Monsters
by Chauna Williams

The words rolled off of my tongue in slow stutters. Words that I'm not even sure my brain could pronounce. But they came. And suddenly, it didn't seem so weird that I was saying them out loud. They-they-they're ex-ex-expan-expanding, growing big-bigger. I looked up startled as if waking from a terrible dream, thinking about what I had just said. I hadn't stuttered like that since I was around seven years old. The doctors told me and my mother that it would be completely gone before I was ten, and here I was stuttering like a broken record at the age of eighteen.

To the average person, I just looked like a young woman that was sitting on a bench and thinking. Yea, I was sitting on this bench and thinking alright. Thinking about last year. About who, or should I say what I saw walking along here with his black 'beating' stick and his stern face and his steel-gray eyes that held no emotion in them whatsoever. A policeman who was known to the young and old as 'The man who never knew how to smile.' The wind started to blow, knocking off some of the leaves that were hanging listlessly on some of the trees that were only a few hundred away from me, whispering that it was going to be winter soon. As the leaves blew down the uneven pavement, my mind lingered a little longer on those policeman's eyes. Those hateful steel-gray eyes that seemed to stare into mine with more hatred. For what reason, I don't know. Maybe he just didn't like girls, maybe he didn't like the fact that I was just sitting here all alone. I wanted to run from those scary looking eyes but all I could do was sit there and look up at him. His lips parted in what looked like a demonic grin. I shivered inside thinking about that grin. So scary to see. Mainly because of the way it looked. His eyes kind of bulged as if he had been shocked, his hands were in balled up fists, his hat that had a gold medallion shining in the center was tipped up a little. I saw him take no effort as to place it firmly on top of his head so it wouldn't go blowing down the street. At the time, I really didn't understand what was going on, what was happening to the town where I had grown up for most of my eighteen years of life. The adults, all of them were turning into what I could only call back then were raging giants. Towering people of six and seven feet tall bodies walking the streets, driving in cars, running, walking, and any other activity these things were doing at the time. I got up, wrapping my thin jacket around me, my teeth starting to click together as I walked my way home. In the corner of my eye, I saw a head turned towards me, staring intently, as if I was some sort of walking disease that he could clearly see on my body. His face was full of disgust and rage all at the same time. I walked faster, looking down at the ground, not really looking at anything except my blue shoes as they slapped the ground in quiet rhythms.

I groaned as I saw the sun start to go down. Gotta get home, gotta get home my brain urged me as my walk become a sprint. I ran past Murray's Bike Shop and Trina's Flower Bed House. I ran past the old Dairy Queen that had been standing for over fifty years on which every year they would always shut it down in the middle of summer, just when all the kids were starving for something cool to munch on. I slowed down when I had only gotten a few blocks away from the house, bending over to catch my breath, which was coming in sharp gasps as if I had asthma. After I had caught my breath I walked slowly, hoping that I wouldn't run into another one of those hulking things.

Finally I arrived on the porch steps of my house, looking up at the dark windows that were part of my room. My eyes went wide with a little bit of fright. It looked as if the house was looking down at me, watching me silently. I quickly slipped in, slamming the door closed and locking it tightly. As I passed the hallway switch, I flipped it on and was relieved to see bright flooding lights illuminate the hallway and all the way to my bedroom that was across the way. As I was walking slowly to my bedroom, a lump formed in my throat, my hearing rose two levels, hearing nothing and everything simultaneously. I looked to the left where my parent's bedroom was. I peeked inside, seeing nothing except a shadow of a dresser, a lamp shade and the closet. I couldn't tell if the door to it was open or not. I decided I didn't want to find out. I slid in my room and closed the door. I was about to turn and lock it, when I suddenly remembered that my father hadn't put one on the door yet. So I grabbed my computer chair and set it against the door. It was one of those small ones that were flimsy. It was dark gray, pretty ugly, but it was pretty when we first bought it. I stared at the door quietly, as if someone or something was about to come bashing through it at any second. After a few minutes, I finally sat down on my bed.

Slowly, I looked up and saw that my blinds were open. That's weird I thought, I know I closed those blinds when I left this morning to go walking. I sat on my knees and was about to close them when I saw a shadow walking across my lawn. They had their head down as if the wind was a little bit too strong for them. In the fading light, I could see the person reach into his pocket and retrieved what it looked to be a stick. I looked a bit closer, smashing my face against the cool pane of glass. It wasn't a stick as I thought it had been. It was a club. A club that policeman used. As I watched, the man slowly looked up in my direction and to my horror, grinned a ghastly smile. I gasped. Oh my God, that's the policeman that I saw earlier, my mind screamed. I closed the blinds as fast as I could. I picked up the phone that was beside my lamp and quickly dialed nine-one-one. I don't know how I got the numbers correct as my hand was shaking terribly, but I managed to do it somehow. After three long rings, an operator picked up the phone, but instead of the usual nine-one-one, what is your emergency? a deep voice came over the telephone, deep and menacingly and said, "Hey babe, in trouble? Well, it looks like you'll be waiting quite a long time for your folks to get home, so sit tight, someone will be there to comfort you in just a few minutes."
Then with that, the strange voice cackled madly in my ear and hung up.

