Stories

I took a good long look at it and decided that this blog is boring. It even bores myself, so I don't write for it, which makes it even more boring. For which reason I've decided to start posting some old stories of mine. It should be a week or two till I run out.

This one's called the Beast. I didn't base it off of anything. I just kinda made it up as I went along. I think it turned out pretty well.

The television played softly in the living room. The local news was on.
“Still more rumors reported of a strange cult meeting in our local woods etc…” The box droned on in the dark room with no one watching or listening.
Meanwhile, Sarah cleaned up in the kitchen, washing the dishes. A little girl tugged at Sarah’s leg,
“Mommy, when is Daddy going to be home?”
“I don’t know when George is getting home Agnes, I really don’t know.” Sarah responded with obvious agitation.
It was now half past seven and it was getting late. The two had already eaten dinner and were getting concerned about George’s tardiness. This was the third such event in the past week.
“Reports of kidnappings…” the television continued to blather with nobody listening.
Agnes went and sat at the table and put her head into her arms. A car pulled slowly into the driveway. The front door opened and a man with a forlorn and tired expression shuffled in through the door. He looked up and saw Sarah still washing out a very large pot.
“Where have you been?” Sarah asked stiffly, clearly holding back something.
“I don’t know.” came the belated and flippant reply.
“You come home two hours late and don’t even give a reason?!” pent-up agitation showing through, “You missed dinner!”
“I already ate.” said George.
“’You already ate,’” said Sarah sarcastically, and after a moment, “Fine, whatever, I don’t care, I’m going to bed.”
George watched as Sarah stiffly walked past him, up the stairs and into the bedroom. He wasn’t about to go follow her. Instead he looked into the kitchen and saw Agnes at the kitchen table asleep with her head resting in her arms. She had rosary beads around her neck that she had been pretending were a necklace. George thought it was amusing how she wore a pink shirt with white flowers and a violet skirt with blue triangles. George went into the kitchen and sat down beside her. He gently shook her shoulder to wake her up. Agnes opened her eyes and sleepily looked at George.
“Daddy?” she said waking up.
“How’s it going sweetheart?” he inquired, “You look tired, were you sleeping just now when Daddy came home?”
“I think so”
“Good” George said, more to himself than to her. He continued, “It must be nice being so little, not having to worry about things that big people do.”
Agnes knitted her brow and pouted her lips. She didn’t the implication that there was something she didn’t understand because of her age. George gently laughed off her expression and told her to get ready for bed. She went off and George went to his office and turned on the computer.
Meanwhile the television still droned on in the dark living room. A talk show was now on, “We’ve got Fr. Frances Jogues, a religious expert on satanic cults with multiple degrees from the Vatican, and Dr. P. H. Amordestreza, a famous author and self avowed pagan who is also considered an expert on such cults, both here today to debate the rumors of an actual satanic cult based right in our home town! Fr. Jogues, would you like to comment…”
At around ten thirty six, George wandered out of his office and, upon hearing a noise, went into the living room. H saw that it was the television and went to turn it off. It was only late night comics. As George turned to leave, he saw Agnes in the large sofa chair angled toward the television. She was asleep again. She still had the rosary beads around her neck and looked very peaceful so George didn’t want to move her. He picked a blanket from the nearby couch. He wiped drool from her mouth with the corner of the blanket and moved her head to a more comfortable position. He put the blanket over her and returned to his room. Sarah was asleep on the bed and he didn’t want to wake her so he went to sleep on the floor.

It was past twelve when something entered the home. Agnes woke up feeling very cold. The blanket was no longer draped over her. She sat up and looked around. The only blanket she could see was in the black chair across the room. Strange, she didn’t remember that chair. She got up walked over to the chair and sat in it. It was a very big chair and she sank deep into plush cushions. She proceeded to make herself at home.
Agnes was just settling down when a long leathery hand with many fingers draped itself across her face. The hand pulled Agnes back and the chair suddenly felt hard and leathery. Another hand grabbed her midsection. A third and a forth hand held her legs together.
Agnes tried to scream but the hand held her face too tightly. She struggle and tried to kick and punch and bite but she was held fast. Agnes felt herself being lifted into the air and could only watch as she passed through the back door which was strangely open. She heard a deep and labored breathing behind her and felt as the surface she was held against heaved. Agnes could feel the long strides, which the beast made as it walked into the woods, and she saw the tops of the trees through the fingers, which held her face.
The rumbling that Agnes heard from the beast’s belly terrified her and she began to cry.

