David's Brother

I have heard the stories before: "He played Xbox until 11 AM", "He eats all the time". David always talked about his brother, Mike, this kid who I had strangely never met despite going to David's house numerous times. This time was different, though, and this was the last time I ever would hang out with David.

It was a summer day about two years ago. It was raining out, of course, just like it always does here in Seattle. Anyway, I was going to David's house for a sleepover, you know, a typical teenager sleepover, the one coming over lies on the floor and sleeps with the cat, etc.

I walked into David's house, and no one was home but David and his brother, who I had met for the first time (I had known David for about 8 years). He was just sitting there on the couch, playing Xbox, with a deranged, obsessive look on his face. David just looked at me, giving almost a frightened look, while I approached Mike to greet him for the first time.

"Hello, Mike, I'm T-", I tried to say it, but he suddenly jumped up and ran into the other room, still holding his Xbox game controller. David told me to come to his room, so I went, hoping Mike wouldn't come back. Let's face it, the kid creeped me the fuck out.

We sat in David's room just doing the usual bullshit, like playing some really old PS2 games and eating disgusting Lays' potato chips. After a while, we had both seemed to have forgotten about Mike's presence in the house, until we heard a noise..

From outside the room, we heard a thunderous pounding on the door. David called out "Mike, go to bed!", but Mike kept on pounding, with each of the pounds getting louder and more violent each time. "He always does this," David said to me. Obviously, this was not normal behavior, even for a 14 year old like Mike. After a while, the horrible noise stopped.

David was embarrassed, but also a little frightened, I could tell by the look on his face. David decided it was best if we had called it a night, so I sat on the floor and he got into his bed. David turned the lights out, and I instantly fell asleep.

BOOM! Thunder. I awoke, and could see David was still sleeping, and it was still dark out, but pouring heavily. As I tried going back to sleep, I kept on thinking about Mike, and started to get disturbed thinking about him being in the room adjacent to us. What the hell could possibly be wrong with this kid?

I was starting to finally drift off back to sleep, when I heard the doorknob on the door slightly turn. My heart began beating fast, and I peeked up to see a figure standing in the middle of the door, but it wasn't the figure of a human, and definitely not Mike. It was the figure of a large, hunched over creature with a mouth ten times the size of my own. He was almost completely naked, except wearing the same shirt that Mike was wearing when I had seen him earlier.

The creature didn't seem to notice that I was awake, and barely even acknowledged me. it walked over to David's bed, and began digging its huge claws into David's neck, awakening David only to witness his fast death. I jumped up off the floor and began running out into the hallway. I felt almost frozen, as if it was a dream, and with that thought I had suddenly awoken.

I was still on David's floor, and it was still pouring out. I looked over to see that David was still asleep. Relieved, I turned around to get back to sleep, and I saw, sitting next to me on the floor, the same creature I had seen in my dream, staring at me, with a slight, low growl coming out from behind his huge teeth.

I quickly jumped up, and ran out of the house, as the creature stumbled and limped after me from behind. I was outside in the storm, but managed to get back to my own house. The creature hadn't been able to keep up with me, to my relief. That's the last time I ever saw David, or his mutant brother Mike.

Aftermath
A few months ago, I was walking around the neighborhood, and I passed by David's house. It was completely abandoned, and the windows were blackened. I have not heard from David since that night, although sometimes in the night I wake up to the sound that the creature in his bedroom made that night: the low, slight growl that has been haunting my dreams.