#FictionFriday A Real Eye Opener

A Real Eye Opener

On the footrest, his grandpa’s feet were pointing up like black rabbit ears, so Bobby knew the faded, dull orange La-Z-Boy was fully reclined, even before he came fully around the corner. Approaching the living room, he slowed to a tiptoe. He wanted to give the old guy a little scare, something his grandpa loved to do to him—pay backs are a rare opportunity not to be squandered.
Grinning and slinking across the hardboards, he kicked a pop can, sending caramel-colored liquid spinning around the floor. The aluminum can came to a stop under the coffee table.
Confused and worried he was in trouble, he called off the surprise attack. “Grandpa, you dropped your pop!”
The man’s frail arm was extended like a hairy diving board, out over the armrest, which was faded down to the foam padding in a long oval shape.
The old man, staring at the TV that wasn’t even on, didn’t answer.
Bobby leaned closer to repeat himself. The man’s eyes were sunken deep into wrinkled skin, centered under nests of gray hair. His mouth was hanging open, but he wasn’t snoring. Bobby tried to rouse him. “Grandpa, wake up!”
He gently shook his shoulder and it didn’t feel right. Instead of being soft, the flesh was hard. The boy screamed.
Bobby spent the remainder of the afternoon huddled in a corner, behind a large table lamp watching the medics package his grandpa up and wheel him out of the house. He loved his grandpa very much and felt guilty for scaring him to death. He didn’t dare tell his mom and dad how he felt because he wasn’t sure what they would do if they discovered he was responsible.
By nightfall, he decided to hop on his bike and visit one of his friends.
*
Two days later, his mom announced that that is was time for the visitation. Bobby, being the grown up little 10-year-old man that he was, wore a black suit and navy blue tie, one tiny wrist adorned with his grandfather’s huge golden wristwatch.
When they entered the funeral home, two things struck Bobby: everyone was quiet and he felt sick to his stomach. A slender man in a charcoal suit smiled politely and motioned them to the front.
As they made their way up the isle, many people hugged his mom, offering their condolences. People Bobby didn’t know were pressing their warm bodies against him, telling him it would be okay and to be brave. The sympathy of distant relatives—strangers really—didn’t help.
Bobby had killed his grandpa, how would a hug help?
The space between the front row of chairs and the casket was like a massive canyon. A canyon filled with flowers that instead of being bright and happy, more closely resembled coiled vipers waiting to sink their poison in anyone that crossed the chasm.
However, the casket loomed just ten feet away and his grandpa was in their waiting for him.
His mom wanted him to say goodbye, but said he didn’t have to if he was uncomfortable.
Bobby didn’t want to so his dad found him a seat while his mom went up to pay her respects.
When she returned, her eyes were all red again and she was sobbing into his dad’s chest. She sniffled and hugged bobby after she was done.
“Mom, I think I want to say goodbye to grandpa.” He couldn’t believe he was changing his mind, but the feeling was overwhelming. He couldn’t imagine never seeing him again. How bad could it be?
His mom’s brother, a large round man with bushy red hair sitting next to them offered to escort him up to see his grandfather.
The many flowers were arranged like a tunnel, leading up to the casket. Bobby made his way up to the front, taking a deep breath as he ran his hand along the highly polished wood. Ivory satin, puffy like pillows, covered the inside of the open lid.
He stared at the soft fabric until he was ready to look down.
His shoulders sagged as relief washed over him. He didn’t look that bad. A nice gray suit and red tie, hand folded neatly over his stomach. The stubble from his checks was neatly shaved away; even the shaggy brows were trimmed.
His closed eyes made him look as if he were sleeping.
A tear ran down Bobby’s face. It was his grandpa for sure, but somehow, just the same, it wasn’t quite him. It was almost him. As he took a deep breath, the familiar fragrance of his grandpa’s aftershave and cologne drifted up from the bed.
“Why are his eyes closed, Uncle Tom?”
“It makes him look peaceful, don’t you think?”
Bobby shrugged.
“Besides,” his chubby uncle leaned in real close, whispering in his ear. “If you look into a dead person’s eyes, they can take you down with them!”
Bobby gasped and ran back to his mom as fast as he could. Upon hearing the news, his mom scowled at her brother and cuddled her son while cried.
“Is that true, mom?”
“Of course not, that’s just an old wives’ tale.” She stroked his hair. “Don’t listen to your uncle.”
But Bobby peaked out from under his mom’s arm, staring at the open casket. He wasn’t convinced and he didn’t know why. He was terrified, yet wanted to know for sure.
Bobby slipped away from his mother and mustered the courage to approach the casket. The boy stared at the eyelids.
“You there, grandpa?” he whispered, looking back at his parents. They were busy chatting with people he didn’t know.
He reached his tiny hand up to his grandpa’s eyes, his fingers trembling. He touched one eye and quickly pulled away. It was cold and hard. Glancing back again, but no one had still noticed his absence.
He fingered one eyelid and pushed upward on the skin, shriveling it a bit, but the eye remained closed. What am I doing up here?
Desperate to flee, but instead he found himself tugging on the eyelid. It would not open. He was about to give up when he heard a small pop. Heart thudding, he saw one edge had lifted slightly. There was a thick bead of something clear under the edge of the eye, reminding him of glue.
Gross.
Using two fingers, he peeled the eyelid back until it flipped open. One hazel eye was staring up at the ceiling. Bobby jumped back, knocking into some tall flowers on a tripod. He caught the greenery before it crashed to the ground.
Bobby leaned over the edge of the casket, staring at the single open eye. It was glazed over and cloudy, but he could tell it was his grandpa. He reached for the other eye, knowing it would be difficult to get the mortician’s adhesive unstuck.
He managed to peel it back much more easily this time. It rolled open slowly like opening a can of sardines.
“Hi, Grandpa!” He cried, looking down at his beloved friend.
The cadaver continued to gaze at the ceiling.
“Sorry if I scared you,” he sniffled.
The frozen eyes suddenly shifted down to met Bobby’s stare. He yelped, stumbling forward sending his hands onto his grandpa’s chest.
He tried to pull out of the casket but his efforts only seemed to drown him deeper into the coffin. Horrified, he watched the mouth rip open, snapping hidden black threads that tore the lips into worm-like ribbons.
Grandpa’s old wrinkled hands slithered around the boy’s throat and squeezed.
Bobby screamed but the fingers pressing into his neck cut off his cry.
He tried to wiggle out of the cushion box.
His grandpa’s grinning mouth stretched open and flashed before Bobby’s eyes, revealing huge fangs, as the casket lid fell closed with a muffled thud.

