Dallas Zipperer Writing

Tag: Horror

  • Hollow Point

    Ronald stepped onto the elevator, flicking his wrist to check the time. He huffed a loud sigh as he saw that it was a quarter past six. Work was probably going to be holding him up a lot more for the coming weeks. The Castle case was beginning to get nasty. He’d known the man was wealthy, he’d known the man would have a fleet of lawyers. That was just part of the job.  He pressed the “LL” button on the elevator, shooting him down to the garage floor with a stomach lurching drop.

    The drop down the elevator shaft, while relatively short, always made him imagine what he would do in the event of a total, catastrophic failure. If every piece of engineering failed, and he fell down the hollow corridor, his body slowly lifting off the floor, until finally slamming down, splattering him.

    The elevator dinged with a spoken, “Lower Level”, in a halting automated woman’s voice. Ronald stepped through the elevator doors and went down the long corridor, his mind wandering. In the event of a total elevator failure, what would he do? Could he survive a fall like that? Surely it had been done before.

    Phone in hand—when had he pulled it out?— he typed rapidly into Safari: how to survive el—he made it to the beginning of “elevator” before Google already knew what he wanted to know. A text bubble from his wife popped over the search button, and he swiped it away. She probably wanted to know where he was at, but he could call her when he got in the car. He hit the search button.

    An “AI Overview” summary appeared at the top and he scrolled past it rapidly. Past that there were several different options. A forum board asking the question, multiple YouTube shorts with graphical representations.

    “Hm,” Ronald muttered, making the turns by instinct into the garage. He made his way to his car, still scrolling useless facts on survival techniques he’d never use, when he finally noticed the man standing in front of him.

    Ronald did his best to slowly and non-threateningly raise his head, taking in the shape. Nice, shined dress shoes. Fitted trousers, a long winter coat that went to his ankles, up to a well-tailored suit, a fancy belt. Ronald felt his heart easing as he took in the handsome face, a strong jawline, slicked black hair with gray in his temples. His dark brown eyes were nearly black in the shadows of the darkened garage. The man smirked at him. He had the look of someone who knew a joke, and couldn’t wait to let you in on it, and Ronald found he wanted in on it.

    “You’ll run into someone one day, walking like that,” and then the suave man mimed Ronald’s stature, hands held before him, face stuffed downward.

    Ronald deflated and flushed. With a light chuckle he said, “Yeah, you’re right. I get onto my kids for the same thing.”

    “Ah,” the man said, nodding as if Ronald had given him all he needed.

    This was what he got for getting held up at work, stopped by strangers. Ronald smiled as amiably as he could, but the man made no move to get out of his way. The phone in his hand buzzed again, and he glanced at it to see his wife calling. He tapped the side key to silence the buzzing.

    They stood before each other, each second ticking past making Ronald feel a pit grow in his stomach. The man continued to smirk at him, the tips of his eyes crinkled. So much mirth hidden in that half-turned smile.

    “I’ll bet you were looking up some random fact,” the man said with a snap of his fingers. “You came from an elevator I’ll bet. Were you checking the statistics on elevator deaths? You know it’s usually a failure in the doorway.” He then made a knife motion towards his own throat, pantomiming death. Ronald let out a soft chuckle but could feel his own smile not make it past his lips.

    “You know here’s another random fact, but this one might be more pressing. A hollow point bullet, do you know what that is?”

    Ronald shook his head. A hollow point bullet? His teenage son probably knew, but Ronald had never even held a gun. Well, that wasn’t true, he remembered vaguely a time in college. But he’d never shot the thing. The pit in his stomach grew heavier, and his pulse quickened.

    “Well, a hollow point, you see, is a bullet with its tip hollowed out. It’s to make the bullet’s expansion wider,” and he opened his hands from a fist, miming an explosion, his smirk turning into a genuine smile. “Works on soft targets, doesn’t do too well on hard targets. You see, full metal jacket is for going through stuff, hollow points are for fucking stuff up.”

