Short Stories

A Strange Occurrence

Darkness flooded the house from ceiling to floor. The midnight hour had passed shortly beforehand. The household slept peacefully. Except the youngest, she lay awake and held onto a plastic bottle tightly.

The air was thick and hot and humid.  Mary took tentative steps down the corridor past her parents and her brother's bedrooms, hands out stretched in front of her to guide her down, she squinted through the heavy haze that choked the air around her. The midsummer nights slowly roasting them alive.

The carpet felt raw  and itchy beneath her feet as she placed one foot at a time down on each descending step; the carpet flakes squeezed themselves between her toes, tickling them as she walked on through. Mary gripped tightly to the banister  in order to prevent herself from  slipping and falling; She crept her way to the kitchen with angelic ease and the cold concrete-like floor stung her feet pleasantly as she transferred herself from the trapped heat in the carpet fibres onto the smooth clean-cut floor. 

With a flick of a switch, the looming darkness was overcome by yellow light. And after filling up her bottle she turned to creep up stairs once again. That same switch was flicked and the darkness dived in to replace the lights absence. Mary had a clear image in her mind as to the location of the furniture however, the lack of visual reassurance left her falling back to the primitive function of the outstretched fingers to help guide her way. The choking heat seemed to double in strength.

After some time Mary realised that something was wrong. she knew she should be at the bottom of the staircase but, her feet hadn't moved even though she was illusioned to the sensation of walking. something had rooted her to the spot, her body frozen.

Perplexingly, Mary felt no fear. She was a child of an anxious disposition and anything could set her heart racing, this moment in time any person without anxiety would have started to panic but not she. Mary was calm, collected and curious. Her muscles relaxed. Her heart rate decreasing in speed when in fact it should have done the opposite.

Suddenly, a vibrating rumble could be heard and felt beneath the floor boards. It is a difficult sound to describe, like a celestial harmonic choir yet, it had a satanic like bass note to follow, the sound seemed to spin like a turn top; echoing piston like as if in a pin ball machine. The vibrating shot through Mary's spine and down her nervous and skeletal system. Still her heart remained motionless.

Throughout this chaos Mary still did not feel anxious. she remained in a state of calm curiosity, trapped in a trance set by the thickening air. The vibrations increased in their frequency, the sound ascending its pitch. Mary felt sharp tugs pull at her as her every atom was ripped apart; still she remained in a sleep-like trance as her body was slowly discorporated. 

It took force yet, she managed to bring her head upwards and was met with a lime,fluorescent green light circling her. Her mouth opened in an attempt to cry for help, but no sound was emitted. Her slight frame continued to discoporate and dissolve into green ash-like particles. When all of her had gone, the green light, the vibrations that tore her atoms from their bonds and the satanic, celestial mix of harmonies all dissipated as if they had never happened in the first place, leaving behind only the plastic bottle. Smoking a thin line of black that blended with the now cooling air.

With a hand print burned into it.