The Blue Stone
Randy Noble
Published by Randy Noble at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Randy Noble
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Bill did what he so often did, which was to snap awake at 2:34 in the morning, sweat pouring over his grizzled face, his clothing soaked from a torrid night of tossing and turning. The memory of it, even after five years, would never be less than vivid and horrible. He ran both hands over his messy brown hair, pasting it to his head, and stared into space for a moment as he got his bearings.
His wife of twenty years, twenty five to Bill because he never stopped counting, was found in a park on the outskirts of town, her chest cavity wide open with pieces of organs strewn about and flesh dangling from her body, as if a wild animal had ravaged her. Bill got the call at 2:34 in the morning that his wife had been found, by then missing about twelve hours, after she had gone out for a walk while Bill was at work.
When Bill snapped awake he decided to get up because he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, at least not for a long time. Not while images of his wife being dragged into the bushes and torn to pieces still lingered in his mind.
Parched, he made his way through a mess of books and magazines lying on the floor, his bare feet slapping on the hardwood floors of first the bedroom, and then the hallway to the stairs. He still wore jeans and a white t-shirt, falling asleep while reading, on the top of the blankets, the reading light still on.
Bright light from the moon of a clear night sky shone through the skylight over the stairs, lighting his way down to the entrance way of his two-storey house. Here and there, along the trip down the stairs, a book or two lay where Bill had last left them.
Bill made his way to the kitchen at the back of the house, going up a few stairs from the dining room to get to it. The moon created enough light through the window above the kitchen sink that there was no need to turn on the lights.
The tap dripped steadily every few seconds, and Bill reminded himself to get it fixed soon, but the thought was short-lived as he plunged his head down into the sink, his mouth gaping under the faucet. He cranked on the cold water.
After several gulps and splashing water onto his face, he brought his head up and peered out the window. He proudly gazed upon his neatly trimmed lawn, with a cobblestone pathway running down the middle of the lawn to a circular patio. A bench sat in the middle of the patio, facing the back of the house. Both sides of the pathway were lined with rows of bright colored flowers. Along the back fence there were several maple trees, their leafy branches covering, but not crowding, the back yard.
As Bill scanned his yard, a blue light caught his eye, which was not there a second before. In the back right corner of his yard, among a maple, a large, glowing blue light radiated about the size of a man, but it didn’t look like a man -- more like a blob of blue. It didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere. Not from any light source. He wondered what the hell it could be.
The light was motionless.
Is that a face? Bill wondered as a chill ran up his spine. It looked like an animal's face. The moonlight did not reveal much, and the blue seemed to be a part of it, hiding its appearance. The hairs on the nape of his neck rose, and a feeling of being watched.
One of his childhood fears stared him in the face. When he was nine years old, a television show aired on some mythological creature seen by a farmer staring out his back window. The creature glowed and moved in the blink of the farmer’s eyes from fifty feet away right up to the window. The glow covered a tall, gangly thing with a huge head, and carnival long arms with razor sharp claws on its massive hands. It gave him nightmares for a month, not going by any windows at night without covering his eyes as he did so.
He couldn’t look away. He wanted to, to turn away, to run, and not look back, but the fear of not knowing where it was was greater than the fear of knowing some thing was staring at him. Very aware of his heartbeat, he stared back at it, frozen. Silence droned, broken only by the steady drip of the faucet.
Drip.
The face in the blue glow started to bob. It bobbed to the left, then right, back and forth, all the while never dropping its gaze.
What the hell is it doing?
The face continued to bob, to stare.
Look away. Just look away. It’s not real . . . it can’t be.
Bobbing.
Staring.
Run. Just run.
Teeth appeared in the face, like a mouthful of needles.
The dripping stopped, long enough for Bill to be distracted. He looked down at the sink as another drop of water plummeted to the metal basin, the steady dripping rhythm interrupted by a two second delay.
As Bill looked back up, he jumped back from the window, his heart almost stopping, his throat clenched, his hands gripping empty space. “Jesus Christ!”
He stared at the creature; its face loomed right at the window. White eyes glared back. It snarled at him, its needle teeth glistening in the moonlight. Its nose was stubby, almost non-existent, with three breathing holes. It was hairless, with a large, round head, dime-sized pock marks all over it, and holes for ears. Blue light surrounded it.
He knew only two thin panes of glass separated himself from this thing, yet he continued to stare as a long, forked tongue plunged through its mess of teeth and licked the window. It felt like he was watching a movie, detached, not a part of his own physical self. Knowing the height to the base of the window was around seven feet, he figured the creature to be at least eight feet tall.
