XII - Charlie
It
felt odd to be crying without trying to suppress it. Somewhere in the back of Charlie's mind the idea that his father
might hear him, that he would come storming into the room to shout at him or
hit him or tell him all the things that hurt the most, somewhere that idea
lingered, but the new terror, incapacitating, paralysing as it was, overruled
any older fears. So he sobbed freely,
shaking beneath his duvet, and even then he was quiet, because something was
above him, around him, watching him and it was all he could do.
His
whimpers were matched by the sounds in the walls. He could hear that living stain creeping along the surface,
flaking away to dust around him, bubbling briefly into life then ebbing away.
Why
wont it go away? Why can't I wake
up? What's happening?
There
was a groaning noise above him and he looked up to see a bulge growing and
glowing out of the ceiling. Something
moved behind it and for a second Charlie saw a face, carved like a statue of
pain, pressing against the membrane.
He
screamed then, and ran, dragging his duvet behind him.
On
the other side of his bedroom door, Charlie didn't stop, although his pace
slowed somewhat as he approached the door to the living room. His father would be through there. In his mind a battle raged between instinct,
which said his father would be able to get rid of the monsters, and experience,
which said that his father was a monster. But despite the building tension and the slowing pace of his bare
feet, instinct was winning and he was soon faced with the living room door,
slightly ajar and a dark silence beyond it.
"Daddy?"
The
door swung slowly open after the tiniest of pushes.
"Daddy?" His voice was weak from crying and it
whined, the exact kind of sound that would drive his father mad. "Daddy! There's a monster in my room!"
There
was no answer in the dark. His father's
chair sat ominously ahead, opposite the TV.
Charlie listened to the silence and heard breathing.
"Daddy?" His voice as quieter now. "Are you in here, Daddy?"
The
breathing was getting gradually louder.
It came from the chair. Charlie
took a tentative step towards it.
"Is that you, Daddy?"
He
poked his head around the corner of the chunky armchair and then leapt
backwards. The breathing was coming
from a creature, which seemed to be moulded into the chair and covered in pale,
shining, sticky fluids. It struggled
weakly against the pull of its own skin and flashed a panicked gaze across at
Charlie as it did so.
"Heughl...”
It managed, raising a limb above the arm of the chair with a painful-looking
stretch of slick, dark skin.
"Heughl...!" Its eyes
darted wildly, its face twitched, then an arm came free with a tearing of flesh
and a splash of hot, foetid fluid. It
turned its neck next and with another fleshy rip pulled itself away from the
chair and began shambling and dripping its way towards Charlie.
"Shaghlee!" It spat the words out as if they were
acid. "Shaghlee, esh meee, eshor
faghdherrgh!" The boy stumbled away
from it and the creature took another agonising step. "Purghleesh, Shaghlee!
Heughl mee!" Thick gloopy
fluids dripped from between its legs as if all its insides were pouring out
through its ripped seams.
Charlie
stumbled backwards once more, caught his pyjamas on the corner of a table and
then he screamed again. The creature
stretched forwards, it's ragged, slimy skin almost touching him, dripping pale
fluids at his feet and then it could sustain itself no more, sinking into a
hideous, bubbling puddle on the carpet.
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