Island Of The Cryptids

28

Chris Tucker was dreaming. He had nodded off into a morphine induced sleep, and ran rampant with dreams. Firstly he had dreamed about his childhood crush, Wendy Hamilton. The girl that sat two seats in front of him in class with her curly red hair and playful freckles, her milk white skin and athletic body. He remembered every detail of her physique, and he drooled over it.

Then he was with his father. His cold, scruffy father that he had watched die. They walked down the street towards home together. The wind blew in their faces, the grasses swayed. The cottages looked like tiny brown dots in the distance. Tucker ran forward, arms extended, longing for home. He felt at peace.

He tripped over a stone jutting out of the sidewalk. He giggled a childish laugh. He found that he couldn't get up, though. His body was paralyzed. All he could move was his head. He looked up, lying on his back. He saw the cabin of the plane, and he stared straight down the aisle.

The back door of the plane hung open, and in the frame stood his father. He looked normal, except a thick, choking fog surrounded him. He stepped forward, out of the gray.

"Do you know what you did?" he asked simply. His voice was quiet and unfamiliar. Tucker shook his head the way a child would when accused of something.

"We all do, Chris," he said. "We all know what you did, and it wasn't good." He advanced forward, down the aisle, very slowly. Tucker heard each of his footsteps echo off the floor like they were on a porcelain pallet.

"You're in pain," he whispered. "You caused it yourself. You knew this whole time and you spoke nothing. You know what you did, I know you do." He came closer. Tucker was locked in place.

"You let me die, Chris, how could you? You watched it unfold, and you did nothing. You're going to let that happen again here. You're weak, Chris," his father's voice was not his father's anymore. It belonged to something more sinister, more evil.

He was almost upon the door of the cockpit now. Tucker saw his flesh. It was peeling and reddened, blotchy with burst capillaries and chalky from decay. His eyes sagged back into his head, and his skin clung to his bones. He smelled of a deathly, unearthen stench. Mold grew from underneath his yellowing nails.

"You're going to die," he said. "It's your fault. You're going to die." He laughed, bending over Tucker, who lay helplessly paralyzed on the floor.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE, CHRIS!" he screamed, his mouth contorting into a black hole. His eyes wobbled, his face melting. It stretched into a horrifying puddle of animated skin.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE ALONE IN THE DARK WITH NOBODY TO SAVE YOU AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!" His father's skin peeled off the bone, revealing a mess of tendons and sinewy strands that danced around. His bones kiltered from side to side in the mess.

"I'M COMING FOR YOU," he moaned, his voice ghastly and distorted. Tucker's ears rung as he screamed. "DON'T LET ME IN CHRIS, YOU'RE GOING TO DIE."

The father-thing disappeared. Nothing happened. Fog filled the cabin. Then the back door opened with a click, swinging slightly open while creaking. Tucker breathed so fast, feeling his heart bulge in his chest.

"You're going to die," the voice whispered.