George received a kick in the side.
“Wake up, you’ll be late for work!” Sarah was saying as George groggily opened his eyes.
“What time is it?” he yawned.
He sat up and was suddenly startled by the sharp pain in his back. He wondered for a second why he had been sleeping on the floor. Then he remembered the night before.
“Its seven forty three,” Sarah said, “You have fifteen minutes.”
George jumped up and immediately began to prepare for the office. Sarah left the room, apparently to concern herself with one of her other morning chores. George got dressed, shaved and washed up in record time. He ran down the stairs, grabbed an apple for breakfast, and proceeded head out the door. He noticed Sarah flitting rapidly to and fro about the house calling Agnes’s name.
“Wait!” Sarah called, interrupting his departure, “Do you have any idea what happened to Agnes? She wasn’t in her bed this morning and I can’t find her.”
“She fell asleep in the sofa chair last night and I left her there.” George responded, “If she isn’t still there I don’t know where she is.”
“The little rascal must be hiding, playing games.” Sarah muttered. She called, “Agnes, your going to be late for school.”
George was about to leave again when he suddenly remembered to say, “Oh Sarah, I’m sorry about last night.”
“Forget it.” She responded, not really paying attention, “Agnes, where are you?”
George shrugged his shoulders and left for work.

It was twelve fifteen, lunchtime, and George was busy shuffling papers, literally. He was looking for a document he had filed away months ago. He was trying to shred the document because he had gotten word that police were going to put the office through an inspection and George didn’t need the police to find this document, or several others for that matter.
The phone range and George answered it, “Hello?”
“Hello, George? This is Sarah. I still can’t find Agnes and I’m getting worried.”
“Are you sure she’s not still hiding?” George asked, surprised by the call.
“She’d have gotten hungry by now George. I think something may have happened to her. Oh, I hope nothing happened to her. George, you have to do something. Where’s my little girl?”
It dawned on George that something may have actually happened. He rapidly became very worried.
“She’s probably fine Sarah,” George said, “Probably just snuck into the cabinets. You know how crafty she can be.”
“George,” Sarah began. . .
“I’ll see what I can do though,” George said, “She’ll be fine I assure you.”
“Are you certain?” She asked.
“I’m certain.”
“OK . . .”
“OK.”
“OK.”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
George hung up. He sat back in his chair and began to lightly tug on his hair as was his habit when he was worried. He had no idea what he could do. If something had really happened to Agnes there was no way he could know where she had gone. However, George resigned himself to do whatever he could. He called the police.
“Hello, this is the police department emergency line.” a voice said, “Please report your emergency.”
“Hello, I’d like to file a missing person’s report.” said George.
“OK sir.” the voice on the other end of the line said, “Would you please give us the name of the person, a description, The time and place where he or she was last seen and the name of the person who saw him or her last.”
“The person is my daughter Agnes.” George began, “She is four and a half feet tall and eight years old. She’s Caucasian with brown eyes and short brown hair. I was the last person to see her and the time was last night. She was asleep on a chair in my living room.”
The voice on the other end made a sound to the effect of “Hm… That’s interesting…” and George asked what it was.
“Oh nothing,” said the voice, “I was just thinking. We’ll see if we can help find your daughter. You have nothing to fear. Return home, we’ll send a squad over to begin a search.”
“Thank you.” said George and he hung up the phone.
George called his boss and told him that he would be leaving early due to a family emergency and hung up before his boss could question him. George then went to his car and drove home.

