Just a little something...for Halloween

It's almost Halloween and I have been working on a project for a little bit, something I think is a little creepy. So, just for the fun of it, I thought I would post a part of the story here, just an excerpt, on my blog. It's still rough...so don't hold it against me...I just thought that I would post it and see what you think. I am always attract to those things that go bump in the night...right when you think it's safe...It's a little story about a rookie detective named Rachel McDavies and a close encounter with something murderous...maybe even monstrously evil....

The bath was stinging hot on her feet and the smell of frescia calmed Rachel’s nerves as she slid into the hot , sudsy water.

It was unbelievable what happened to that poor woman. Trassbin and her were unable to identify her, and they awaited the report from the autopsy, including  any hits on the fingerprint database. This woman was someone’s mother; someone’s daughter; someone’s wife; someone’s girlfriend. Someone in the world was missing her and it was an assault to Rachel that there was a possiblity she could die in anonymity, never being identified. She would just become a statistic, a cliché in a city full of clichés, like her sister was.

When Rachel was seven years old, her sister went missing.

One minute she was there and the next minute…she wasn’t. She was standing next to Rachel and her mother while mom picked out a head of lettuce from the produce counter at the local market, and then she was gone. It was like she disappeared in a puff of smoke, hidden behind a magician’s  mirrors. Rachel’s mother was inconsolable. She was never able to recover and took her own life with a bottle of anti-depressants. No one ever found Rachel’s sister, and it became an event that scarred the insides of Rachel’s heart with its claws. How does someone just disappear? Rachel knew her sister was dead. That was twenty-six years ago but it was like yesterday for Rachel. The pain was palpable, like her heart was removed and replaced with something that worked more like a malfunctioning sump pump.

Now, this woman, torn-up and cast away like yesterday’s garbage, needed to have some justice. Trassbin was a workhorse and would plug along on this and get it solved. As brusque and uncouth as he was, he knew more about murder than anyone on the force.

And then there was her. She would not give up until this killer was caught and prosecuted. This woman deserved it, and so did her sister.

The water was cooling in the tub, and Rachel used a washcloth to wash the sweat from her face, then discarded it into the sudsy water and pushed up to get out of the tub. She rubbed the excess water from her legs and  grabbed a towel to get rid of the rest of it.

Suddenly, there was a crash, like the sound of breaking glass, from the other side of the bathroom door. It  sounded like a plate or a glass dropping from the cupboards in the kitchen.

Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She jumped from the tub, throwing the towel to the floor, and ripped her terrycloth robe from the towel rack, thrusting her arm into one of the arms of the robe and into the other.

What in the hell was that? Someone was in the kitchen? Someone broke in. Where was her gun?

She looked all over the bathroom before she realized that she left her Smith & Wesson in the shoulder holster on her bed. Shit! Now what was she going to do? She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she quieted herself and switched off the light in the bathroom, plunging herself into darkness.

She listened for anymore sounds, and could just hear the pit-pat of feet in the kitchen. It wasn’t like the sound of shoed feet, but the sound of bare feet, a slapping sound.

Rachel flinched at the sound like it slapped her, and she held her breath in the dark. She reached for the doorknob, feeling for it in the dark. She couldn’t find it and her pulse hammered as panic began to take over. Her hand flew over the surface of the door. She needed to get to her gun before the intruder found her here in the dark. She struggled to see the doorknob, anything to find it, and then her hand struck it and she let out a lungful of breath in relief. She wasted no more time being quiet or trying to hide. She had to get to her gun, and she had to do it fast.

Rachel threw the door to the bathroom open and ran, holding her breath, waiting for the intruder to pounce on her back and tackle her down, his hands digging into her arms holding her down on the ground.

Rachel heard a crash behind her and a wail, like the sound of a siren, but more human…and less. The sound of those barefoot footsteps were right behind her, running from the kitchen and into the hall.  Rachel didn’t stop, didn’t look behind her. Run! Run! Dammit!

The footsteps were right behind her, and she collided with the ajar door of her bedroom, spotted the gun in its holster on her bed, jumped for it, grabbing it and sliding over the top of her bed and onto the floor, colliding with her nightstand. She fumbled with the gun and could hear the heavy breathing of the intruder on the other side of her bed. It was waiting for her to show her face.

She got the gun out of the holster. Rachel could hear the heavy breathing of the intruder, it sounded like a hiss and now she could smell something too. It was the smell of decaying flesh, a rotten putrid smell that made her want to vomit.

Her mouth was dry, and she gasped for breath and tried to hold it as well. The stench was too much for her. She steeled her mind to confront the intruder and then she popped up from behind the mattress and confronted something that she’d never seen before, from her worst nightmares.

It looked like a human being, but one that died many years before. The pale skin looked pallid and loose on its frame, like an ill-fitting coat. On its shoulders, plates of bone protruded from the skin, like shoulder pads on a football player. Rachel could just see its tongue sticking out of its mouth, a clear fluid too thick to be spittle, hung off of it. That decaying stench came off it in nauseating waves. Rachel fought back the desire to vomit.

Her heart raced and she was frozen in place, unable to pull the trigger as the creature stared at her with its sunken eyes. It breathed heavy, its whole body rising and falling. What in the hell is this? She’d never seen anything like it. Never in her life, like a walking zombie, a George Romero nightmare.

Rachel’s finger twitched on the trigger of her gun. Every muscle in her body was tense, her stance rigid. Her robe had fallen open and she only barely noticed the cool air as it struck her body, but she didn’t care. This thing was slowly crouching, as if to spring at her. There was no way this thing deserved to live. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be alive.

The pale creature bared it’s yellowing teeth, long canines with thick spittle hanging from them in long ropes. It hissed and the putrid smell of death and rot struck Rachel. A sudden desire to vomit clenched her guts and she fought it back. She had to shoot. Shoot! The scream that escaped her mouth was a gutteral cry. She pulled the trigger over and over, impervious to the roaring of the gun in her hands.

The thing dodged the first bullet by stepping aside but Rachel couldn’t believe her eyes when it disappeared.

The dead thing turned sideways and disappeared, like it slipped into a crack in the atmosphere, gone without any fanfare, just gone.