    For a strange second the word ‘fucking’ took a long time to register. The suave man using that word so casually was more outlandish than the general conversation. Ronald held up a hand. “Why does this matter? You said this one was pressing.”

    The man snapped his fingers again, laughing a genuine laugh. “You’re right! I did say it was pressing, you lawyer types, you know how to catch words and make ’em stick. It’s pressing because I’m about to shoot you with one.”

    The smirk had melded into a wide, shark-toothed, rictus grin, too many teeth and too white. Confusion hadn’t had enough time to evolve before the man was casually tossing back his long jacket, and in one smooth motion was drawing out a huge, black handgun.

    Ronald tried to shield himself with his hands, but it was too fast. There was a flash, but he’d expected there to be a bigger bang. The wind knocked out of him. The man had punched him in the chest for some reason. Ronald stumbled backward, catching himself onto the hood of the car behind him. He had enough time to watch the man strolling away before he felt the first trickling of cold liquid spilling onto his chest, staining his undershirt.

    Ronald pawed at his chest, unsure of what to do. Breathing was difficult and his vision was fading fast.

    Ronald had one thought that clamored to the top of his consciousness. One he couldn’t wrap his head around as he felt the first wave of pain. This thought stood out at the forefront, above the sticky blood covering his hands. He’d ignored his wife’s call, and now she wouldn’t know what happened to him.

  • Signal

    Signal

    Andrew sat strapped to his seat. His arms and legs were pinned to the life support chair, jacked into it “for his safety.” He was allowed minor head movements, but his helmet was also tied to the machine. Fresh air vented in. The tubes and wires lining his skin fed him the nutrients and hydration he needed at maximum efficiency.

    Wayfarers of old would have killed for the longevity that his tiny support vessel gave him. Wayfarers of old also weren’t so miniscule in the vast expanse of space. They at least had the chance of being found.

    Andrew craned his neck, so he could look out the tiny glass window into the black void. Tiny specks of light dotted his view, but that was better than what sat across from him.

    Claire had died slowly, the life support unable to handle the bleeding in her side. It had segmented off parts of her body, breaking down pieces as they died, preserving what it could until all that was left was a brain and a beating heart, until even that stopped.

    She’d cried, begged him to help her. But he was as trapped as she was. Unable to free himself from the constricting bonds of his savior.

    Andrew shuddered to think about the material that even now was being fed his body. Had the machine begun utilizing her biomass to preserve him? He didn’t want to think about that but couldn’t prevent his mind from wandering.

    The machine was prolonging his hibernation longer and longer. Waking periods were shorter and shorter as the machine maximized his resources. The SOS signal had been set to a steadily pulse into the cosmos.

    Andrew awoke with a snapping of his eyes. He was face to face with the empty suit, and he had to struggle to move his head to the right, out the window, to the black speckled window. His neck muscles were weakening. He scanned his visor HUD for the date and was horrified to see four standard Earth days had passed.

    His mouth felt dry as he smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He wiggled his fingers in the carapace of his suit and counted each sensation. When he hit ten fingers present and accounted for, he sighed with relief. He moved the spotlight of his consciousness down his body, passing his thighs to his feet and toes. He strained to wiggle through the haze of tingling sensation and swore he could feel the digits moving. Then with breath quickening and heart pounding in his chest, he realized he couldn’t feel the sliding scrape of the suit against his skin. He forced as hard as he could, straining against the suit until he realized his calves ended in stumps, pressing against the partitioned off suit.

    “Oh, oh God,” Andrew wheezed. His voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “No, no. Please, don’t take all of it. Don’t! Just put me to sleep and don’t wake me again!”

    But he knew even as the words escaped his lips that he would wake again. The machine had to wake him. It didn’t have the resources to put him into a cryo sleep.

    No no no

    Andrew struggled against his bonds, pulling with his arms, twisting his head back and forth. The escape pod floated in the same trajectory, heading for the nearest inhabited star system. It was too far. Much too far.

    He didn’t know how long he was awake before sleep took him again. He stared out the window at the shiny stars until they blurred his vision.

