The Stranger

Here is something I wanted to quickly write:

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The Stranger

When it smashed through the gate in the front yard you thought it was just a man who had too much to drink. Stumbling up your walkway, you couldn't make out his face since the sun had already set. You turned on the porch light and that is when you first saw what made you think this was a nightmare. It's eyes sunken into its head looking at you with a primal hunger. Pieces of flesh hanging from different places on its exposed skin which was the color of a nasty days old bruise.

It came up the stairs and onto the porch and from behind the safety of your front door you stared through the window in disbelief and scrutinized the horrific figure making its way towards you. It looked back at you and made a sound you would classify as being something one might hear in Hell. Something between a moan and growl made between gnashing teeth. It raised its hands as if trying to grab you and its mangled hands crumpled against the window. The brown and black goo smeared on the glass was more than enough to make you step back.

Like the proverbial bad accident you cannot look away from, you stared at it as it drew its arms back and came at the window again with a little more force. The sound of the breaking glass was drowned out by your scream. You stood there screaming, seemingly unable to move, frozen in that moment as it broke more glass and pushed its body through the opening. The broken window shards sliced and shred the clothes its wearing and the rotting skin beneath as it fell into your living room.

It begins to stand up and the stink of it filled the room. The smell of decayed flesh, putrid gases, and muddy earth hit you in a wave and assaulted your senses. Even as your body buckled with nausea and you felt sure you would vomit, you realized it was reaching for you again and you ran. You fled down the hallway and into the first room with an open door diving onto the floor on the other side of the bed.

Now you just hear your own soft breathing. If you don't make any noise it wont hear you. But your heart pounds in your chest and makes you feel like the sound could be heard throughout the house. From where you are almost hidden, crouched beside the nightstand in the bedroom, you can barely see the hallway through the slightly open door. Nothing moving, not a sound. You swallow some of your fear with an ounce of saliva but your throat is so dry, it makes you cough. Immediately your heart thumps faster as you think to yourself, "Did it hear me?"

The answer comes in the form of a shadow that falls across that last sliver of light. Your next breath is caught in your lungs as you dare not breathe, dare not move, you wish your blood would stop pumping because even that seems like it can be heard. Why didn't you run for the back door? Why did you think hiding in this room would be good enough? More questions threaten to slam against your mind but suddenly you see it as it stops just outside the door.

"It can't be real, this can't be happening." But even as those thoughts race by, the illusion that this might be some kind of dream is shattered when the walking corpse pushes open the bedroom door. More light is coming into the room now, but it brings no solace. Only the form of what used to be a man standing in the doorway. It almost looks like it could still be alive, just a stranger with slumped shoulders and head tilting to one side, but you know better.

Before you can think of anything else, it turns its head and looks right at you. It moans again, and steps inside the room.

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That's it. A super short story just to creep you out. What happens next is all in your imagination. Can you get away? Be a hero? or Does it get you? Its all in your head.

• Today's Cure song is Sinking from the Head on the Door CD - (1985) From the piano keys slammed at the beginning through the steady bass line, it is a haunting tune.

"So I trick myself
Like everybody else
I crouch in fear and wait
I'll never feel again"

CJ