A taste of fiction

Occasionally I write really awesome fiction. This is because when I go to sleep, my brain wracks up these insane dreams and then I wake up and have cool stories.

This is a nightmare I had last night. In my mind, it is real. Perhaps this is why I had such a difficult time getting it out onto paper. My dreams are so vivid and realistic I sort of wanted to throw up while I wrote this. But sometimes I just need to get it out. So, for your horror-story-enjoyment, here is the story of a man who killed me in my dreams.

I followed him through the glass doors outside where the sun hurt my eyes. That would be the worst and last mistake I’d ever make.

He was a carpenter; I was working at an arcade. It was joint to an office building, red brick on the outside. It stood at the corner of Fourth and Pine, in the middle of our small town. A town mark, a place that had been there for generations, kept up by those who thought the kids needed a place to go on Saturdays. Too bad the arcade was really just a perfect dark spot for junkies to go and get their flashing light fix, most of the time anyway.

The management hired him to do some picking up around the place. It needed it, considering the building itself was nearly a hundred years old. Bent over across the table, measuring giant pieces of plywood, his shaggy red hair glimmered in the piece of sun coming through the window. He was old. It was a nice day out, but the curtains were closed. He favored the dark while he was working, with just a table lamp helping to guide the way while he built.

Old, sun-damaged freckles covered his arms and crept underneath his t-shirt sleeve. His jeans a dark denim, almost black, a t-shirt of faded light blue. He seemed put together, but something wasn’t right. He turned over his shoulder and flashed me a smile. Still turned away, he gave me the “one second” sign with his hand. He was working with a table saw and I was in no position to interrupt. After all, I didn’t want him cutting his hand off. I just wanted to ask him where I could find a box of nails.

I knew he kept extra tools across the street, at his own apartment. That’s how management found him, of course. He came in one day after seeing the “Help Wanted” sign outside. Just a few fix-er-ups, they said. Didn’t take much and they only needed him for a few days, but the building was in bad shape and wouldn’t take long to fix. He could use the extra money, anyway.

He was a landlord of the apartment buildings across the street. People were always in and out of there. Sometimes it seemed as though they almost disappeared, fell off the face of the earth. As long as they paid the rent, he didn’t care where they went. He needed his money.

Considering the lifestyle, he wasn’t all that miserable. He’d come from a small town out in Arizona; the desert took a toll on him and he couldn’t breath out there anymore. So he picked up and he left. He had nothing to leave behind. His wife had already left him, she’d made a big scene out of it from the start…tramping around town like he’d never find out. She underestimated him, and she paid for it. She was alone now. And he was free of her.

After that, he drove east. Stumbled upon this small town and picked up a job at this slummy place…a dirty cove of apartments that people found in desperation. Seeking a new place, a refuge from the past, somewhere to escape. Just like him.

I knocked on the door frame, and that’s when I saw him full-on. Turned his head, smiled fully and said “Oh, yeah, hey! I recognize you.”.  He began walking around to the opposite side of the table, facing me now. “You take your smoke breaks around 3, right?” Uhh, yeah…What? How did this guy know when I went out back to smoke a cigarette? My stomach dropped in anxiety for some weird reason, I couldn’t quite gage his level of creepiness. I asked him how he knew that, and he laughed. Then he asked me what I needed.

Oh, just some nails. I need to hang up a poster near the door. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got some extra small nails across the street at my apartment. Hey, come this way with me and I’ll grab them for you. I could use some fresh air.” Sure, dude. Whatever you say.

I walked into his apartment and it was dark, like the workspace he’d been using. I looked around and it smelled like my parents basement, kind of musty and wet. He was a lot older, so he didn’t have anyone to impress. His carpet was a little dirty, and there were those fuzzballs on it that you get after you put your towels in the dryer too often. Static-y. There were blue curtains with some type of lace-doiley looking things sewn on the bottom.

I looked at his walls. This was his life. A small little hole in the wall where he spent his time. Who was this fucking guy? He went into another room and was yelling something to me about how he’d always seen me go outside. I was really pretty. Looked just like his daughter, with my blonde hair up in that pony tail. I started backing up to the door, unsure of why he was saying this to me. I touched the back of a chair adjacent to the kitchen table and it felt moist. The stark white walls surrounding me made me feel short of breath. Get out. Get out. Get out.

I looked at the wall to my right and he had two pictures hanging there. Black and white prints like I used to develop in my art class. They hung from bare nails, like the ones I was looking for. In between the two pictures was something I’d never expected to see. Hanging from a wire, there was one single white tooth.

A fucking tooth.

Oh my god, this guy was going to kill me.

He came out from the room in front of me, still talking, and holding a dark metal gun in his right hand.

“Don’t worry, I killed her too.”

And then that guy with the red hair who was just supposed to do fix-er-ups fucking shot me.