    When he awoke again, six SEDs had passed. The max the ship was allowed to keep him asleep.

    He groaned, the movement of his neck too hard. He struggled mightily, forcing his head over to the window, peering out the glass. The stars appeared the same, the shapes of their constellations completely unchanged. Andrew knew he shouldn’t, but he cast the spotlight of his attention around his body and felt the ghost of movement. His fingers moved willfully, his toes followed. For a blissful moment he was standing and freeing his crewmate, what had her name been? It didn’t matter, he was unbuckling her and helping her out of the chair. They were embracing and crying with relief. The pod had landed and rescue teams and camera crews and the President himself was there.

    And then he felt the emptiness. The ship had done its job.

    Andrew peered out the glass at the empty stars. For a moment he wished a Lovecraftian horror would appear at the glass, a tentacle monster with too knowing eyes breaking in and ending his suffering. But he knew even that was fantasy, that out in this empty expanse of space all he had was the empty suit across from him, and the good Doctor partitioning off his parts to reclaim the biomass, to keep him going for as long as it could.

    Andrew closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep for the final time. He knew he wouldn’t wake again. He wanted it to come. He wanted to feel his hands again. And for a last moment before the darkness collapsed around him, he did.

  • Chekhov’s Fly Gun

    Chekhov’s Fly Gun

    Chris sat in the driveway to his house, his phone in his lap. He was doing the “daily tasks” for the game that he couldn’t really remember starting but hadn’t felt compelled to stop playing either. It was just something he did every day when he got home from work.

    With that out of the way, he exited the black Tahoe and walked up the perfectly manicured lawn. The doorbell camera chirped its hello to him, and he placed his thumb on the biometric lock. The whirring mechanism spun within the door, let out an angry buzz, blinked red twice, and when Chris tried the door, it was still locked.

    Chris took a deep breath and then placed his thumb on the pad, more firm and precise this time. It buzzed and complained and did not work a second time. Sucking on his teeth, Chris fumbled his house key out and stuck it into the manual lock, giving it a good twist and then pushed through the doorway.

    The door swung open heavily, and Chris’s first hurried steps were met with the scrabbling resistance of his black cat, who had been lounging on the front walkway rug. The cat yowled with indignation, scampering away. In his haste he pulled up half the rug, scrunching the black and white hand-knotted wool up on itself.

    “God- stinkin- mother-” every excited exclamation tripped over the other, half finishing and half forcing the one before it. Chris sucked in another deep breath and straightened the rug out with his foot. The rug came out crooked, no longer in perfect parallel with the walls. He moved it again with his foot, more careful. It was off the other way now, and he stooped low to adjust it with his hands.

    His considerable bulk rolled forward, making the blood rush to his head and making his forehead feel like it was going to pop. He maneuvered the rug back into place, and then stood erect again, stretching his back.

    At the hallway console table, he dropped off his daily carrying items, keys, wallet, a multi-tool he hadn’t used in several years. He kicked off his work shoes under the table and strolled the rest of the way into the living room. He dropped off more stuff on his way through, coat on the back of his easy chair, laptop bag on the coffee table. He scooped the remote up and flicked on the tv, switching it to a YouTube channel he favored and let it run in the background.

    Chris stepped into the kitchen, and on his way to the fridge he spotted a black and green piece of plastic hanging from the wall. He recognized it as the salt gun his mother had bought him several years ago. When was the last time he used it? Had he ever fired the thing? What a terrible existence. Hung on the wall, never to be fired. He glanced down at the outlet underneath the spot where it hung and looked at the blacklight glow of the electric bug killer. He stooped down and pulled the contraption off the wall and inspected the sticky side that the light attracted the bugs to. It was caked with bug corpses, so many winged and hard carapaces stuck together. Images of the little creatures stuck and struggling, ripping themselves apart on the sticky adhesive rushed through his mind. Chris returned the electric bug eradicator to the wall and stepped away from the kitchen, a ripple of nausea gripping his stomach.

