard a gristly ripping sound, the sound a turkey leg makes when you rip it off the bird. People crying, children screaming, glass breaking, the screech of tires and the crunch of a car hitting something immobile and hard. The meatier thud of a car hitting something smaller, and fleshier. I tried wearing earplugs, but they didn’t help much. The only way I could sleep was by putting in earplugs, then putting my headphones on over them and playing bass-heavy classical music.
On the 5th day, I heard many feet running up our front walk. I screamed for Kris. She hugged me against her, and we hid in a closet, but the men found us anyway. They smelled like leather and gunpowder, their voices were cracked and hysterical with exhaustion and fear. They told us we had to come with them, it wasn’t safe here, it was a single story building. They grabbed my arm and pulled me up, out of the house. I screamed for Kris, heard her screaming and struggling behind me. I flailed like a fish. One of the men yelled and pinned my arms to my sides.
“Jesus, he almost touched it!” One of them yelled, and I went limp with fear in his arms. He carried me to the truck like a rag doll. They brought us to an apartment building, told us to get to the second floor or higher, the Stone couldn’t go up stairs. I started laughing.
“They can’t climb stairs? They can’t climb fucking stairs?”
The soldiers got mad, they didn’t hear the panic and fear humming through every note of my words like I did. They thought I was being a smartass. They yelled at Kris to get my ass upstairs. There were other people upstairs, it was a terrible din of crying, moaning, people praying and children asking “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Peter? Where’s Nanny?” Kris kept leading me up, it felt like we were climbing forever, my thighs burned. But slowly, the noise dropped away. Finally she opened a door and led me down a echoing corridor. She found an open door and called inside, but it was empty. There was a little air moving through the apartment, the window was open. She told me to be careful, the safety grate was gone. I heard her bend over and look out the window, heard a small mew of disgust, then she slammed the window shut. She found the bedroom and told me to lie down for a while. This far up, any sounds were far away, and unimportant. I slept for a long time.
(TAPE PAUSES, THEN RECORDING CONTINUES)
The other people came up eventually, most of them were pretty nice, Kris cleaned out the apartment we’d commandeered, we settled into a life. I can hear the helicopters coming form way off, and I have to go downstairs. I count the landings carefully, 23, and then I’m on the second floor. The sound of the chopper’s blades and the roar of the engine gives me a wicked migraine. If my name ever comes up in the lotto, I’ll probably throw up all over that godawful loud thing. Kris used to follow me everywhere, but after a while, the apartment building became our home. I knew where everything was. I knew how many steps from our door to the stairwell door, I knew how many landings to the second floor, I knew the sound of all our neighbors footsteps and voices. So after a while, Kris stopped following me downstairs when the choppers came. She wanted to hear news from the soldiers, she hated the long climb back upstairs, and the second floor smelled. There’s no running water here, so most people dump their garbage and…septic out the 20th floor windows. Kris says all the buildings with people have a ring of filth 20 feet around them. I wonder about the people in the other buildings. It get kind of boring talking to the same 21 people all the time. But those other people may as well be in China. I’ll certainly never meet them.
I normally started the long trek back upstairs when I heard the helicopter engine winding up to take off again, but one day I felt lazy. I was fighting a bit of a head cold, and felt rundown. So I stayed where I was a bit longer, in an apartment Kris had opened up and cleaned out for me to use when I was hiding down here. I was stretched out in a recliner, and I must have snoozed a bit. I was woken up to soft, soft sobbing. I went out into the hallway, but the sound got dimmer. It was coming from outside! I ran back into the apartment and ran up the window. There was someone outside, beneath the window, crying softly. I thought, “It has to be a person! Kris says the Stone don’t make any noise!”
I thought about running upstairs, getting help. But what if that person was hurt? What if a Stone was slowly creeping towards them? I decide I would just stick my head out the stairwell fire door and yell to them. They could come in the door, and we’d escape upstairs. I went down the stairs quietly, my ears pricked for the slightest sound. I heard someone far up in the stairwell, but nothing below me, just that crying getting louder. Quietly, I opened the fire door. Sobbing roared into my ears. That person was crying so hard now.
“Hello?” I called, opening the door further and stepping out, but not quite daring to let go of the door handle. “Come inside! Where are you?” I started to lift my hand up to feel for them, they were close.