Run. Run. But he didn’t run, even as the creature’s tongue retracted, and it brought up a large, black clawed hand attached to an impossibly long arm and scraped it down the glass with its teeth bared. It screamed.
Bill thought the glass would shatter, the scream so shrill and loud like a thousand fingernails scraping down a chalk board at the same time. He covered his ears with his hands, but it didn’t help much.
He spent his life as a kid pulling things apart to see how they worked, then put them back together. And now, his career, building next generation digital projectors for digital video disc players and gaming consoles. He understood how things worked, and if he didn’t, he figured it out -- always. But now what? This thing made no sense. Why him? Why now? Some supernatural creature randomly attacking people? There had to be a reason. Only one thing made sense to him about this creature: soup bowl.
Its horrible scream ended.
As he watched the creature drag a clawed hand across his kitchen window again and again, staring at him with those white eyes, he had no doubt that this creature, or one like it, killed his wife. Soup bowl kept entering into his mind, a reference he’d heard when he identified his wife’s body.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling that afraid before, movement out of the question even though logic screamed at him to run. Sweat beaded on his face, his heart thumped hard in his chest, while the creature gouged glass with every swipe.
Bill had no doubt it would come through the glass and kill him if he moved. But if he stayed, the result wasn’t going to change. He took a step backward, slowly.
The creature didn’t hesitate. It smashed both its hands through the window towards Bill, as its blue glow disappeared.
Glass sprayed into and over the sink, and onto the floor.
Bill stepped back quickly, and bumped into his island counter. As he veered around the island, going backward and not taking his eyes off of the long arms reaching for him, he took sharp quick breaths as panic consumed him.
Its clawed hands were so close he could see black ooze seeping out of cuts on its flesh, what he could only imagine was blood. The arms were thin, almost like black flesh covered bone, and nothing else. No muscles. No fat. Each arm had two elbows so it had no problem reaching for Bill as he made his way around the island, bending one way with one elbow, then the other way with the other elbow.
Bill fell back, just as it grasped his shirt, tearing it as he fell out of its claws. His eyes, wider than he thought possible, were ready to burst.
It screamed again, whipping its head back and forth in fury.
Bill covered his ears, screaming out loud to try and drown it out.
The creature braced itself on the counter as it started to pull itself up and in. It let out a scream of pain as a shard of glass cut its face.
Bill pulled himself up, ready to bolt, and then the creature dropped out of sight. Its head and then its arms disappeared from the window. Its goopy, black blood dripped over the shards of glass left in the frame.
He grabbed a white, cordless phone by the stove, and then headed down the stairs as fast as he could, taking two and three at a time. The basement opened up to a large room, with a TV and movie viewing area on one end, and a small library on the other. Bookshelves were built into one wall, books placed haphazardly. Bill walked to an open archway, near the television end, and into a smaller area with stairs going up to two computer desks. He plumped down into the nearest chair, and turned on the computer.
Bill dialed 911.
A serious female voice answered after one ring. “911. How can I help you?”
“Someone is trying to break into my house,” Bill said, not without some well earned panic in his voice, and as quick as he could so she wouldn’t cut him off. “There’s more than one, and they have guns.” He wanted help now, and he wanted them pulling up with their guns drawn.
“Okay sir. I’m dispatching units to your house now. Please stay on the line with --“
Bill hung up the phone.
His computer's screen glowed the Microsoft Windows' logo, almost booted up.
How much time for the cops? A few minutes, he figured, but couldn’t be sure.
“Come on!” he yelled at the computer.
How was it going to get in?
He felt good in the basement, or as good as he could in the situation. No windows, and two ways in and out. If he heard it coming from one way, he’d go the other, if he didn’t freeze up again.
How the hell was it going to get in though? Living room window or French doors off the back deck made the most sense to him. They were the most vulnerable, with large windows. Either way it came in, unless it came in some other way he didn’t think of, it would likely come down the stairs he came down, as the other stairs lead right to the upper level only.
Bill had every intention of searching on the internet about the creature, but wasn’t sure where to start. Black. Slim. Big round head. Large, needle-like teeth. White eyes. Long arms. Blue glow. Shit! I wish I knew what it was cal--
He cut himself off as he recalled the mythological creature he saw on TV as a kid. There were too many similarities to be a coincidence. It’s fucking real. All these years. He knew he had two books on mythology, or more accurately, his wife did.
Bill walked out of the computer area, phone in hand, and around into another, larger room off of the main one. Through another arch way, there was a pool table with balls scattered on red felt, and a bar along one wall with mirror backing. Glass shelves were filled with bottles of vodka, rye whiskey, rum, grenadine, and various liqueurs, most of them half empty or more. He walked behind the small, dark wooded bar and grabbed a bottle of rye, twisted the cap, and drained the remains down his throat in seven large gulps.
