Revkah stood there in the doorway of her brother's room. The car crash expression on her face made him forget all about the insult he had thought up last night. Lorn was kind of a dick to his big sister, but hey, that's a little brother's prerogative. With seemingly real concern in his delivery, he asked, "Why do you look like your boyfriend died, Sis?"
Suddenly remembering the before-mentioned insult, a boyish sneer crept onto his face, but he decided to save that one for later. He chose instead to roll with the boyfriend angle. "Nope, even worse, huh Sis? He dumped you, didn't he?"
The mischievous little imp rolled back on his bed and began to laugh riotously, but his laughter quickly died. Revkah didn't turn red and swat at him, call him a little turd, or use any of her go-to reactions. She just stood there casting a shadow over the bedroom, staring at the empty hamster cage. Now Lorn really was concerned as he sat up and responded with a puzzled look. He didn't see the blood on her hand or the slight scratch on her face.
He couldn't believe it. His dumb sister had rendered him speechless. Her gaze slowly turned away from the hamster cage and fixed on Lorn. He gulped involuntarily. What the hell was wrong with his sister? Revkah's mouth slowly opened. A tear rolled down her cheek as she blurted out, "I think I killed your hamster!"
Lorn's jaw dropped, "You dumbass, Meatball died like a month ago. You were at the funeral." He threw his pillow at his sister. She deftly caught it and returned it, catching him right in the face. She backed out of the room just as the bewildered boy rushed the door and slammed it shut, missing her face by mere inches. Shaking her head, she turned and stepped into the bathroom between their bedrooms.
She could hear her brother still throwing a fit as she squeezed some toothpaste onto her brush. Revkah liked brushing her teeth. It gave her time to think and right then her thoughts were on the dream she had last night.
She had awoken with the horrible thought that something had been on her face during the night and she had given it a squeeze before flinging it against the wall. The thought of it being a dream died in her head as she noticed the scratch on her face reflected back at her. She dropped her toothbrush in the sink and traced the little red mark with her hand. Another flash of red in the mirror made her open her hand wide. The inside of it was covered in dried blood.
She thrust her hands under the running faucet and scrubbed them vigorously. Revkah couldn't think straight; she didn't want to think. She stared into the mirror and barely recognized herself. Staring back at her was the ghost-white image of a frightened girl.
She took a deep breath, turned off the faucet, and dried her hands. The exercise of washing them brought her back to reality. The girl she knew so well looked back at her from the mirror, wearing the beginnings of a smile. She began to feel silly.
The beginnings of a plan filled her thoughts. "So if it wasn't his stupid hamster, then some other rodent? If I tell my brother what happened, I'm sure he'll help me find wherever it crawled to and get rid of it for me. That little stinker will jump at the task. I see the cage is set up and ready to go for his next victim."
She wasn't sure exactly when the backyard pet funerals her brother always insisted she attend stopped registering in her head, but she figured it was way before Meatball came along. She knew there would be others too. The hamster cage would have a new tenant once he wasn't grounded anymore. It seemed her parents were still going with the failed strategy of giving him everything he wanted to try and make him behave.
She decided to go it alone. It seemed she dreaded handling some dead mouse or whatever it was less than owing her rodent of a brother a favor. Besides, it could be hours before he was calm enough to even look at her. She wasn't going to wait until whatever it was started to stink. She crept into her room and closed the door.
The wall directly across from the foot of her bed immediately drew her attention. She examined the reddish-black splat on the wall. Dried ichor led down the wall to a congealed puddle. She bent down for a closer look.
It looked as though something had thrashed around in the puddle before righting itself. A pair of little red footprints trailed under her bed. Revkah crawled to it and peered into its dark recesses. Countless pairs of angry little eyes stared back at her.
Revkah let out a stifled yelp as the horde of little gray bipeds charged at her. Before she could rise to her knees, they were pulling at her hair, biting at her face, and crawling over every inch of her body. Lorn kicked open the door, sending dozens of the creatures flying. He yelled out his sister's name as more and more of the miniature, neanderthal-looking things rushed out from under the bed.
The floor of the room was nearly engulfed when Lorn made a running leap for the bed. He landed on the bed with a thump and reached down for his sister. More and more of the things poured out as Revkah was inch by inch being pulled under the bed, screaming all the while.
He dropped onto his stomach and reached for his sister's ankles. It was no use, the rest of her slid out of sight. Lorn began to scream like only frightened children can scream as the horrible little blighters rushed over him.