When George got home, he immediately went into the kitchen. There he saw Sarah. She was crying.
George asked, “Sarah?”
“Agnes?” Sarah asked looking up, “Oh, it’s just you.”
“I’m going to find Agnes, Sarah” George said, attempting to reassure her.
Sarah just looked at George. She seemed unsure as to whether to believe him.
“Sarah, Agnes will be safe before you know it.” George said, trying his best to reassure Sarah.
She still just continued to stare, unsure as whether to believe him.
“Sarah, I promise…” George began.
“Just like you promised to be home in time for dinner last night?” Sarah retorted. George was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say.
“Sarah…” he began.
“George, how can I believe that? You haven’t kept a promise in years. You’re never home. You don’t care about Agnes. You don’t care about me. You’re selfish and mean. In fact, you’re standing there mocking me right now. You think that it’s funny that I can’t find Agnes. This is just a game to you.” she accused, pent up frustration bubbling to the surface. She was scared and frustrated.
“Sarah,” George said, “You don’t mean that.”
She looked at him for a second, teeth clenched, face flushed, before breaking into tears.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah cried, “I’m just so worried. I can’t find my little girl. I can’t find her anywhere. Agnes is missing and I don’t know where she is. George, she’s all I have, my little girl. She’s all I have.”
“Sarah, you still have me.” George said.
He realized his mistake immediately. Sarah looked at him, with an exasperated expression.
Before she could say anything George quickly said, “I’ll find her.”
“You will?” asked Sarah.
“I will.”
“Please find her.”
“Don’t worry.”
“…OK…”
“Don’t cry.”
“…OK…”
“And you’re right.” George said.
“What?”
“I haven’t always been there for you and Agnes.” George continued.
“You’re right about that.” She said.
“But I’m here right now.” George reassured.
“Yes you are.” Sarah said.
“And I’ll find Agnes and she’ll be alright. You’ll see.” George said.
“Thank you George.” Sarah said.
“You’re welcome,” George said, “And Agnes will be fine.”
He got up and left to look for Agnes.

George remembered that the last place he had seen Agnes was in the living room so he checked there first. He didn’t see anything at first. Then he noticed that the blanket that he had thrown over her seemed to be missing. He looked at both the chair and the couch but it was missing from either. Then he saw it by the sliding glass door that lead into the backyard. He went over to it and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. This seemed odd because it was usually locked. He headed out the door.
George stepped down the stairs into the yard but nothing caught his eye at first. As he headed further into the yard, however, he noticed that the un-mowed grass by the woods was flattened in one spot. He headed over to that spot and looked into the woods beyond. He saw a footprint that was obviously not made by a human being. It was very large and had in excess of twenty long toes. It looked almost as if a great spider’s web had been imprinted into the muddy ground. He headed over to the footprint and soon noticed that it was one of many footprints that headed off into the woods.
George felt cold all of a sudden and turned to retrieve his coat, only to realize that he was already wearing his coat. On an impulse, he returned to the house anyway. He went to the gun cabinet in the garage and retrieved his shotgun. He hid the shotgun in his coat so he wouldn’t worry Sarah if she saw him leave. He didn’t think to ask himself why he was taking the gun with him anyway. It just felt like something necessary.

