Contributed by Robert Lyons
My plan was to go to class that day. I felt ruined, unprepared, and humiliated. I knew it was the day to do the presentation, requiring my time on stage, and I had not worked a minute on it! Forty-seven souls in that class, forty-seven plus a professor about to hold divine humor at my expense. So, I ignored the duty but showed up for the meeting? Well, we do go to class to prepare our futures, maybe I am management material. After the events following, I have serious doubts as to my ability to responsibly follow through on anything, much less plans I've set into motion. My mere presence attests to that.
It all began when I stepped out my front door. I already, as previously mentioned, felt ruined. The night before I “tied one on” as the expression goes. Personally, I never understood that expression. What am I tying? I believe it's one drunken night into another, obviously, swirling the dark amber in my short cold glass, but the visual does not meet the meaning. I never liked the old sayings like that, I'm more partial to the grandmother's snippets of logical practicality, things like, “If you keep making that face, it'll get stuck that way.” Back to the story at hand, my vehicle, parked slanted across the driveway, was about a dozen feet back from the garage. Noting my attention to safety, I clapped myself on my back for not driving into the garage door when I returned to my abode yesterday evening.
I turned the key, nothing. A look over to the left at the light selector. Yes, I did leave them on. I chuckle with thoughts of my pile, my old junkyard sitting crooked in my drive, lights illuminating the garage and shining through the neighbor’s windows for hours on end. What a night! Other swirling half memories spring in and out of last night's fog, a girl twirling around on the dance floor, pelvic thrusting and buttocks jiggling as the bass boomed across the establishment. A fellow minded fellow, high-fiving me as we maneuvered among the throng of twisting and rolling feminine curvature. “Ya man, yeahh!”. What a night! Another memory as closing time commenced, a drunkard pissing behind a dumpster, barely holding himself up. I let nature go and laughing ran over next to this stranger, who didn't even notice my presence. In my inebriation I whip my member out and relieve myself next to him at the dumpster. Luckily my timing proved excellent, and while I finished and zipped, my neighbor's pants fell to his knees, and he stumbled over leaning into the dumpster. That's when the sirens alarmed, a quick “whoop, whoop”, the sound of the police. I actually remember telling the officer I was “pretending to pee” to make fun of the other drunk guy, I mean, “Look at him, boss.” The cop who of course watched me urinate the whole time, told me to get out of here, so I did. I made it home obviously.
That is when I got out, to go to my garage and get my battery charger. One of those all-in-one set-ups you plug in the wall to charge. Walking by the front of my car, I slip. I crash to the ground in a twist, slamming my head, spraining my wrist. I roll over and look at the blood on the asphalt. The puddle from this view looks massive. I reach up and touch my head expecting my hand to be covered, but no. I am not flowing blood, seemingly more bruised. I stand, slowly, letting the blood not rush to or from my head, the fog increasing, now a deep ache pounding in waves. Okay, not going to be good, I picture the Ty-3 pills I have in the top of my toolbox, in that bottle are vicodins. That is the ticket right now, massive hangover has got me stumbling around and falling, I am in no shape to go to any class and wing a presentation! Alright, I focus on my new mission and step to the garage door, reaching down and pulling the handle and lifting. A flurry of commotion as I swing the door up and the morning light infiltrates the dark interior. Dozens of stacked boxes fling across the floor as shelves explode from the rear of the garage near the interior door, the door into the house space, it explodes inward as if rammed, and whatever bursts through, whatever was unleashed can be heard banging though my home. In shock and fear I cross my footing and crash this time onto the concrete floor just inside. I roll onto my stomach, and rise to look towards my entry hall as cans of stored beans and mixed vegetables roll clanging across the deck. Boxes are scattered spreading old papers and keepsakes, seemingly whatever had busted through the door was on, or behind the shelving near the house door. Behind the shelf is only an inch of space, and to be on a shelf? What creature so small could break through the metal door. Confusion and darkness swell into my mind as the ever-increasing pulse beat dominates temporarily. I go and get the medication, shaking my head, but keeping my eye on the doorway. I open the toolbox and grab the bottle, twisting it open and dumping the pills into my palm. Hell with it, down the hatch, circumstantial.
I enter my home. The hallway is lit by morning sunshine from the kitchen windows, the shadows falling along the angle of the walls. I hear nothing, I yell out, “HEY!, HEY!” No movement, no noise. I go around the dining alcove and into the living room. Looking around at clothes strewn about, my idolatry to techno wizardry displayed accordingly, giant tv, play consoles, a plate on a stool in front of the worn couch. Some late night meal? I don't remember. “HEY, HEY, WHAT THE F@%^! WHO IS HERE!” I yell out, the effort causing the pounding in my mind to increase exponentially. The response freezes me cold.
The voice echoing from my bedroom, “Death.”
A slamming explosive reverberation knocks me back onto my couch, scattering the stool and the dish to the floor. What I witness next will never leave my mind. An unforced insanity, ever present. The beast exits from my bedroom, standing about seven feet tall, a sloped forehead angling down into its horrific sharp snout. The creature had fangs protruding from its maw, huge and sharp, the size of thumbs. Covered in blood, and with a slimy slithering approach the thing confronts me, towers over me, dominates me. Madness, I tell you. I hear shrieking, a piercing wail bouncing off my walls, I realize it is my own voice, my own screams of anguish. The abomination reaches down and encircles my neck with his clapping clawed and hooked digits, the immense power I feel as he pulls me first to my feet, then lifts me feet into the air! The smell is the worst, wading into my nostrils, rotten, defecation. Disgust.
It says, “Death, DEATH I sentence you.” and sweet death arrived. I only could wish, for I digress. For the truth is, I sat there to await the police, I unlocked the door, sure I would drift away before their arrival. Already dead, my soul usurped, drinking the last of the whiskey I had access to. All apologies for having led this confession into fantasy. It is hard to admit the truth in anguish. I slipped on a puddle of blood in my driveway, having exited my car to get the battery charger. When I stood, the damage to the front of my vehicle was apparent, the blood and hair stuck to the grill. In shock, I went to my garage and opened the door, then collapsed in defeat and horror. The young child, no more than ten, her body heaped in a twist on the concrete, crushed and mutilated. A pile of bloody rags, a claw hammer and a pry bar, bits of flesh on them, lay next to the corpse. Confronted with this, even in my stooper brought about by a hangover, I decided, opening the Ty 3 bottle where I keep my vicodin collected over years of dealings and trades and “accidental injuries”. I poured its contents onto my dining table, somehow I had made it there into the house, 47 pills I counted, I turned and puked all over my linoleum, and forced another gag to be sure, then I swallowed the handful of narcotics whole, I'm done. I turned and noticed the havoc I've caused, the door I kicked in, in panic. The litter of my things and food items crashed across the garage floor, the child laying dead and shattered. I go to my cabinet and get my whiskey bottle, I open my freezer where I keep some glasses chilled. I go to my couch and have a seat. I poured.