    The cat had returned, rubbing his body on Chris’s leg, purring loudly. When Chris sat down on his easy chair, the cat yowled and ran to the pantry.

    “Alright, alright!” Chris yelled. “You’re lucky I hadn’t reclined yet.”

    Back in the kitchen but avoiding looking at the violent glow of the Bug Genocider 3000, Chris opened the pantry and pulled down the plastic bin that contained his cat’s expensive food. The bin lifted much too easily, and when he popped the lid open, he groaned. Empty.

    He scanned the pantry for the fresh bag, finding it at the bottom and groaned again. This time, he pulled the bottom of his pants up and squatted down, feeling his knees creaking. His gut rolled over his waist uncomfortably, but he avoided the pressure from leaning straight over. He snatched the bag from the floor and brought it to the counter. It had a perforated slit for easily opening the bag, and between thumb and forefinger Chris peeled the plastic away. It slipped up halfway through, scratching his fingers and leaving the bag unopened. Chris stared at the top piece of plastic and then turned his gaze down to his black tom cat beneath him.

    “You’re a bastard. You know that? There’s ten different cats in this neighborhood who could be your father.” The cat simply looked up at him, and he sighed as he retrieved the scissors. He sliced away the top of the bag, too low down and half the contents slid down onto the counter and onto the floor.

    Chris felt a primal surge of rage shiver up his body. His hands tingled with the desire to destroy something. Then he took a shuddering breath and scooped some of the food up using the cat’s bowl and set it in the usual spot. The cat was already crunching away at his feet, but he ignored the cat and spilt food and walked to the living room. With a heavy plop, Chris set himself into his chair with a sigh.

    With his eyes closed he sat for a long time. Then finally he reclined his chair, looking at the TV. A prolific streamer played a video game that Chris was too scared to play himself, but he enjoyed the complexity of the gameplay. The competitive nature, the speed and the high stakes player vs player combat. It was all too much for him to play, but to watch, he could do that.

    The black cat made his way into Chris’s lap, perched primly into a loaf and purring deeply. Chris scratched under the cat’s chin and said, “You’re not a bastard, buddy, I know who your dad was. He was the only other black cat in the neighborhood.”

    A black speck made its way up the wall on his left, but Chris pretended not to see it. Up and up the wall it went. While Chris pretended it didn’t exist, his black monster of a kitty did not. The animal made a noise in the depths of its throat, one he didn’t think the animal had ever made before, and scrambled across Chris in great raking motions, tearing flesh in his wake, and launched towards the black spider on the wall.

    The black cat was airborne longer than he should have been, then crashed into the wall underneath the bug and slid down in a furry flailing heap.

    Chris sighed deeply and pinched the ridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. The black cat growled underneath its escaped prey, so Chris finally looked at the spider, and saw it for the beast that it was. Roughly the size of a silver dollar, the thing was massive.

    When it was apparent the cat wouldn’t leave it alone, Chris stood from his chair. His fists were clenched as he made his way to the kitchen. He pulled the black and green plastic salt gun off the wall. No bigger than a toy, he gripped the handle and rotated the thing in his hands. He couldn’t remember ever having shot it, but he must have because it was full of salt. He pulled the slide back, loading it and shooting it into the void of the pantry. It gave a loud pop, scattering salt with little tinkling noises.

    Chris marched up to the spider. The thing was huge, and in the back of his mind he wondered at that. Wasn’t this thing meant for flies? He stuffed the barrel toward the spider and pulled the trigger.

    The salt gun popped and the spider was shot off of the wall. A black cloud of small specks went flying in every direction. The cloud bloomed outward, cascading down and out. Chris saw little black specks all over his hands and arms, crawling on the barrel of the gun.

    With a furrowed brow Chris inspected his arm. Dozens of tiny baby spiders—hundreds of them—frantically crawled up his arm, disappearing into the sleeve of his polo shirt.

    The gun clattered to the ground. Chris felt a crawling sensation on his face, but screamed through closed lips, for fear that they’d go into his mouth.

