Post by ebony on Oct 18, 2008 19:44:23 GMT -5
This is a short story I wrote for English class that had to be of the horror genre. It's somewhat weird, I know. And just so we're all clear on this, it is not based on personal experiences. x)
I had never really liked my stepfather. He tried so hard to replace my dad, but that's not what I wanted. My father could never be replaced. He was gone, and that was that.
It was disgusting the way that my stepfather looked at my mum, as if he were a thief contemplating a pricey jewel that he was about to steal. She seemed to be completely content with the man, and that made it even worse.
I will admit that I wasn't quite that polite to him. My mum always got a sort of melancholy look in her eyes whenever she heard my rudeness, and my stepfather didn't seem to feel anything. It was him I wanted to hurt, not mum! That's when my mum would start getting angry. She would yell at me, and I'd shout back, and it would continue like that until our voices got hoarse. He would just draw back to the wall, and lean against it in a sort of carefree way, waiting for the row to finish. He didn't give a d**n about me. He just wanted my mum.
Sometimes I would hear my mum crying at night, and him trying to console her with horribly indifferent words of comfort such as, “It'll be okay.” “Don't worry, darling, it'll be alright.” How could my mum love such a nonchalant man?
He died in early September. I believe that he had some sort of brain tumor.
I'm glad he's gone.
My mother was heartbroken when the doctors told her the news. She had to take all sorts of pills for depression and some other complicated symptoms. She felt as if she should take the blame for making me so unhappy, and of course she's crestfallen about that man's death. I don't blame her for anything, although she could have been a bit more careful when she chose a second husband. I think she's considering suicide.
I felt a sort of dull blankness inside of me. I was so depressed that I had no energy left for anger. But the anger was there, deep down. It was gradually consuming my sorrow; fuelling itself, and giving me strength. I needed that anger. It was the only way out of that dark, abyssmal hole of woe.
I rested my eyes on my stepfather's grave. The white stone gave off an eerie glow in the twilight. Someone had laid a pretty bouquet of flowers at the foot, beside an old candle that had been burnt down to almost nothing.
John Hartman, read the gravestone.
1964-2008
Cherished husband, father, and brother.
Father? Maybe he had had kids before he met mum. But I think that someone wrote that there for me. It might even have been mum. I pushed away that thought. She would never have done that. She knew that I hated him.
Suddenly, I think I went berserk. I snatched up that dainty bouquet, and began tearing up the flowers into little pieces. I spat at the foot of the grave, and gave it a good kick too. I dug my heel into the grass that grew above my stepfather's coffin, and then I began to rip it up with my hands. I threw that grass everywhere; the grass that had been tainted by his body lying under it. I kicked and spat on the grave some more. I screamed.
It seemed like hours later that I collapsed onto the ground, crying. No one was there to hear me weep. No one was even there to come over and scold me for vandalizing a grave. I cried for a good long while; until my throat felt too swollen to let out another wail, and my fists were too bruised to keep beating the grave. I didn't even notice when night finally set in; covering the sky in a sparkling, ebon blanket. I only stirred when I heard the soft scratch of bone on granite.
I've always been paranoid about this sort of thing. Dead people rising from their graves; bloody ghosts coming to cut my throat in the dead of night. Now, though, I did not feel simple paranoia. I felt fear. The type of fear that makes your body rigid, and your thoughts obscure. I could feel the adrenalin rushing through my veins. I heard my heart pumping in my ears. The scent of death and decay was riding on the breeze.
I felt the earth shifting beneath me. My stepfather was coming out of his grave.
A hand had already been thrust through the ground, and soon an arm followed. Much of the skin was still on the limb, as he had passed away only recently. The arm came up near the head of the grave, and felt around until it came to repose on the foundation of the headstone, in that insouciant manner that I had so despised him for. A few milky white bones were visible where the flesh had rotted away.
The arm reanimated, and suddenly my mind felt clearer than it had ever been. Sense came back into my head, and I began to get onto my feet so that I could flee the graveyard. Before I could do anything, however, the dead hand seized my wrist in a vise grip. Another arm popped up from the earth, like a great dirty snake sliding through the air, and reared to attack. It grabbed my other wrist with similar force, and began to drag me beneath the ground. I didn't even get the chance to scream as the arms pulled me ever deeper into the grave. I was a drowning sailor being towed to the bottom of the ocean by a siren. I was a fly in a spider's web. I was being buried alive.
