A figure could be seen walking down the street in the early hours of the morning. His shuffling gait and lowered head conjured up the image of a zombie, freshly woken up from its grave. If somene were to walk up closer to him and look into his lifless eyes, and smell the pungent, barely concealed odour of blood and excrement they might even run away screaming or call the police. The man, because despite the signs indicating otherwise it was a man, was called Drake. He had just ended a night shift at the meat processing plant where he currently worked. His job consisted of "maintainig a sanitary enviornment needed for maintainig the high quality of our products", as his supervisor liked to remind him. In other words he was cleaning guts and shit, a surprising amount of shit (at least at the beggining, now he liked to think he'd grown acustomed to it; he didn't). In truth the job wasn't too hard with most of it being done with a pressurized water pump however the monotony of it was slowly fraying the edges of Drake's sanity. Above all else it paid well and with a degree in English his choice of occupation was fairly limited. He certainly wasn't going to go back to teaching, hell fucking no! He tried that when he first ended his studies but his social awkwardness and stage fright coupled with the indiference and in some cases outright hostility of the students destroyed any dreams he had about enlightening the younger generation to the finer points of literature. No, he was satisfied with what he had right now, there was no need to change anything - he thought to himself, his back becoming slightly more bent, his steps just a little slower.
Finally he arrived at his house - a slightly crooked, red brick, two story building, sticking out like a sore thumb among its immaculate neighbours. The house was old and it has been in his family for close to 200 years if his mom was telling the truth, which he didn't doubt even for a moment. Drake has spent his whole life of 23 years here, living with his mother. His father left them when Drake was 5 or maybe 6, in any case he was young enough that the only thing he remembered about him were his black curly hair much like his own and a vague smell of oil and metal but his fathers face forever remained a blur in his memories. He was close with his mother who used to work double shifts at the local motel as a cleaning lady in addition to selling her artwork to people. She was a kind, plump lady with wavy brown hair and soft eyes of the same colour. She has passed away last year and Drake has returned then from college to take care of this house where he grew up. To him that was more important than getting a masters degree in a subject he long since stoped believing had any future.
He entered the house, tossed his jacket to the side and went into the living room. There he sunk into the couch with a heavy sigh, characteristic of someone much older than he was. He briefly considered taking a shower and grabbing a bite to eat but felt too comfortable to move. His eyelids heavy, Drake drifted off to sleep.
BAM!
Drake woke up startled to the sound of yelling coming from outside accompanied by the barking of his neighbours dog. He squinted his eyes as the sun peeking in through the windows blinded him for a moment. 'What a fucking way to wake someone up' he thought to himself as the sounds from outside seemed to grow in intensity proportionately to his headache. Drake stood up and went to the window while muttering obscenities, absently noting his grumbling stomach and the fact that it must have been past noon already judging from the infernal ball of fire that refused to leave his poor eyes alone. He peeked outside and saw Mr. Parker from next door arguing with the owner of a white van who, apparently, drove right into his neighbours trash cans spilling their contents all over Parkers shortly trimmed lawn. Mr. Parker was almost incoherent and red faced to the point Drake was worried he was having a heart attack. Moreover he was waving around a baseball bat and threatening the owner of the van which Drake found extremly strange as he always believed Mr. Parker to be a reasonable and well spoken individual. When the bat started to move dangerously close to the van's owner, he wisely decided to book it to the sounds of curses uttered by the owner of the desacrated lawn.
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-Huh. I guess everyone has a breaking point. - said Drake as he watched Mr. Parker futilely chase the van.
Drake went to the kitchen and whipped up some sandwiches, painfully aware that he will have to go back to work in a few hours. He considered going upstairs but decided against it as there were the pantings that his mother made on every wall and looking at the fantastical dragons and other creatures that she was so fond of painting caused a dull ache in his chest. So he went back to the couch and turned on the news instead.
-... the man was found in the early hours of the morning by his wife who was unfortunately too distraught to talk to us. However the police has confirmed that strange writings made with the victims blood were present at the scene. What was previously thought to be the work of a serial killer is now believed to be a work of a group of people, possibly a cult as the murders occuring all over the country apear to be ritualistic in nature. We-
He turned the TV off, not wanting to hear anymore. 'What the fuck is wrong with people that's the third time this week that someone's been murdered', Drake thought to himself, 'This world just keeps getting shittier'. He started to feel the sweat on his back and how it made his shirt stick to his skin. The air got hotter and there was an almost physicall pressure to the atmosphere that made him dizzy. Drake got up, wanting nothing more than to get out of these clothes and jump into the shower when suddenly everything stopped and he heard a loud clatter coming from his basement.
- ... - Drake froze, listening with a beating heart that threatened to jump out of his chest. Just when he thought his imagination was playing tricks on him there was a loud THUMP from the trapdoor that led to the basement below.
- Allright that was definetly something - he said - propably a rat got in there, nothing more...
As he said that he moved toward the basement with much less confidence than his words sugested. He opened the trapdoor and quickly went below in order to get to the light switch which someone decided should be on the bottom of the stairs. He cursed that someone from the bottom of his heart as he groped around for the lightswitch. When he finally managed to turn on the light something screeched with a voice that seemed to be somwhere inbetween a rat and the sound made by scratching a blackboard. There on the floor before him was a creature of nightmare. Red skinned with patches of yellow fur sticking out in places it shielded its eyes with arms too long for its size. The THING had an elongated skull and was clutching a wicked looking curved dagger in its hands. A primal fear he couldn't explain assaulted Drake at that moment and he burst into action without a concious thought. The wole thing played out as if he was standing outside of himself watching someone else kick the thing with enough force to send it flying against a nearby wall. The creature seemed a little dazed but it quickly recovered and its black, black eyes narrowed as it looked at Drake with malice and lunged in his direction with its dagger slashing. Drake managed to avoid it at first but the crature did not stop, it grabbed his pants with its other hand and yanked him off his feet with surprising strenght! It reared up with a smile too full of sharp teeth and the blade held high. Just as it was about to plunge the dagger into his chest, Drake kicked the creature in the groin causing it to drop the blade and emmit an unholly squeal. 'Its definetly a he' Drake thought as he grabbed the fallen blade and plunged it into the creatures neck silencing it for good.
His whole body trembling, he stood up... and vomitted right onto the fresh corpse.
-Fuck, fuck! What the hell was that! - Drake shouted backing away and looking at his bloody hands in horror. Which was unfortunate because he didn't notice the unnaturally dark rectangural opening in the floor behind himself - Aaaahh!
With a cry his foot fell through the hole and soon the rest of him followed. The basment was quiet. Then with a pop the portal - because that's what the opening was - closed.