Erik Gustafson
Word count 1310

#FridayFlash The Order of the Cat

The Order of the Cat

Gravel crunched under the wheels of the blue Saturn as it pulled away from the stop sign, turning left down another unpaved road. In the nearly empty field, a massive harvester stood motionless like a lone sentry.
“I don’t think these back roads are saving us any time.” Jessica said, her blond hair falling over her face as she texted back and forth with one of her friends.
“We’ll be fine.” The man took a long drag off a cigarette and blew the smoke sideways out a partially rolled down window. “I bet the highway is only a couple more miles down this road.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, you could look it up on the map and see.”
Lisa grunted but kept typing on her phone.
“Where is Felis?”
“What?”
“That sign said we were in Felis.”
Jessica looked out the window, as if the sign would still be there, but the cleanly cut golden fields and blue sky were all she saw. Dropping the cell between her legs, she opened the glove box to grab the map. She unfolded the pamphlet, draping it across her legs and the dashboard. “Where are we?”
“Come on, Lisa.” He slowed as they approached the town, passing a towering grain elevator, streaked with orange rust and then a dirty building with dark windows that looked like eyes. Hanging off the screen door was a dull mustard colored sign that read “Floyd’s Guns”.
From the rambling overgrown grass in front of the building, a large black cat darted out onto the road.
Lisa screamed. “Look out, Marc!”
Marc saw the black blur out of the corner of his eye and swerved. The cat vanished from view under the hood.
“Did you hit it?”
“Stupid cat.” Marc felt his heart beating. He glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing a long black lump in the road, not moving. “Nope.”
She started to turn around, but Marc spoke up. “So, where are we exactly?”
The car rolled past a tiny, unmarked gas station with a single island. From what Marc could see, the pumps didn’t even accept plastic. He glanced down at the needle still sitting at over half full then shifted his eyes to the rearview mirror again, hoping the cat had shook it off and wandered away—instead he saw whirling sirens. “Shit.”
“Now what?”
“Cops.” Marc looked at the police car again. “I’m not speeding.”
Marc came to a stop and rolled down his window, warm wind blew inside the car. Across the street a large church, neatly painted white, sat at the top of a short hill. He turned his attention to the approaching officer, in his side view mirror.
“Howdy officer, was I speeding?”
“No sir, you were not.” Not leaning down at all, Marc could only see his high gloss utility belt and pressed tan pants. “Please step out of the vehicle, sir.”
Marc looked over at Lisa but complied. “What’s the problem?”
On the street, he faced the officer. He was much taller than Marc with broad shoulders and wore mirrored sunglasses and a Smokey the bear hat. Marc stepped away from him.
“Sir, be careful of traffic.”
“Oh.” He moved closer to his car, feeling the wind all around him.
“The problem is that you ran over a cat back there.”
“You said you missed it!” Lisa’s voice shrilled from inside the car. Her door swung open.
“Stay in the vehicle, ma’am.”
Down the road, Marc could see an ambulance and two men, dressed in white, kneeling. What the hell?
“You called an ambulance for a cat?”
“Place your hands on your vehicle, please.”
“What?”
Lisa emerged from the car, her face red with panic. “What are you doing to him?”
“Ma’am, I suggest you leave before I change my mind.”
The officer handcuffed Marc’s wrist behind his back, grabbed his bicep and instead of walking him back to the car, he guided him across the street.
