Staring at life through the bottom of the bottle makes for a warped perspective. Watching everything you thought you were, and everything you thought you might have been slowly sputter and drown, and toasting their sudsy deaths with a dulled glee, will do a number on you. When you wake up dimwitted and with headache a year in the making, you set about mourning your eloquence. Putting pen to paper (or keystrikes to a digital imprint) keeps the hands and mind occupied.

@demcmurphy

Straddling an aging chair on an even older porch, a man, rugged features accentuated by the saturated light of the morning, sits. His grey eyes dart playfully, taking in the splendor. It is the genesis of a crisp autumn; the forest is ablaze in a rash of fiery colors. Lazily drifting to the cool dusty ground, deep reds, and tantalizing yellows give up their places in the arms of the trees with every slight gust. Mournful chirps fill the air, the birds are singing the final rites for a long and fruitful summer as a pale sun shimmers in a sterile blue sky.

Eventually, he rises, joints cracking painfully, teeth gritted in a silent, screaming agony. He scratches his beard, matted and white, with rusty fingernails. Somewhere in the cabin behind him, pans clatter, and the sound of meat sputtering away on a woodstove is audible. He shambles to the door, and grunts, swinging it open.

“Is it ready?” A hoarse voice, more cough than speech, rumbles from his chest.

“Just about,” The girl retorts, a shy, yet bright, smile, flashes across her face. It is the last thing he sees before the bullet tears through his back.

Blood haphazardly sprays from the gaping wound, painting the spartan room a speckled crimson. He collapses. From behind him, a man shrouded, white knuckles clenching a revolver, strides into the room. The girl is screaming.

“Where is she.” the intruder asks. His tone dangerously calm like the eye of hurricane. The old man, shakes his head, mouth clamped shut defiantly; he holds onto this bitter secret, life seeping from him. With one fluid motion the revolver is now trained on his head. One shot rings out. The birds are silent now. The dancing grey eyes finally go still.

The shrouded figure step forward towards the cowering girl.

“Where is she.” He repeats himself, detached yet seething.

The girl is sobbing, she gestures to the cellar. “Sh … sh... she’s there. Please, just let … let me go.”

A final shot, from the still smoking barrel, delivers his reply

Forcing his way through the latched planked door, and winding down a set of rickety wooden stairs, the macabre scene indicates that he’s too late. Flies buzz from coils of warm intestines. Butchers knives, marred by their deeds, are scattered battered table. A human body cleaned, and prepared, hangs, dripping from the hooks.

He crawls back upstairs, racked with grief, face little more than a mask warped by a pain that threatens to tear him from within.

On the stove, the meat is burning.

#prose #horror #scary #fiction #goosebumps #shortstory #twist