I lay awake staring at my bedroom ceiling desperately trying to sleep. It’s been a long day. Today my boss called me in unexpectedly, I believed that he was calling me in for help on a project we have been having some difficulties with. Boy how naive I was… Lately, the company has been having some issues. I knew that. I also knew the company was having trouble with finances. We were going to have a downfall and eventually have to lay off a bunch of people. But even when that time would come, I was certain that I would be one of the lucky ones to stay. I was always the loyalist and the most hard-working. If someone had a week to do a project and failed, I was the first one the boss would come to, to see if I could fix it, and of course I always could.
I was always like that you see, straight A’s every single year of primary school. I would have gone to college but money wouldn’t allow it. That’s how I ended up working at Beldin. Beldin is a labor job as I like to call it. Hard-working days and even longer nights if you work the midnight shift (I’m not one for working at night, I’m more of a morning person), also I’m not one for hard labor which is good because I worked my way up to my current position. It’s a more delicate type of work, I practically ran the place. I was the one who made all the plans. I contacted everyone to let them know when their shipment was coming, I was the one figuring out times, dates, and everything else. All of this led me to my false sense of superiority in the business. I’m rambling sorry, anyway so he calls me into the office and tells me to take a seat. I do and immediately see the look of defeat and maybe even a look of sadness, the rest is a blur of him telling me how loyal of an employee I am and how he will never find another person like me, and all the generic garbage that bosses say to try to ease the blow. I’m so outraged at him, how does he feel that he has the right to get rid of me after everything. I saved him so many times when an employee would give him a rushed project, I would always turn it around and make it great which made him look like the good guy in the end.
So now here I am, sitting at home, laying in bed, trying to take my mind off of all of today’s events. Time is ticking by slowly and all I want to do is sleep, but between my head wandering and that ticking noise downstairs, I can’t seem to sleep… Wait ticking, what is ticking. I’m sure don’t own any clocks with gears, every clock I own is digital… But there it is. I’m definitely hearing it, a constant ticking… Wait no it changes in noise. Sometimes it’s a hard demanding tick then at others it’s a faint tap almost like a child tapping on his desk during a hard test. It is definitely not at a steady beat either… Sometimes it’s a fast rap, then it is a slow and almost inaudible noise almost like something is dripping. And at other times, it’s almost inaudible almost like someone is walking and trying to conceal their footsteps or moving stuff around desperately trying to be silent. Am I being robbed!?
Great! On top of everything else, now I’m getting robbed. I step out of bed as quietly as I can and go to my closet to grab my gun… I always have a gun in my house just in case something like this were to ever happen. Suddenly, I’m thankful to be so cautious. I slowly exit my room and begin to work my way downstairs. Walking from my room to the hallway was worse than anything I could imagine. It felt like it took hours. In my mind, I just kept imagining turning the corner and bam! A worthless burglar blowing my brains out against my white walls. That doesn’t happen however.
Now I am at my stairs. I’m deciding whether or not I want to head downstairs. Is it really worth it? Risking my life to go downstairs and save what? I don’t have much of any value, maybe I should just camp in my room and wait for him to take my TV or something and leave… No, I’m tired of people stepping all on me. I begin my descent downstairs thinking to myself that this is how everyone dies in horror movies, but I remind myself this isn’t a horror story, this it real, and the most likely thing to happen will; he will see me then run away, and I will call the cops then let my insurance take care of the rest.
I’m at the bottom stair when I realize I don’t hear the ticking noise or whatever it was anymore. Maybe the robber has left? Maybe he heard me and just left. I begin to laugh when the idea comes to me that maybe from all this stress, I just made the ticking up. I’m about to head back upstairs thinking about how dumb I am when suddenly I hear something. It sounds like something sliding, sliding across my kitchen floor. I can’t describe the sliding noise it was so… out of place and disoriented… I’m frozen with fear for a split second before my adrenaline starts rushing and my brain goes into overdrive. I dart to the nearest wall and hide behind it, so that whoever it is, won’t see me waiting there with my small six-shot pistol. I hear another sliding noise and then scuttling… Scuttling, that’s what I heard, not ticking, that’s why it wasn’t constant. Whatever is in my kitchen, is scuttling around. I can’t believe I was so dumb. A mouse, raccoon, or some other pest must have wandered in and has been making a ruckus is my kitchen.
I begin to head to the kitchen with a sense of relief and calmness that, whatever rodent it is, I can easily catch and set free. If it’s rabid, well, my six-shot will easily dismiss it from my house, and I’m not a bad shot so, I’m not concerned about missing. I walk into the door frame of my kitchen and that’s when all of my calmness evaporates and leaves a chill that burrows deep into my core. I’m frozen… I’m just standing and staring at this… This thing before me… It’s big… but I can’t seem to locate a face… It seems to just have appendages emerging from its body… At least what I think is a body… Wait, no, it’s not facing me, it’s hunched over in something… What is that… Is that blood? I try to move but can’t, still frozen by what I am seeing. When I try to move for the second time, a squeak of air escapes from my lips.
