Crack Attack: A Collection of One-Shots and Other Disturbing Shit

His Game (Woofless)

(This story was 'livestreamed' on October 31, 2016 at 11:59 PM EST and the final edit was posted on June 27, 2017 after a massive hiatus. Happy National Creep Day, and until next year!)

------------

            My fingers find the switch and the bridge lights up, outlining my way upstairs to my barless prison. I throw my jacket down across the back of the couch, too tired to care about putting it away. My feet don't want to move. Something spawns on the radar on my phone and I pull it out just to see another god damned Drowzee. I resign myself to catching it, anyway, knowing I'm only about five or six away from evolving another one of the fugly elephant things. I'm running out of narcotic names to call the good ones. The Pokeball clicks shut right before I reach the top of the landing, and I do a triple take from the screen to the desk. I immediately pocket my phone and scramble back downstairs, spinning around to check all around me for signs of life. I stand back against the kitchen wall, waiting to see what will happen next.

I can still see the vase of fresh blue roses perched up on the desk from where I'm standing in the kitchen, the dark, shadowy blue nearly blending in in the dimly lit office area upstairs.

I didn't order those.

I don't want them.

They weren't here six hours ago.

I didn't give anyone else a key to my house.

I thought we had solved this mystery.

            It has to be Nooch, right? He has to be trying to prove something, or trying to work something out of his system. Knowing the old ASF team, they might even be trying to launch him a new channel focusing on social experiments and cruel pranks. Whoever they are, they don't move, assuming they're even still here. I don't move, either. An hour passes with my ass pressed against the wall and my eyes locked on the flowers now invisible upstairs. I feel like I should call the police. Would that alarm them if they're still here and push them to do something drastic? If it's that Leonard guy again, who knows what he might do if he's facing fifteen years without parole? Who knows what he learned in prison, too?

I creep back over to the couch and grab my jacket again, setting the alarm and locking the door on my way out. There is no way in hell I'm sleeping in there, with stalkers or poltergeists or ghosts or whatever the fuck brought me flowers this time.

I need a dog.

---

I sit at the hotel and I watch. I scour the house on my phone through the cameras I bought after my first stalker infestation. Nothing appears, nothing disappears, nothing moves, nothing breathes. The flowers slowly wilt and crumble away as the days go by without water, light, or care. My wallet starts to smoke as the days go by without videos, livestreams, or paychecks. The bills keep piling up and I know I can't hide from this forever. But I'm scared. I don't want to go home to face whoever or whatever this is alone. I want to go to the shelter and adopt the biggest, ugliest dog they have ever had, but I know it would either attack Mom's dogs or hump them into oblivion. I get the feeling that it wouldn't be smart to go home alone. Who knows when they might come back, or if they ever left?

---

After five days, I can't afford to run anymore; I have to go back home. I open the door, phone in hand, and I'm greeted by the aroma of disturbed dust, dead flowers, and rotting leftovers. At least it doesn't smell like a rotting corpse. I stand in the doorway and quickly check through the entire house on my phone again, seeing nothing out of place or of interest. I finally shut the door and slowly walk inside, listening for creaking floorboards or the swish of cloth moving through the air... Nothing. I think I might be alone this time, although that's always a dangerous assumption these days. I quickly clear all of the rotted food out of the kitchen and throw it in the too-small garbage can outside the front door, wishing I could open the windows to air out the stench making the hairs in my nose slowly burn like candle wicks. I wash my hands while I stare out the kitchen window, looking for signs of movement... Nothing. I settle down with my laptop on the couch with my back against the wall, watching, waiting, wagering life and limb that something or someone might appear out of thin air... Nothing.