"The Truthless" Grueberfest '07 (878 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.52 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Bigmike (View user info) at 2007-10-24 00:57:17 EDT
Ben was huddled in the corner of his bedroom. He didn't know what was going on outside and he didn't care. His brain was feverishly running through everything he had done in the last seventy two hours.
His last seventy two hours.
Ever.
********************
Ben wasn't at all concerned about the email. He had taken a practical approach to the information that it had presented. It was just a joke to him, as all unsolicited emails that landed in his inbox were. He figured some people just had a little too much time on their hands and liked to think up silly ways to con others. Amidst all of the notices of lottery winnings and the offers of riches from the heads of Nigerian agencies, Ben had found an email that was different than all the others. When he had first opened it, it had seemed harmless enough.
"Dear Ben,
We have been watching. Things aren't going so well. We think it's time for a change."
Ben had seen these types of emails before and had thought little of them. He had always been careful to delete any unsolicited messages and didn't know exactly why he had decided to open this one. He was hooked by the message though. He was intrigued as to how someone could be watching him without his knowing about it. He had always had a fantasy that he had a secret admirer out there somewhere and would actually welcome the idea.
In retrospect, it didn't seem to be such a bad idea to click on the link that the email provided him. Once again, curiosity had gotten the better of him and he didn't know why.
He had heard of urban legends before, but he had never heard of The Truthless.
********************
Ben was sweating more and more. He couldn't shake the idea that he had mistakenly turned up the heat in his house to well over ninety degrees. His eyes were darting around the room, frantically looking for anything that seemed out of place. He looked over to the bedroom door and saw that he had barricaded it well enough. He had propped a chair against it, with the back pushed under the doorknob so that nobody could just walk right in. He had also moved his sturdy oak dresser in front of it as well. Nobody would be getting in this room without a lot of trouble.
He got up onto his feet and paced the room nervously. He started to wonder if he had actually locked and barricaded his front door. He seemed to remember that he locked both dead bolts and also nailed three or four two-by-fours across it's span solidly with four or five nails in each end. He had set up traps in the hallways and had armed the alarm system to guard the perimeter. He was talking to himself in a steady stream now as he paused to look at the clock on the nightstand next to his bed. It read eleven thirty P.M.
Thirty more minutes to go. He casually wiped the palms of his hands on his pants trying to rid them of accumulated sweat. He looked over at the door again.
Nobody was getting in without him knowing about it.
********************
Ben had started to notice strange things about halfway through the first day. At work, he would sense movement out of the corner of his eye only to look and find nothing there. As he was walking to lunch he noticed shadows in strange places. The alleyways on the boulevard seemed darker that usual, the shadows caused by lamp posts and passing cars seemed to be just a little askew. His lunch had a lackluster, bland flavor to it.
His office seemed darker than usual, even when he replaced all the bulbs with higher wattage.
He also noticed a strange sense of increased paranoia was taking over his thoughts. Whenever he walked by someone and they said hello to him, he wondered why they were doing so, or what they wanted from him. When he went to the store to get a pack of smokes he wondered why the clerk was looking at him funny. As he walked from the driveway to the front door of his home he wondered why the shadows felt so thick around him. As he walked through his front door he turned around quickly to look at his neighbors house, knowing that they were watching him through the sheer curtains covering their front windows.
As he closed the door behind him, he turned and locked the deadbolts tightly and breathed a sigh of relief. He was home at last and he finally felt safe.
********************
Ben was starting to get a headache. He quickly walked over to his closet and pulled a bottle off of the top shelf. He turned the childproof cap so that the arrows lined up with each other and popped the top off. Turning the bottle upside down, he shook the last four aspirin into his hand and swiftly put them into his mouth. He swallowed them dry, tossed the bottle onto the floor and looked up at the shelf. There were another five bottles of aspirin sitting there like little soldiers there to protect him.
He looked down at the floor and saw the four empty bottles strew haphazardly around the bed. He hadn't had much sleep but he sure had eaten a lot of aspirin. His headaches were relentless.
After swallowing the aspirin he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at his cell phone resting on the nightstand. It had rang a few times over the last three days, but he hadn't answered it. Now he was wondering if he should make a call, any call, to anybody who might care. He dismissed the thought as trivial. After all, who could possibly care for him at this point?
********************
Ben had spent a little time watching television that night before retiring. Then he spent a restless night in bed that evening, dreaming horrible dreams of his demise.
There he was, in a car accident where his head was ripped completely off his shoulders and flying through the air, only to land at the feet of a dozen giggling schoolgirls with big breasts. They all turned at once and pointed at his severed head, their laughter increasing as they taunted him.
