The 8:15 bus to Trumbull roared
away from the station, creating a small frozen monsoon of watery slush that
swallowed up the sidewalk.
It may as well have been a boat with the amount of rain and sleet that
had hammered the small town for the past few days. As far as winters were concerned, this one had been pretty
bad. As if by more than
coincidence, the local news itself was bad as well. Reports on television spoke of people getting very sick in
the area. Not bedridden sick however. Subjects diagnosed became crazy and
violent, and the news warned that although incidents were few and far between,
people should “Steer clear of anyone acting overly strange.”
The young woman had been away from home and husband since
the storm’s start; the first day of meetings had been rescheduled due to flight
delays incurred by out-of-towners, and prolonged a day due to the inability of
any from of transportation to safely travel long distances. She was tired and homesick. All the Connecticut native could think
to do was collapse into bed next to her pungent, house sauce smelling chef of a
significant other, who was more than likely covered in a thin but visible layer
of sweat and grease he had collected from work. Normally she yelled at him for being in bed unwashed, but
tonight she would sacrifice her husband’s hygiene for sleep. She felt herself drifting to a sub
conscious state, snapping out of it only slightly with every heavy bump and
brief stop.
By the end of the three-hour trip the downpour was nearly
blinding. The doors of the public
bus opened and the young woman darted for cover under the stop’s overhang to
find her umbrella. After a brief
but meticulous search, it was excavated from her shoulder bag, and she braced
herself for the waterlogged gauntlet that was to be her brisk walk home. The violent storm was bad enough that
there was no reason to run. She’d be consumed in a matter of moments
anyway. She took a deep breath,
opened the umbrella, and pushed through the frozen sheets of ice and rain.
“It’s unusual for all the lights to
be off.” She thought to herself as
she trudged up the driveway and past her husband’s car. As she drew closer to the front door, she
slowed. “What was that
sound?” It was the sound of a loud
crash from inside, like a vehicle driving through a brittle wooden wall. She stood in the rain, already soaked
entirely, and waited.
Silence. After some
hesitation she walked up to the front door and slowly twisted the handle. “Had
someone broken into our house?” The thought raced in circles around her mind as panic took a firm
hold of her. She turned the
doorknob. It was unlocked.
The entire house had been turned
upside down; furniture, papers, and clothing strewn about as if a series of
small tornados had passed through.
Where was her husband? Was
he still here or had something bad happened? From off within the bathroom came a loud crash. If there was an intruder, then they
were still inside, judging by the violent ruckus from down the hall. She moved in deeper, towards the only
light in the entire house. She
could hear a voice muttering something indiscernible. It was a man’s voice, choked up with tears. It was her husband’s. “Honey?” she braved as she drew
closer. The mumbling stopped. Not a sound emitted from within the
bathroom. As if the entire
porcelain tiled room had been put on mute. As she peered inside she saw him kneeling in a heap of bloody
mirror shards on the floor, staring directly at her. His eyes no longer had any color: they were filled with an
unending blackness, like staring down two deep, lonely wells leading to
oblivion.
Her voice went silent with terror,
and all she could do was stare back.
His body was cut, bloody and battered, as if he had gotten into a
terrible fight. The blood that
stained his greasy white shirt was not red however. It was black. A
venomous corrosive smell was in the air, and it devoured her sense of smell like a swarm of carnivorous insects. “W-what happened?” The
woman finally forced out through the hand shielding her face as her husband stood up, never blinking, eyes fixed
into hers. His face began to
distort with a mixture of rage and aggravation, and he let out a screeching howl
as he began to claw at his face and ears.
The young woman’s face was a tempest of stress: pale, and drenched in
cold sweat as she forced heavy breaths from her lungs and out her partially
opened thin lips. Her entire body
rattled with terror like a frightened maraca.
She began moving back into the
darkness. He pursued. She turned and ran for the bedroom,
slamming and locking the door behind her.
The thing that was once her husband threw all of its weight against the
door; clawing, kicking and punching as it shrieked in a terrifying tone, nearly
taking the door off its hinges with every violent assault. The woman sat against the door,
horrified tears streaming down her face. She could feel fingers scraping at the
rug from under the door frantically right behind her. It was as violent as the storm outside. The bloodied fingers grabbed the bottom
portion of the door and began to rip off chunks of the thick wood in
handfuls. It was bad enough that
there was no reason to run. She’d be consumed in a matter of moments.
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