George followed the footprints deep into the woods for what seemed like hours. The forest became so thick that he could hardly tell when the sun began to set. He also got very hungry and realized that he had bought nothing with him to eat. He was thinking of turning back when he saw a light ahead.
George moved toward the light. He came quietly upon a clearing. There was a bonfire in the clearing, and around it were gathered figures dressed in black robes. Beyond the fire, on the far side of the clearing, there was the entrance to a cave. The figures moved in a sort of rhythmic motion and George could here a low murmuring that he suspected to be chanting. There was an eerie glow coming from the cave. George could see piles of what he thought were rocks all around the entrance to the cave. Something moved near the pile, something four and a half feet tall and bound in heavy cloths.
George stepped into the clearing and let off a shot from his shotgun. The robed people scattered into the woods and George moved over to the figure that had moved believing it to be his daughter, Agnes. As he got closer, he noticed that there was no wood in the fire, and that the piles of rocks were really bones, both animal and human. He reached the figure and he saw that it was a small person tied up and wrapped in cloth.
George pulled the wrappings away from the face and saw that it was indeed his daughter. She was asleep, or perhaps knocked unconscious. George saw from the dried snot on Agnes’s upper lip that she had been crying. He woke her up.
As she opened her eyes she asked, “Daddy?”
“I’m here Agnes” George said.
He picked her up to take her home. Turning, he began to leave.
Just then, a powerful force knocked George down and Agnes out of his arms. George looked up in time to see a black mass pick up Agnes and disappear with her screaming into the cave. George grabbed his shotgun and followed the beast into the cave.
The cave was very cramped. George had to bow almost to the ground to fit in it. He moved forward slowly; his feet kept getting stuck in the thick mud out of which the cave seemed to be made. George moved forward, following the sounds of Agnes wailing, moving deeper and deeper through the narrow tunnel. As George moved though, the ground became less sticky and the tunnel widened slightly, until, all of a sudden the tunnel opened into a large semi-spherical cavern at least fifty feet in diameter.
The cavern was luminous. It glowed from the walls with a strange yellow glow. The first thing that George saw upon entering the cavern was Agnes. She was bundled up in the far corner and seemed to be whimpering. The next thing George saw was a black shape standing over Agnes. As George entered the cavern the shape turned to face him. George now saw the beast clearly.
The beast had a mouth, which extended vertically from the top to the bottom of its face. The mouth was lined with sharp crooked teeth, which pointed this way and that. A mass of tentacles protruded from the mouth and reached forward writhing as if to grasp the air. On either side of the mouth there were scattered clusters of red catlike eyes, moving and blinking independently of each other. The beast had many arms, jointed in random places, reaching out in all directions. Each arm ended in a long, bony hand with at least eleven fingers each. As George stood there, the beast seemed to grow in all directions until it filled the entire cavern. Its hideous face was at the very point of the ceiling and its arms stretched the entire length of the walls.
George lifted his shotgun to fire it but the beast picked up Agnes in one of its hands and held her in front of it.
“Put your weapon down.” George heard a voice in his mind.
“What?“ George thought to himself, shaking his head.
“Put your weapon down.” the voice repeated.
“What on earth…” George said as he continued to hesitate.
“Put it down or else.” the voice said.
The beast put its fingers around Agnes’s neck and began to strangle her. Agnes’s whimpering stopped and her face turned red. George dropped his shotgun and the beast released its grip from Agnes’s neck. Agnes began to whimper again. The beast then took George in its many hands. George struggled and shouted but the beast’s grip was like a vice and squeezed him tighter the more he struggled until the circulation was cut off in George’s limbs and he was forced to stop.
“You should know better than to try to fight me George.” said the voice in George’s mind.
“Who are you?” was all that George could think to say.
“I am your master George.” the voice responded, “Whatever I tell you to do you do. It has always been that way.”
This statement terrified George because although he had never seen this monster before in his life, he somehow felt that what it said was the truth.
“Come now,” the voice said, “Everything will be just fine.”
George felt himself agreeing with the beast.
“Come in my servants.” said the voice, speaking audibly all of a sudden, “Take this one. Finish the ritual. I hunger.”
In walked several robed figures from the entrance George had come through. They collectively took Agnes and carried her out the way they came. They took the shotgun with them as well. They passed closely by George as they left. As they passed though, George could hear that her whimpering was really her praying. She was praying on the rosary that she had been wearing around her neck. For that instant, just that instant, George felt as if everything was fine and that he didn’t need to worry. But the feeling passed with Agnes and he realized that they were going to hurt her, maybe even kill her. George stared in absolute terror as the figures passed with Agnes from his sight.
“NO! Agnes!” he shouted… “No! Agnes!” he whispered.
“I wouldn’t worry about her George.” the beast said into George’s head.
“What are they going to do to her?” George demanded.
“She will be just fine, in a manner of speaking.” the beast responded, “I’d be more concerned with what happened to you.”
“What? Are you threatening me?” George said, suddenly concerned for his himself.
“Why, no George. I’m the best friend you have in the world.”
“No you’re not… Who are you?”
“I told you George. I’m your master. You have served me your entire life.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“You may not recognize me George but I know you. I know everything about you George.”
“You don’t know anything about me. I don’t know you at all. This is ridiculous.”
“I know your NAME George. I know where you live. I know the names of your wife and child George. More importantly, I know all the things that you don’t want people to know. I know why you come home so late. I know about your hours of paper shredding. I know about the things you’ve done to your colleagues over the years, to your friends. I know about the things you do when you think no one is looking. I was looking George. I was at your side each and every one of those times. I was at your side George, dictating your every step. Do you now deny that I am your master George? You have obeyed me your entire life and you will obey me now.”
“But, but, I don’t know you.”
“Yes you do George. You know me very well. I am your darker side. Every thing that you have done in secret hoping to hide from the world, everything I have engineered. I am your master George, the voice of your darker passions. You have served me your entire life, and you will serve me now.”
George thought about this. He resisted it.
“What about Agnes? What does this have to do with her?”
“You didn’t think your sins could remain isolated? You didn’t think others wouldn’t suffer? Every master demands a sacrifice of some sort. I am your master. I can no longer live off of squabbling and unease. I demand blood George. I will be satiated.”
“You can’t.” George protested.
“I will and you won’t stop me.” Said the beast, “I am your master.”
Just then noises began to come from the outside. George could hear distant shouting and the vague sounds of a struggle. The beast froze, turned its face and peered through the tunnel listening. It then turned back to George and flung him to the floor.
“Don’t move from that spot. If you move, you sacrifice all of your ambitions and pleasures George. The world will find out all your secrets, and then I will kill you. You will die in ignominy. I know you don’t want that George. So stay. I am your master.”
With that, the beast disappeared down the tunnel like a shadow fleeing from the light.