Marc swiveled his head and made eye contact with his wife. “Go find a lawyer or something!”
The man shoved Marc along.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To meet the judge.”
Marc looked up and saw they were moving toward the church looming on the hill.
As they made their way up the steps, two large black cats ran in front of them and disappeared inside the thick rows of shrubs.
A third cat raced up ahead of them, vanishing through the open door at the top of the steps.
The officer forced Marc inside and they made their way into the sanctuary. Marc stared at the far end of the church in disbelief. Covering the wall behind the altar was a mural of a gigantic black cat, regal and poised, with yellow eyes glaring out at the rows of plain wooden pews.
White linen covered the flat-topped surface. Suspended high above the table by thick chains was a wooden chandelier decorated with flickering candles.
A short bald man wearing white robes was standing behind the altar; Marc hadn’t noticed him when he came in, so he wasn’t sure how he got there.
“A pastor?” Marc asked, struggling to break free from his captor.
The officer leaned in close to Marc’s ear. “The pastor is the judge, now shut the hell up.”
A black cat jumped on the altar, arching its back while dragging its claws through the cloth.
The pastor grinned, revealing more than one black space that should have held a tooth, and stroked the cat’s smooth fur. It purred loudly. “Son, I hear one of our cats was slain by your careless driving.”
“How could you already know that?” Marc looked back at the officer, who was still wearing his sunglasses. “What is going on?”
“Do you deny this charge?”
“It ran out in front of me, I had no choice.” Marc was practically in tears. “I tried to avoid it.”
The cat hissed madly at him.
“In accordance with the ancient laws of the Egyptian gods, the punishment here in Felis for killing a cat is death.”
“What?” Marc gasped, voiding his lungs of air. He bucked against the policeman, who stumbled backward. Marc took off running.
The squealing scream of chains echoing through the sanctuary distracted his retreat; looking back, he saw the chandelier slowly lowering.
A rope dangled below it.
“Screw this place!”
He tripped, smacking his nose on the hard ground, hands still cuffed behind him. The officer grabbed Marc by the waist, hurling him over his shoulder and marched back to the altar. Hanging over his back, Marc stared helplessly at the butt of a pistol.
The room spun as he was dumped onto the table. Flat on his back, the intricately carved chandelier was only a foot above him. The noose was swaying like a pendulum and rubbing his nose.
Marc’s face was bloody and his head throbbing. The minister appeared blurry, but Marc could feel him fitting the coarse rope around his neck.
The lanky cat strutted up Marc’s stomach and then onto his chest, until it towered over him, licking at the blood drying under his nose. It stared into his eyes as it fed.
“The cat has taken possession of your soul. May the goddess Bast have mercy on you.”
The squealing chains began to echo through the church again, lifting Marc’s back off the altar. As he rose, his eyes fluttered open. Lisa was standing in the doorway at the far end of the building screaming and the officer was running down the aisle after her.
Marc scrambled to keep his feet on the altar, but as they lifted off the surface, his head jerked back.

Erik Gustafson
Word count 1279

Flash Friday: The Kidnapping

The Kidnapping

I woke to a burning pain in my arm. My forearm was bright red by then and scored with dozens of white lines from my fingernails. There were spots of blood on my arm that resembled a grisly dot-to-dot puzzle. My arm was throbbing and itching.

