Visible Wear

There was debris everywhere. A bomb had been dropped right in the middle of a neighborhood and scattered furniture, clothing, and boxes everywhere.

Everywhere being my living room.

The movers had left half an hour ago, just after the sun started to go down. After a desperate search through heaps of poorly labeled moving boxes I’d finally found my toothbrush and a change of clothes.

The drive from Cleveland to Connecticut had been hot and nasty and had taken two hours longer than Google Maps had predicted – big surprise there. Still, I’d gotten here well before the movers – big surprise there too.

I now lived an hour away from work in New York by Amtrak but my agent had discovered this amazing property right in Stamford. The property was amazing for three reasons – it was huge, it was extremely affordable, and it was very old. Getting to ride the train to and from work was like a boyhood dream and as soon as my agent was done talking I bought it.

It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. I was awoken an hour ago by some sound. I thought it was the house settling, it probably is, but I’m not sure anymore.

It started with creaking from underneath the floorboards. I was sleeping on the couch in the living room – I still need to buy a new bed – when the noise started. It sounded like someone walking on the underside of the floor. First it was slow creaks, starting by the front door and pacing towards the fireplace. I was opposite the fireplace so I heard the sound getting nearer. When it reached the fireplace, it stopped.

Then it started running at me.

Thudding footsteps and heavy creaks, I saw dust kicking up as my unknown assailant ran towards me on the wrong side of the floorboards. I leapt behind the couch, shaking and searching for a weapon, but the noise had stopped.

Had I been having a nightmare?

The house has a basement. I checked it out when I took my agent’s virtual tour. I’d also looked at it earlier today. It’s empty. All the windows were sealed. There was nowhere to hide in there. Still, I needed to be sure.

I had seen a flashlight in the box with my toothbrush. The electricity hadn’t been turned on yet so I would need it to see. Arms extended I walked towards the boxes. Almost there I stepped on an old catcher’s mitt, my weight causing it to close around my heel. I let out a pathetic yelp and stumbled into the boxes. Cursing myself I found the flashlight.

I felt eyes on me from every corner and breathing on my neck as I approached the basement door. Standing before it I took in a deep breath and turned the knob.

It’s 9 o’clock in the morning. I had a terrible dream. I don’t remember it clearly but I remember being scared out of my wits. I must’ve been sleepwalking too because I woke up in front of the basement door. It was still closed.

I got up and turned the knob slowly, my heart beating faster with each passing second. I pulled the door open and my heart skipped a beat. Looking down the stairs, there was nothing.

I walked cautiously down and looked around, examining dark corners with the flashlight I found beside me. There was nothing. Nothing.

Midnight.

I hear creaking in the floorboards again. This time it started from the basement door and moved slowly towards me. As it came nearer I pressed myself deeper into the couch and listened. The sound moved to the glass doors towards the foot of the couch.

Then I heard a sound like pebbles tapping the glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The electricity still hadn’t been turned on so the doors were barely illuminated by street lights filtered through trees. I sat up, looked at the doors, and saw a skeletal finger reaching out and tapping the glass.

It took a second more to realize the finger was a branch from the massive oak outside. I’d have to do some trimming in the morning I thought, and realized I’d forgotten to breathe. Laughing, I turned around and began screaming.

There was the baby again, by the basement door pale as death, working its toothless mouth open and shut.

It crept forward on all fours and began laughing in a horrible gurgling way. Oh god, it sounded like it was being drowned.

I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t work. I just sat trembling as this animated corpse crawled towards me. I realized too that the tapping on the doors had changed. Jerking my head around the deathly baby was looking at me through the doors and it began to slap the glass open-handed, demanding to be let in.

But it wasn’t the same baby. The other baby was still crawling towards me, laughing and gurgling.

I collapsed on the couch, eyes pinched shut, chest tight, gasping for air. I forced my eyes open to stare straight at the ceiling and saw it was alive. I stopped gasping when I realized the ceiling was covered in living corpses. They stopped, mouths stretching wide, and began falling towards me.

“Clayton, good, what’ve you got?”

“Great stuff Mr. M. Here’s a video from the Creeper house. Guy actually has a heart attack and kicks the bucket at the end. There’s a great close-up of the guy’s face right when he bites it.”

“Perfect! Run it through editing. Good job, Clayton, sounds like the best reality T.V. season yet!”

