Ode to a Monster that lives Under an Abandoned Slaughterhouse.

CHAOSPIRATIONS

The Glitch

She answered the phone to hear the voice of her husband in a breathless panic.

“CHERYL?”

“Tommy, what are you…” she replied with obvious annoyance, pausing to present the fact that she was irritated.  What the hell is he doing? This is fucking typical. She immediately began to rehearse the proper scrip she would use to scold her husband for such a thoughtless, ill-timed prank. YOU KNOW I’m trying to get ready and we don’t have time…

“MY GOD… Cheryl…” his voice cracked in anguish “baby I’ve been..” his breathing labored. Cheryl heard a forced gulp through the low distortion in the call. A slowly increasing hiss. By this time she was furious and began the determined march from the master bath through the house toward the focus of her exacerbation. The striking of heels on laminate flooring echoed off the walls of the dining room as the hiss on the phone increased. The emptiness of the room amplified the resonating footsteps and fed her determination to give Tommy hell for his asinine behavior.

“… just tell me where you are I’ll come get you.”

Her cadence faltered. She stammered.

“What? What are you… Tommy?”

At the threshold of her destination, she could hear the muffled clatter of dishes against the submerged stainless steel sink. Her foot began to struggle through the pivot that would present her a clear view of her husband Tommy at the far end of the kitchen facing the window finishing the last of the supper dishes before their departure from the house for the charity ball. They were running late already, and Tommy was rushing to adequately finish this chore so he could warm up the sedan.

Yet he, Tommy, continued to speak almost inaudibly on the phone she gripped tighter in her hand. In her heart and soul she knew the voice belonged to her husband. The torment in his voice had been imprinted in her memory from devastating losses they had experienced together.

“I’m so sorry…” his voice barely able to overcome the now screeching static that had overtaken the call. Waves of warped distortion and electronic clicks and buzzed abruptly ended. She took in a breath.

Staring at her husband’s back, a wave of awareness came over her. 

This was not her house. 

This was not her husband.  

She was not who she had thought she was just mere seconds ago.

This was not her world.

Where she should be, some event of inconceivably horrific magnitude was happening there.

She saw it all. The pain, the loss, the fear slammed violently in her mind.

Before she could form the guttural scream welling from the depths of her soul, her husband turned to look behind him. 

Tommy was alone in the kitchen but his instinct and almost unconsciously perceptive changes in the position of the hairs on the back of his neck told him someone had entered the room. 

“HONEY?” he called out behind him, playing the ‘Marco Polo’ game that they had done countless times.

“I’m busy!” Cheryl called out from the master bath, her voice echoing through the house with a tone that made it apparent that she did not appreciate the interruption. 

“Oh, nothing sorry I thought you were in here for a second.” Tommy admitted.

The sink belched loudly as he pulled the stopper from its snug placement in the sink drain.  The soapy and turbid water imagined by some entity a reality away swirled in a hypnotic motion as it descended in the whirlpool of darkness of the drain and away of his reality. Tommy wrung his hands diligently on the worn kitchen towel he had draped over his right shoulder and felt a slight sense of accomplishment. He turned away as universes beyond the mind’s comprehension gently came back into alignment within themselves.