Page 59 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

Wanting to deny my stalker the benefit of a dramatic
entrance, I seized the ghastly bed and sent it crashing into
the wall. Beneath lay a trap door, leaking cold air and
laughter. Again, I would spare the nightmare none of its
props and fetishes. I tore the door from its moorings and sent
it to join the ruins of the bed. The stink of graveyard rot and
old death drifted from the gaping hole, attempting to engulf
me. Within moments, my killing thoughts crushed them of
their ambitions and their corpses joined the dead silence that
dripped from my shadow-haunted body. I stood at the edge
of the hole, smiling as I spoke into the darkness. “Soon, I
will wear your flowing skin, my dreadful friend. I will smile
from the dark hollows that once held your face.”
The footsteps were close now. I could hear only the
coldest quiet where once there was laughter. A voice the
size of the room exploded through the hole, sending me
flying backward into the pile of debris I had created. “Oh,
what bravado! What teeth! What spirit! I shall fill you with
visions so fat and foul you will weep fire! But first, your soul
will travel with me, under all the beds in the world, through
every closet, and down where the whispers crawl upon you
like spiders, where the darkness tastes you with a thousand
terrible tongues!”
The near-solid words broke off, filling the room with
an equally palpable stillness. Finally, and with a sort of
comedic stumbling, rose a great shape. The thing was
massive and ridiculous, like some infant devil’s plaything.
It was candy-striped and bug-eyed. A grinning hatch filled
with mismatched teeth served as its mouth, and each of its
movements were dramatically over-emphasized. It smiled at
me with so much sweetness, my mouth filled with the taste
of sugar.
Though difficult, I suppressed the impulse to laugh. “I
think I will miss your whimsical smile the most, creature.
I will think of it from time to time, long after you’re dead.”

62 | Mark Anzalone