  • Ghost Story

    Ghost Story

    Mike sat at his desk, bleary-eyed and ready to die. He cursed as he died and smacked his desk with a loud pop. He flicked his eyes to the clock on the wall. 1am. He couldn’t end with another loss, wouldn’t, even, but with work starting in six hours…

    He started another round. It had been a long grueling day in his game, and he was certain they were all cheating. Cronus and Strike Packs, hardware cheaters, the lot of them. It wasn’t that he was getting older, the techniques advancing. Certainly wasn’t the 16-year-olds that got to play twelve hours a day while he slaved away at his customer support job.

    He was finding his groove, pulling the mouse this way and that, his bullets going where he commanded. He was feeling good, not just good, great. As he pulled a particularly nice headshot, the power died. Blackness swept over his vision as the light faded from his monitor.

    “Shit,” Mike said. Thunder pealed right outside his window, the bright flash momentarily blinding him through the blinds. Mike peeled his headset off, the sweat sticking it to his ears. There was a pop as the first earmuff came loose. He fumbled it onto the desk and rolled his chair back to begin standing. A whoosh of air sent Mike sprawling. He cursed as he hit the ground with a thud. The impact forced the breath right out of him. Wheezing, he looked up in the dim light of his office. A figure stood above him, standing awkwardly close. The silhouette of its head leaned toward him, inspecting.

    Mike’s office lights came on. There was no figure standing above him, only his gaming chair spinning slowly. He rose to his feet, wiping sweat from his forehead. When had his heart ever pounded in his ears like that before?

    He checked the time. 1:36AM. It was late. Maybe… Maybe it was time for bed.

    Mike could never get used to only getting four hours of sleep. That first hour was the worst. But once the caffeine hit the veins and got the brain going with something stimulating, Mike found he could simulate being human well enough.

    During his morning shower Mike caught himself checking the bathroom closet over and over. He shouldn’t have left the door open. Every time he looked, he expected the figure to be there. Of course, it wasn’t. Still his eyes darted there. Over and over.

    “Yes, that’s right sir,” Mike said. “I know you said you restarted it already; this is just the first step we always take.”

    The man on the other end of the line chuckled. “Okaaay,” he said.

    Mike scrolled his phone while the man restarted his tablet. A notification banner dropped down, and he swiped at it, trying to dismiss it. Instead, he pressed it, and he huffed a sigh.

    “What was that?” the man on the line asked.

    “Nothing, how’s that restart going?”

    “Booting up now.”

    “Very good, let me know when it’s… when it’s powered back on.”

    The app Mike had accidentally opened was the NextDoor app. The top of the feed featured a post getting a lot of traction. It was someone talking about last night’s storm.

    He skimmed it. A death happened. The power had been out what, 6, 7 hours? Oh, if I had just kept reading, he thought, I’d have seen it was 8 hours.

    8 hours with no power. It had been his day off, too. Couldn’t have been his Friday or something. No, not for Mike.

    “Mister Mike?”

    “Oh, what’s that?”

    “I was saying it’s on.”

    “Ah, right. Okay, go ahead and go into settings…” This was saying it had been a lady killed. Jesus… it hadn’t been pleasant.

    Thunder cracked outside, piercing through his headset. He paused, waiting, praying that the power would go out. His lights stayed on. Bastards.

    By 9pm Mike crawled into bed. His friends ribbed him relentlessly as he bid them farewell. It had been a late night before. Sometimes you had to get in an early night.

    Mike lay flat on his back, his eyes wide open. The rain clattered against his window, drumming away. His eyes were glued to the window, on the opposite wall. Lightning flashed every now and then, illuminating the tree that hovered near his second story window.

    He yanked his eyes from the window, glancing at the red glow of his alarm clock. 10:44PM. Oh hell.

    Slow breaths. That’s it. Count it out. Like counting sheep. 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5..6….