He found the name “Jack” on the phone directory of his cordless phone, and connected to it as he walked over to the bookshelves looking for his wife’s mythology books.
A groggy, irritated voice came over Bill’s receiver. “Who the hell is this?”
“Jack. No time to explain. I need you to pick me up.”
“Bill? Is this Bill? Are you fucked in the head? It’s --“
Bill heard rummaging over the phone.
“. . . three in the morning. Are you drinking again?”
“No…well, yes -- a little -- but it doesn’t matter. I’m not drunk. I’m in trouble. Meet me in front of --“
“You really need to buy a car again. Who cares if they won’t give you a driver’s license. Fuck ‘em.”
“Jack, I’ll owe you. Please.”
“Strip joint.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Lap dances.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just meet me in front of Charlie’s. Five -- no, ten minutes.” Bill hung up, before Jack could disagree, hoping he would meet him.
Glass shattered upstairs somewhere, as Bill continued his book search.
He thought it was probably the living room window, and he knew his time was short. The booze helped him at first, but now its effects were useless. His heart hammered in his chest.
Bill turned and ran through the room, through the computer room, and up the stairs.
Where the hell are the cops?
The stairs wound up in a spiral. Bill took two steps at a time, passing a stained glass window near the top, coming out of the stairwell into the hallway by the master bedroom.
Staring at Bill, across the hallway by the top of the stairs down to the entrance way, was the creature, its eyes glowing in the moonlight from the skylight above the stairs. Its legs were as long and thin as its arms. Its clawed feet were massive. There were no genitals on it, at least none that Bill could see. The creature had no hair anywhere on its body.
Bill moved first, not freezing up this time, the relaxing effects of the booze now kicked in and giving the needed boost of courage. He dashed into the bedroom, slammed the door and locked it, and threw down a nearby dresser that smashed down inches in front of the door, drawers spilling contents of socks and underwear.
Bookshelves lined the wall by the headboard of the bed. Bill frantically searched the shelve contents, but something else caught his eye on the bed side table. A round blue rock sat on the table, the size of a large grape. What caught his eye was the color. It was dimmer, no glow, but the same shade of blue as the creature’s glow that emanated around it when it was outside.
The door slammed open, into the fallen dresser, only a crack.
The creature reached in at Bill, as he jumped onto and rolled over to the other side of the bed. He picked up a chair used to hang his clothes on at night. A pair of socks spilled off the back of the chair and onto the floor as he picked it up and slammed it into the bedroom window, cracking it.
His attention quickly went back to the shelves, wide-eyed and searching.
As soon as the creature realized it couldn’t reach Bill, it slammed its body into the door, pushing the dresser slightly, the door opening wider with each slam.
Bill started to bring the chair up for another chance of escape, and then he saw them. Two books, side by each: Mythology, Mysticism, Magic, and Mayhem Volumes I and II. He slammed the window with the chair, cracking it some more, pieces breaking and falling onto the hardwood floor.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up as the creature fitfully tried to get to him.
The doorbell rang, and between his own panting and the creature’s growling and hisses, he distinctly heard a voice say, “City police. Are you okay?”
“Help! Help!” Bill yelled. “They’re in here! They’ve got guns!”
The front door smashed in.
The creature screamed furiously at Bill, and then took off, he assumed towards the newcomers.
Bill hoped they had their guns out. They had to have drawn them, especially after the chilling scream it made. He jumped up onto the bed, and grabbed the books. Jumping down onto the other side, he grabbed the blue stone and pocketed it, then made for the door before he chickened out.
Poking his head through the door opening, he saw the creature at the top of the stairs.
One of the cops spoke up. “Jesus-fucking-Christ!”
Gun shots erupted, echoing loudly in the hallway.
Bill slid through the door opening, glancing left to see the creature was gone. Judging by the continuing gun shots, he knew it was charging the cops. Murderer kept penetrating his thoughts, over and over. No! No I’m not. It’s their job to protect and serve. Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.
He could hear the cops' voices in the front yard, still shooting as the creature screamed in fury, and what Bill also hoped was pain.
Just one more drink, that’s all he wanted. One more. Murderer.
Bill ran down the stairs by the master bedroom, nearly tripping over his own feet. He hesitated slightly as he passed the archway to the bar, but kept on, up the stairs, through the kitchen, and to the back porch French doors. He quickly unlatched the two locking mechanisms on the door and raced outside, away from the house and towards where he first saw the creature.
Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. Shut up!
“Zach,” came a voice from the front yard, he assumed from one of the cops. “Look out!” Three successive gun shots exploded in the air.
...
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