A Glimpse into an Upcoming Story

Posted on April 4, 2014 by R. Richardsson

The following is a look into a short story from my next book; The Darkness Defines Us, a collection of horror stories I am releasing late summer. This story follows the protagonist as she wakens to a nightmare that only continues to worsen with each passing minute.

She opened her eyes and looked fearfully about the room. It was a small sound that had awakened her, so soft that had she not been a light sleeper, she might have missed it. Constellations spun across the ceiling, random images that weren’t in their actual positions according any known star chart, projected by a small box sitting on her dresser.

She yawned sleepily and brought her tiny fists to her eyes, rubbing them vigorously for several minutes in an attempt to chase away the lethargy.

“Mommy?”

Though she called out softly, she was surprised to receive no answer. Her mother’s room was across the hall from her’s and their doors were never closed. Whenever she couldn’t sleep, she could usually count on her mother to comfort her after her first cry.

Curiosity got the better of her and she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and hopped down to the floor, wincing when they were instantly chilled by the cold wood beneath them. Pausing only to grab her blankie, she clutched it against her chest and quickly closed the distance between herself and the door.

From somewhere downstairs, an explosion of glass broke the silence. She stepped away from the door, frightened by the sudden noise below. Her body trembled in fear as she listened to something she had never heard in her home before.

Her nose crinkled in disgust as she caught scent of something foul in the air and she gingerly pinched it closed with one hand.

“Eww,” she moaned. Moments later, another voice answered.

“…mmm…”

It was a man’s voice, but it was deep and guttural. It was one she didn’t recognize. Her eyes grew wide as the realization dawned upon her that there was a stranger in the house. She darted across the hallway and into her mother’s room, not knowing the danger that waited for her inside. There was no reason for her to expect anything other than for there to be the one person she could trust, inside, and it was her innocence that prevented her from sensing otherwise.

The room was darker than she was used to. Her mommy had forgotten to turn the light on in her closet so that she could find her way, if she needed to, and she froze just before entering the darkness inside. There was something warm and sticky beneath her feet, and the foul smell she detected in the hall seemed to be everywhere. It reminded her of the time that mommy had found something rotten in the back of the fridge, something that had once been a chicken enchilada mix. There was another smell as well, one that reminded her of her Grampy’s basement, the one with the dirt floor.

“Mommy,” she whispered.

But again, she didn’t answer. What’s more, what she did hear only added to her confusion. It was a wet smacking sound, very similar to how Grammy sounded when she took her teeth out to eat.

But, that couldn’t be right? Grampy and Grammy lived far, far away!

She jumped as whoever was eating in the darkness bit into something extremely crunchy. She felt a fresh wave of warm liquid running between her toes, thick and sticky against her skin. The eater grunted out of contention as it bit into something that crunched like an apple, then chewed noisily on whatever it was feasting on.

She began to cry. She couldn’t understand why her mommy didn’t answer her. The smell was more than she could bear, and what on earth was she eating? She turned, wanting nothing more than to flee to the safety of her bed, only then to be blinded by a bright beam of a flashlight.

“Holy shit,” a male voice said from behind the beaming light. It hurt her eyes and she squinted them so tightly until she was only looking through a narrow slit. A hand reached toward her. It was nearly as large as her head and was worn from hard work, though she couldn’t know that. To her young eyes, they only looked very strong.

“C-come here now, little girl. It’s alright,” he assured her.

She placed her little hand into his, stepping back into the hall as he gently guided her out of her mommy’s room.

“Have you been bitten,” he asked nervously.

What an odd question for someone to ask? Of course she hadn’t been bitten! She giggled as she shook her head quickly from side to side. The man wasn’t content to trust her words, however, and he roughly turned her about as he inspected her with his light. Try as she might, she still couldn’t see him very clearly. He was only a large shape in the darkness.

“Ow,” she complained when he was too rough.

“Hush,” he commanded. “You don’t want that thing in there deciding that it wants something new to nibble on, do you?”

Again she shook her head in denial, but this time he seemed happy to accept her answer.

“Good. Is this your room,” he asked as he shined the light on her door.

“Y-yes,” she answered.

“Stay here,” he said. “I just need to get you a couple of things before we go.”

She felt panic beginning to rise inside of her. Go? Where was this stranger man going to take her? Who was he for that matter? Why was he in their house?

The questions flooded her frightened mind faster than she could even begin to answer them and she trembled uncontrollably. She could hear him going through her drawers, but at the same time, she could also hear the eater in her mother’s room behind her. With her feet no longer in the viscous liquid, they was quickly becoming dry and crusty. Her toes were sticking together, a feeling that was as unpleasant as it sounded.

The man reappeared in the hall with a small bundle under his arm and for the first time she was able to get a look at him. He was wearing dark clothing. The shirt and pants looked very much like a policeman’s but she didn’t see a badge on the front. She also saw several pouches on his belt, but it was only a brief glimpse.