    Mike awoke to the absence of noise. He caught the sound of his bedroom fan sputtering to a halt, the blades whirring to a stop. The sudden absence of everything, the a/c, the fan, roared in his ear. His eyes opened to the window. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the figure, and the tree behind it.

    The figure? Sitting up, Mike felt his pulse quicken. “Who…” Was all he could get out before the lightning flashed again. The figure was leaping, arms outstretched.

    Clamoring backward, the sheets and blankets bundling under him, Mike felt his throat suddenly burning. He punched at the air, fighting, when he realized he could hear the whir of his electric fan spinning to life. The AC was kicking back on, and the faint red glow of his alarm clock was blinking. The strobe of the red light showed nothing before him.

    He coughed, realizing he had been screaming. Panting, wheezing, trying to catch his breath, Mike stumbled toward the bathroom, and puked in the toilet.

    Mike dragged himself to his office and powered on his work computer. It had been a long, sleepless night. His eyes found every dark space and latched onto it, searching, trying to pierce the pitch darkness.

    He clocked in and stared at the Wait button. It was a drop-down list, and it was already 7:30am. He was supposed to have put himself into “Available” 30 minutes ago. He took another gulp of coffee, and with a shaky hand he clicked the button.

    Through his office window he could see that the rain had let up. The clouds were heavy and thick, but no rain. He checked his Amazon cart for the fourth time. The twelve pack of battery powered lanterns would arrive by 5PM. Damned Prime. The six pack of 1-pound bags of salt would be arriving the next day. Damned Walmart.

    Mike didn’t know shit about spirits. But he’d watched Supernatural, and while he didn’t have a demon killing knife, he could get some salt.

    The woman on the phone screamed at him, her voice so loud it was cutting out the microphone. It lessened the effect she wanted but Mike sat silent. His cat Torb had crawled in his lap earlier and was fast asleep, oblivious to the woman spitting venom only a few inches away.

    “Ma’am, like I said earlier, a password book is a common practice. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

    The woman screeched again. Mike peeled the headset off his head and plopped it on his desk. He curled into Torb’s tabby ears, snuggling him. “She’s just a wittle angy.”

    The cat purred his pleasure. Mike noticed the lady had stopped screeching and pulled his headset back on. Only one ear this time.

    He waited.

    “Hello?”

    “Yes ma’am?”

    “Fuck you.” The line went dead. Mike stared at the screen, his case log half filled. The timer had swapped to the off-call count and was steadily clicking away. Mike let his eyes go blurry, the words and lights melding together.

    He snapped his eyes to the counter. 12 minutes? That wasn’t good. He noticed the blinking alert on the team chat.

    Shit shit shit!

    He sent himself into available, pushing Torb out of his lap. It was going to be a long day.

    Mike stood before his power switch in the living room. He had a lantern strapped to his belt, and another in his hands. The sun had set late, around 8:40pm. The salt circle was closed around him. It was time to see if he could lure this son of a bitch out.

    He pulled open the panel and looked at it. He had never flipped the breakers before, but they looked just like levers, or sideways light switches. Some of them were labelled, and one set even had some kind of joining plastic on it, so it had to be flipped together. He activated his lanterns, the soft orange glow barely competing with the bright light of the living room ceiling fan. He hardly noticed his hand shaking, more like someone who observed something in someone else. He laid his palm on the first set, closed his eyes, and began rapidly flipping all of the switches.

    With his eyes closed he couldn’t tell if anything had happened. He opened them slowly and turned to face his living room. The orange glow now seemed much brighter, casting long shadows into the hallway and near the office doorway.

    Mike could feel pressure rising in his chest, his breathing came too rapidly as his eyes darted this way and that, looking for the shape, the figure. Nothing. Silence. Stillness.

    Gulping for air Mike let his logical brain begin rambling. There were way too many variables here. Was his light scaring off the figure? Did the salt work that well? Was only cutting the electricity to his apartment enough? Had he missed a switch? No, no they were all flipped. Was it possible that the salt was like a wall, and the figure was right there, out of sight?

    “Oh Jesus. To hell with this.”

