An eccentric man, whose only friend is an old boot, asks for Angel's help to drive the loathsome creature, Hell's Hound, back to whence it came. My contribution to weird fiction :]
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This is a previous version of He Came From Under My Bed.
He Came From Under My Bed
I stared into unfamiliar eyes of a strange man sitting at the end of my bed, transfixed as my brain registered the ghostly Nosferatu-like resemblance he had (one might even suggest his resemblance with the gothic and melancholic musician, Anna-Varney, was phenomenal as well), and if it wasn't for the black, scraggly hair sticking straight up in the air on the center of his head he would've been completely bald; the hair adorned with two little pink bows and long feathers of a raven. Skin complexion was an awful white and strongly contrasted with the long black coat that hung in tattered and worn ends little ways below his knees. His hands rested in his lap with long and bony fingers curled under the white palms as he returned the stare, though there looked to be curiosity rather than imitating my fear in those haunting dark eyes. I flinched when his hand moved, expecting harm coming my way, but he merely pointed one of those long fingers at me and whispered, "You there...did you see it?"
"See what?" I softly asked after battling the reluctance to speak, my hands pulling the sheets closer to my face when he sneezed a little duckling out from his nose and it waddled across the bed. “Bless you.” He nodded in acknowledgment. "I meant seeing the creature. I thought it could only use the portal through the paperclips, but I was wrong...didn't know the toilet had one, so now the damn thing is loose somewhere in this mansion." I poked the duckling and watched it shatter into pieces of glass before returning my attention to the stranger. "What the hell are you talking about?" "There's something that's not suppose to be here in this world roaming free within this building, love, and it’s coming for me. It’s your fault anyway, you silly girl, and you're going to help me fix it," he then said rather playfully than the intended tone of frustration, and though there were no eyebrows I could clearly distinguish a frown that acquainted a sneer expressed on his face. With disbelief I stared in wonder; the audacity he presented by accusing me of such an inane thing certainly humored me, yet ignored the desire to laugh. For the whole thing was ridiculous and simply the result of what a dysfunctional mind of an individual, such as this stranger, can come up with— nonetheless, it wouldn't be wise to do so anyway when considering the possibility that this man could very well be violent and attack if provoked, which laughing tends to do that. Although the sensible thing was to call the police and have my eccentric guest escorted to the nearest mental institute, I couldn't help it when curiosity compelled to humor myself further by playing along, "Well, before I ask why it is my fault, allow me to introduce myself; my name's Angel. And you are?" "I have no name," he wailed, those ghoulish white hands covering his eyes as black tears rolled down his cheeks. Well, this was...awkward. "That's okay," I said while reaching over to a small desk near the bed to retrieve a couple of tissues for him. "How does Varné sound?" He repeated the name slowly to himself; liking how it softly rolled off the tongue, and then looked at me with a small smile before nodding once. I then asked why it was my fault— whatever the hell it was I did— and soon learned from Varné that I had forgotten to put the lid of the toilet seat down last night, which left a portal accessible for a loathsome being known as Hell's Hound to enter this world from Hell. Apparently, Varné is an Ancient, which is, as he explained, an immortal being equipped with infinite knowledge; surpassing ours in ways impossible to fathom. He is considered one of the very few left in existence— the Ancients dwindling in numbers due to unearthly and hellish beings envying them to the point of nearly wiping them out to extinction— and has been living in a hole under my bed. The latter made me raise a brow in disbelief and found myself glancing and leaning over the side of the bed to look underneath, but no such hole existed, though Varné noted it was visible only to him. When I asked why he feared Hell's Hound, a moment of silence fell upon us before a soft shudder slipped passed his thin lips. "I won at a game of chess against Lucifer— never knew the bloke could be such a sore loser. Sending that savage mutt to kill me is his way of getting revenge I suppose. So have to be careful and not be anywhere near paperclips and toilet seats when the lid’s left open." "So...regardless it’s my fault, why do you need my help?" "Well, I couldn't