Here he was with his arms in shackles and his head in some kind of medieval vice. A very large masked man dressed in leather turned a screw, very slowly squeezing his brains out of his ears and onto two silver platters. There were dogs lined up at these platters on both sides of him waiting to feast on his sweetmeats.
The one that made him wake up screaming was the one with the mist. He was lying in bed and a dark mist had come into his room. It had come straight at him and started to envelope his body. As it did, it began to swirl slightly around him, gradually picking up speed. He could feel the mist surrounding him and he could sense the evil that it contained. In his dream he woke up to see the mist covering the bottom half of his body. He woke up screaming for real when, in his dream he saw that his feet and legs were missing and the mist was moving towards his head.
He got out of bed immediately and went downstairs to make some coffee, turning on every light in the house as he went.
********************
After considering his cell phone, he had looked back at the clock. Eleven forty five it screamed at him in red neon. ELEVEN FORTY FIVE!
He rose quickly from the bed and began to pace again. He looked over at his desk and considered the pieces of computer scattered around it. He didn't remember destroying it, but there it was, strewn across the top of the desk and on the floor. He could be online right now warning people. He could be screaming his message of paranoia and despair. He could be trying to let people know that this was indeed true and that they should never, ever open this email.
He grabbed his cigarettes and picked one out of the pack. He considered the cigarettes left in the pack and wondered if he would have time to smoke them. He only needed to make it to one minute after twelve in order to know that it was a hoax. He only needed to make it another sixteen minutes.
His eyes turned to the clock and he started to watch as he lit his cigarette and let the smoke he inhaled cleanse him.
********************
After a few cups of coffee, Ben had decided to call in sick to work that day. He decided to make a day of cleaning his house and trying to take his mind off The Truthless. He started by cleaning the dishes and vacuuming the rug. As the morning went on, the house seemed to get darker and darker. It seemed that no matter how many windows he opened and curtains he pulled aside, he just couldn't get enough light in the house. He was seeing shadows jump in the corners and he was hearing strange noises coming from upstairs and also the outside porch. He was getting more nervous by the minute so he decided to get some fresh air. Putting on his jacket, he exited the house and stepped out onto his porch.
He immediately saw a man in a black suit standing out in front of his house. He looked like any ordinary man might look except for his feet. Ben looked at him for what seemed like an eternity but he just couldn't make out the mans feet. They seemed blurry as if he were a picture and that part of him wasn't quite developed. The man looked back at Ben and smiled. Ben's blood froze when he saw how white the mans teeth were. They were shining brightly and for a moment Ben thought he might have to shield his eyes. Ben turned around to shut the door behind him and when he turned back the man was gone. Ben looked up and down both sides of the street looking for him, but it was as if he had disappeared.
Shivering, Ben walked back into his house and shut the door behind him, locking it soundly. Over the course of the rest of the afternoon, Ben's phone rang incessantly. Every time he picked it up and said hello, all he got from the other end was static. He would listen for awhile, say hello a couple of times, and then hang up. After the twentieth ring he just turned his phone off and let it be. He wasn't in the mood for games.
He went out once that evening when he decided that the man wasn't coming back. He had to buy some aspirin for his headaches. They were becoming unbearable. He spent the whole trip to the store looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. He spent the whole trip back wondering why the shadows in his car were so thick.
Ben took an unbelievable amount of aspirin that evening and it cause his dreams to be hazy and surreal. He dreamt of the afterlife and he dreamt of his version of hell. In his version, he was surrounded by shadows and mist and it was eating away at him little bits at a time. He could see his flesh falling away and there was nothing he could do about it. When all the flesh had disintegrated from his body, his bones started to dry up and flake away. When his bones were completely flaked away, he could see his soul standing there, naked to all. Naked to The Truthless.
He was ashamed he had wasted his life. He was ashamed he had wasted his soul. He was getting the punishment he deserved.
He had spent the following day, day three, barricading the house.
********************
The red numbers on the clock read Eleven fifty five P.M. Ben sat down in the corner once again and considered how he would spend the next five minutes.
He thought of his mother and father and how well they had treated him. He could see his mothers face smiling at him even now as his despair was at its deepest. He remembered how she would kiss his cheek and then wipe the lipstick off his face ever so gently with the fingertips of her right hand. He remembered playing baseball with his father and spending afternoons in the sun eating ice cream and watching the clouds.
