Forces of Darkness

Boom, Part Two. One I name the damn thing, I'll tag them all with it for easier future finding. Also, we're going to Wednesdays and Saturdays, for the time being.

Patrick awoke on the ground in a pool of blood. Here was his body, right where he’d left it. He sat up. Someone screamed.

The express bus back to Earth. Good for extending your miserable life, and startling passersby who had just seen you die.

He held up a placating hand to the woman in question. “Sorry, sorry. Everything’s fine here.” He stood up and brushed himself off. It didn’t help. He was still covered in blood, people were starting to stare, and distant sirens were growing closer.

This would be a good time for him to be anywhere else, so he did the natural thing, following a near-death experience, and went home to take a shower. He earned a few stares along the way, which was to be expected. What was not to be expected was the face at the corner of 3rd and Main.

Patrick saw it first out of the corner of his eye, and chalked any abnormalities up to poor peripheral vision. He turned to look, but the clarity did not improve. The face, if you could call it that, was largely featureless, with two deep black pits where the eyes should be.

The owner of the face seemed to take offense at his stare. Deciphering its smudge of expression was a challenge, at best. Patrick turned away and hurried home.

Washing the blood off left him with no trace of injury or damage, as though his violent death had never happened. As he was dressing, someone knocked on the front door. Great. After he’d left the scene covered in blood, the cops had probably tracked him down and had a few questions, would he like to come down to the station?

He looked through the peephole. No cops. Not one single face. Just a pair of dark voids where eyes should be.

“Ah, shi—”

The thing rammed the door, forcing it open and into Patrick’s face. Nose bleeding, eyes watering, he staggered back and tripped over the coffee table. He hit the floor. The thing vaulted over the table and landed on top of him. Its vague smudge of a mouth opened much too wide into a dark cavern that reeked of rotten eggs.

“What are you?” it demanded. The voice echoed from somewhere deep inside its skull.

Patrick recoiled. “What am I?”

“You can see me. You shouldn’t be able to see me.” The jagged edges of its mouth formed a horrific rictus. “No matter.” It lunged for him, all set to eat his face off.

He held it back with one hand and desperately reached out the other for some kind of weapon. His fingers found a book. Not a particularly large one, but he had to work with what he had.

He swung the book at its head, knocking it off balance. He kicked it off of him and threw himself in the direction of the kitchen in search of something pointier. The thing tackled him from behind before he reached the counter. As he fell, he caught the handle of a skillet left on the stove from a few days before.

The blow to the skull dazed it for a few seconds. Patrick backed up against the lower cupboard and fumbled for anything useful on the counter above his head.

He felt a handle and pulled it down.

Nope, spatula. He tossed it at the thing and resumed his search.

Steak knife! Better. He held his skillet like a shield and the knife like the world’s saddest, tiniest sword.

The thing was not impressed. It sought to remove his weapon by chewing his arm off. Teeth sank into his forearm before he could even try to stab it.

“Aagh!” He smacked it on the back of the head, forcing it to release its grip, and shoved the steak knife up under its jaw.

It let out a shriek and dropped to the floor, twitching. With a shudder, it crumbled into black dust.

Patrick dropped the skillet and the knife and sat down on the floor.

“Right. Forces of darkness. Great.”

Let me know what you think, and I'll see you… Saturday, I guess.