really ask Mr. Shmeagh now could I?" Varné pointed out with no intention of sounding sarcastic. "I mean him being a boot and not a whole lot of help if it required being animated." This was when he crawled off and disappeared under my bed, and I decided to look underneath. He wasn't there, like he just vanished, and as baffled as I was, the thought of an invisible hole under my bed no longer tickled my sense of humor but a fear of it being true. Startled when I looked up and found Varné now standing on the other side of the bed while petting an old boot, my eyes gawked and wondered the mystery of this man as he giggled like a child before putting a finger up to his lips and hushing Mr. Shmeagh, though the boot hadn't said a word. A terrible sound produced by some kind of horror bellowed and echoed throughout the wide and long corridors of the mansion. It wasn't like a beastly roar either, more like the deafening blare from an evil-sounding siren. I felt my gut vibrate the same way it would when playing music that had heavy bass, and Varné whimpered loudly and then beckoned me to follow before scurrying out of the room with Mr. Shmeagh clutched tightly in his ghostly white hands. Scrambling out of bed and feet gliding across the cold floor, I darted down a long and winding hallway after the eccentric Ancient, whose feet hurriedly shuffled along the tiled floor with his face pressed against the boot. He continued to whimper loudly as the strange noise blared again, this time sounding like it was coming from behind us. Glancing over my shoulder, something quick flickered into sight like a flame trying to ignite itself in the darkness, and then found myself slowly coming to a halt as curiosity once again compelled me to see what it was we were running from. The hallway shook when I heard thunderous footsteps coming closer, the lights overhead flickering madly with static buzzing lowly; a haunting ambience setting the mood for an expecting horror. A silence swept through like a messenger of death bringing the dreaded promise of mortality's flaw; ambience resolved and then conformed to the silence, the footsteps of some monstrous giant, along with that awful siren-like noise, became a buzzing murmur until embracing an end that birthed and molded the dreadful quietness. I found this silence more intimidating than the terrible sounds of some monster lurking in its invisibility, creating an apprehension of what was unknown and unexpected. Though Varné’s cries urging me to follow him hinted the more sensible thing to heed, I couldn't find my legs when I wanted to run from a horrific sight. From behind a corner of the curving hallway's walls flickered a beast into visibility; a monstrous hound— Hell's Hound. There was nothing dog-like about this being in both sound and physical makeup; it towered above the height of twenty feet and was forty feet in length from the tip of its slightly flat snout to the end of the tail, and was terribly emaciated, which only fueled the frightful reaction to this ghastly creature. Long tentacles substituted as ears and the left side of its head was crowned with several horns, while the right was molded into a horrific tumor-like collage comprising a humanoid face expressing agony and misery as it screamed and wailed (this part being at the bottom of the freakish mass of the hound's right side on the head). What looked to resemble a baby's head and torso had long, sharp spikes substituting as hands, and the baby’s eyes were white and soulless with the sides of its mouth crudely stitched; it formed at the top of the terrible mass. Hell's Hound opened its mouth to reveal the deadly fangs; the same evil-sounding siren bellowed from the gaping jaws. Transfixed as I gazed helplessly at the hellish fiend that began to charge towards me, the sound of its siren-like roar drowned Varné's cries and soon I was overwhelmed by the strange and terrifying ambience the hound produced. My attention was soon drawn away from the stampeding horror when I felt my arm being pulled, and then was dragged away by Varné through a portal invisible to the naked eye of mortals. We ended up stumbling out of the kitchen sink's cupboards with the clanking and banging of pots and pans following after us. "Ah-hah! Just where we needed to be!" Varné exclaimed, working his way through the mess with Mr. Shmeagh still in secured grip, then snapped two fingers and the lights went on. "Forks, spoons, knives— one or all will work nicely as an alternate force returning the demon whence it came, but if you happen to come across a microwave or toaster, be sure to throw it at the right bloke— wouldn't want myself to end up being sucked into some nightmarish world far worse than Hell now. "
“Varné, I really doubt kitchen utensils are going to benefit us against that thing,” I said.