George sat there, not moving, for a long time. He was afraid to go down the tunnel, to attack the beast and save Agnes. He felt inexplicably guilty for what was happening. He felt sorry that Agnes was suffering for what he had done. But for all that, he couldn’t bring himself to fix it. He was afraid to challenge the hold that the beast had said it had on him. George cowered.
Then George thought of Agnes. He thought of her mismatched clothes and her rosary bead necklace. He thought of Sarah at home crying for her little girl and of his promise that he would return Agnes safe and sound. George loved his wife and daughter. Though he knew he didn’t always act like he loved them, he did love them. He was not about to sacrifice them, not for anything, certainly not to this beast, which he hated.
George got up. He took a step, and then another step. He forced himself into the tunnel, which lead outside. A wave of fear fell over him but he fought against it. Reason after reason entered his mind against his will as to why he should not go but he fought against them. George knew that the beast lay at the other side of the tunnel, and that he would die when he reached the end, but he went on anyway. He went on because he knew that Agnes his little girl was in danger.
When George reached the tunnel entrance and stepped into the clearing the first thing he saw were dead bodies. Laying everywhere were the bodies of cultists and police officers. Many of the cultists had obviously been shot but the police looked as if they had been strangled, strangled by long bony fingers.
When George looked up he saw the beast and a number of cultists standing in a circle around a bundle on the ground. Realizing instantly what the bundle was, George looked for a weapon and found his shotgun lying by the cave entrance. He picked up the shotgun and was about to charge the circle, forgetting all concern for himself, when he noticed something. The beast seemed to shrink before his eyes and instead of an enormous twisted monster there stood a withered old man. George had forgotten himself completely for one second and for that second he saw the nature of the beast, weak and impotent, only a façade of power.
George fired a shot in the air and cultists scattered in all direction just as before. The beast looked up and hesitated. George however didn’t hesitate. He aimed and fired directly into the beast’ chest and it vanished. In its place stood the withered old man who swayed for a second, and fell over.
“I hate…” and then silence came from the old man.
The fuel-less fire disappeared, the cave collapsed behind George, and it felt to him as if a weight had lifted off of the whole area.

George untied Agnes.
“I was praying for you Daddy.” she said.
“I know sweetie.” he responded, smiling.
“Did God help you save me?” she asked.
“Yes he did.” George said.
They left the woods and met a group of terrified police officers on the way. George convinced them to return to the clearing to arrest the remaining cultists, He them returned home with Agnes. The sun was rising again when they got home. They entered into the house through the sliding glass door.
“Sarah,” George called “I’m home.”
“George,” she called back, “The police were here to look for Agnes. Where have you been? They need to talk to you.”
“No they don’t,” George replied, “I already told them everything they need to know. I found Agnes.”
“You what?!” Sarah rushed into the room and upon seeing Agnes, picked her up in her arms and began giving her kisses, “Oh, sweetie, where have you been? You look terrible.”
“Daddy saved my from a monster.” Agnes responded frankly.
Sarah looked at Agnes and the looked at George with a puzzled expression.
“I’ll tell you everything later.” George said, “Let’s take care of
Agnes right now.”
Sarah gave Agnes a bath and George burnt a batch of cookies. Together they talked over the events of the previous day. George always remembered that morning as one of the happiest in his entire life.

The television was droning on in the living room.
“So, to continue our discussion about the recent roundup of the cult members. Fr. Jogues, what is your opinion about the comments that we heard from the cultist earlier in the program?”
“Such vague prophecies and accusations are undoubtedly a mixture of truth and lies. Demons can have surprisingly intimate knowledge of our sins because they are the ones who tempt us to commit them, but they’ll rarely speak of them in total frankness. When demons speak to people they mention their sins as a way to attack them, and they’ll mix lies with the truths just to break them. Their aim is to intimidate and coerce, and they’ll use whatever means necessary to do so. The cultist we saw earlier was likely employing the same trick using incomplete information the cult received from whatever demonic entity they had enslaved themselves to… Then again, it could have been just a lot of rot that the guy was saying, he seemed crazy.”
“Dr. Amordestreza, your opinion please.”
“The words of the unconventional worshipper (I refrain from saying cultist) that we saw being pushed around by the police earlier, is a warning to us all about the decline and inherent instabilities…”
George got up and turned off the television. He went upstairs, said prayers of thanksgiving, and went to bed.