Just then a car alarm next door muffled the children's screams. Their oblivious father was outside washing his car when the sudden blaring noise startled him out of his blissful daze. He looked towards the neighbor's driveway as something small ran out from under the car and dashed into the bushes. He tossed his sponge into the bucket of sudsy water with an annoyed grunt and headed across the lawn to tell Bill to turn his damn car alarm off.
The things rallied together, communicating with grunts and gestures, and pushed the door shut. One of them made a dashing leap from the dresser and bounced off the doorknob. Two more made the attempt until finally, one stuck the landing. Clenching its mangled hands into fists, it swung its arms down and with a great whack, engaged the push-button lock.
Lorn could no longer feel the violent thumping under the bed. A torrent of tears ran down his face as he laid there on his stomach. He was firmly held to the bed by some kind of binding. His outstretched arms were tied to the foot of the bed.
Two of the things shoved a sock in his mouth as two more propelled down from his head. They worked in perfect unison as they handed off from one to the next, some sort of long thick twine. Just as they were finishing tying off the brown, black, and gray colored rope that held the sock in place, Lorn realized what it was. It was thousands of intertwined strands of their hair.
A few seconds later, one of the little wild men appeared in front of Lorn. It was more grizzled and bent than the others with just a few wisps of gray hair hanging down from its bald head. Its entire body from the neck down was covered in a thin gray fuzz. It menacingly glared right into the frightened little boy's eyes and began to dance around in a tight circle, waving an old gnarled pencil clutched in both its hands.
Finally, it stopped, pulled something foul-smelling from its armpit, and inhaled deeply of the putrid funk. Suddenly, its eyes turned a hazy black. It straightened up its back and, clutching the pencil in one hand, snapped it in half with a squeeze. Several others crowded around their leader and Lorn saw the same crazy black glare in their eyes.
The gray one let out a loud cry and then jammed the foul-smelling stuff into the bound kid's nose. Lorn felt the urge to sneeze, but passed out a second later, stifling it. All-in-all, it took the army of little bent, wild man-things less than three minutes to subdue both the children.
With the jarring car alarm squelched, Jerry headed back to his car. Walking across the lawn, he wondered why he couldn't hear Jim Morrison singing about dead Indians or something of the sort. He peered into his car and noticed his keys weren't in the ignition. He didn't see his cell phone either.
"Now, I know I left it on the seat. That damn kid's not supposed to leave his room. If this is another one of his pranks, I'm going to have to reconsider spanking the little shit." He headed to the front door and knocked loudly, waited a few seconds, then banged on the door several more times. Now, he was pissed!
He headed around to the back patio muttering under his breath about just how much shit he was going to rain down on his misbehaving son. He grabbed the handle of the sliding glass door and pulled to no avail. He considered his options and decided to go back to washing the car.
The whole neighborhood knew what a little jerk his son could be, but that didn't stop them from giving him judgmental looks every time his son brought him to a frothing rage. It's not like he'd ever actually hit his son. Lorn was just good at pushing his buttons. He headed back around to the front of the house. "Nancy will be home soon and then we can tell the little shit together just how much longer he's grounded for."
About twenty minutes later, Nancy pulled into the drive. She climbed out of the car with two blue plastic bags filled with the ingredients for dinner. Jerry was rinsing his car off. "Leave it in the drive, Hon. It could use a wash. Oh yeah, you want to tell your son he's grounded for two more weeks? I'll tell you about it later," he told his wife.
She shrugged her shoulders and carried the bags to the door. Upon realizing the door was locked, it dawned on her why Jerry was pissed at Lorn. She let herself in and walked across the foyer towards the kitchen. She noticed what she assumed was a spider web across the opening to the kitchen just a split second before the razor-sharp wire opened up her throat.
Jerry heard a crash and ran for the front door. Rushing into the house, he saw his wife lying in an ever-growing puddle of blood, spaghetti sauce, and shards of glass. He turned toward her as he felt something land on his head. A second later something slid down his forehead and clutched at his nose. He smelled something awful and then crashed to the floor.
Dozens of the little creeps hiding behind the door pushed in unison. His eyelids slipped down over his eyes as the door shut out the rest of the world. The last sound Jerry heard was the ka-chunk of the deadbolt sliding into place.
About an hour later, Bill closed his front door and walked to his jeep. He noticed his dumbass neighbor had left his hose running. Being the good neighbor he was, he walked across the lawn. Following the hose to the spigot, he turned it off and headed back towards his driveway.
He muttered under his breath, "Washing his car when he should be mowing his damn lawn. Why they don't make that menace of a son mow the lawn, I'll never understand. I mowed the lawn when I was his age."
Bill pulled the top down and then climbed into his jeep. "What a nice day for a drive in the park," he thought. "Certainly too nice to be closed up inside."