WARNING!!

This story contains scenes of graphic violence and language. If you are under 18 or do not wish to read a story of this caliber, press your browser's BACK button now. Otherwise, press on, faithful Reader.

I don't know how much longer I can stand the torture. Right now, I'm sitting alone in the dark. I could have light, but I'm afraid that they might be attracted to it...like flies to a rotting corpse. I jump at every sound, but I have to remain deathly silent for fear of alerting them to my presence. My eyes have long since been accustomed to the pitch-dark of what was once my living room. I let them wander over the shattered remains of the little pieces of furniture I used to have. It was dusty in here and was in dire need of a cleaning, but I didn't feel like it. A clean house was just about the last thing on my mind. I nervously flicked my gaze over to the cellar door, thinking that, at any moment, it would fly open, and one (or all) of them would walk...crawl...slither out. But I shook my head and thought, "They're all dead. This little baby took care of that."

I looked down at the shotgun cradled in my lap and caressed its bore fondly, as if it were my lover instead of my salvation. I had, over the last few days, become frequented and familiar with the gun's comforting weight. It was now a part of me, waiting quietly, as I was, for something to happen. I patted the stock and resumed looking around my battered home. It already seemed like years that I had waited in silence. Gods, I was thirsty. I figured I might as well go grab a beer, so after glancing at the front door, I crept into the kitchen (also similarly littered with garbage, unwashed dishes, and scores of empty beer bottles), my stockinged feet making a slight whispering sound on the cluttered linoleum.

I opened the fridge and grabbed one of the last remaining bottles of Miller. Downing it in a few swallows, I dropped the bottle onto the overflowing garbage can and looked blearily around with my bloodshot eyes and thought about the old days. It wasn't all that long ago that the things outside would leave me in peace. But lately, they'd been checking up on me frequently. A few days ago, it got so bad that I had to shoot one of them 'cause they WOULDN'T GO AWAY!! Soon enough, their papery-taut faces and jackal-like smiles that reminded me of the grillwork on that car in "Christine" haunted my mind, slowly leeching away what little sanity I had left. Now it was up to me. I was the only one who saw that these...these things were out to get us all. They wouldn't stop for anyone or anything. They just kept coming...and coming...and....

I grabbed my head to calm myself, took a deep breath and closed my weary eyes. Gotta remain calm. Won't do any good to panic...not yet. So far, I was ahead, and as far as I knew, none of them knew what I had been up to. The less they found out, the better. I couldn't let any one of those things in my house...and let them out again. Hence, the shotgun. Hence, the twin trails of dried blood leading to the cellar door. Hence, the graves...the fresh, stinking graves...growing rapidly more putrid in the summers heat. There was no other way.

An irresistable force drew me to the cellar door. There was no way I was going to go down those stairs again...unless I had another thing to bury...but I just had to see. See if, somehow, they had come back alive and were coming up the stairs to get their revenge on me...climbing the stairs in whatever way their mangled, decomposing limbs could take them. Taking a deep breath because I was giving myself the willies, I opened the door, and nothing but the stench of decay and damp...and blood reached toward me. I rocked back from that somehow meaty smell and closed my eyes to gather my wits. The lightbulb above the stairs had been knocked out some time ago, but my senses felt no presence on the stairs...except the dry, maroon patches...which were becoming rather common on the bottom level of my house.

Without fully realizing it, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, scoffing myself for being so foolish. Of course the corpses are still dead. But still, the vision of ten bloody and gaseous corpses, eyes crawling with maggots and worms, bodies already turning green with pestilence, gruesome grins baring teeth so white and so perfect...they always smiled...even when they died...pulling themselves up the stairs, reaching for the door with rigid hands...the skin falling off in decomposing flaps, all chanting the same phrase in their breathy whispers...over and over again until........

"NO!" I screamed and slammed the door shut, and that to my troubling vision. I felt infinitely better and was just starting to calm down when the front doorbell clamored noisily throughout the house. "Them," I muttered darkly under my breath and crept stealthily to the living room where I had left my gun. I really don't want to shoot anything anymore....I'm starting to enjoy it, and I know I'll have to pay a lot of money for a therapist once I get out of this mess. Besides, cleaning brains and gore off the upholstery was no walk in the park.

