The Creature

Just an idea I came up with as I let my dog outside, went upstairs to get a glass of water, and then ran the terrifying trek to my bedroom.

Merrgh. Arroo...

“What's the matter baby? Do you need to go outside?” I looked over at my little dachshund, Momo, sitting at the door wagging his tail at me. “Huh? Do you need to go outside?”

He stretched his little front paw as far as it would go to scratch the door in confirmation.

“Okay, let's go outside!” Before I can get the door open a quarter of the way he's off, the pounding of his feet on the carpet sounds like a maniac running through the house at full speed. Which is pretty accurate.

Momo runs back and forth between me and the door as I take my time down the long hallway of the basement as it leads from my room to the giant downstairs living room. When I reach the door he sits patiently waiting for me to hook him up to his lead, as soon as the little click of the clasp rings in his ears he's off, leaping up the concrete and snow ridden steps.

I close the door so as to not let all of the cold air inside, it was another below zero night for Brindell Valley. As I wait looking through the glass window on the door my imagination starts to get the better of me. First someone is taunting my dog with food and is ready to snatch him and take him away from me forever, forcing him into a life of small dog fights, when suddenly his chain goes tight. My heart starts beating a mile a minute and I feel the panic rise inside my chest coming from somewhere deep within my gut when the chain falls slack. I start to picture the person who's just stolen my dog from me, he's tall, beefy with a beer gut and a scar on his left cheek, when an even worse thought takes hold... What if it wasn't a person who snatched my dog? What if some thing grabbed him? Just like in a horror movie I see myself grabbing the end of his chain and pulling it towards me only to find his black harness dangling there, no little dog inside of it. I'm about to go outside amongst the below freezing temperatures in my bare feet when my dog emerges at the top of the stairway, tail wagging as he bounds downwards towards me and most importantly towards safety.

As I let him off his chain I feel a little silly for thinking anything out there was plotting against me or my little dog for that matter.

Skritch

I stop and stare up the concrete steps waiting for the source of the noise to reveal itself. Was probably just a leaf, even thought it sounded remarkably like a claw scraping the ground, I think as I close the door, my mind still wouldn't stop playing tricks on me. As I turn I see something black coming from around the house, as my eyes widen involuntarily I turn back to face the opening. There's nothing there. Of course there's nothing there, I think, as I reach up and push my bangs out of my face, they probably just fell in front of my eyes when I was turning away. Happens all the time.

I sighed it off and turned the 180 degrees to face the stairs, stepping up them with purpose. My brain always went crazy walking around this house at night, it wasn't anything new. As I created something sneaking up behind me with long spindly fingers grabbing tight and dragging me backwards like in a paranormal ghost movie, I turned around to humor myself. My eyes went straight to the glass window on the top half of the door. Was that fog? It looked as if something was breathing against the window, it's hot breath reacting against the freezing glass. I stared but it didn't go away. The only change came from the small droplet of water from condensation snake its way down the frosty glass. I continued up the stairs, quicker now.

Momo didn't come with me this time, instead he ran straight back to the bedroom where his daddy was asleep in bed. I missed the company. I tried to reason with myself that I was being crazy, what could possibly be outside the house at this time of night? The list of creatures and creepy crawlies I've seen in movies popped up in list form, checking themselves off one by one, but I laughed it off and got myself a nice glass of water. Standing in the kitchen I began to notice just how many open windows this house had. Two in the very room I was standing, one right in plain view hanging over the sink and another inside the door that lead out to the porch. As I zoned out with the porch door in view, I saw something run past. This time I was sure of it. It went from left to right, but how? The porch cut off right after the door on the left. I put my glass on the counter and booked it for the stairs, nothing would stop me from getting to my bedroom, safely. Especially not my overactive imagination.

As I rushed down the stairs I felt a pair of eyes lingering on me from the banister overhead, the iron bars holding the creature back, but I could feel its grin pulling straight across its oily face. Now my crazy projections reached a whole new level, I was bringing this creature to life behind me and it was catching up. The chill up my spine was hard to ignore as I fast walked through the downstairs, the hair on my arm stood up one by one. After what seemed like an eternity I finally reached the hallway, I looked behind me and before I could even whip my head halfway to its destination to peering down the looming blackened living room I saw something from the corner of my eye running into my room. Chills ran through my ribs, swiveling through each bone like a cat sways through an iron fence. I tried to reason with myself that it was just Momo, he had been sniffing around in the room across from mine, heard me coming and decided to bail so as to not be caught in an off-limits bedroom. I couldn't get my legs to carry me to my bedroom though, an intense sense to flee was lingering on all of my senses. I forced my right leg forward and then my left and finally I was there, at the end of the hallway, about to turn into my room.

I took a deep breath and prepared to scream, just in case, so as to wake up my boyfriend up right away, and I looked in. Nothing looked suspicious, the vanilla candle sat on top of the bookshelf flickering away. As I scanned from the right of my room near the closet to the left towards the bed I let my breath slowly escape between my lips. My shoulders began to relax as I focused on the bed where my boyfriend slept. I was about to step inside when he sat up with the heavy black blanket on top of him, covering his whole body creating a silhouette. It wasn't the blanket though, it lay motionless underneath this rising black mass on the bed. A small torso formed, I could see its shoulder roll forward as it extended its left arm stretching its long sharp fingers before shaking off the stretch. Then suddenly something began to rise from behind it, an oval shape that could only be a head, a head that was previously bent backwards in a way that you'd only see in an exorcism. Before either of us could make a sound two white eyes opened up and blinked a few times, and then there it was. That unmistakable smile that pulled over half way across its lower head, the same smile that haunted me from the stairs and brought the thought of retreating ink came to mind.

The air had already escaped my lungs otherwise a scream would have undoubtedly emerged. I began to puff up to reset my scream of terror when the creature lunged forward on all fours, it's Cheshire grin never faltering as it's head dangled in front of the four limbs carrying it over to me. Before I could react it was in front of me and looking up, slowly moving from a position on the ground to standing tall, its head never took its focus off of me. I tried to stumble backwards to run away but I felt a hot breath on my neck. I tried to look to my left without taking my eyes off of the creature in front of me when I saw its twin, an even more evil doppelganger hanging from the ceiling grinning down at me with its white as snow smile.

Author's Note

A finally revised story. Seriously, I never revise, and now I have... I don't typically write in first person so I wanted to try something a little different. Enjoy.

Reviews

[Simon S.]

I'm going to start by saying im not much of a fan of narratives. So i had to muscle my way through your story, and i got confused as to how you travel down a hallway in your basement from your room to the downstairs living room. That got me. But otherwise this was a relatively interesting story, i guess it could've been better if you rewrote some stuff and added a bit more to the atmosphere. But then again i'm just starting myself, you don't have to take anything i write seriously.

[Jessyca Lynn]

No, I appreciate the comment. It took me a minute to find the weird hall/bedroom part, but I think I fixed it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and review it! I'll start working on making a better atmosphere to the story, horror and first person isn't really my strong suit.
Thank you again for the review!

[ChinAllen]

I liked this story a lot! I could really see picture the behavior of the dog and the creature that you imagined. Very well done!

[Jessyca Lynn]

That's because you live with me. Silly.