It was like watching the Exorcist movie all over again, Varné made his head twist all the way back to look at me, his haughty eyes staring me down as he slowly walked backwards until standing a few inches away, which then his body twisted back so it would face me as well. He cradled the boot, cocking his head to the side, and then bringing Mr. Shmeagh close to his ear, “Eh? What you say, mate? Ah— I see— of course I know about the bloody ceiling, was just about to tell the little dove.”
“Tell me what?”
He returned his gaze on me. “Do you like to bark at the ceiling?”
“I suppose not. Never really found myself compelled to do so.”
“Well, I do. I like to bark at the ceiling because these holes open up to let tiny baby heads attached to eel-like bodies come out and say: squee-squee!”
“Hmm…sounds like fun,” I nonchalantly said, though wondered why he’d bring this up into conversation and what it had to do with defeating Hell’s Hound.
“It is,” he nodded. “However, I think if you tried you’d end up adopting those baby critters, giving them the names Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moe.” He tapped on four of my fingers when saying the names, ignoring the thumb.
“Well, what about the thumb? Why doesn’t it get a name?”
“The thumb’s insignificant. I’d advise you to cut it off. Its only there to slur your judgment and give the sense of a fictitious balance, which is what it is: feigned.”
“You’re condescending me for doubting a toaster is going to save us?” I scowled.
“Not at all, love. On the contrary, I’m merely warning you not to be stupid,” he patted me gently on the head. “Also would like to note, if we live through this, poppet, I’ll show you my pretty butterflies.” Although everything he said didn’t make sense, the last sentence threw me off. I questioned if what was all said had meaning for something else metaphorically and briefly gave him the 'what-the-hell?' look before being startled by the familiar bellow that boomed throughout the mansion like before. The pots and pans hanging on the rail above the kitchen's island rattled and banged in response to the rumbling footsteps drawing closer and closer, and each passing second a fear matured slowly like a fetus within its mother's womb. In an instant, Varné was staring into the ominous eyes of a loathsome demon he once could evade and remain hidden from until now, and when turning his head away with eyes shut tightly and hands holding Mr. Shmeagh close to his chest— waiting for the savage mutilation once inside that terrible, gaping mouth with its long and slithering tongue circling around him— I quickly grabbed whatever I could get my hands on and threw it at Hell's Hound. The item thrown turned out to be a toaster, and before the hound had a chance to react, it tore a hole into another dimension, which whirled into a sucking vortex. The fiend helplessly clawed at the marble floor of the kitchen in hopes of keeping itself from being taken, but all was in vain as several long tentacles tipped with claws stretched out of the swirling hole and wrapped around the creature's body, pulling it to an unknown abyss as its monstrous siren-like roars drew faint, then into a low murmur as the portal closed and then finally silencing forevermore. I caught Varné when he fainted, rolling my eyes when I spotted a puddle of urine on the floor, no doubt he was responsible for it. After cleaning him up and the mess, I dragged my pathetic guest up to the second floor and to my room where he could go back to the little hole under my bed as soon as he was ready— and I'd like to note that the whole process couldn't be done without cursing; it was too grueling of an effort alone dragging that dead weight up the stairs. He awoke after an hour and a half since the incident, the whole time I was occupying myself painting the horrific memory of Hell's Hound on thick paper. His expression clearly illustrated sudden confusion as his face wrinkled into a sort of frown, and then scanned the area with curious, yet suspicious eyes until finally realizing he was safe. "I feel them moving inside me— it tickles!" Varné suddenly giggled and lifted the bottom of his long coat up to reveal his white belly that swelled so large that he looked pregnant, and then placed a finger to his lips to hush me. "Shh— Listen now. You can hear the pretties sing." And as I quietly listened a soft voice hummed beautifully inside Varné's swollen gut. I didn't know what to expect or how to react when a green butterfly crawled out from his bellybutton and flew gracefully in the air as it continued to hum. When he held out a finger, all the while humming with the lovely insect, the butterfly landed on it. Soon a harmonizing chorus followed and thousands of butterflies— red, blue, green, purple, orange, yellow, pink, white, and black— darted out of the bellybutton and swarmed in a massive and beautiful