Trepidation fired from his heart and gunned through his body as the child stiffened, heart pounding.
It was the third time that night he heard the shrill whispers.
The shrill whispers he could never decipher. They seemed like shrill, aggressive growls from a dog.
Cracking open one eye, he let it drift to the side, his blankets pulled up so it covered his face. Closing his eye again, he felt relieved that is was 7:30 A.M. Usually he hated walking up so early, but it meant it was glowing day outside, and not the sinister gloom of night.
Hopefully it meant that… thing would leave him alone.
But it wouldn’t.
Once the sound was in your head, or even the image of the creature, it would never leave.
It would drive you to lunacy.
xXx
His parents and sister assumed he was being paranoid from the lack of forty winks.
But he knew better.
He tried to explain it to them, all times close to crying and curling up in a fetal position.
They scoffed and insisted he was too tired to think straight.
But he knew the truth.
xXx
The boy, who was petrified to the core, smuggled a knife into his room, concealing the weapon next to his mattress.
Climbing under his blankets, the boy grabbed the remote next to him that controlled the lights, and flicked them off.
He sealed his eyes shut tautly; praying silently that the thing wouldn’t come.
But it did.
And it whispered to him in that shrill undertone.
Only this time, he could comprehend what it was saying.
“Sacrifice,” it hissed. “I need a sacrifice…”
That’s when he felt something sit down on the foot of his bed.
Reacting out of sheer panic, the boy lunged down his hand, his fingers wrapping around the handle, and he sprung up, driving the dagger through the thing on his bed.
That’s when he unlocked his eyelids and saw what he drove the stiletto through.
A silent shriek fled from his throat as he stared at the body of his sister.
That’s when he heard it again.
Those dreaded shrill whispers.
“Another sacrifice,” it purred piercingly. “I need more sacrifices. That wasn’t satisfying.”
Then, the boy felt peace from his insanity.
He just had to listen to the thing and it would leave him alone.
It wanted more forgoes? Then it would get more forgoes.
xXx
Crawling out of bed, bloody blade in hand, the boy stalked toward his parents’ room, eyes glittering with madness.
Slipping in the room, using the murky blackness as a veil, the boy flicked his wrist, driving the knife blade into his father’s head, going through the ear canal. He then darted over to his mother and slit her throat down to the bone.
“There’s two more sacrifices,” he whispered, trembling from psychosis.
“And I’ll give you another one.”
xXx
The boy, clothes and skin spattered in blood, stagger into his parents’ bathroom, flicking the lights on and yanking open the medicine cabinet door.
Ripping out a bottle of pills, he struggled twisting the lid off but soon managed.
As he raised the bottle to his lips and tilted it back, in the mirror, he saw a dog-like creature standing on its hind legs. It looked like it was wearing a mask as it stared at the boy through dark eyes sockets. The pale body seemed florescent in the white light.
“One more sacrifice,” it encouraged, never moving a muscles.
The boy simpered and dumped the small yet potent pills into his mouth, swallowing without water.
His body convulsed.
Once,
Twice.
Then he was still.
The Rake had gotten its sacrifices and was contented, leaving the house and disappearing until it needed more forgoes.
----
That was... shady...
I can't believe I could write like that.
Maybe I should become a horror author...
Hope you like it!
Foxbracken, over and out.
