Grueberfest 06 - R1 - Antipodean (920 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: one-part_stories
Rating: 1.96 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Stagger Lee (View user info) at 2006-10-04 08:50:46 EDT
In my waking life, I had all but forgotten my old house. It lay in the recesses of my memory, six years behind me and not getting any closer. However, it seemed that my sleeping mind remembered the old place; the worn wooden floorboards, the rusted ironwork, the cracks in the ceiling that defied any attempts to count them, and the poorly constructed, ill-fitting chipboard renovations. Most of all, though, my dreams are haunted and revisited time after time by the garden.
Ah, the garden. Once a precisely sculpted monument to the triumph of mankind over the vagaries of nature, it lay untended and wild. With each passing day it became more untamed, until it seemed that no effort to recover its once-calm beauty would bear fruit. It had a new appeal; it felt as though it were brand new, a fresh pocket of virgin territory in a suburb that had long since given up its secrets.
I dreamt of the house and garden just last night. The dream began within my house. I cannot remember precisely what I was doing, but I was in the kitchen. I needed to fetch an item from my car, the nature of which I cannot remember either. It is of no consequence in any case.
I ventured from my old house into the wilds of the garden. Dusk was gathering around the trees, drawing in and surrounding me. I followed the path towards the gate, my feet falling almost soundlessly on packed dirt surface. Fireflies were beginning to assemble in the gloom, their gentle glow cutting the twilight. I heard strange rustling sounds coming from the trees above me, and the bushes on my side. I approached my back gate, and a sense of foreboding, unfocused yet powerful, stole over me. My hand reached out and brushed the handle on the gate, the rust crumbling from the grooves in the ornamental iron.
As the rust pattered into the dirt, whispering like soft rain, I heard footsteps, crunching down the gravel road, purposeful, brimming with intent, eating up the distance. I turned from the gate; I had no desire to discover the source of those footsteps. The very sound of them sent a cold, paralyzing shiver over my skin and driving into my gut. I ran back down the path, crushing the slight imprints in the dirt that I had made earlier beneath my panicked tread.
To my ear came another sound, this one more violent. It was the sound of undergrowth crushing to my right, in the direction of the hedge. Shortly after the initial crash, the sound of footsteps came again, only now the footsteps were beating a path through my wild garden straight towards me. I froze, nailed to the ground, unable to move.
From the bushes on the right of the path, my neighbour from down the road burst onto the path. This did nothing to ease my discomfort, for upon seeing him I felt no relief, no warm rush of recognition. Rather, I felt a sense of deepening unease. He did not greet me, he merely stared at me. He was a large fellow; I believe that he worked in some sort of physical trade. His face was unshaven, his eyes hostile. His leathery face wore no expression.
Without taking his gaze from my face, he flung something to the dirt. My eyes followed it downwards, and I found myself looking at some unidentifiable hunk of flesh and organ, sitting in a pool of dirt and blood.
I looked up at him, and he raised his shirt. Underneath the fabric, his skin was split open, and I could see the pulse and throb of all his internal workings. The wound in his chest was ragged. I returned my view to his face. His features were twisted, distorted by an expression of intense, heartbreaking sorrow.
It was shortly after this that I woke up.
I fled my old home after the incident, of course. People have been known to tell me that I did the reasonable thing, that it was only natural. But I know why I really ran. The same reason I was unable to directly tell my neighbour what I had done. Cowardice, plain and simple, the inability to face the consequences of my own actions. Instead, I flaked out and moved to the other side of the world, in some mad attempt to leave my guilt behind.
This is not easy.
Since the dream, I remember everything, sometimes in snatches or fragments, sometimes as the complete scene, visceral and immediate. I remember the crack in my headlight. I remember the strange way that the blood pooled in the gravel, as though the rocks were floating in a reddened sea. Mostly, I remember the way that his small limbs tangled with each other, bending at angles never intended by nature to occur. The sirens wail in my memories, and they cut through my dreams, awakening me at odd hours. The clock reads two in the morning, and I don't know whether to try to sleep or stay awake. I am desperately weary, but I am even more afraid of what will come to me in my dreams.
I dreamt of my neighbour again. This time I was at my new house, on my new side of the world, but he was here too, hunched in the corner of my bedroom.
I have a dreadful sense of foreboding. I tell myself over and over that it's not possible. There is no way he could have found me. No way could he be in my dreams. I wonder what he will do to me if he arrives. Perhaps he will attack me. But what I fear more, more than I can say, is that he will talk to me. That he will ask me why.
I almost want him to arrive. In the throes of my guilt, I want him to face me down. I will him to appear. But if he talks to me, I won't be able to take it.
I hope he kills me.
But I fear he will never come.
User Reviews
Submitted by WatchMyStep (user info) at 2006-10-21 00:18:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 06:42:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Oh, ok. As you were then.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-10 06:31:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yep, they can. But what's that got to do with anything?
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Not a thing.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 06:06:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-10 06:01:23 (#)
Ranking: 2
My Chemical Romance can get fucked.
Good work
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Yep, they can. But what's that got to do with anything?
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Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2006-10-10 05:54:54 (#)
Ranking: 2
actually, you can scratch that. It didn't turn out as horribly as thought in the end.
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Yeah, whereas mine turned out much worse than I thought it would.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-10 06:01:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My Chemical Romance can get fucked.
Good work
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2006-10-10 05:54:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
actually, you can scratch that. It didn't turn out as horribly as thought in the end.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2006-10-09 16:00:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Stagger Lee
this is an apology in advance for my UM entry. I'm sorry if you put a lot of effort into yours as you'll soon find out that you needn't have bothered. Due to circumstance beyond my control I'm only just now able to sit at a keyboard and think about what I'm going to write about. I'm not going to use my schedule as an excuse or anything and I don't give a fuck about explaining myself to the unwashed masses here, but as my opponent I think you should know that the relative shittiness of what I am (hopefully) about to write in no way reflects by respect for you as an adversary.
or something.
Submitted by yhywstudios (user info) at 2006-10-07 13:00:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-05 00:39:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Someday, I'll earn that 0.5 back.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-10-04 22:47:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
1.5
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-10-04 22:47:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-04 20:44:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Cheers, everyone.
Red, Christiano has a message for you: http://www.ubersite.com/m/93746
Submitted by VelvetElvis (user info) at 2006-10-04 17:18:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Outstanding.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-04 16:35:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great work with an odd title.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 15:52:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Goddamn, you can write.
The imagery here was fantastic.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-04 15:42:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Creepy; nice atmosphere. Echoes of "Rebecca" and "Bag of Bones."
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-10-04 14:23:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-10-04 09:53:36 (#)
Ranking: 2
Spooky.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-04 11:51:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cristiano Ronaldo is still a cunt
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2006-10-04 10:11:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-10-04 09:53:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Spooky.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-10-04 09:20:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
*shudders*
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-10-04 09:10:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2's for everyone, it's Electros birthday
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-10-04 08:56:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well creepy.
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-10-04 08:53:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes.