Homeless

I have a new flash fiction story to offer you folks. Finally. After doing Nanowrimo, and other projects, I realized how much I missed my flash fiction. They keep the pot stirred, so to speak, and are like a taser to the ol' creative jugular. 


Without further ado, here we go. Enjoy!

Homeless

The rain fell as a mist, sticking to Stew Boy’s skin. The grime slicked down his stubbled cheeks. He reached up absently and wiped at it, smearing black streaks across his jaw. He sat on the cold cement sidewalk, his back up against an unforgiving wall.

His craving had become uncomfortable a few hours ago. He wouldn’t make it through the night without starting the tremors and sickness if he didn’t get his fix.

Grabbing a piece of newspaper from beside him, Stew Boy draped it over his head to shield his face from the rain.

He dozed off for a few hours, and woke up to the feeling that he was going to be sick. He turned his head just in time to begin retching on the sidewalk. He missed himself, but the spams racked his body, causing him to jerk and shake.

In between bouts, he felt something grab his shoulder rough. His eyes were watering, and his vision blurred, but he barely made out the silhouette of something running fast down the end of the alley. On the ground beside him was a piece of folded paper.

Stew Boy picked it up, and found this note inside:

            You need it, we got it.

            Go to 11753 Harlan

Once the sickness had passed, he got to his feet, and began to stumble down the alley. Harlan wasn’t too far away, but something in his gut was telling him not to go. Twice he stopped, ready to turn back, but his body was steadily detoxing, and he needed, no, he wanted the drugs.

By the time he reached Harlan, his hands were shaking so bad they kept coming out of his pockets. Blinking back tears, he struggled to see the numbers on the old, decrepit buildings.

11500.

It hurt so bad.

11600.

His legs didn’t want to cooperate.

11700.

Stew Boy groaned with each step. He would be crawling if it was much longer.

His toe stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk, causing him to fall to his knees. His pants ripped, and blood ran fresh down his leg.

Crumpled up, he lay on the sidewalk; his body contorted in the fetal position, crying so hard there was a trail of snot running down his lip.

After a few minutes, he lifted his head to see that 11753 was one house away.

Stew Boy got to his feet for what he hoped was the last time that night and limped to the old house.

The windows were boarded up, and most of their glass was missing. There was spray painting on the sides of the house.

Pushing at the front door that was barely hanging on the hinges, it popped right open with a loud squeak.

The inside was worse than the outside, if that was possible. The floor was speckled with holes, and in between, the floorboards were thin and dangerous.

He lumbered as carefully as he could through the house, poking his head into each of the rooms. Finding nothing, he scoffed that he could have been so stupid to begin with.

His shaking started to get bad again, and his heart was pounding.

Stew Boy noticed there was one door that was closed.

He went to it and tried to turn the knob. It didn’t budge. The door itself was warm.

Stew Boy was desperate, and threw himself at the door repeatedly.

Finally it opened with a crash, throwing him out of balance. He held onto the door to keep from falling.

It was very dark inside, moist and warm.

He paused trying to see anything, but his eyes wouldn’t adjust.

Feeling his way back, he reached for the wall to get a grasp on the room itself. His hand touched something wet and slimy. He recoiled as a reaction.

“Don’t go,” a deep voice croaked.

“What the hell?” said Stew Boy, his eyes straining at the dark.

The doorknob jerked out of his hand and the door slammed shut.

Stew Boy yelped.

A wet sound started to fill the room.

Stew Boy reached into his pocket and found a lighter. He flicked it and squinted.

The walls were moving.

They were wet, red, and moving, all at once, in vertical lines, like rippling, wet tubes.

He held the light out, moving around in circles. His breath came out in short gasps as he took in the scene.

Quickly he started to look for the door, and thinking he might have found it, he lunged forward.

The wall in front of him started to bubble outward. A head and face grew.

It was in Stew Boy’s face now. Small, red eyes and a mouth opened simultaneously.

A loud scream came from it. Before he could make a sound, the head lifted up, and came down directly on top of Stew Boy.

It began to swallow him whole, gulping him in like a snake.

The walls stirred more quickly, erratically.

Stew Boy was but a lump in the tube on the wall that was attached to the head, which started to recede back into the other lines. The lump moved down. All of the lines trailed down the walls, to the floor, where there was a large hole.

They pulsed into the hole, and the lump that was Stew Boy was pushed down into the darkness.

Far away screams came forth from the hole.

Faces began to come out of the walls.

In the midst of the moving walls, a man stood near the corner, his face wet.

A piece of paper fell from his hand to the floor.

Beside the man a new face formed from the wall.

Stew Boy opened his new, red eyes, his mouth unhinging in a hideous grin.

The Woods

This story is a call to Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge to create a brand new monster. Monsters are my thing. They breed inside my head like a swirling mass of snake orgies. When one is written down, a new one is born. I see them in my dreams, I hear their bastard noises in my head as I write. 


So I couldn't pass this one up, right? 


I give you my little homage to the recent news of a possible ancient kraken. Those articles really seeded into my brain and I spun this tale on a whim. I hope you enjoy!

THE WOODS

He could hear the raspy breathing.

David hunkered down in the dark woods, trying to stay quiet. His heart pounded hard in his chest and he was sure that would give him away.

He thought of his wife and children, how they were probably sleeping sound in their warm, familiar beds. For a moment, a streak of warmth spread through him, only to be replaced by an ice-cold dread that ran through his bones when he heard twigs break nearby.

He couldn’t stay here in the open, hiding feebly behind a tree.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he peeked around the side in the direction the noise had come from. It was so dark that most of the forms were nondescript shades of black in the night. The trees canopy blocked out almost the entire moon light, leaving him mostly blind.

Something moved in front of him and slightly to the right.

He took off in the opposite direction.

With his body tucked tight and low, he ran. His feet hit the ground, light and swift. He was amazed at how little noise he was making.

He took off in a sprint, running a zig zag pattern occasionally, other times straight shots in one direction, trying to lose it yet waiting for it to grab him from behind.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he wasn’t sure, but it looked like there might have been movement about 30 feet behind him. It wasn’t directly behind him; instead it was as if the thing was paralleling him, merely staying with his pace.

He knew he would have to stop soon. His breath felt like fire in his chest, each burst burning up his trachea, rushing out his open mouth. Sweat fell into his eyes, stinging, but he didn’t care. It had been many years since he had ran like this. Honestly he didn’t know how he was doing it now, other than the sheer, raw feeling of survival coupled with fear coursing through him.

Another glance, the same. Suddenly his leg met with a sharp object. He fell head over feet to the ground, rolling onto branches, twigs, and the mossy floor below. Pain shot through his left leg and he heard a sickening snap as the bone broke.

His sharp scream bit into the night.

When he came to a stop, he was disoriented from the tumble and his body began to throb with the pain.

It was here.

It was stopped, and looking at him, its head cocked to one side.

The shiny, almost transparent skin was rippling. Two large eyes slanted upward, moving their gaze over him.

Tentacles, too many to count, all sizes and lengths, undulated in a never-ending spiraling mass around its body.

As he watched, it moved forward using two thick legs that bent backward, the opposite of our own. The tentacles curled up at their ends and touched the earth much like an ape’s fists.

When it was directly beside him, it leaned its enormous head over his body and peered over him.

Afraid to move, and no longer noticing the pain, he watched.

Slowly a mouth opened underneath its eyes. It started as a small slit, and enlarged to a gaping hole. Many teeth glistened, and it drew breath in large gasps.

Watching its mouth, he never saw the tentacles fold in over his body. Quickly they lashed onto him, and the poison was warm, filling his body with a pleasant numbness.

It drew him up under its body. There was no more pain in his leg.

His body rolled a few times once it reached the creatures belly, and he could make out the strong legs. They were covered in a course, sparse fur, and flexed with each small movement.

They began to move.

He began to feel as if he were being pulled backward through a tunnel. Now he couldn’t feel anything. It reminded him of being numbed at the dentist office, only all over his body. That thick, spongy feel covered him.

He could hear the sound of water. It was the lake.

Still, he felt no fear.

Nearing the water, it lowered itself to the ground, splaying the tentacles out all around.

He could barely see anything now. Everything seemed so far away.

It drug him along the ground, sliding and pulling him at the same time.

They entered the water, and slipped in with ease.

When the water filled his lungs, he felt nothing.

His vision merely left him. Faded out.

The creature swam deep, taking him to its nest.

Once there, it tore him limb from limb.

But he was already gone.