The last thing that managed to penetrate my fading conciousness was one message that reverberated throughout my soul: Respect the dead.
I had never really liked my stepfather. He tried so hard to replace my dad, but that's not what I wanted. My father could never be replaced. He was gone, and that was that.
It was disgusting the way that my stepfather looked at my mum, as if he were a thief contemplating a pricey jewel that he was about to steal. She seemed to be completely content with the man, and that made it even worse.
I will admit that I wasn't quite that polite to him. My mum always got a sort of melancholy look in her eyes whenever she heard my rudeness, and my stepfather didn't seem to feel anything. It was him I wanted to hurt, not mum! That's when my mum would start getting angry. She would yell at me, and I'd shout back, and it would continue like that until our voices got hoarse. He would just draw back to the wall, and lean against it in a sort of carefree way, waiting for the row to finish. He didn't give a d**n about me. He just wanted my mum.
Sometimes I would hear my mum crying at night, and him trying to console her with horribly indifferent words of comfort such as, “It'll be okay.” “Don't worry, darling, it'll be alright.” How could my mum love such a nonchalant man?
He died in early September. I believe that he had some sort of brain tumor.
I'm glad he's gone.
My mother was heartbroken when the doctors told her the news. She had to take all sorts of pills for depression and some other complicated symptoms. She felt as if she should take the blame for making me so unhappy, and of course she's crestfallen about that man's death. I don't blame her for anything, although she could have been a bit more careful when she chose a second husband. I think she's considering suicide.
I felt a sort of dull blankness inside of me. I was so depressed that I had no energy left for anger. But the anger was there, deep down. It was gradually consuming my sorrow; fuelling itself, and giving me strength. I needed that anger. It was the only way out of that dark, abyssmal hole of woe.
I rested my eyes on my stepfather's grave. The white stone gave off an eerie glow in the twilight. Someone had laid a pretty bouquet of flowers at the foot, beside an old candle that had been burnt down to almost nothing.
John Hartman, read the gravestone.
1964-2008
Cherished husband, father, and brother.
Father? Maybe he had had kids before he met mum. But I think that someone wrote that there for me. It might even have been mum. I pushed away that thought. She would never have done that. She knew that I hated him.
Suddenly, I think I went berserk. I snatched up that dainty bouquet, and began tearing up the flowers into little pieces. I spat at the foot of the grave, and gave it a good kick too. I dug my heel into the grass that grew above my stepfather's coffin, and then I began to rip it up with my hands. I threw that grass everywhere; the grass that had been tainted by his body lying under it. I kicked and spat on the grave some more. I screamed.
It seemed like hours later that I collapsed onto the ground, crying. No one was there to hear me weep. No one was even there to come over and scold me for vandalizing a grave. I cried for a good long while; until my throat felt too swollen to let out another wail, and my fists were too bruised to keep beating the grave. I didn't even notice when night finally set in; covering the sky in a sparkling, ebon blanket. I only stirred when I heard the soft scratch of bone on granite.
I've always been paranoid about this sort of thing. Dead people rising from their graves; bloody ghosts coming to cut my throat in the dead of night. Now, though, I did not feel simple paranoia. I felt fear. The type of fear that makes your body rigid, and your thoughts obscure. I could feel the adrenalin rushing through my veins. I heard my heart pumping in my ears. The scent of death and decay was riding on the breeze.
I felt the earth shifting beneath me. My stepfather was coming out of his grave.
A hand had already been thrust through the ground, and soon an arm followed. Much of the skin was still on the limb, as he had passed away only recently. The arm came up near the head of the grave, and felt around until it came to repose on the foundation of the headstone, in that insouciant manner that I had so despised him for. A few milky white bones were visible where the flesh had rotted away.
The arm reanimated, and suddenly my mind felt clearer than it had ever been. Sense came back into my head, and I began to get onto my feet so that I could flee the graveyard. Before I could do anything, however, the dead hand seized my wrist in a vise grip. Another arm popped up from the earth, like a great dirty snake sliding through the air, and reared to attack. It grabbed my other wrist with similar force, and began to drag me beneath the ground. I didn't even get the chance to scream as the arms pulled me ever deeper into the grave. I was a drowning sailor being towed to the bottom of the ocean by a siren. I was a fly in a spider's web. I was being buried alive.
The last thing that managed to penetrate my fading conciousness was one message that reverberated throughout my soul: Respect the dead.
