The Pale Creature

As moonlight gently danced around the city of Clarksville, Kentucky, the fog grows ever closer to the town square. We enter a mildly dilapidated home, where an aspiring author sits at his dusty table, tapping away at his Macbook, hoping to get the attention of a publisher. The wind blows through the window, shaking the dull grey curtains hanging like bats. The silence is agonizing. The only thing heard through the dining room is frantic backspacing.

But then, something else chipped in to add to the noise. A creak. “Maybe it’s just my roommate. He does get thirsty before bed,” the author thought. But the noise came closer and close to him. The wooden floorboards screeching closer with every minute. “This house is fairly old. I shouldn’t be worrying. I have to focus on writing.”

The wind stopped, but it felt as if the air around him got colder. He swore he felt hot, moist breath on his neck. The creaks grew closer and louder. He didn’t dare touch the lightswitch in fear of who or what was behind him. Soft groans came from both sides of his ear. Sounds of a liquid dripping echoed from behind the chair he sat in. Cold sweat dripped from his wrinkled forehead, splashing onto the home row keys. He nervously looked to his right, seeing a long pair of dirty claws pecking at his wall. Quickly he turned back.

“Jonathan,” the voice breathed onto the hairs of his neck. Jon winced at the sound of the rough and phlegm-filled voice. He looked at a single finger touching the table next to his mouse. His stomach gurgled with uneasiness, causing bile to rise from his throat. He quickly swallowed it and asked, with the biggest feeling of anxiety in his voice.

“W-What… what are you…?”

“I am the monster that hides under your bed, in your closet, and in the darkness of your room. The thing children see in their bad dreams. Little do they know, I always wait for them. The one day they’re caught off guard and forget their childhood fears. That’s when I strike. I’ve known you forever Jonathan. Every time your night light went out was me removing the bulbs.”

Warm tears ran down Jon’s face. Mucus covering his upper lip. The disgustingly slender finger wiped his eyes. “Jonathan my dear boy, don’t cry. It’s okay. You won’t have to worry again,” the creature spoke, hot breath ever so prevalent. Jon felt a tongue lick every corner of his outer ear. He sobbed even harder. The pungent odor of its breath causing chunks of vomit to spill onto Jon's shirt. “It’s time Jonathan. Don’t weep, my friend. I’m saving you from the horrors of Earth. Poverty, illness, death, war. A man of your strength doesn’t deserve anything such as that,” the creature hissed into both ears.

The monster spun the chair 180° to face Jon. He was greeted with a pale creature that looked around 7’2. The claws about a forearm long, caked with dirt and dried blood. It had no muscle or organs to be seen, causing the ribs to be easily seen. The mouth painted a dark crimson with blunt, eerily human teeth. Two rows per jaw. The eyes pure white orbs sunken in its skull. Staring into them for too long could drive the most empty man insane.

It unhinged its jaw and inserted Jon and the chair into its cavernous mouth. While being crushed to death with disgusting human molars Jon came to his senses and remembered something.

He never had a roommate.

--

The police arrived in the scene with complaints from neighbors of 312th st. of screams of pain and crushing that could only come from bones. When using a battering ram to get through the locked door, the house was empty, but a horrifying scene painted the dining room. Blood had been soaked into the wooden floorboards. A large intestine dangling over a now crushed wooden seat. A Mac sat on the table, coated in a sticky red substance. The most confusing part of it all was that lack of a visible corpse. It seemed there was none. The last thing one of the officers had seen at that house was a pair of beady white eyes staring into his soul in the middle of the trees behind the home, before disappearing into the night, leaving a single finger and crunched dead leaves behind.