Young Writers Society

Clarence Clyde was a father, first and foremost. Hence, when he caught sight of the blanket draped astray from the stark mattress of his son Bennet's bed, he nearly suffered a stalling of his heart. A mere minute ago, Clyde had begun his ascent up the stairs to keep a closer eye on his ailing son; Bennet's recurring coughing episodes had been fluctuating of late, and Clyde wanted to make sure he was soundly asleep. He'd crept up softly with an occasional misstep, yielding petulant moans from the hardwood. He poked his head inside the door, and saw it; the window held agape and the wind blustering through the mouth of the wall. Eyes widening, Clyde dashed to the opposite end of the room, bracing the windowsill. "Bennet!" he hissed, "Bennet!", but his son had either left or been taken.

Fearing which, Clyde scrambled down the stairs with little grace or regard for reverence. He checked the bathroom, and left tables upturned in the sitting room. Bennet was nowhere to be found.

It was late at night. Clyde thrust open the sliding glass door. Crickets tapped at the pane like a rusted faucet. It was the middle of autumn. An empty gust whisked past his ears. An eerie quiet hung suspended in the pitch-black of nighttime, the most obscure rustle causing a rift in the calm.

The door slammed shut once again, as the lawn was barren, and had sent the man's shoulders in a wrack of shivers. Clyde tore through the house, neck craned. He was tortured by the thought that Bennet may have fled. He wondered whether he'd driven him away. Bennet was ten. He hadn't spoken since the night he stood outside, cloaked in fire blankets, watching awe-struck as flames licked his mother's body to an ashpile. From this, Clyde derived the confidence that Bennet would never touch a cigarette, but there was nothing to stop the boy from running.

Bennet had been both sick and mute for years. They were in and out of the doctor's office every other week. Mostly, it was the terrible cough, and once for a small incident when Bennet swallowed a few of his teeth. He lost three of them in the midst of sleep and they bumbled down his esophagus. Clyde had been worried they'd puncture a vessel. He wasn't very familiar with medical things.

Clyde fought a fleeting feeling of inadequacy and groped for the phone, but it wasn't on the counter where he'd left it. Clyde flicked the light switch, but the most the lamp would offer was a furtive blink until the fuse burnt. Clyde's heart gave a panicked flutter; his son was missing and he couldn’t so much as locate the phone to report him.

"Bennet!" he hollered, his stomach roiling. He barked the boy's name again, only to be silenced by a dubious ripping sound coming from the den. It was a tear--almost a squelch--and it pervaded as if the house had been woken from resting. Hesitantly, Clyde snuck towards his den. The ripping persisted until he stepped over the threshold, whereafter there was a pause in the mounting disquiet. Clyde's knee buckled, and his breath hitched. "Don't be afraid," he called into the room as he entered. His voice held an unnatural tremor. "It's just Daddy."

There must have been a power outage, because he couldn't work the lights. The first thing Clyde noticed was the mess of papers fanned about the floor. Loose-leaf drifted to the ground. A mere fifteen minutes ago, it had been stacked neatly in piles on his desk. Abruptly, the noise met his ears again, and he rushed to the bookshelf. He muttered something about the damned behemoth squirrels--as the local Pest Control had put it--living underneath the floorboards. The ones nobody could seem to do anything about.

Something caught in his periphery; a shadow seemed to both slink and sprint to the door. It was a cockeyed run, and the figure almost evaded his eye. Clyde staggered in pursuit for several steps. "Bennet?" he asked, his voice loud and aloof. He cursed under his breath and fumbled for the LED in his desk drawer. He turned on the flashlight.

The light bobbled, and there was something on the floor in his path. Clyde bent at the waist and shone the light towards the object. He took it into his palm; it was slippery and the size of a small bead. Suddenly, he cried out in surprise, letting it chink to the floor. It was coated in blood. A tooth, from the looks of it.

Somebody had to be fooling with him. Clyde was convinced. His heart hammered in his chest; thumping against his rib cage. Somebody had stolen his son, and now they were having a laugh. Clarence Clyde was furious. Above all, he was helpless, and the knowing sank deeply beneath the stoic mask of his aging face.

The night was quiet again as he stepped from the room. Clyde's breaths quivered. He tiptoed up the stairs as he had before, as if to prevent against stirring something awake. Upon reaching the top of the staircase, he saw something disappear around the corner. "Stop right there!" he bellowed, clambering to the top.

Almost immediately, he lay his eye upon the closet door, which was suddenly being knocked against from the inside, nearly busting off its hinges. There was a high-pitched wail like that of a trapped animal, yearning to be set free. Clyde made a mad dash to the closet. He was crying. His hands gripped the doorknobs and tried to shake open the doors, but to no avail.

At last, the clamor ceased and the doors flew open. There was a scattering of teeth upon the floor, but the closet was otherwise empty. A thick layer of blood smeared like putty across the floorboards. Fear coursed through Clyde's veins; he had heard stories of a girl in Canada whose body had been possessed by the demon Belial, and of the girl in Natal whose soul was claimed by Satan. They weren't true, of course, but the man's mind raced with the possibility.

He staggered into Bennet's bedroom. He shook, feet lead-weighted and dragging. His eyes were pink, skin ruddy and back riddled with knots. His son was weak-armed, but his own shoulder blades were bound by a tense unease. Raising a son alone was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do; one he hadn't prepared for after the tragic death of his wife. Clyde was at the open window in an instant. Entranced in a head fog, he peered into the mouth of the night; up and down and up and down. The bugs chirped incessantly; a reminder of the silence, the sky arching into the hills and the mountains into the mammatus. It was disorienting, and disturbingly circular. Clyde was hypnotized with terror.

And then he could feel something at his back; something cold or perhaps an echo.

Rigidly, he turned. A silhouette leaned in the doorway to the bedroom. It was Bennet; Clyde could see the outline of his son's string-bean body. His head was cocked awkwardly to the right, as if his neck was broken. "It's just Daddy," Clyde whispered. Slowly, he rose his light.

It landed on a face. To whom it belonged was nearly indeterminable. Its mouth hung agape, lips clotting with thick black blood; chipped teeth barely attached at the gums; eyes rolled into their sockets. Clyde's heart lurched, body following in a rush of adrenaline. With a cry, he lifted himself out the window and tumbled to the ground. A sharp pain seized his calf as his leg was pinned beneath him. He stumbled to his feet, limping towards his toolshed. He unclasped the keys from his belt and blindly fumbled with the lock in the dark.

Clyde's breaths were labored, and he nearly choked on his own throat as he flung open the doors of his gun cabinet. Clarence Clyde was a father, first and foremost, and thus removed the rifle from its hook. He ensured it was loaded and then cocked the barrel. His face was washed out with tears. He heard the wind whistling over the lawn. The door to the shed rattled.

It opened.

"Daddy's sorry," Clyde stammered, laying his finger to the trigger.