“Are you a policeman,” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered. “Sure. Now, I need you to come with me. It’s, um, not safe here anymore.”

He started to lead her toward the staircase leading to the first floor, but she couldn’t leave. Not without the one person she trusted more than anyone else.

“But, mister,” she protested.

“What,” he grunted in response.

“Have you seen my mommy?”

She Has A Pretty Face Though (Part L)

Posted on March 25, 2014 by R. Richardsson

Disclaimer

The following is one of many installments for a story designed specifically for my blog. While it does step out of my usual genre, there are some things still not suitable for a younger audience. Violent/Graphic descriptions, strong language and sexual situations may be found through different sections. Each entry will tell a small portion of the story during different times and may not directly follow the one prior to it.

This story follows the direct interactions, as well as the deteriorating thoughts of a young man who is struggling not only with the relationships he has with those around him, but with the relationship he has with himself as well.

Finally, all work is strictly fiction and does not reflect the views of the author. Any resemblance to actual person(s) is only a coincidence.

If this isn’t your cup of tea, then avoid these excerpts and hopefully I’ll see you around my other posts and webseries!

———

His breath rattled wetly in his chest, and he ran with his left hand clutched against it. What had at first been thought to be one broken finger turned out to be two, his ring and pinkie finger of said hand, and the pain was tremendous. As his feet pounded sometimes on the concrete, others on the grass or sun-baked dirt, his abdominal wound grew ever deeper.

He was a mess.

Blood coated him neck to knees from two different applications. From a distance, his jeans looked as if he had spilled oil into his lap, but closer inspection gave way to the sickening truth. His own life was oozing from the grievous wound which lurked, hidden, beneath a layer of duct tape and behind his chainmail shirt.

His eyes, much like the rest of his hardened features, had also begun their own metamorphosis. Just as his skin had grown haggard and his hair stark white, his eyes, too, began to change color. One eye had grown red, while the other, blue. To peer into his eyes for too long was to invite the madness that lay behind them.

There still remained an aura of misperception about him. Even when he ran completely in the open, people continued to turn the other way. Nobody spoke twice of the bleeding madman that ran past, nor did they remember having seen him after he was gone. The other was fully in control, bending the will of those around him just enough so that he was even less important.

It was nearly over and he was God damned for what he had become. Tears fell openly from the corners of his eyes as mourned for the death of Scott Vali.

He stumbled from time to time when he missed the cadence of his feetsteps, careening drunkenly about as he fought to regain his balance. Each was more difficult than the last and there was soon going to be a moment when he found himself floundering at the feet of those around him, helpless and quietly expiring.

When the pressure on his chest had grown too heavy for him to bear, only then did he finally stop. He could feel the rough texture of brick against his back. Or maybe it was stone? He didn’t turn to look, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was too tired to continue. It was over.

It was then that he realized that there was something in his right hand. He had been holding his left hand against him using the wrist of his other, which, in turn, allowed him to keep hold of the small rectangular object therein. It was a smartphone, the same one he had been trying to take from Tommy, and it was the last chance he would have for this to be over.

Using the thumb and forefinger of his left hand to hold it, he searched through the contacts until he found who he wanted. One tap of the finger and the phone was dialing. It only took one ring for him to connect to the very frantic person on the other end.

“Tommy?!” Why the hell haven’t you been answering my calls,” Misty shrieked through the receiver. Her voice was thick, as if she had been crying recently, and her words gushed in panic.

“Misty,” he croaked. His breath was short and he wheezed at the end of the single word he had spoken.

“Tommy,” she asked, suddenly confused.

“Misty!” He spat her name at the phone. He wanted to say more, but for some reason his mouth couldn’t articulate the words that should follow. His mind jumbled the letters together, shook them up and poured them over his tonsils, choking him with their nonsensical patterns.

“Glarglearglearg,” he spewed as his vision began to darken.

“Who is this,” she asked fearfully. “Where’s my Tommy?!” Her voice rose in volume until she was whining the last syllable. He knew that he should answer her question, but she had asked two of him and he was sure of neither.

It was a shame, because it seemed important to her that she have the answer to each of them. Quietly, even as she continued to speak from the receiver, he pressed the ‘End’ button and set the phone down on the ground beside him.

He was so tired. His hands fell to his sides and there was a dull pain in his left which reminded him of something important. Pain? He wasn’t sure if even that was the answer, for it was becoming nothing more than a nagging sensation in the back of his mind.

“You’re not giving up on me now, are you,” a small voice asked from somewhere nearby.

He smiled weakly as he recognized it, but for some reason he couldn’t place a name or face to it.

“I can’t go on,” he sighed. “I’m sooo tired.”

“We have to finish this,” the other insisted. “Misty has to die.”