What happened?

Idly scratching, I scanned the room. A dull yellow glow from a single bulb hanging from an unfinished ceiling was the only light. Thick shadows hunkered down in the corners like silent guardians. I was in a bedroom in a basement but not my room. I was in a strange bed but not mine.

I felt dizzy and my stomach was aching.

Dirt was scattered all over my sheets and my bare feet here blackened by mud up to the ankles, as if I were wearing a pair of black shoes. The walls were gray cinderblocks and the floor covered with peeling cracked paint, revealing a brick-colored surface underneath. There was nothing else in the room. Just this bed.

It was musty.

“Hello?” I called out.

I resumed scratching my arm. The skin was hot. I could feel my heart beat thudding in my head.

No one answered my cry. I turned and put my feet down on the cold floor. I noticed a wooden staircase leading up to a closed door; a bright line blazed from under the door.

Where am I?
I looked down at my arm and realized it was bleeding pretty badly. Blood was smeared all over the tips of my fingers and running down my nails. There was blood on the sheets. I didn’t know what the hell was making me itch so.

I stood up, stumbled to the bottom of the staircase, and stared up at the door. The room shifted slightly and I felt light-headed. I yelled up again but heard nothing from beyond the door.

I cradled my arm against my chest and kept rubbing it as I started up the steps.

My feet started burning and I looked down at my dirty feet. They were bright red and I could see veins straining and pulsing. They hurt. What was happening to me? I had to sit down right there on the stairs to itch my feet.

“Somebody up there!?” I screamed. I was confused and becoming increasingly panicked. I wasn’t sure if my fear was from the relentless itching or waking up in a strange basement.

Who am I? The thought stopped my hands from itching for a moment. I realized I couldn’t remember my name. Or where I lived. My brain was blank.

My arm exploded in pain and I cried out loudly. I decided I needed to get to a doctor fast, and then I could sort out my identity later. I looked down at my arm and the skin was slathered with blood, like a poorly painted fence post. It was smeared all over my chest where I had been holding my arm. There was even blood on the steps and more drawn on the wall like drunken hieroglyphs.

However, it wasn’t the horrifying presence of so much blood that freaked me out.

There were tiny black spots in the blood, like seeds on a strawberry. Except the seeds were wiggling. Like they were swimming.

I could feel the tiny things crawling in my hair and between my fingers.

I scrubbed the back of my neck with my fingernails but found no relief. I couldn’t take the itching and I started rubbing my entire back against the chilly wall.

They bitty bugs were tickling my eyelids and sliding down my eyelashes. Tiptoeing in the grooves of my ears. Dancing in my armpits and belly button.

The black dots were moving about and multiplying. The black was eating my blood. Hungry little beasts. I was turning black and the blood was disappearing.

Across the room, there was a bed that looked as if it were rocking and swaying like a boat on rough seas. The bed looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place it. Was it my bed? My neck was bleeding and the black things were streaming down my side. The stairs started to shift and became fuzzy. I tried to stand but slipped and fell to the cold concrete floor.

How did I get down here on these stairs?

The black things were connecting and swarming, like a forming thundercloud. Gathering size and taking shape. I huddled into the corner of the basement, cowering and holding my hands up to my face.

The itch had fled along with all the creepy-crawly black things but I was too weak to care.

My eyes were nearly swollen shut from the frenzied creatures and obsessive itching that I could barely see as I peeked through my hands, but a solid blackness was hovering in front of me like a cobra waiting to strike.

From behind the dark shape, I saw a brilliant light shine down and thought I was dead until I realized it was the door opening at the top of the steps.

I stretched out my hand toward the light, but the weight of my arm was too great and the limb slapped down onto my leg. Help me, I begged and felt my lips move but nothing came out.

The black conglomeration towering over me and abruptly slammed into my body. In my head, it sounded like a train roaring by. I felt a gust of wind as the millions of tiny black monsters re-invaded my body.

My head cracked against the wall behind me.

My black eyes flipped open. I stood up, naked, and feeling refreshed.

I was reborn.

I examined my new body and was satisfied with their choice. Young and healthy.

I mounted the stairs, just as I had done a thousand times before, and warmly greeted my friends waiting at the top. I could see all the happy smiles peeking from the shadows of their red hoods.