I wanted to scream, but all came out of my mouth was a tiny squeak. I set the phone back on the hook. My hands were trembling. And they were icy cold. A faint knock came to the door. I jumped two feet in the air and snapped my eyes towards my bedroom door. What the hell? How did he get in the house? I thought frantically. Another knock. Louder this time. My breath came faster, gasping again. A whining sound escaped my lips. As I listened silently, a raspy voice on the other side of the door chuckled and said, "Hey babe. You lonely? Why don't you let me in so I can comfort you? You don't need to be in that room by your lonesome." Another low chuckle. "I brought some friends so we can have a party, a big one. Come on babe, you don't want to be alone tonight do you?" My mind scrambled for something to say. Finally, with a bit of hesitation, all I could come up with was to scream, "GO AWAY!! JUST GO AWAY!! TELL YOUR DAMN FRIENDS TO GO PARTY SOMEWHERE ELSE!!"

There was silence for a few moments then the voice answered, even more raspy than before, "Oh come on babe, my friends came a long way to have this party." Another pause. "GO AWAY!" I screamed. Then I heard a noise. It was coming from my bedroom window. I tried to see who it was through the closed blinds but it was no use. Whatever was making that noise was standing right in front of my window. Looking at me. Knowing I couldn't see them. Another noise came from my bedroom door. I realized with growing terror that they were trying to get in my bedroom! I gazed at the window and instantly recognized the sound. The thing was scratching at my window. "How can the thing be pounding on my door and scratching at my window at the same time?" I silently questioned myself. Another knock erupted from the door. Another scratch on the window.

"Come on . . ." A dry laugh came floating from under the door. "Come on Karen, the party is going to start soon, and we're coming in to make sure you're a part of it." "This thing knows my name," I whispered in the darkness. Another scratch on the window, louder and longer this time. I covered my ears. It sounded like a teacher scratching her nails on the chalkboard to get the classes attention when they got too rowdy. BOOM BOOM BOOM! What I heard next I would never forget.

"YOU'RE DEAD KAREN!!! THIS DOOR ISN'T GOING TO STOP US FROM GETTING YOU AND RIPPING YOUR INSIDES OUT ONTO THE FLOOR!" The sound of breaking glass made me gasp. I turned to stare at my window. Broken glass layed on my bed, shimmering slightly. A head poked through. Even through the dark that had suddenly came, I could see that what I was looking at was not human, not even an animal. Its head was deformed, half of it was normal and the other half was caved in as if it had been beaten with a hammer. What was supposed to be hands, big sharp claws snapped at me, making me step back towards the door. There were no clothes on it, its body was like a raisin, wrinkled and ugly, there were no sex organs so I couldn't tell if it was a male or female, which I think that scared me the most.

It grinned showing hundreds, probably even millions of sharp pointy fangs. I looked in its eyes and what I saw in those eyes was nothing I had ever seen in my life.

Its eyes were a dark red. Red as blood. There was no whiteness in the corners of them, nothing that showed that it was at least a bit human, just blood red eyes.

It continued to grin at me with its razor sharp teeth. What came out of its mouth next was something I would never have believed could happen in a million years.

"Hello Karen, ready to join the party?" I blinked twice, three times. Had I heard this thing talk? In fact, had I heard him speak clearly as if it was human? It cocked its head at me as if was a puppy trying to understand what I was doing.
"Karen, we want to party, you like parties don't you?" Yes, it spoke as clear as crystal. I backed up against the door, momentarily forgetting about the other things that were behind the door, fear gripping me in the throat, choking off my scream that was ready to come out. Its claws snapped at me. Threatening me.

I stepped away from the door and to the side, pressing my back against the cold, hard white wall. All of a sudden, voices floated from under the door, not just one like before, hundreds were babbling nonsense all at once. One voice got louder and louder till it shrieked, causing me to cover my ears. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!! CRAAACCCCCKKKK!!!!

"YOU'RE DEAD KAREN!! DEAD AS YOUR PARENTS!!" the thing screamed above the horrible shrieks and groans of the voices. In the corner of my eye, I looked at the window and saw two then three then ten people crowding around it, climbing in one at a time, each grinning with razor teeth at her. All with blood red eyes. Some had claws like the monster that had first climbed in, some had a human hand, some had human feet and a deformed lower body. I screamed, but it couldn't be heard over the shrieks of the monsters climbing in my window. With a loud groan of protest, my bedroom door came crashing down and thudded loudly onto the floor. I looked at the door as if it was some foreign object and then quickly looked at the gap where my door had once been and started screaming once again as I saw more of them slither their way towards me.

As the monsters reached me, their eyes glowing redder and redder as they advanced, the one that spoke that had laughed so evilly in my ear on the phone, came forward. Its arms, I saw, were human arms, but I doubted that were his. Like the other ones, he was wrinkled and ugly, no sex organs, but the thing that frightened me the most was his teeth. Also, like the other monsters that were slowly walking and crawling in my bedroom, he had sharp teeth, but they were bigger and sharper than the others . . . much sharper. As I closed my eyes for a moment, wanting all this to be a horrible nightmare, the monster spoke the last words that I will ever hear.

"Welcome to the party Karen."

©2002 Chauna Williams