Short Stories

Short Story #14

A navy blue sedan puttered down the small concrete road, which was slick with rainwater. The night was dark, but an alarmingly yellow moon peeked out from behind the gray shadows blanketing the sky. The sedan rounded a bend and drove through a weathered brick archway, entering a cozy neighborhood. Almost all the lights in all the houses were off, but the road was fully illuminated by streetlights. There was the occasional angular shadow across the road where someone had neglected to account for trees and other foliage.

The car halted in front of a medium-sized brick apartment. The headlights blinked off as the driver pulled the key out of the ignition. A few moments later, a car door slammed in the darkness and the silhouette of a man clambered out of the car and hurried to the house, ducking his head to avoid the rain.

This man was named Peter Holsten. He lived the life of the average office worker. Essentially, he made $36,000 a year to stare at spreadsheets and email coworkers. Although he lived alone, he was content with his life of sitting behind a desk from 9 to 5 and eating microwave dinners in front of the television on the weekends. He owned an energetic cocker spaniel named Benji, and when time allowed for it, he would take him out on strolls that lasted as long as his legs did.
However, he had to work an exceptionally long shift at his company today, and he remembered with a pang of guilt on the way home that he had forgotten to feed Benji on his way out the door earlier that day.

Peter burst through the door of his apartment and threw his bag and briefcase on the couch. "Benji!," he called, clapping his hands together loudly. "Benji!" He faltered. Normally Benji would come rocketing out of a random part of the house the moment he heard the key turning in the lock. But today he was nowhere to be seen. "Hmm," he muttered. "Well, I'll find him later, I guess." He ventured into the kitchen to see his window wide open, curtains sprinkled with raindrops and flapping in the breeze. There were scratching noises from inside one of the cabinets, and when Peter opened it, he found Benji was curled up in a cabinet under the sink, whimpering. Upon closer inspection, it seemed more so that someone had stuffed Benji in the cabinet as opposed to him climbing in there.

"Benji!" Peter dashed to the cabinet and quickly began attempting to free his dog. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man vaulting his fence and leaping into a black 4x4 truck, which quickly and loudly took off down the street. After a few moments of struggling, he managed to angle the cabinet 'floor' downward at approximately a 50° angle (his cabinets had removable surfaces), and Benji quickly leaped out of his confines and dashed into the living room, paws scrabbling on the white linoleum.

"Strange," Peter said to himself. He filled up Benji's bowl. A few moments later, he heard gentle shuffling, and then Benji plodded around the corner, head low, and began hungrily inhaling his bowl of food. Peter refilled it for him when he was done and then wandered off to the fridge in search of dinner. He opened the fridge door only to be greeted with empty whiteness, save for an empty jam jar. He normally never paid attention to the contents of his fridge as the amount of food steadily decreased, but he never would have let it drop this far.

"This is great," Peter sighed. He fished his iPhone out of his pocket and dialed the number for his favorite pizza place. "Hi," he said. "Can I have a large pepperoni pizza- no toppings, please?"
There was a brief pause, and then a slightly indistinct voice replied. After confirming the specifics and the address to deliver it to, Peter hung up and sighed deeply. It had been an extremely tiring day, and all Peter wanted was to sit in front of the TV with his dog and relax. Perhaps they might still be doing replays and analyses of the game earlier that evening.

He was jolted out of his reverie by a musical chime coming from his doorbell. "I'm coming!" he yelled, then got up and hurried over to the door. Peter opened it. A young woman greeted him and handed over the pizza. He forked over a ten and a handful of ones, then bid her a good night. Strangely enough, she remained motionless after accepting the money, with a dazzling toothpaste-commercial-worthy smile plastered on her face and a fistful of money clenched in the other hand. "Um... I'll go now." Peter said cautiously. He had a dim recollection of something similar walking up to a doorstep in a movie, then freezing on the spot. It turned out that thing had been a robot programmed to self-destruct once certain conditions were met, which was when the target had drawn close enough.

Shuddering and pushing the memory back to the murky depths of his mind, he closed the door with a little bit more force than he needed, and returned to his couch. "Benji!," he called. Nothing. "Oh, not again!" he sighed exasperatedly. He got up to look, but Benji had simply crouched behind the couch, tail wagging and tongue out. "There you are!" he said delightedly, sitting back down. Benji began sprinting around the room in joy.

He had settled into the couch and began eating his pizza. He flicked through a couple of channels and settled on one that indeed still had an analysis of the game earlier that day.

He sat there for nearly two hours, dimly noting the occasional cold breeze. Finally, he stood up to investigate. He found his door wide open, and a slip of gray paper with swirly gold designs around the perimeter of the paper that ended at the top with what appeared to be an intricately designed snake, fangs bared. He picked up the note and read it.

Sorry, I couldn't find a dog-sized coffin. Figured it didn't matter; he's probably back as a ghost anyway, right?

Don't worry, I have plenty of human-sized ones. The pizza is poisoned, but I'm sure it still tastes great.

And don't worry about your side job. I've hired someone to replace you. They won't disappoint me like you did.