    Mike stepped out of the salt line. Nothing.

    He fumbled his lantern light, then clicked it off after three tries. Silence.

    With a chuckle that sounded like rasping gasps, Mike flipped the light switches back on. Stillness.

    Then he felt pressure on his leg, and he leapt back, a scream threatening to escape him. All that came out was a shrill laugh. Torb stood under him, tail straight up and back arched. He vocalized his disapproval.

    “I’m sorry buddy, c’mere.” He scooped Torb up and walked with him to the bedroom.

    Mike watched the weather app almost by the hour. Any time the rain threatened him, he dumped salt out around him. The ground was speckled with the stuff, little white mounds and lines everywhere. He was like a really bad drug addict, leaving his drugs lying around.

    Three weeks went by with no new storms. He even got a sunny day on one of his days off. He didn’t work up the courage to go check out the pool, but from his office window he saw many groups heading that way, floaties and towels and swimsuits, oh my.

    He tried to game. He was told multiple times his shooting seemed off. Yes, he was alright. No, he didn’t need anything.

    Then he saw it. One week out, on his Wednesday off. A 90% chance of rain. A severe storm, they predicted. Last week predicted the same thing, of course, but that one hadn’t come to pass.

    Mike’s eyes darted to the corner of his office closet. Nothing. He stormed over and slammed it shut. Stillness.

    Silence.

    The days passed in a blur. Less and less sleep. Once he even awoke, flailing out of bed, believing the figure to be right there. But the power had been on, and it had been his imagination.

    Wednesday arrived. He had stayed up all night Tuesday with the rain falling lightly. Now the storm began in earnest, just like they said it would. He paced around, little pockets of circled off safe areas. Most of them were broken and useless, not contributing to anything meaningful. He really wished he had the demon killing dagger instead of this damn salt.

    Finally, he went into his office. He put a line of salt at the door. He sat at his desk, and twirling in his chair he poured the contents of an entire bag out around himself, flinging most of the stuff in useless clumps.

    He launched up the game. Thunder roared outside, the rain smashing into his window and walls and roof and pounding in his ears. He had a lantern in his lap, one on his desk. He thought he left one hanging on the door.

    His play got progressively worse. He missed more shots. His friends logged off one by one, wishing him a good night. 2:26am rolled around, and his power held. Maybe… well. He didn’t want to jinx it.

    It happened. The screen flashed off. The a/c came to a screeching halt, the ceiling fan above lost power with a dying whir.

    Mike stared at the black screen, and with a deft hand he flicked on the lantern in his lap. He hit the one on the desk too. The orange glow filled the room.

    The headset rolled to the ground, falling into a pile of salt. Twirling in his chair, Mike waited.

    knock… knock… knock…

    It was so quiet, he almost didn’t hear it. It came again, louder this time. Each knock was deliberate, with an even cadence.

    Mike stood up, the pit in his stomach reaching his feet, making his toes tingle. He dragged through white snow and reached the door. He opened it. It creaked meaningfully as it swung wide.

    Standing before him was a tall figure. It wore no clothes, except for spikes covering the torso like a stalagmite tunic. Black pitted eyes stared straight ahead, not fixated on anything. Long black fingers that ended in points twitched back and forth.

    Frozen in place, Mike stared at the being that had been terrorizing him. Then, it stared back. Its black eyes somehow seemed to expand on seeing him, then it looked down. Mike followed his gaze. Realization was replaced by horror as he saw the paw print that broke the line of salt. Torb’s tail flicked out of the room and out of sight.

    Backing away, flailing his arms, Mike cried out. The light flicked off and on, the figure appearing to teleport closer with each flare. The ceiling fan buzzed back to life and whirred angrily with each interruption. The a/c was roaring on and off. With his back against the wall, he slid to the floor.

    Thunder crashed outside, the peal of it so violent he jumped. There was a pop from the surge of electricity, and the power died its final death. He knew this time it wouldn’t come back on. Silence.

    He looked up to the figure standing before him. Stillness.

    Nothing.