He remembered Matthew, his best friend who lived just down the street. He smiled as he thought of all the good times they had and all the trouble they almost got into. He remembered the first time and last time he had sex. He remembered all of it in what seemed like a lifetime but was barely a moment.
He didn't notice when the mist started to roll into the room from under the door. He didn't notice it until it was coming towards his outstretched legs and started licking at his feet.
He shot up in an instant and noticed that the room was getting thick with the mist. He immediately ran over and hopped up onto his bed. Looking all around the room, he saw a thick layer of smoke like mist covering the entire floor. He watched as it started to swirl and break off into three distinct areas. These areas of mist started to form into upright columns that went from the floor to the ceiling. As they did, they came together in a line at the end of his bed.
He looked at the swirling columns of mist and then he looked at the clock. It flashed Twelve A.M. and when he looked back the columns began to move toward him and surround him.
The last thing he thought was that he never should have opened that email, never should have clicked on,
http://www.geocities.com/thetruthless.com666/TheTruthless.html
They ate of his flesh silently and with much vigor, and carried him back to a place between heaven and hell where there were no lies and there was no truth.
There was only what is and nothing more. Ben found that it was a rather unpleasant place to spend the rest of his eternity.
User Reviews
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-11-07 18:05:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No shit Daniel, I was wondering if you were still around.
Submitted by DanielH (user info) at 2007-11-06 01:42:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You age like a fine vintage of Italian red, Mike- (not a Chi, more a Brunello di Montalcino for this piece)- a wine I once, before enjoying an untainted ample glass myself, pissed into, which belonged to my girlfriend's mother). The piss lightened it to a robust, youthfully substantial finish- which she, far less than me, enjoyed. Ah, memories...
Hope to be online more once the waves on the Gulf lose their hard-on. (About late Nov.)
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-10-28 23:32:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-27 09:19:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Paloma (user info) at 2007-10-25 21:54:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So what is this gruerfest 07?
Is this a contest?
Submitted by write-of-way (user info) at 2007-10-25 12:42:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2007-10-25 08:24:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damnit Mike, now I'm gonna die in 3 days. Fucking curiosity....
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2007-10-25 02:41:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by pillowcase (user info) at 2007-10-25 00:23:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I LOVE THIS SHIT BIG MIKE!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2007-10-25 00:10:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought this was well executed, but I have to agree with some that your last story was much better - it actually made my heart beat a little faster! - I suppose that different things will be scarier for different peeps but I felt like the description in this one was lacking in suspense factor. Still, thanks for the great entertainment throughout the comp!
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-24 22:36:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-24 21:31:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Meh. This was basically the Ring in short story form, wasn't it?
Actually, no. But like I said earlier, I figured some of you would see it that way.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-24 21:31:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Meh. This was basically the Ring in short story form, wasn't it?
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2007-10-24 16:26:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent...
I can see the myspace chainletters/bulletins already starting to fly.
Good work.
Submitted by Badlands (user info) at 2007-10-24 12:29:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2007-10-24 12:17:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-10-24 11:31:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-10-24 11:19:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
BIG MIKE
e-mail me at antius777.at.yahoo.com
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-24 10:35:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-10-24 08:52:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I expected the link to be a screamer vid or something like that.
god my head hurts
why is it so dark in here?
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-10-24 07:05:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by splitperson (user info) at 2007-10-24 03:46:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:55:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
ahaha you fucker.
That means I'll be dead before the winner is announced.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:52:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:42:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This was just okay.
Your last one was a lot better.
The link was a cool idea, but it might have been better to leave it up to our imagination.
Not that it took away from the story or anything. Creativity counts.
Still, after The Ring movies...
Still nicely written, though. I dig your writing, big man.
Since this is the final I'll give you a bump after I read the others if need be.
Or...
a grind??
muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to reference The Ring.
I really dug this story myself so it had to be written.
I appreciate the feedback though. I almost left it to the readers imagination, but I just couldn't help myself with the link.
You didn't click on it, did you? Gosh I hope not. :)
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:51:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:42:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This was just okay.
Your last one was a lot better.
The link was a cool idea, but it might have been better to leave it up to our imagination.
Not that it took away from the story or anything. Creativity counts.
Still, after The Ring movies...
Still nicely written, though. I dig your writing, big man.
Since this is the final I'll give you a bump after I read the others if need be.
Or...
a grind??
muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Submitted by lilybaby228 (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:28:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Creepy...
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2007-10-24 01:13:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ETS
Submitted by Quint (user info) at 2007-10-24 00:59:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Method's Mom is a fine, upstanding woman and good role model for young girls everywhere.