The blaring alarm shatters through the thick web of dreamland that David finds himself falling away from while he wakes drenched, drool cakes around his lips and beard, and shakes his entirety. Disregarding the mess on his face he grabs the phone immediately hoping that there would be a text message missed, in hopes a line of missed notifications. A hopeful meme or the goofy and dumb gifs the kids have sent in the past. The phone screen barely registers his finger jousting and to his dismay, once the screen blinks on, nothing. Just his usual weather alerts and breaking news alerts notifications.
However David was wanting to feel sorry for himself and started with staring up at the popcorn ceiling, something he still neglected to fix and instead vied for a moment or three to wallow while doing so. David wanted to sink into the blankets and drown on grief. But instead he brought his body up, walked steadily to the bathroom and started a shower. He had to figure out what to do, not just what to do but how to get his wife to understand that he took care of the problem. That problem smoldering and rotting downstairs.
He’s already gotten a call from his sister calling him scum, calling him the trash of the Earth that is meant for nothing but spoil, his brother threatened his life, and his parents have refused to answer the calls he’s made everyday since she found out. What troubles David and what has lingered even after she had left with the children, and what will become of him if she found out what really had come to be the night at question, at fall, at the end.
The stinking and gnarled claws pick away at the darkness surrounding its mass, overwhelming it, it permeates the air, down to that last iota of the sogging mass. It is thrumming through tip to tip and thrashing, a hunger covets the beating heart above. Eyes covered, mouth sewn it struggles to breathe, but continues to suck at the agony and grief, the lies and the filth fuel enough, it sends for food another way, always to the next day, growing, reading and it grows while he ignores, ignores and neglects the need. His need.
The shower did well, he came out feeling refreshed and partially awakened. David found himself still needing food though, needing to get his body moving, and make an effort to manage the shit storm he’d created in the last week or two. He’d have at least a week or two before she even tried to contact him if ever, but knowing the kids and how the state felt both parents needed involvement, she’d make due the effort if it made her look good. He knew that, meaning he’d have to get downstairs sooner than later…definitely sooner he thought. But he went to the back yard once the clothes were on and the coffee drip started, he slid the heavy backdoor along its rail and peered over the drooping Austrian Pines he’d hated since they moved to the house. The branches took direction with the wind and leaned heavy with the snow, it left him usually trimming and chopping down peculiar and slanted branches that scraped the gravel and hid the windows. He then checked that onto the list he’d started early in the morning of steps to finish before his family got back, maybe, maybe he’d be able to close the door and play it off as drunken stupor and a mistaken person. He’d pile the yardwork up and bunch it with other mess, it’d distract from the obvious, he smirked and breathed in the pollen of the morning, the low hanging dew that forgot to stick to the blades of buffalo grass, and scuttled back toward the kitchen with a grin, leaving the door to the back open.
A metal camping mug, a favorite of his held the coffee, a dark, thick and placid liquid stared up at David while he lingered back to the door. He wished for a taste of menthol, looked toward the steps that went to the basement and back to the trees, to the San Isabel mountain range thinking. Pushing the piping hot coffee mug against a temple wondering what could be possible and who could he call for help. His brother would likely kill him through the phone with a call, his sister would call his wife, and as for friends, well they were all her friends too he thought, and would likely call with concern, more questions that didn’t need peering into. He didn’t need that, couldn’t have it like that, it was already spinning out of control, he was far past being at a loss. Suicide was about of question and he knew she’d laugh, she’d mock and snivel with a smirk and smile at his funeral, it would only hurt him, she wouldn’t let the kids know, he’d become a figment of an idea after a year or two. He shook the thoughts from himself and slid the door shut, he sipped at the coffee and now stared at the steps leading down. Leading to the darkness. Leading to a mess.
There’s rhythm to the shuddering above, a tremble steady, another tremble deeper, louder, closer, the shuddering stops. There’s a heave, a pull, a lunge of the heavy darkness that swallows and masticates what’s there, it gnaws at the fat, bone, skin and the viscerally revolting. It gnaws and waits in the darkness while up above comes a pacing, a striking, counting down, stacking, planning, to erase, to be rid. To remove it, remove her, burn her, leave it smoldering and rotting far, far, far from here.
There was a moistness in the air that latched to his arms halfway down, the next step brought a reeling to his guts as a smell hit his throat and shoveled thus directly to his nose of rot filth death in a putrid that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get away from for months. It only been 2 days, and he had no idea how to get that smell out of anything. The panic started to set in. He looked down at the black sticky bag and prodded it with the toes of his boot. The peculiar plastic of the bag squelched and crunched, nothing else moved. He pushed again this time with the back of a heel to make sure there wasn’t a pooling beneath the bag, David knew he was a lucky f*****. He smiled knelt down, patted at the plastic bag, threw an arm around it, grunted and hoisted it up.
Dream Dark Stories 