Anatidaephobia

I watch in horror as Danny's crumpled and bloodied form slides across the floor, bumping the those of my Chuck Taylor's. No matter how much I want to look away I can't keep myself from committing every gruesome detail to memory. His face is ripped to shreds and one eye socket is hollow and black. The rest of his body is covered in still bleeding lacerations and deep puncture wounds that almost look like bite marks. I try to scream but my voice catches in my throat. The wet slapping sound of flippers on cement fills my eats, and my body begins working on autopilot as I run from the room.

"Come now, Josephine," a warm, silky voice calls from just out of sight. "You know I've been watching you. I know how you work, how you think. There's no need to run."

"Shut up!" I shout back. I cover my ears like a temperamental toddler and continue to run aimlessly. I'm praying for a rescue I know won't come. I have no one now. Danny was my last, and only, lifeline and now he's dead. My parents don't believe me, the doctors don't believe me, and the police have been out of the question since the start. "Leave me alone!"

I turn a corner and try to regain my bearings. I'm on the main floor of the powder coating warehouse that Danny's father runs and, before you give me shit about it you should know that I didn't have a choice in the matter. It was either here, on neutral ground, or in the abandoned church on Marron Road. On his turf. If I had done that it wouldn't have just been Danny who'd be dead. The slapping sound echoes only a few paces behind me, accompanied by a soft chuckle. I wish the games would stop. I'm not sure how much longer my sanity can take this. I find a shadowy corner and push myself into it. God, I hate being so pale. Even in the blackness my skin is practically glowing the color of a fresh bed sheet. This is hopeless.

"Josephine, stop the child's play. How many more people are going to have to die in your name? Who's next—your parents, perhaps? I'd love to pay them a visit. Tell them how their precious little basket case is doing. The voice speaks to me like a teacher to a disgruntled pupil. He's in the center of the work floor now, waddling his way toward me. A shadow flashes across the far wall and my heart begins to slam itself against my chest in an attempt to free itself from this hell. When he spoke again, his voice was flat. Disinterested. "Last chance, sweetheart. Come out."

Come out? Yeah, right. I can't let him catch me or everything I've been through and Danny's sacrifice will have been for nothing. Too much time and happiness has been stripped from me because I've had to spend my entire childhood, my entire life, looking over my shoulder. Checking to make sure the coast was clear every single time I enter a room.

When I was six years old, I tried to tell my parents about my imaginary friend, the one who followed us home from the park. I was scared back then too, but my parents weren't. Parents never believe in monsters under the bed, ghosts in the mirror, or creatures in the park. Usually, the disbelief is for good reason. There aren't usually such things. That's why they laughed when I told them his name: Devin. Devin the Duck. Yeah, yeah, I know. Believe me. I know. A duck. If you're beginning to doubt my grasp on reality, don't worry about because so did my parents and the psychologists. My parents told me I'm confused, and the doctors gave my confusion a name.

They told me I had anatidaephobia. They used a lot of other fancy terminology to describe it to me, but after doing some research I think Gary Larson explained it best by saying that anatidaephobia is the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you. The big words were just sugarcoated way of telling me I'm completely bonkers. Danny was the only person who believed me, and that wasn't until he saw the mottled gray feathers that kept appearing in places like my locker or just behind corners.

"There you are, my little mouse," Devin coos as he waddles his way over to my corner. I'm shaking uncontrollably now. I've never been so close to him before, I can feel the evil radiating off of him. He stares at me with whirling, electric yellow eyes that have haunted my nightmares. "Why did you run from me when you knew you couldn't escape?"

"What do you want from me? What makes me so special?" I'm pleading now. If he had looked like a normal duck I would have been able to make a run for it. Devin is bigger—almost to my waist and there are talons on his webbed feet and serrated black teeth under his bill. "What did I do to you?"

Quite uncharacteristically, Devin clucked sympathetically. "Josephine, my dear, don't put yourself on a pedestal." His voice changing now, become raspy and forced like he has just swallowed a handful of shattered glass pieces. "I didn't pick you because you're special. I didn't even pick you because you deserved it." He waddled closer and I tried to shove myself further into the corner like if I pushed hard enough a tunnel would open and I would have a new way out. "I picked you because it was fun."

Devin's mouth opens to speak, but his head snaps violently to the left and his eyes bulge out of his like a cartoon character. Convulsions overtake him, and he roars at the ceiling. Gasps escape from his bill as it begins to rot and fall off like a leper's nose. I'm to paralyzed to look away, run, or attack. All I can do is watch, in horror, until he's done. In the end, I'm staring at a man-like creature with ink black skin, and those yellow eyes, and sharp teeth. Razor-like fingernails click together as he smiles. When he touches my face, I scream.

"And guess what, Josephine: it was."

I don't speak again; I only scream as he plunges his hand into my stomach. I watch my intestines spill out in front of me across the cement floor. He begins to play with them, reminiscing me. Me: his plaything.