Copyright 2011 Erik Gustafson

Flash Friday: Ginger’s Marble

Ginger’s Marble by Erik Gustafson

Ginger is a tomboy and her favorite thing to do is climb trees. Her golden blond hair is always in pigtails and she dresses in jeans and t-shirt most days. The eight year old wouldn’t stand for the cute dresses all her other friends wore. In fact, she preferred to play with boys but her parents steered her toward girls her age whenever they could.
There are two large apple trees in her backyard and she has climbed them both a thousand times.
All she has wanted for Christmas and her birthday for the past three years is a tree house nestled in one of the apple trees. Her dad, Bobby, probably would have built her a tree house by now but mom is set against it. Still, Bobby tells his daughter he will build one for her someday.
Until that day, she climbs and perches in the limbs and straddles branches. The first branch is too high to reach so she wraps her arms and legs around the trunk and shimmies up until she can reach the first branch then swings up. After that, climbing is cake. She has made it about half way up each of the trees and her goal is to climb all the way to the top.
Today she is leaning between the main trunk and a limb that almost stretches to the other tree when she notices something odd by the next branch up.
She pulls herself up and sits on that branch. Ginger looks down at the yard and the top of the back porch roof and realizes she has set a new record. She can even see the fake pond with real turtles her neighbor has behind his privacy fence.
“Ginger!” The girl spins around and scans the yard below. She doesn’t see her mom anywhere.
“I’m ok mom!” she hollers down.
“Ginger,” the voice came again but it was softer. Almost as if the voice was right there in the branches with her. Somebody hiding among the thick rows of leaves and twigs. There is no way someone could be up here, she muses.
She spots what she climbed up this extra branch for in the first place: it was a small cavity in the bark. A tiny hole in the tree, about the size of an eye patch.
Ginger leaned her face up to the hole. “You in there, Mr. Squirrel?” She saw a shadow coated pine cone just inside the opening. She reached in and pulled it out to examine it. She wondered what a pine cone was doing this high in an apple tree.
She leaned out from the limb she was sitting on and held the cone between her fingers. She watched the spiral cone drop to the grass below.
She looked back in the small crevasse and something twinkled off the sunlight. She inserted her small hand into the hole and felt around. She felt sticks poking her and heard the rustle of leaves. Her palm grazed over something smooth and she closed her hand around it.
Ginger opened her hand and was looking at a red marble about the size of those pop-in-mouth tomatoes that her grandpa grows and she loves so much. The red glass seemed to have clouds inside of it.
“Cool!” she held the marble close to her face as she explored the puffs of red inside the glass. The clouds shifted and swirled around in the marble. She blinked hard in disbelief. Had it moved? She wondered.
The marble rolled along the groove between two of her fingers and fell over her fingertips.
“No!” she tried to catch the marble but it fell fast.
From her height, the marble looked like a red eye staring up at her from the ground.
Ginger climbed down the tree as fast as she could to retrieve her treasure. She sat at the base of the tree rolling around the marble in her palm, watching the red storm inside surge and rage. There was a bright flash from deep within. She thought it was a miniature lightening bolt. For an instant, the flash even made the rosy clouds light up.
“Ginger,” she heard her name a third time and now she was sure it was coming from inside the marble.
“Is somebody in there?” she asked, holding the marble not two inches from her nose.
The red cloud drifted and shifted in the marble and spread. A red haze oozed from the marble and floated around. Ginger breathed in and the red smoke went up her nose and she coughed.
The girl sat there perfectly still for an hour. When she blinked her eyes were crimson colored. She dropped the solid black marble in the grass and arose. She was starving like never before. She had to eat something immediately.
The little girl marched across her back yard, pig tails bouncing, then down concrete steps past a flower garden and onto the back porch.
Once inside the porch, she heard herself growl. She thought it was just her stomach growling but she realized that she had made the growling sound. So hungry.
She pushed the back door open and waked into the house and through the kitchen. She opened the fridge door but nothing looked good. Then on the bottom shelf she spotted a plate with raw hamburger defrosting. Her hunger overwhelming her, she squatted down and grabbed a fistful of the ground beef and shoved it in her mouth.
She chewed and moaned, swallowing huge chunks of the soft meat. Pieces of hamburger were falling down her front and sticking to her face. Before she knew it, the entire plate of meat was consumed but she was still hungry. In fact, she more hungry than before.
“Ginger what on earth are you doing?” her mom shouted standing in the doorway.
Ginger looked up at her mother through grisly red eyes, salivating.

Copyright 2011 Erik Gustafson