The thing turns and stands… As it stands, I notice it’s not as undefinable as I previously thought. It has arms and legs like a human but… they aren’t right. They just aren’t. They are bent and twisted at off angles, fingers bent and twisted, some appendages are dislocated at the joints left, to just sway back and forth. The legs are also twisted and bent as if it’s suffering from some sort of bone disease. It’s knees, they are backwards and it shambles as it walks. As it gets closer, I can see it more and more as it comes into the light leaking from the living room into the dark kitchen…
This thing I don’t even know what to call, it has skin but the skin is too tight. Way too tight. It looks as if it were to stretch that its skin would tear at the seams. It’s also pale, so sickly pale… I can see its ribs. This thing is big, but it’s very skinny. It’s bones are exposed at odd angles and some look as if they are broken and jutting out waiting to break free of the wretched stretched skin…
It’s close now, so close that I can hear its raspy breath. As it moves, its bones are creaking and snapping… It has a head, but it’s not much of a head, more of a face with two bloody slits were its eyes should be. And teeth… teeth that clank together as it moves… Teeth that are sharp… And tick… The ticking… it wasn’t a clock or a mouse scurrying across the floor. It was teeth clacking. Not that any of my previous guessed matter anymore, for I am now starting at the abomination that was making the noise… It’s walking over to me now… Slowly… It’s as if it’s trying to learn how to walk again for the first time. The noise is getting louder as it gets closer to the point that I think my eardrums may burst from the sheer amplitude of its teeth grinding and clacking together.
Then silence. The thing is lumbering over me just staring… Why does it just keep staring…? It’s unbearable and I cannot will myself to look away from its horrendous pale eyes that are hidden behind the pale, almost see through, thin slits that obscure them… I stand this way for seconds that feel like hours… Why can’t I move? I scream at myself inside my head and with all the willpower can muster. I break free of whatever was keeping me frozen. I dart towards the stairs, hoping that the creature with its deformed legs won’t be able to follow. But to my dismay, it is incredibly agile, while it should be impossible for it to move, let alone run upstairs… I can hear its teeth ticking behind me waiting… begging to be fed. I turn once I hit the top of the stair and empty all of my bullets from my six-shot into the creature. The first two bullets missed but I didn’t care. I was just praying that one would hit. The next three hit it right in the chest which the creature didn’t even pay notice to as the bullets penetrated right where its heart should be. It’s implausible that this thing is even standing right now. The last bullet hit it right in its shoulder. This seemed to get it to stumble, but only for a second before it regained its balance. Then it continued its blood thirsty pursuit. I ran and sprinted with all my might trying to get to my room. Once I got there, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but I knew I would have to come up with something and quick! The thing is inches behind me now and it’s so close to being able to grab my leg, if it is even capable of grabbing with those disfigured arms.
I reach the top of the stair and turn rushing to my room then slam the door behind me. I then lunge into my closet and grab a small pocket knife that I’ve had with me forever… Not only seconds after I grab the knife, I hear ticking… right outside my door… I’m sitting here, hoping that it has forgotten about me, but I know it hasn’t. Right before I think is gone, I hear a tick of the teeth that will not be satisfied until its hunger is fed… Why doesn’t it just kill me now if it wants me so bad? Why is it waiting outside the door taunting me with its very presence…?
It’s been two hours now and to me it feels like eternity. I’m fed up with its taunting. If it wants me, it can get me, but I’m not just going to sit here waiting for the inevitable. I rush in a mad dash for the door and swing it open. I guess the creature wasn’t expecting that because it reared back and if a thing like this is capable of being shocked or even any feelings at all, it was definitely surprised because I saw the shock in its slits for eyes right before I plunged my pocket knife deep into one of the sockets. The creature reared back and fell onto its back, screeching a blood curling noise in pain. I ran for the front door and rushed outside. I sprinted for my life until my legs gave out and I could see the sun rising over the horizon. I haven’t even looked back to see if it was following until I collapsed. I looked while gasping for air to fuel my burning lungs and was relieved it wasn’t there, but I knew it was still in my house or not far from me. Either way, I wasn’t safe yet.
I went to the nearest bus stop and took that bus as far as I could then when it let me off, I took a taxi as far as my money I had on me could take me. And ever since then, I’ve been living here. It wasn’t hard to leave because I was already fired and didn’t have any real close friends back home. That was all two years ago, now I got a new job here as an accountant and the pay is good. I also live in a nice little house in town, but all that doesn’t matter now, why? Because today I got home from work late (which I hate working late) and went to lay down. But when I did, something sitting on my pillow caught my attention… My blood ran cold. It was the pocket knife which saved my life from that creature… I know the first move I make, I will be dead because right when I noticed the pocket knife, my door slammed shut and I can hear a ticking noise from the ceiling… With a sigh and a whimper, I realize now… It can crawl on ceilings too…