I'll be posting more often, ideally every day.
I'll also be posting some things, like my writing and photography, on my Tumblr blog. If you're interested in my personality, that's the place to go. Check it out here.
I picked up the next edition of Ian Doescher's "William Shakespeare's Star Wars," which I'll be reviewing shortly.
Being honest, I've been busy getting everything squared away down in PA (registration and inspection, that sort of thing) and just tired from work. I just need to get in the habit of updating this as frequently as my Tumblr blog and things will be swell.
Here's a quick short story I wrote the other night...still working on it.
It was the room with the closet. The rest of the house was fine, but it was that room that I couldn’t go in again. I finished moving in without stepping inside it. Once was enough. When the relator gave me the tour, she stayed outside in the hallway, and said, “That’s the room with the closet.”
The blind cat sat and cried at the closet door. It was a stray I found outside the house, a scrappy, worn little thing, with two slits where eyes once saw and followed birds in trees and mice in storm drains. It’s loss of sight was countered by the powerful voice it had, for hours on end, a terrible moan that sounds like distress. The vet insisted it was, “Just a way of warming up to you.” I tried keeping the door to the room shut, but she’d scratch at, taking the paint off, it until I let her in. Without eyes, it knew where the closet was.
They were a team of wanna-be ghost hunters, the kind who bring thousands of dollars of video equipment into a old house and run around screaming for 40 minutes for a show on late night tv. I got ahold of them through an old friend, who insisted I have the cat or the closet or both checked out.
They called themselves paranormal investigators, but when they saw the cat and the closet from outside the room, they grew sullen, somehow knowing they were stepping into territory they had never witnessed before—something real. One of them managed, “Paul, you appear to be a victim of a haunting.” Another tried calling the cat, but it stayed put, defiant. The host, attractive woman with black hair, tried letting her Labrador in, hoping the cat would hide away in a distant corner, the golden wouldn’t come in. He whined and barked, backing away from the front door, never letting his tail face the house.
I let the team run around the house for an hour or two while I sat outside in the tepid spring night, figuring they’d hold true to their promise of reimbursement, which was at least enough for a new computer, though they were never clear with exact numbers. But I would have my house and all my worthless shit inside televised nation-wide, so I decided, why not, let them do it. Maybe they’ll make the cat stop.
When what seemed like three hours had passed, and the running and dramatic screaming had stopped, I gave myself the o.k. to check up on them, since it was getting late and bed was calling me.
They were waiting for me in the parlor, well, most of them at least. I flicked the lights, but they were out, a common ploy for the show, but I could see at least three of the five, sitting on the couch, wearing all black.
I waved, and got no response.
"Hey." Nothing.
The cat started meowing upstairs, the howls bouncing off the empty walls of a poor man’s house. I took out my phone, turned on the flash bulb, and shone it towards the couch.
Dried blood streaked across their face from the corners of their eyes. They were still, too still. I knew they were dead, and that I needed to move, go somewhere else, call for help, but I stayed and studied their faces, how the blood molded to the features of their skin.
I kept the flash on, but moved the phone downward so I could call for help. I must have stood staring at the corpses for longer than I thought, because the flash suddenly cut off, and the screen went black. The phone slipped from my hands as I felt for furniture to help me stand while my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
The cat’s howls turned to a fury of shrieks, just like it were in a fight with another cat. I looked up towards the stairs, as if I would be able to see what was happening through the walls. It only grew louder, and louder, until my ears began to ring. I took a step forward, still feeling my way along the wall deciding to go upstairs and try to calm the cat.
The cat’s screams reached a climax and ceased. I stopped. In the newfound silence, I heard something from the couch, a small rustle of fabric.
Their eyes were open, wide and white, transfixed on me.
I bolted at the door, slipping around the corner. The stairs, now in front of me, seemed twice as long as they had been, stretching beyond what should have been the height of the house, but that too had grown.
They were standing up now, necks impossibly turned towards me. Their bodies revolved to face me while their heads stayed still as stone.
I bolted up the stairs, skipping a step as I went, pulling on the railing to propel myself farther. I could hear them behind me, a stampede of footsteps. I was losing ground.
As I neared the top, I could feel their breath, the cold sending a stiffness down my neck that spread down the length of my spine.
I plateaued at the balcony. They stopped directly behind me, looking through me at the door which led to the closet.
The cat began meowing again, slow and quiet, a mere moan, even compared to the usual.
At the end of the hall was my bedroom, hardly visible in the black, and I somehow knew the other two members of the team lurked in the shadows on the other side of my door. I heard the door open and close, open and close, although I could not see if it were truly happening.
I tried the light switch for the hallway light. The single bulb came on, but it was only a dim glow in strength, keeping the corners enveloped in darkness. The door was opening and closing by itself, and I stood there, transfixed by the magic, unable to stop looking. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, I could not see what lie beyond the door in the brief seconds it was open.
Open, close, open, close, open, close. The cat kept crying. Open, close, open, close, open. It stayed open, and I took a step closer, still squinting.
One of the other members of the crew inched sideways from the right side of the door, not stepping, but sliding, facing me the whole time. His eyes were wide like the others, blood fresh and dripping off his face. He kept gliding along the floor, moving to the left until he was out of view. The door swung shut, quicker than it had before, but made no sound.
I listened to my breath and the cat, who, as if to match me, relaxed to a whimper.
The door opened with the bang that should have been paired with the close, and the man appeared not two feet in front of me. Another came sprinting from the bedroom, who had the black hair of the female host hung over her face.
I almost fell backwards, hands flailing, finding the doorknob that led into the room with the closet. The others still stood on the edge of the stairs. I turned to open the door, the slap of bare feet hitting wood floor coming from the hallway. The door opened, and as I went into the room with the closet, I spun around to face the door again, ensuring that it was shut.
The cat went silent. I dared not face the room with the closet. I hadn’t been in the room since I moved in and left it empty, but even without looking I knew it was different, that it had changed into something new.
I hesitated, but eventually swung around, hand still on the knob.
The cat was on the standing on the ceiling, upside down. It’s tail was a huge poof of fur. It was right in front of the closet door, which extended all the way to the ceiling. The cat paid me no notice.
The room itself was just as empty as before, with no apparent changes, but I still knew something was different. I took my hand off the knob and stepped forward, towards the closet.
The huge door inched open, showing only a small, black slit. I stopped. It opened an inch more, and then another inch, although I still could not see inside.
From the closet, and deep, wretched voice said, “Bring me more.”