“You mean the scared girl on the phone? But she sounded so nice,” he argued. He was becoming more childlike by the minute, reverting to something that the other couldn’t keep a hold on.

The other screamed in frustration, but it was as a frail and pitiful sound compared to what it once was.

“Who are you,” Scott asked curiously. He tried to look around, but he couldn’t lift his head from his chest. Like his hands, it had grown too heavy for him to control. He could only watch as the ground between his legs seemed to rush away from him, growing farther and farther away with each word that he spoke.

“You already know the answer to that,” the other finally conceded.

“I do,” he asked softly. His lips barely moved as the words passed over them, and even as the last word exited his mouth were his eyes slowly closing.

“I am the evil inside of you, manifested by your dreams and brought to life by your secret desires. And you aren’t the first. I have come to many others before you, such as James Holmes. I have shared lives with Adam Lanza and Wesley Neal Higden. My words have influence the likes of Robert A. Hawkins and Seung-Hui Cho.

And now I have had Scot Vali. People will speak of your actions for months to come, some in secret, others more openly. Most will forget over time, but there will be one person who won’t be able to let go. What has been done today will haunt them in their dreams. It will chase them through their nightmares and it will open a door through which I will be able to once again enter.

I am, and forever will be, the Omega, and I will feast upon the souls of millions before my time has come.”

Scott didn’t hear the last of the other’s words. At six forty-seven in the evening, he silently passed away while leaning against the exterior to Dewie’s Drugstore, where he had once met with one of the most beautiful girls in his class and fantasized of smashing her face in with his bare hands.

~fin~

She Has A Pretty Face Though (Part XLIX)

Posted on March 23, 2014 by R. Richardsson

Disclaimer

Finally, all work is strictly fiction and does not reflect the views of the author. Any resemblance to actual person(s) is only a coincidence.

If this isn’t your cup of tea, then avoid these excerpts and hopefully I’ll see you around my other posts and webseries!

———

Scott landed on his back with a thud and the breath whooshed from his lungs. He had heard Tommy threaten to kill him, but his voice swam through a haze of pain and agony so thick that it made him want to curl up into a ball and accept what was coming. The ‘other’ screamed madly in the back of his thoughts, jabbering insanely as a last ditch effort to get him motivated.

It was just enough, and as Tommy’s hands closed around his neck, he snapped back to reality. He sucked in a huge breath just as his opponent’s hands began to tighten. He pummeled the stronger boy with his fists, raining blow after blow about his chest, arms and the side of his head. Finally, his right fist struck solidly with the pulpy mess in the middle of his face and the jock screamed, quickly letting go to cover his face.

Scott reached down with his right hand and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his tanto. He was at a disadvantage, however, as Tommy noticed the movement and punched him in the elbow. The blow was well placed. It slammed into a pocket of nerves and caused his hand to not only open, but to become numb and tingly.

He growled, wildly swinging with his left fist. The blow was misplaced. Though it connected with Tommy’s jaw, it did so with the knuckles of his last two fingers. His voice matched the jock’s as they both cried out in pain, one due to the blow to the face, the other because of a broken finger.

Tommy slumped weakly to the side, allowing Scott enough time to struggle out from beneath him. Fresh blood oozed down the front of his pants. His breath wheezed through his bruised windpipe and he clutched his hand to his chest with a hurt look on his face.

“You broke my finger,” he accused the other.

“You bwoke my nothe,” Tommy screamed as he rose to his feet.

Scott took a step back, fearfully, as he suddenly realized that he might not have it in him to take him down. His energy was waning, and even worse, he was slowly bleeding out. As Tommy lunged for another attack, he did the only thing he could think of to stop him. He punted the jock’s right knee.

The crack of breaking bone was deafening. Tommy’s knee chicken-legged behind him before before completely giving out, effectively ending the football career of the young man. Bone jutted through skin, blood gushed through clutching hands and the jock screamed in a falsetto voice so high that it hurt his ears.

“Shut him up,” the other commanded, speaking for the first time in hours.

He looked around frantically for something that would help him do just that. In his panicked state, he had completely forgotten about the blades strapped to his waist. It would have been quicker to thrust one them through the other’s mouth, silencing him forever. But that did not occur to him. He, instead, did the only thing his mind allowed him to think of at the time. He kicked the release on the jack. The truck dropped to the ground with a thud and began to roll forward.

Tommy had become a screaming ball of pain and fury, clutching his shattered knee as he rocked back and forth on the ground. It was this that prevented him from seeing the approaching ton of steel.

The truck pinned his right foot to the ground and slowly began to roll over him as it continued down the driveway. The sound of breaking bones reminded Scott of a tree falling over and for the second time in an hour, he was sprayed by the blood of his victim.

The screaming ended when the truck crushed the other’s ribcage, but by then, Scott was already on the move.