Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26828003-20160331004230

"If something frightening happens to you today, think about it. It may be the omen." --Tagline for "The Omen" (1976)

There was a man whose name was Roger, and he was married to his lovely wife, Natasha. The family lives in the chilly city of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Roger and Natasha have been in a relationship for about 20 years now, and they’ve had 4 lovely, beautiful children, 2 of them boys, 2 of them girls. The brothers get along quite well, although the sisters could use a little bit of help. Anyways, enough with the family life. Roger has something else he needed to get off his chest.

It was about 2 years ago, on May 16th, 2004, and Roger just got home from a busy work day. Nobody was ever home by this time, so he decided to watch some TV and settle down on the couch. 30 silent minutes passed by until Roger heard someone call, “Hello?” He thought it was his youngest son, Jack, and asked what he needed. No one answered back. Roger presumed that it was either him just hearing things or Jack got home early from preschool and was just playing tricks on him. Roger went back to watching TV until about 10 minutes later, when he heard another voice calling out “Is anybody home?” A little concerned, although he really shouldn’t have been, Roger went into the kitchen, since it felt like the voice was coming from that room. He didn’t see anybody. He went into the bathroom. Nobody. He checked the basement, the bedrooms, and the lounge upstairs. Roger couldn’t find anyone.

Starting to grow suspicious at this point, he decided to try luring Jack with a piece of candy. Roger knew that he loved sweets, so he was certain that this would work. I didn’t get a response. He quickly got worried, so Roger checked the front yard. Sure enough, there Jack was. He was sitting there picking pieces of grass and throwing them everywhere as if they were confetti. “Jack, what are you doing out here?” Roger asked. He answered, “I’m trying to see if anybody’s home,” smiling. “Silly boy,” Roger chuckled. “Our home isn’t underground!” Jack laughed, and then said, “Not home. I meant the other home.”

“What is this ‘other home’ you’re talking about?” Roger quipped, undoubtedly concerned at this point. Jack raised an eyebrow towards me, and replied, “I’m talking about the home where the man lives.” “The man?” Roger questioned. “Yes, the man,” Jack cheerfully quipped.

“Can you describe him?” Roger said. Jack, confused, stroked his chin for a moment, and then hesitantly described the man as a black 35-year old who was about 5 ½ feet tall. He told Roger that he was always smiling at people and often gave presents to many children around the neighborhood. “What are these ‘gifts’ like?” he interrogated, getting nervous for his child’s own safety now, should there be a threat to Jack’s safety at all. “Well…sometimes he gives out powdered sugar, sometimes he gives out Skittles, and he even once gave me a pointy three-leaf clover! That was really good.

Roger wanted to clear my head rather than ask any more questions, so he just told Jack to be inside by dinnertime, which was at 5:30. “Okay!” he replied.

At about 5:50, with Jack still not inside yet, Roger went out to the front yard to remind him to come inside for dinner. There was one problem; Jack wasn’t in the front yard. He checked the backyard to see if he simply went there, but no luck. He went inside and told Natasha that he couldn’t find Jack and that he wasn’t outside, even though he never came inside. Just then, Roger heard another voice say, “Is anybody home?” This voice sounded like Jack’s. “We’re all home, Jack. Come down for dinner,” he yelled to the voice coming from upstairs. No response. No footsteps. No sign of Jack.

“I have to do something really quick. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll be right back,” Roger said to his wife. He got into his car and drove for 5 minutes until he decided to turn back and found Jack on his knees in the front yard, crying. “What’s wrong?” Roger asked. “I got scared because I didn’t know where you were!” Jack was heavily sobbing at this point, so Roger comforted him and said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m here. Now, let’s go inside for dinner to fill that stomach of yours.” Jack agreed, but Roger stopped himself and Jack before Roger could make a move. “By the way, I wanted to know about your friend. How’s it going between you two?”

“Great!” Jack ecstatically responded. “We’ve been sniffing powdered sugar and it smells really good. We’ve also had a great time pretending to be superheroes flying in the air after having Skittles.”

Roger, legitimately spooked, decided to take action now. “Interesting. Come inside for dinner, and then after that, I want to talk to you about something. I’m worried that this man is forcing you to do drugs.” “What are drugs?” Jack questioned, noticeably bewildered. “We’ll talk about that later,” Roger said, harsher than he meant to. “Now, let’s go inside and enjoy each other’s company.”

Over the next two weeks, Jack had been outside for most of the time, and during that time, he had been experiencing pain inside his nostrils, chills, more frequent nosebleeds, irregular sleep patterns, and dilated pupils, among other symptoms of something neither Roger nor Jack were aware of.

Roger, extremely worried, began to take Jack to the doctor once a week. After his fifth visit, Roger gave up and decided that Jack was simply under the effects of a virus. When walking up to their door, Jack wondered out loud if there were any moments where Roger felt like he was on top of the world, since Jack felt like this many times when his friend had been keeping him company. Roger couldn’t recall anything, partially because he was shocked to see that the house key that was usually kept under a rug on the outside porch was gone and that the door was unlocked, which the family never did after they left the house. Roger and Jack went inside immediately and thought nothing of it as Roger began to make an appointment for prescribing medicine to Jack.

However, in the middle of the night, with Roger and Jack sound asleep, in Jack’s bedroom, a shadow gradually appears before softly tapping on the window. The shadow is quiet after that, but it still remains there.

Lurking in the darkness.

And it waits. 