Angler Man

I watched my mother and father pull out of the driveway through our large living room window, waving shamelessly and smiling to them as they left. I turned and sighed to myself, the fake smile quickly leaving my face. It was about time I got this house to myself, I’d been living in it for sixteen years and they hadn’t even trusted it with me for more than a few hours at a time. Living in a suburb in Nova Scotia, just about the friendliest place of the already well known friendly Canada, and they can’t trust a straight arrow like me with the house for a day. That is, until now, a legitimate smile now christening my cheeks. Finally I had a full day and night to myself, just me, my Xbox, and a shit ton of junk food. I was planning on living with diabetes by the end of the endeavor. I turned away from the window, knowing exactly what my plan of action was. It was, of course, to take my Xbox from my TV in my room, to the larger one in the living room. As I passed by the kitchen I caught a glance at the large bowl of fruit my mother always insisted keeping full. She thought it gave the family a healthier vibe. I scoffed at the idea of needing a bowl of anything other than chips, and emptied the entire thing into the garbage, a simple, but meaningful, symbolic victory for my independence. I settled in, starting my day off with some Halo, and letting my iTunes library blare into my ears at a level that certainly wasn’t called for with the already loud TV. But, after a few hours of playing, something caught my eye. In the reflection of the TV I could’ve sworn I saw something move in my kitchen. I focused in on the spot on the TV for a second, of course trying to see if I could see it again, before a loud bang shot throughout the living room. “Shit.” I mumbled under my breath, my killing spree was abruptly ended by a combination of distraction, and an enemy sniper. I quickly, took note of his gamertag and put him on my list for a good teabagging later. Before too long I got tired of the colorful explosions flashing on the screen, and noting the time, just after midnight, I figured I’d call it an early night, get a good early start at doing whatever the hell I wanted tomorrow. I retired to my bed just down the hallway, stripping down to my boxers as I walked, throwing my clothes into the hamper as I passed it. I hopped into bed intent on getting some rest and giving my eyes a break from the trauma I put them through while they were locked on a screen for hours on end. It wasn’t long after I had my lights were off and my eyes were shut however, that I heard a quiet wheezing coming from behind my closed door. I tried to chalk up the sound to my overactive imagination, or maybe I had left something on out in the living room that was still making sounds, but the noise was clear enough that neither of those explanations won me over. I don’t know if it was the noise getting louder, or if I was just listening closer, but the wheezing definitely became more pronounced. And as it got clearer, it quickened as well.

Now, I don’t care how active my imagination is, but every night I thought I heard something in my closet, or under my bed, I was never as frightened as I was as I heard that sound. My heart was pounding, as I stared at my door handle, praying that whoever was making that sound, wasn’t brave enough to enter. After a few agonizingly slow minutes, the noise slowly started to quiet back down, or so I thought for the first few seconds. As the sound lessened, it was accompanied by a quiet shuffling sound, and it was made apparent to me that whoever was on the other side of my door, wasn’t calming down, they were just sulking back into the shadows of my home.

I didn’t sleep that night, not a wink. I don’t think anyone could after hearing what I did. There was the rare time I took my eyes off of my door just to keep from driving myself insane, but before long they were trained right back on the door knob. It’s strange how the first sunlight I saw affected my mindset. Suddenly things became a less tense in my mind, even though in hindsight it really shouldn’t have. I sighed a deep, deep sigh and grabbed my cellphone; 2% battery, fantastic. The first number I dialed was my fathers. Even though it was barely 6 o’clock in the morning my father greeted my with an, albeit groggy hello.

“Dad!” I whispered in hushed hysterics.

“…hunh?” He responded slowly, obviously still very much asleep. “Dad, there is someone in this fucking house. I mean it.” I said sternly behind clenched teeth. “You were up all night reading those stories again…what time is it…Christ, get some sleep.” Suddenly I heard a bang rebound throughout the house from the kitchen, every hair on the back of my neck snapped to fucking attention. “Right there! Did you fucking hear that!?” I berated him, hoping somehow my phone had picked up the crash. He let out a heavy sigh. He mumbled. “Get some rest.” Before hanging up.