Then Kris screamed “NO!” and shoved me aside. She barreled past me, shoving me back into the stairwell. I heard her gasp, then the door was swinging shut. I felt hot, thick liquid splash across my face, then it slammed shut. I screamed for her, over and over, but there was only that sobbing, endless, and I realized it was them sobbing, all of them, all of the Stone sobbing together, so low no one but me could hear them. I ran back up the stairs, sweat burning my stupid useless fucking eyes, and a taste like the way lightning smells in my mouth. I ran up to our room, and slammed the door. I locked it and shoved all the furniture against it. The neighbors were banging on the door, asking me what’s wrong, where’s Kris, what happened? But they’ve given up now. I wonder if they heard me through the walls. I hear them, fighting and making love, and crying. But I hear a lot they don’t hear. They’ll break in eventually, someone will spot my body down in the ring of filth when they dump their bucket of shit out, and they’ll break in here to see if I left a note.
This is my note. This is why I deserve to die in the garbage and waste down there. I’ll die on top of the body of the last guy who jumped out this window. There’s no safety bar on the window, and it’s what I deserve. I can’t live with the thought that Kris might be down there, endlessly sobbing. I can’t live knowing if I’d kept my promise she’d be alive. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Kris.
(SOUND OF WINDOW OPENING, RUSTLING, TAPE CONTINUES TO RECORD SILENCE FOR 3 HOURS)
(END RECORDING)
End
*Well you asked for it. I couldn't sleep and decided to try another one. I have a few more ideas for Stone stories, you may get more out of me yet. God, I've been awake too long.
Male voice:
I didn’t see the end of the world. I heard it. I haven’t seen anything since I was 4. I kind of remember seeing, but I’m 25 now, and most of the stuff I remember is blurs of color. I remember color. Red fire trucks and the endless expanse of blue that was the sky. But I don’t remember my parents’ faces, or what color my big sister’s eyes were.
PAUSE (BREATHING)
I killed her. I didn’t push her off a roof, or shoot her, but it‘s my fault. I promised her, but I broke that promise, and it’s my fault she’s dead. She came home one day, about 18 months ago, when the Stone began to spread. She was babbling, screaming about people standing stock still in the streets, and killing anyone who touched them. She had bags and bags of canned food, and began tearing the furniture apart, nailing the pieces over the windows. I’d heard a lot of commotion that day, but figured it was just people getting excited over the Sox being in the World Series. I liked listening to baseball game son the radio. I wish the radio towers around here still worked. There’s no more Red Sox to cheer for, but I guess I could have learned to like the Twins or something. (LAUGHTER) At least I know New York went down, too. No more fucking Yankees.
(MORE LAUGHTER, BECOMES WEEPING, WEEPING CONTINUES FOR 10 MINUTES)
Kris had always taken good care of me, and she was reeling off instructions to me as she boarded up the house. Things were getting louder and crazier outside. I was begging her to slow down, she didn’t make any sense, I didn’t know what she was talking about. She wouldn’t, though, not until she’d sealed off all the windows, and the dim grey that I think of as ‘daylight’ had become the black of ‘nighttime’. She pulled me to her, and told me she’d seen men and women standing still as statues in the streets, and when people touched them, they’d attack them. And then the people stood up and stood still in the streets, even though they were dead. She’d been running in the park when she saw the first one, and as she ran first to the grocery store to get supplies, then home, she’d seen more and more, more dead people too.
“You can’t touch anyone but me, do you hear me? They kill people who touch them! People tried to attack them, but nothing happened, not until they touched them, so you can’t touch anyone but me! Promise me you’ll never touch them! Promise me! Promise me!” I promised. I … promised her…
(TAPE PAUSES, THEN RECORDING CONTINUES)
We stayed in the house for 4 days, eating canned food, she said she couldn’t hear much through the boards, just the really loud screams, and gunfire, sometimes men yelling over megaphones. I heard things, though. I heard lots of things. Dry snaps like sticks being snapped over a knee. The far-off grinding of heavy equipment. Lots and lots of trucks, military trucks, it turned out. And many times I heard a gristly ripping sound, the sound a turkey leg makes when you rip it off the bird. People crying, children screaming, glass breaking, the screech of tires and the crunch of a car hitting something immobile and hard. The meatier thud of a car hitting something smaller, and fleshier. I tried wearing earplugs, but they didn’t help much. The only way I could sleep was by putting in earplugs, then putting my headphones on over them and playing bass-heavy classical music.
On the 5th day, I heard many feet running up our front walk. I screamed for Kris. She hugged me against her, and we hid in a closet, but the men found us anyway. They smelled like leather and gunpowder, their voices were cracked and hysterical with exhaustion and fear. They told us we had to come with them, it wasn’t safe here, it was a single story building. They grabbed my arm and pulled me up, out of the house. I screamed for Kris, heard her screaming and struggling behind me. I flailed like a fish. One of the men yelled and pinned my arms to my sides.
“Jesus, he almost touched it!” One of them yelled, and I went limp with fear in his arms. He carried me to the truck like a rag doll. They brought us to an apartment building, told us to get to the second floor or higher, the Stone couldn’t go up stairs. I started laughing.