 

 The Creeper [4:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Greetings friends and visitors,

Unfortunately this week will be storyless as the author has just returned from attending a wedding in Maine and just couldn’t manage to work on a story (well, maybe he could’ve but it would’ve been mostly incoherent with fatigue). But, after a combined total of 16+ hours of sleep yesterday he is feeling refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to get working on next week’s story.

Thanks for checking back and sincere apologies for not dropping a note earlier.

Oh, and if they happen by congrats to Jen and John

I was a servant to Isis.

One of her most trusted, I advised on all matters including those of life and death but particularly on matters of love and war. My mistress did not always pay heed to my advice, but that was her right.

Still, regardless of whether she followed my advice she would always transcend her difficulties. After all, she was a god.

Yes, she was a god.

We all had noticed when she began to change. Servants are finely attuned to our goddess and could know her needs without being told. So we all knew when it had started. We just hadn’t known until too late what it was.

—

The gods were losing their powers. As they lost their powers so too did we servants lose ours.

Gods being the vain creatures that they are tried to hide their waning abilities from each other but could see it clearly in each other’s eyes. My goddess was feared, respected, loved, and hated. She wasn’t concerned by those who wished her dead – immortality easily dealt away such concerns. But now her power was weakening and for once she was dealing with something she had never herself felt – fear.

They all were.

Some gods refused to accept their growing limitations. They fought with each other and came away gravely injured, or did not walk away at all. After a fashion rumors began spreading through the human settlements – the era of gods was coming to an end.

Then the fateful day arrived that a god wandered into the village of a vanquished diety and enraged the inhabitants. One unknown villager threw a spear that pierced the god’s lung and ultimately killed him. His head was placed on display in a show of defiance against the gods and those who would follow them.

That was the turning point – the moment that all remaining gods realized and more importantly accepted that even lowly humans could destroy them. Gods were at the mercy of mere mortals for now they too were little more.

—

The gods still had followers though and they were legion. With their followers the gods waged bloody battles to destroy the non-believers. Many gods leading their soldiers would meet their deaths in battle. But as more legions of followers were sent to battle with no god to lead them the greater the number of disbelievers that left the fields of battle. The wars that were meant to keep the gods in power were instead eroding their power and numbers even more.

My mistress waged countless battles in her bid to maintain her place over mortals. She lost many followers, to battle and to faith lost. She had also lost an eye and several teeth when an errant arrow felled her mount. The embarrassment over her injury was nothing, however, when compared to the loss of her legendary beauty.

She grew worse after that. She went into seclusion and her features changed. Sunken, shriveled, and haggard she became completely unrecognizable. As time went by she would suffer its ravages and each day that passed her power would dwindle even further.

Many of her servants left her during this time. In a year her once generous stores of food ran out and she began wandering into nearby villages for food. No one recognized her. This was a blessing in that no one would try to kill her but a curse in that she was viewed as a crippled old woman of no worth. In fleeing her temples she had left behind her most prized possessions. In her seclusion she retained some items but couldn’t barter them for fear of raising suspicion.

My goddess was reduced to receiving remains from other’s meals. Half-eaten and sometimes half-rotten, my mistress subsisted on garbage. It was disgusting and degrading to watch, and yet we watched her.

In a few years only I remained with her. During this time I was the only one with whom she spoke but as years passed she came to hear me less. I still understood her, but my replies grew decreasingly intelligible to her.

—

And so it continued for years. Then decades. Then centuries.

The years were not kind to my mistress but what modest amount of godly powers that remained within her kept her alive. The world kept changing but no one ever noticed my mistress because to every society that came and went she was invisible.

One day, thousands of years after the fall of the gods, someone finally did take notice, but not in a way they once would have.

My mistress, it pains me to say, had long since lost her senses. She looked wretched and spoke nonsense. She wandered the streets and took shelter wherever she could. But on that day she had gotten into a confrontation with humans over their meal’s remains.

Other humans came and took her away in a chariot without horses. I lost track of her, I could not keep up with the roaring black beast, but I could still feel her presence and I found her.

From a room with walls made of metal bars they eventually moved her to another building with people also in a state like my mistress. There they fed her, replaced her rags with slightly better garments, and put her back on the streets. Where she stayed was not their concern but thrice a day she could return for food and a little help.

My mistress, who once held influence over the mortals and who came to be at the mercy of the mortals, had now come to be at the charity of the mortals. She would never again be who she once was, but finally after several millenia I once again saw some shimmer of light within her.

Whatever happens to her, even if she no longer can hear me or even know I am there, I will continue to watch over her. After all, I am her servant and she is my goddess.

 

 Through A Cat's Eyes [5:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download