Boogieman Date Thursday, April 25, 2024 - 03:53 PM PST Topic Entertainment Stretch those long black fingers, stretch them just enough to crack. One step, to just behind the door. A whisper of a breath…the slightest inhalation, almost not even there, and smile my dear boy…smile that jackknife grin, smile it dark and smile it proud. Open that closet door, a hairsbreadth at first, just an echo of a true opening. Just enough for the moonlight to shine on bear-trap teeth, yellow like cat’s eyes, jagged like broken glass. Ah yes…there it is, that sweet sound of held breath. You can always tell when a child is just pretending. I know he feels me, I know he smells me…that strange familiar scent. I know, and so too does he…but he tries to push it away, tries to pretend me away. I linger, within the domain of Janus. Just within the threshold. It’s a strange place to be, neither on one side of a door or the other…a nothing place, but that place, ah my dear…that’s the place I call home. There’s a fine art to scaring the shit out of children, and I…I am the finest of artists, I excel not at fear, and not at horror…but of that middle line, that hideous phantom emotion…terror. Laying there on his bed so stiff, so unyielding, so wrought with chill. Eyes shut tight, lips pressed thin. He knows I am…there is no denying, but oh how the sweet child tries…how valiantly he tries to slay the dragon, with the blade of disbelief. To no avail my pet, to no avail. The young have not the shield of disbelief yet fully forged for them, and that…that is their truest and most delectable weakness. Dare to look little boy, dare to look…surely there is nothing standing in your closet…so close. No man in a black coat, no man with fingers as long as your arm…no man with a too-wide crocodile smile, with broke-button eyes. Aaah yes…that’s it. Wide eyes, a sudden flip of the heart, that is my appetizer, the beginning delicacy to start my full hunger. I am, little boy, oh yes…yes indeed, I am. A hoarse whisper of a scream, climbing it’s way up his clenched and fear-choked throat. Like a sand-paper maggot, squirming, like a half-dead cat, writhing. Ten thousand spiders suddenly sprung to life over vulnerable and sensitive flesh…a sudden desire to release his bowels. Pupils so large they could swallow the sun…unable to look away. I have you trapped my prey, oh do I have you…Like a velvet fly, caught in a web of bad dreams and unclean touches. I am every fear without name, every creak in the floorboard, every flicker in the mirror. I am, and I am coming for you. A powerful and desperate croak of a cry…forcing it, hating it for being too quiet…and then…ah! Exultation! My standing ovation! My oscar, my emmy…my adoring applause. A scream is born, a beautiful, bouncing, bed-wetting little baby scream. Rising, ululating, singing it’s clarion call. Oh scream beautiful child, scream as if your life depended on it…let it call your defenders, your steadfast guardians. Like always, I wait, savor and taste that sound…and measure the sleep of the others, those filthy others in this home. I feel them wake, and I feel them hear. I know them then…I know what lay in their fetid little fleshy hearts, those decaying, worm-riddled sacs of clot-soaked meat. I hear them, wishing the boy would just shut up…the whining, cowardly, costly, worthless, unwanted, accidental, retarded, little fuck. Oh how he screams to them, begs them to come to him and save him from this terrible thing…this thing that not even the bravest of children dare to dream of. But he doesn’t hear what I do, he doesn’t realize they ignore him. And then I smell it…the unclean touch upon him. Dried seed near half-healed bruises, seed so similar to his own private scent. I can taste the blood and sorrow in his mouth…amongst other such things. I know what they do to him, I know what he has done to him. I know. They do not come, and the savoring is over. I move to my repast…like an owl falls over a mouse, as a carrion crow over a molding corpse. I fall, on this wretch of a boy…on this tragic, suffering nothing. I take him, my jackknife grin never fading, I take him in a way his parents never could. I take him, and I make him. With him within me, I return to my home…the world between the doors. With him I stalk away…and when I’ve finally filled myself for the night, I take him, I stand him…and I hand him his long black coat. I teach him the jackknife grin…and give him his hands, and send him on his way. We are a hungry people…and there are oh so many to feed on these final nights. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=440