“They can’t climb stairs? They can’t climb fucking stairs?”
The soldiers got mad, they didn’t hear the panic and fear humming through every note of my words like I did. They thought I was being a smartass. They yelled at Kris to get my ass upstairs. There were other people upstairs, it was a terrible din of crying, moaning, people praying and children asking “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Peter? Where’s Nanny?” Kris kept leading me up, it felt like we were climbing forever, my thighs burned. But slowly, the noise dropped away. Finally she opened a door and led me down a echoing corridor. She found an open door and called inside, but it was empty. There was a little air moving through the apartment, the window was open. She told me to be careful, the safety grate was gone. I heard her bend over and look out the window, heard a small mew of disgust, then she slammed the window shut. She found the bedroom and told me to lie down for a while. This far up, any sounds were far away, and unimportant. I slept for a long time.
(TAPE PAUSES, THEN RECORDING CONTINUES)
The other people came up eventually, most of them were pretty nice, Kris cleaned out the apartment we’d commandeered, we settled into a life. I can hear the helicopters coming form way off, and I have to go downstairs. I count the landings carefully, 23, and then I’m on the second floor. The sound of the chopper’s blades and the roar of the engine gives me a wicked migraine. If my name ever comes up in the lotto, I’ll probably throw up all over that godawful loud thing. Kris used to follow me everywhere, but after a while, the apartment building became our home. I knew where everything was. I knew how many steps from our door to the stairwell door, I knew how many landings to the second floor, I knew the sound of all our neighbors footsteps and voices. So after a while, Kris stopped following me downstairs when the choppers came. She wanted to hear news from the soldiers, she hated the long climb back upstairs, and the second floor smelled. There’s no running water here, so most people dump their garbage and…septic out the 20th floor windows. Kris says all the buildings with people have a ring of filth 20 feet around them. I wonder about the people in the other buildings. It get kind of boring talking to the same 21 people all the time. But those other people may as well be in China. I’ll certainly never meet them.
I normally started the long trek back upstairs when I heard the helicopter engine winding up to take off again, but one day I felt lazy. I was fighting a bit of a head cold, and felt rundown. So I stayed where I was a bit longer, in an apartment Kris had opened up and cleaned out for me to use when I was hiding down here. I was stretched out in a recliner, and I must have snoozed a bit. I was woken up to soft, soft sobbing. I went out into the hallway, but the sound got dimmer. It was coming from outside! I ran back into the apartment and ran up the window. There was someone outside, beneath the window, crying softly. I thought, “It has to be a person! Kris says the Stone don’t make any noise!”
I thought about running upstairs, getting help. But what if that person was hurt? What if a Stone was slowly creeping towards them? I decide I would just stick my head out the stairwell fire door and yell to them. They could come in the door, and we’d escape upstairs. I went down the stairs quietly, my ears pricked for the slightest sound. I heard someone far up in the stairwell, but nothing below me, just that crying getting louder. Quietly, I opened the fire door. Sobbing roared into my ears. That person was crying so hard now.
“Hello?” I called, opening the door further and stepping out, but not quite daring to let go of the door handle. “Come inside! Where are you?” I started to lift my hand up to feel for them, they were close.
Then Kris screamed “NO!” and shoved me aside. She barreled past me, shoving me back into the stairwell. I heard her gasp, then the door was swinging shut. I felt hot, thick liquid splash across my face, then it slammed shut. I screamed for her, over and over, but there was only that sobbing, endless, and I realized it was them sobbing, all of them, all of the Stone sobbing together, so low no one but me could hear them. I ran back up the stairs, sweat burning my stupid useless fucking eyes, and a taste like the way lightning smells in my mouth. I ran up to our room, and slammed the door. I locked it and shoved all the furniture against it. The neighbors were banging on the door, asking me what’s wrong, where’s Kris, what happened? But they’ve given up now. I wonder if they heard me through the walls. I hear them, fighting and making love, and crying. But I hear a lot they don’t hear. They’ll break in eventually, someone will spot my body down in the ring of filth when they dump their bucket of shit out, and they’ll break in here to see if I left a note.
This is my note. This is why I deserve to die in the garbage and waste down there. I’ll die on top of the body of the last guy who jumped out this window. There’s no safety bar on the window, and it’s what I deserve. I can’t live with the thought that Kris might be down there, endlessly sobbing. I can’t live knowing if I’d kept my promise she’d be alive. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Kris.
(SOUND OF WINDOW OPENING, RUSTLING, TAPE CONTINUES TO RECORD SILENCE FOR 3 HOURS)
(END RECORDING)
End
*Well you asked for it. I couldn't sleep and decided to try another one. I have a few more ideas for Stone stories, you may get more out of me yet. God, I've been awake too long.
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