***
When I got back to the house Emily had locked the door. I knocked and heard a whisper, "Who is it?"
"It's me babe," I said. "We need to call the police or the fire department...maybe both." I heard the door unlock and Emily opened the door just enough for her to poke her head out.
"Damn Eustace!" she exclaimed not whispering any longer. "What is that smell?" She sniffed closer to me. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," I replied putting the flashlight onto the stand by the door. "I fell into some kind of stinky gooey crap." I started stripping off my sticky clothes. "Could you get me something else to put on dear?" Emily headed toward the laundry room off the kitchen while I stripped to my boxer shorts. I tried calling both the police and the fire department while I waited for my wife to return, but got busy signals from both.
I kept trying to call, but only got the same busy signals. I tried to call my neighbor that lived up the road about a mile or so, surely they heard the explosion, but I got another busy signal. "If the explosion knocked out the phone lines then I wouldn't be getting busy signals from everywhere would I?" I asked myself out loud. I was going to try another number when I realized that it was taking my wife an awful long time to get clothes from the laundry room.
"Emily?" I called stepping to the kitchen doorway. I could see that the light was on in the laundry room. "Emily? You all right love?" I walked through the kitchen. "Could you find any dear? Didn't you just get through with a load this morning?"
I stopped halfway into the kitchen. I could see my wife standing in the laundry room a little ways with her back to me. "Emily?" She just stood there. I crept closer hoping that she was all right. "Emily?" I asked at the laundry room doorway. "Emily, you all right?" She didn't move. I reached out and touched her shoulder. "Emily?" I whispered this time. Her body crumpled to the floor as if she was a pile of clothes. "Emily!"
It was as if she no longer had any bones in her body. I stooped down and touched her lifeless, boneless body. It felt rubbery. "Oh God! Emily!" I heard something on top of the washing machine. I caught a glimpse of something as it knocked the box of laundry detergent off onto the floor. I quickly got to my feet and backed out of the laundry room. Whatever the hell it was that knocked the detergent down killed my wife.
I ran to the hall closet by the bedroom and retrieved my double barrel shotgun. I was still in my underwear. I pulled down a box of shells from the top shelf and put two into the shotgun. I put on one of my hunting vests that was hanging in the closet and loaded the rest of the shells into the vest's pockets. Whatever the hell was in the laundry room had killed my Emily and now I was going to do the same to it, damn it!
I went back to the kitchen and crept towards the laundry room. I saw something that looked like a tentacle of an octopus slowly slither out of the top of the doorframe. It was a dark reddish color and drip the same gooey stuff that was in the crater. Another tentacle came out of the laundry room on the right side of the doorway. Then another on the left side. I took aim with the shotgun and fired both barrels. I heard an ear piercing scream as the blast knocked me on my ass.
I cursed my old ass body as I got back up. I loaded two more shells into the shotgun and slowly crept towards the laundry room. The rotten egg smell was stronger. I must of...had to have wounded the thing.
With the shotgun in front of me and with caution I entered the laundry room. My wife's crumpled, boneless body was gone. "The damn thing must have finished eating her," I thought. I looked around the laundry room but the creature wasn't anywhere in sight. I moved some things on top of the washing machine with the barrel of the shotgun. Nothing.
I moved to the dryer and the same thing, nothing. If I did shoot the thing where the hell was it. I didn't even see the gooey stuff anywhere. I heard something move on a shelf above the dryer. I pointed my shotgun up at the shelf and moved an old cooler with the barrel. The creature jumped out and surprised me. I pulled both triggers and the shotgun went off, again knocking me on my old ass.
I looked up from the floor of the laundry room and saw two big holes in the ceiling. The floor was covered with that damn gooey crap. Now it was all over my back. God it stunk. I looked around for the creature. I wasn't sure if I hit it or not. There wasn't any blood anywhere. If the damn thing did have blood.
I got to a sitting position trying to get back to my feet in all that gooey crap. I was about to use the shotgun as a brace to help me get up when I heard a high pitched scream. I turned just in time to see the creature spring off the dryer. It hit my face and knocked me back. I let go of the shotgun as the creature latched onto my face.
***
I woke sitting in my chair in the living room. The TV was on but it just had a snowy screen. Emily was in her chair. She looked as if she was whole again. Maybe it all had been a bad dream and we had just fallen asleep in front of the TV. My head pounded when I tried to lift it. So I just sat there with my eyes closed for a moment.
"Emily?" I finally said. I could see the outline of her from the TV screen. The rest of the house was dark. It was also very warm. "Emily, I think we need to go to bed." She didn't move. I'll have to wake the poor dear. "Emily? Honey? I had the strangest nightmare," I said as I got unsteadily to my feet.
I looked down at my body and I was still wearing just my boxer shorts and my hunting vest. My heart started to pound as I realized that it wasn't all just some nightmare. I stumbled to my wife's chair. She look as though she was sleeping. Her chest heaved up and down as if she was in a deep sleep. I know I saw only her skin in the laundry room. Maybe I was just imagining the whole thing and we both fell asleep in front of the TV. But why the hell would I be in a hunting vest and boxer shorts?
"Emily? Babe?" I asked as I shook her. "Are you all right? Emily?" Her arm felt hotter than the rest of the room. I shook her harder. "Emily! Wake up!" I screamed this time and shook harder. Suddenly there was a loud pop and Emily's split open from her head down to her chest. Smaller versions of the creature that was in the laundry room quickly poured out of her emitting high pitched screams as they did.
I screamed, covered up my ears and fell to my knees. I tried to get back up but the sound was too strong and overwhelming. I felt something wet on hands and removed one hand from my ear. When I looked at it, it was covered with blood. I checked the other hand and it too was covered with blood. I noticed that the noise now sounded far off. "The damn things must of had blown my eardrums!" I exclaimed.
I tried to get to my feet but every time I did the room started to spin and my ears would hurt again. I looked at my wife and saw that the little creatures had almost eaten all of her body. I was so involved with my ears and trying to get to my feet that I failed to noticed that some of the small creatures were crawling up my legs.
I tried to kick them off but they latched on. More join them as they finished off my wife. I could feel them biting and sucking. They must have released some kind of toxin or something when they bit me, because suddenly I couldn't move. But I still could feel. I could feel each time a new creature would bit me. I could feel them sucking my insides out. The pain was indescribable. I couldn't move or cry out. I only could just lie there, feeling the creatures biting and sucking, looking at the ceiling.
I saw the larger creature slither across the ceiling. I fully saw him, or should I say her, for the first time. She had three tentacles in all. The creature's head was shaped like a dog's head, but without any fur. Its eyes were big and yellow, but without any pupils. Just two big yellow orbs. It didn't seemed to have a nose or mouth at first, but then I saw a sort of beak like thing in the center of its chest, right where the three tentacles met. The rest of the creature's body was like that of a snake. It slithered behind her as she crawled across the ceiling.
Everything was beginning to make since in its own morbid way. This thing was a kind of arachnid. Emily was her egg sack and I was the babies' first official meal. For some strange reason this comforted me as the small creatures,
these babies, sucked out my bones and my life.
###
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