multicolored cloud; spiraling around Varné and then myself (the very first butterfly leaving his finger to join the others), and their song enchanting like the mysterious blue aura of the dawning twilight. I was left feeling utterly confused as the bedroom floor was thickly covered by the dead butterflies. For it was so sudden when they all died at the end of the song and Varné was nowhere to be found, having already crawled underneath my bed to descend into an obscure darkness I shall never have the pleasure of venturing through to see strange worlds only dreams vaguely recall into false memory— the imagination truly is a blessing in the former sense. In some peculiar way it seemed somewhat spiritual witnessing the frail bodies and wings crumble and shatter like fragments of broken glass; fading slowly until all trace of existence was forgotten. I noticed Mr. Shmeagh was left on my bed and figured Varné must've forgotten to take it, so as I crawled back into the comfort under the warm blankets, I set the boot down on the ground and watched as the familiar white hand with its long and bony fingers slowly reached out from underneath to retrieve it. I heard Varné's soft voice thank me while his hand reached out again to pat my head. After saying goodnight I tried to go back to sleep, forgetting about the small pile of broken glass created by the duckling when I poked it earlier. I felt sharp punctures into my back from the shards of glass, wincing in pain before angrily shoving the pile off my bed. The shards scattered onto the floor and then rolled up into yellow marbles before turning into tiny ducklings. The tiny pieces of glass in my back also turned into little ducklings, and I felt them pull themselves from my flesh and ran off the bed, leaving a small trail of bloody prints on my sheets. All of them waddled towards the walls of the room and chewed little holes to hide in like mice, and I could hear the soft patter of their little feet scurrying. It then occurred to me.
The musician, Anna-Varney, was a great influence to how I pictured Varn� would look (which the picture icon next to the title of the story is indeed Anna-Varney)
Wow! You are VERY good! I don't recall Lovecraftian horror being punctuated with such surreal humor.
Methinks you're an element or two up on the old master, and at such a young age!
This story draws one right in from the start and never lets go, as I say, the poetic Lovecraftian horror being laced with more surreal wonderment and absurdity -- a winning combination!
The whole is quite cinematic, and you maintain a cheeky wit in the dialogue throughout, with the "I need to get a cat" closer being a LOL on par with the first LOL-inducer re the frickin' Hell Hound entering this world through an open toilet seat.
This may be the most thoroughly entertaining and multidimensional (as it were) story I've read on WC.
He sneezed a duckling! That made my night!
This sentence sounded kinda awkward to me and I had to reread it, like it's too wordy or something: In an instant, Varné was staring into the ominous eyes of a loathsome demon he once could evade and remain hidden from until now.
Otherwise this was great- it was funny and kinda creepy at the same time. The second group of Varné pictures was my favorite, especially the bottom middle. That face... priceless :P
So usually I avoid long stories or after reading a long story I think, "Wow, that was nice. Time to find something new!" since I'm satisfied, but I want more! I wish this was longer somehow, or had another chapter. Awesome sauce.
Just wanted to tell you how awewsome and unique this was. It reminds me of s movie I used to watch on Disney Channel when I was younger, I think it was called Don't Look Under the Bed. But it's so surreal and that is an amazing factor. My favorite thing was the dialogue of Varne. It added a more surreal element. Even though it was British you could tell he was from a different world. Wow, really awesome.
I will start by commenting your art, which is really well done. :) I'm glad you included the drawing of the Hell's Hound because I just wasn't putting it together in my head. >.<
Onto the writing. Your vocabulary is superb, it's very rare to find writer's who will venture out of the comfort zone of conventional grammar. I do think your detail is a little extensive, and I did have trouble grasping what you were describing at several points, at least on first read through. I do however think your story is very creative, and I love the humor aspect that you threw into a potentially grave situation. My biggest issue is your dimensions on the Hell's Hound; when you said he came around the wall of the hallway and yet stood twenty feet tall?
Otherwise this was a very good read, very unique. Nice work. :)
"I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
.. more..
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