The doorbell rang a second time, followed by an insistent knocking on the door. I crouch like an animal behind the last remaining chair in the room and watch the door intently. A face appeared at the window...it often was a different face but always the same smile...the Bucky Beaver grin with wickedly white teeth. It filled my enraged scope of vision, and I narrowed my eyes as I saw the gross creature squint its mercillesly cruel black eyes, trying to see into the gloom of my house. I hiss low between my teeth and shift my weight to my other foot, preparing to bolt at the first sign of danger. The thing outside caught my movement, bared its teeth even wider (if it was even possible), and proceeded to jam one of its digits down on the bell.

The constant buzzing got unbearable after awhile. I had no other choice. I had to dispose of this one too...or all the rest of them would find out my secret. But I had to act completely normal...just like any other unsuspecting fool. I opened the door a small crack and peered at the figure perched on my front step.

"What do you want?" I ask it in a rusty and unused voice.

"Depends on what you want. May I come in for a minute, miss?" said the demonic-grinning figure.

I almost lose it right then...that phrase rattles my already-addled brain, but I manage to keep control of my outward expression.

"By all means. Come on in," I reply in a poisonously-sweet voice.

The figure hesitated for a second, and I saw a shadow of doubt cross its leathery features. I smile innocently, which seemed to reassure the creature. It stepped into my...lair. I shut and locked the door behind him and brought the gun around into shooting position.

"It's a little dark in here, miss," the figure said, nervous once more and out of its element.

What happens next happened so fast that I saw it as a series of still photographs, passed one to the next with an almost audible "click."

*Click*

The figure caught the gleam of light reflected off the gun's barrel, now aimed low at it....near its groin...in my excitement and fear, I only wanted to hurt the creature slow before killing it.

"Miss? What are you doing?"

*Click*

I pull the trigger and hear the satisfying roar echo through the house.

*Click*

The figure's mouth contorts into a big, round "O" of pain, and the hateful fangs of its kind slide back into the thin sheathes of its lips. The figure moans horrible, then utters an ear-piercing screech as the first wave of REAL pain hits its nerve centers.

*Click*

I aim the shotgun a little higher...at its belly...and the shotgun roars again. The figure mewls out another strangled shriek and looks disbelievingly at it's missing abdomen...and the loopy ropes of it's intestines slithering out onto the floor. The figure's face floats up in a haze of pain and confusion, and it's deadly gaze locks onto mine.

*Click*

"Fuck you," I whisper hoarsely, jamming the barrel of my trusty shotgun into the creature's eye socket, and pulling the trigger again. The demonic leer never left its face even as its head exploded.

*Click*

The smoke clears, and the smell of burnt gunpowder leaves my nostrils (thankfully). But the steamy smell of hot, coppery blood overpowers me, and I retch weakly. I put my gun down on the now rather slimy floor and looked critically at my handiwork. A shoddy job at best, but at least the thing was dead. My aim was not the greatest in the world....then I remember purposly firing the way I did and blanchvisibly. Hope no one heard.

I have only started to breathe easier when I hear a frantic knocking at my door. My heart takes the express elevator to my throat, and my dry lips part in a silent scream. "Who...who's there?" I manage to call out thinly, fear sending cold fingers down my spine.

There was no answer from outside the door.

"Who's there?" I yell louder, unaware of the lock being turned....once I see, I scuttle behind the overturned coffee table in the corner, grabbing my shotgun as I go . "Oh, shit!" I think as the door bangs open and a horde of demon-spawn swarm over my threshold and into the gore-bedecked living room.

"What the hell happened in here? Harry? Where are you?" the first grinning banshee says just before tripping over the virtually decapitated body of its friend and falling face down into a small pile of brains.

I finish loading the gun with some of the extra shells I have in my pocket and assume a hunter's firing position from behind the table.

