Sohum's Stories

WARNING: THIS IS A HORROR STORY. IF THAT SORT OF THING ISN’T YOUR CUP OF TEA, CONSIDER NOT READING THIS STORY. THIS STORY WILL COME OUT IN THREE CHAPTERS.

Part 1

The day I left my young son Carson for the parent-teacher conference, I returned with my life never the same.

The conference was as normal as any other, Carson did well in PE, decent in math, and so on and so forth.

But when Jay (Carson’s father) and I returned, we found Carson unconscious, tied up to a chair, splattered with blood, and the family dog was missing. It was at the dead of night, so it was understandable no one saw anything.

Luckily, Carson wasn’t dead, just knocked out. We quickly reported this anomaly to the police, who did an investigation as soon as they arrived.

We were interrogated. The schoolteacher and other parents at the conference confirmed we were there and couldn’t have done the impudent deed.

Carson was interrogated. Nothing made him open his mouth, no matter how hard we tried. The most he could do was mutter “The closet… the window…” over and over.

The police checked the closets, looking for clues, and found a gooey, black liquid. Then, they checked outside the bedroom window and found Coco, the family dog on the sidewalk outside.

It seemed as though the movie “Inside Out” had been made quite literal about her, because she was inside out. We couldn’t tell what had killed her, and the only clue was that horrid black stuff.

When the police drove us back to our house, the house next to ours was nearly completely gone. All that was left was a pile of ash, rubble, and the black stuff. Our neighbors were nowhere to be found.

Jay, Carson, and I got ready to sleep. It took Carson a while because he refused to brush, put on his pajamas, or get into bed.

“Lindsey, I’m not sure what has happened. This oddity seems almost… otherworldly,” Jay told me under his breath.

“Well, that’s not possible, I hope,” I replied. “Let’s go to bed. We can discuss more in the morning.”

It took Jay and I a while to get to bed. We cried ourselves to sleep over Coco’s death. At least we could sleep, because Carson was up whispering “The dog… The sky…” all night.

We woke up to find Carson gone. We looked all over the house until Jay spotted him outside in the backyard. Somehow, he was in possession of Coco’s corpse.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to take Coco back from the station,” Jay said through gritted teeth.

“So did I,” I sighed. “Carson, sweetie, could you please put the dog’s body down?”

When Carson spotted us, he bared his teeth and hissed. Then, he threw the dog into the sky.

The dog suddenly folded and bent, with a cracking and squirming noise. It was Coco, in the state she was in before… well, you know what.

The dog stared at us for a couple seconds, before she opened her mouth. Her gums and teeth, which looked like a sabertooth’s at this point, expanded, and Coco bit Jay’s legs off.

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the butcher’s knife. Quickly, I ran back out and threw it at the creature. Clearly, it wasn’t Coco anymore.

The creature’s neck now had a massive dent in it. However, it still wasn’t dead.

It pained me greatly to kill a pet, in fact, a family member I’ve known for more than ten years, but I realized that what I was killing was not Coco. Coco was already dead.

I sliced the butcher’s knife over and over against the creature’s body until there was only a fleshy, bloody pulp.

I ran over to Jay. His eyes were blank and open, and his mouth was a big, lopsided “O”. Jay, my first – and last – love, was dead.

I didn’t have time to mourn my losses, though. Carson was still alive. He looked at me eerily, opening his eyes wider and wider until they were practically bulging out like a bug’s eyes.

Carson twisted his head all the way around. I don’t mean like an owl, twisting the neck all the way around, I mean his head was upside down while everything else was the right way.

He stretched his body into strange ways until there was a disgusting, creature with a bug-eyed face, skinny arms and legs, three claws on his feet and toes, and bones on the outside. It was abnormally large.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” he asked me, in a distorted voice. I could hear a voice crack, like the sound of english was strained on his vocal chords. If I listened intently, I could hear gargling from the back of his throat. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

I was paralyzed with shock, until I heard the clang of a garbage can hitting the cement road.

“Hey!” cried my other neighbor, Mrs. Wilson. “Pick on someone your own size!” She winked at me, signaling for me to run.

The Carson-Creature crawled after Mrs. Wilson. “I didn’t mean me!” she yelled.

Mrs. Wilson locked herself in her house as I ran. If I strained my ears, I could still notice the scritch scratch of the Carson-Creature’s nails on the door.

I ran and ran until I couldn’t jog anymore. I found myself at the police station.

I went inside and they assigned me to their highest officer, Officer Brown. They told me to tell him my story.

The officer clearly couldn’t grasp the amount of pain this brought me.

He smirked, like he thought I was insane.

“Now, why don’t I take you to a nice place. It’s just in this white roo-“

I knew where this was going.

I ran out of the room, knowing that nowhere is safe anymore. I couldn’t trust anyone to help me anymore.

I rushed out of the station, frightened and unaware of what will happen next.

I ran to the neighborhood park and sat on the bench. I cried and cried. I cried for my dead husband. I cried for my corrupted dog. I cried for my son – whatever happened to him.

I cried until my body was physically incapable of crying anymore. I stood up and saw a girl under a tree, cowering in a cannonball shape.

When she saw me, she stood up, looked at me and stared.

“You shouldn’t be here.” she said, growling.

Then she let out a blood-curling screech.

To be continued…