A wave of despair washed over me. I could call him again in a few hours, but all I would get is a speech about how it wasn’t right to leave me home alone if I was going to get so scared. I wished they hadn’t left at this point. It was only six in the morning, and they weren’t due back until 8 pm. I was pretty fucked in one of two ways really. One, whoever was tearing up my house up there would come in and do whatever random murderers do, or, I was stuck in this room staring at my door for fourteen hours. I was really regretting not calling the cops with that 2% I had left. I didn’t move for a very long time. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon before I finally gained the courage to creep off of my bed, reasoning that whoever was in the house must have left by now seeing as I hadn’t heard anything else. I felt like I was walking on broken glass, it stood to reason in my terrified mind that one errant creak in the floorboards would send the assailant into a wild frenzy of murderous rage. I opened my door very slowly, peeking out more and more as my door opened wider. I found nothing out of the ordinary in the hallway, other than the fruit bowl sitting upside down in the center of it. I suddenly saw one of the home phones sitting on its holster at the far end of the living room, my key to salvation. I darted for it, before finally seeing what was in my house standing in my kitchen to my left, its eyes locked on me. People say life isn’t just black and white. And sure, they’re right in some respects, I mean; every asshole has to have some redeeming quality. Not all Rottweiler’s are ticking time bombs, right? Gray areas. But then, there are some things that are black and white. This was not a “Gray” moment. This was black, utterly terrifying in every sense of the word, no gray areas about it. This…person, for lack of a better term, looked at me. It had all the characteristics of a human, but they were all wrong, in my shocked stupor I got a good look at it. It was only, at my best guess five feet tall, but it was much wider than he should have been, probably about half as wide as it was tall, it’s proportions were all wrong. Not to mention it’s head. It was massive compared to its otherwise frail looking body, easily reaching its shoulders width wise and coming down to its mid torso length wise.

The limbs looked weak though, its arms were much too short and skinny, to have any power behind them, and its legs were far too short and spindly as well. Its pure black eyes were far, far too small for its huge face and were dragged down by the heavy bags under them, and weren’t complimented well by the few wisps hairs on its head. But its most striking, and terrifying attribute was its massive jaw and teeth. The jaw was proportional to the head surprisingly, which made it huge, but the teeth didn’t make sense. In its huge gaping smile I could only see about twelve teeth in total, there were huge gaps in between them, and each one, both top and bottom were, in my guess about twice as long as my middle finger. You would think them frail, but I wasn’t interested in finding out. It wheezed loudly as it looked at me, tracking my motionless body with its tiny eyes. It looked tired, lethargic even. I choked down some saliva, before I noticed it shift its weight forward, and that was all I needed to snap out of my shock and send my sprinting back down the hallway, it followed quickly, thundering footsteps were close behind me the whole way, it was so much faster than it looked like it could be. I slammed my door behind me and slammed myself up against my door, only having one huge push from the monster before I could shut it completely and press myself against it as hard as I could. It didn’t push back after it ran into the door, but, it didn’t retreat. As I held myself against the door I heard the same wheezing I did the night before but this time much more angry and aggressive. It was as if whatever it was had its huge forehead pressed up against the door and was just…waiting. I swore under my breath a few times. I was pretty fucked, trapped in my room with Mr. fucking long jaw out there. It was only a few more hours until my parents got home though, and they could do something about it. Or could they, this was the most menacing thing I had even physically seen. What if they were just too shocked and they were mauled before they could do anything. Even though I knew my parents could be walking in to a deathtrap, I didn’t move. I made no heroic efforts to try and hurt it, or remove it from the house. I just stood there, my weight slouched against the door in a wide eyed genuine terror as it wheezed through the door. And so began another long stretch of time where I remained still, locked in a stalemate with my new housemate. I glanced over to my digital clock every now and then as time crawled by. At the time of 6:46 the glorious sound of my parents stations wagon pulling into the driveway filled my ears. And with it, the wheezing stopped. Suddenly I heard its booming steps run away from my door and back towards the kitchen before they abruptly stopped. ‘It’s waiting for them.’- my only thought. As I heard the screen door open a great and powerful urge hit me to help them, I needed to, they were my parents. I violently ripped my door open, and ran down the hallway. I was met with a surprise, my parents calmly and quietly putting their things down, the creature nowhere in sight. As my father went back out to the car, my mother looked towards me and smiled a motherly smile, before she very visibly tensed up and my heart jumped to my throat. She slowly walked behind me and picked up the fruit bowl resting on the ground. Without a word she went to the fridge and began to fill it back up, looking back towards me now with a very…uneasy smile.