"Get the fuck out of my house!" I bellow in rage, and, having completely lost my mind, I proceed to let loose with the shotgun. One of the hellbeasts gets hit in the mouth, spraying teeth and bits of tongue everywhere. Another gets blasted in the throat and makes a queer gargling sound as it sinks to the floor, its lifeblood spurting out of its shattered neck in a gruesome parody of "Old Faithful." I take aim at the third entering through the door and shoot off most of it's left side. The things eyes bug out as its heart and left lung slide out of the hole and plop on the floor.

There is no sanity here. All I see is the blood, all I feel is the weight of the gun...my finger on the trigger. No one else comes through immediately after the carnage, and I use the opportunity to slump against the wall and dully look about me. Four bodies are sprawled in impossible positions on my floor...positions made possible by the absence of varying appendaged. There are blood and parts of internal organs splattered on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, and, most of all, on me. I cackle insanely as I view the damage.

"Damn right!" I sneer ruefully as I proceed to get up and brush myself off, achieving only in further smearing assortted gore across my clothes. The blood in my hair begins to coagulate, leaving my hair in stiff and sticky spikes radiating away from my head. I dug into my pants pocket and come out with one shell left for the shotgun>

"Right," I titter again as I look at the shell nestled lovingly in my palm.

"You and me, baby...we'll blow them all away," I finally utter in a low, eerie chuckle. I load up the shotgun with the last shell...they make a satisfying "click" as they come home.

"I'll be a hero!" I yell, thinking that I have rid the world of a universal scourge. I yell it over and over again as I step over the prone bodies and proceed to bludgeon the heads of the corpses (if they had one left) with the stock of the shotgun.

"No one messes with me and gets away with it!" I shout triumphantly as I lift the gun...my talisman...and hammer it home on the last head, making the most beautiful wet crunch...as if a head of lettuce had just been torn apart.

"You've gone too far," intones a thin, wavering voice from the doorway.

I whirl around with a savage gleam in my eye and growl ferally. "Not far enough....you're still alive." I belt him across the bridge of his nose with the barrel of the gun, hearing the bone snap....seeing the blood spray.

But it isn't the last one. More and more of those parodies of men come streaming over my lawn....more than I can ever hope to kill without using bullets. Dimly, I realize this, and with an animal grunt of exertion, I heave the injured beast out of the doorway and slam the door shut. The wave crashes against the closed door....and then they begin pleading....insistent....and I back up in horror against the far wall.

"Miss? May we come in? For a moment?'

(forever?)

I grin wickedly, and for a moment, I look like one of them....except for the fact that my eyes are green, not black. Well, they were green....I imagine they look more like Christmas decorations now...bloodshot from no sleep and too much alcohol...

The door groans inwardly on its hinges as the mass behind it grows ever larger. The various voices I have heard grow fainter and fainter as the throb of my pulse in my ears...my eyes...and my temples becomes the only sound I recognize. Self-preservation kicks in when I notice the cracks beginning to appear in the door. I have to get out of here! I have to run as far and as fast as I can....I have to blast my way....out there...

(but I only have one round...)

That thought breaks over me better than the coldest shower ever taken. In these short moments that follow, I know this is the clearest I will have seen in a long time. There really is only one thing left I can do....only one way to put my tortured mind at ease and to keep those foul spirits from controlling what's left of me. Only one way to end it forever....

The sound of my pulse fades and is replaced by the ticking of the mantel clock. The pounding on the door seems very far away, indeed.

*Tick*

I look up, my eyes clear, my mind unclouded...

*Tick*

I run a hand lovingly over the bloodspattered metal of the shotgun...

*Tick*

I reverse the direction of the gun, peer thoughtfully into the chamber's bore, and place the muzzle firmly against the roof of my mouth....

*Tick*

I dinly hear the splintering of the door as the mob behind it pushes it off its frame...

*Tick*

I shut my eyes tightly and say a quick prayer that my shot will not fail...

*Tick*

And as I put pressure on the trigger (it's not as awkward as I thought it might be), one last thought creeps into my blank mind...

*Tick*

(damn salesmen)

*Ti..........*

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