My Girl

by Rob Shepherd

  Judith fell back first, pulling herself across the floor and away from Summers' body, followed shortly afterwards by Andy. The two curled up, huddled together, wrapped in one another's arms, together their tears came and together their tears flowed.

  Eventually Andy pulled himself to his feet and walked over to the shallow grave his daughter and been unceremoniously dumped in and pulled the rest of her body free, until she lay on the cold concrete floor. He ran his arm around and underneath her back, sitting her up once again, then pulled her into himself with the other arm, he cradled her like a baby. He stroked her face, then her hair, brushing away from her face and backwards over her forehead. Picking her up, he held her body in his arms, supporting her back and neck with the other arm underneath the backs of her knees. Her head tipped and nestled into his neck. Laying Summer's body down onto the ground once again Andy turned his head and spotting the clean washing, he reached for a clean sheet that had fallen onto the floor in the chaos, grabbing the corner of it, he pulled over before shaking it out and laying over Summer's body like a religious shroud.

  Chapter 10

  As Andy cared for Summer's body, Judith looked away. It was just too much for her. Too much pain to absorb. Looking across the room, Judith noticed something, and it made her stomach sink and absolutely terrified her. She felt an icy cold chill wash over her entire body, forming goose bumps all over her.

  The broken body of the 'other' Summer was missing. There was the pool of coagulating blood where her body had lay moments before, but now the body itself had gone and neither of them had seen or heard anything.

  Judith looked around the room, desperately looking for clues as to the whereabouts of the other Summer. Again, and again, over and over, Judith scanned the room for any sign of the thing.

  “Andy” Judith called over in a slow, soft but definite tone. By this time, Andy had stood up, his fists clenched. He looked back at Judith, his eyes full of rage. She had never seen him like this, but then they had never had a child murdered before. Andy's eyes seemed to reflect a fury that was equal to Hell's own wrath.

  “Whatever that fucking thing is, was or whatever, I don't care; I'm going to obliterate the scraps that are left, then I'm going to burn that fucking bitch thing all the way to hell.” Andy's eyes looked raw and painful.

  “Andy” Judith repeated in the same cold, methodical tone. Andy didn't acknowledge Judith's call except to look back in her direction, the fury still raging in his eyes.

  “She's gone. It is gone. Look!” Judith asserted, the fear beginning to make her voice tremble a little. Andy turned to face the direction of the other Summer's body and sure enough it was gone. All that was left to indicate that it had ever been there, was the pool of coagulating blood, that sat there like a beacon, turning into a brown gloop.

  The full significance and consequence of this suddenly began to dawn on Andy, who turned back to Judith and instead of talking he simply mouthed one word to her. Pointing toward the stairs leading back to the cellar door, mouthed; “Run”

  Judith tried to get to her feet, but it was already too late to do anything. The entity appeared like an apparition directly behind Andy. Judith screamed his name out loud, but Andy didn't hear her, if he did, he never saw or knew what was coming. Before he could even react, Andy felt an immediate intense force to the back of his skull. The power of the blow instantly rendered him in a dazed state of utter confusion.

  Andy felt nothing else from then on as the force of the impact caused his right eye to pop from his orbital socket and burst forward, hanging down by the optic nerves as though it were a tiny gruesome hanging plant decorating somebody's kitchen window.

  Judith screamed even louder and ever more terrified than she had ever heard anyone else shout. The awful sight before her destroying her hopes of any kind of sane escape from this nightmare. Andy's expression now began to change altogether from a panic response to a completely blank expression, his head tilted backwards then downwards, before releasing itself and losing all contact with his neck and toppling off his shoulders, dropping down toward the ground bouncing briefly with a wet thud and rolling into Judith's lap. Without any cognitive awareness, her hands had instinctively reach out and cupped Andy's decapitated head between her open palms. Andy's body followed up by gently toppling over forwards and down to the floor as though it were a ventriloquist’s dummy having been dropped and discarded, surplus to requirements & unwanted.

  Chapter 11

  Andy’s fallen body opening a space to reveal the entity in its awful faux Summer glory, grinning maniacally, brandishing a shovel. The entity crouched down to Judith. Still grinning with the most awful expression, she or it, proceeded to kiss Andy's bloody head with such vigorous passion it was both obscene and disturbing. Forcing it's long black, snake like tongue into the mouth of Andy's decapitated head, then, moving away and up, it cupped Judith's head in its hands, blood trickling down the corners of its mouth and chin. Its hands felt more claw like than human hands. The entity then moved its head forward and pressed its lips to Judith’s'. Judith, squeamish, tried to pull her face away without success, it kissed Judith, forcing its prehensile tongue into her mouth. The impressive length of its tongue allowing it to reach down with equally impressive dexterity, reaching down her throat, sliding up and down the sides of her Oesophagus before pulling back up, wrapping it around her tonsils, caressing her uvula in a sensual dancing embrace before letting go again and withdrawing entirely from Judith's mouth and back into its own. The sensation caused Judith to gag and vomit violently, bloody mixed in the vomit, spraying out onto the floor and down her top, bloody vomit left trickling down the corners of Judith's own mouth now.

  The entity sneered at Judith and stated coldly; “We're not done yet. We have only just begun. I'll see you again soon enough.”

  Dropping the blood coated shovel at Judith's feet, the entity turned and walked over to the lone window in the cellar, one sudden dislocating crack, followed by another until a series of sickening cracks echoed throughout the cellar. Judith watched in further horror, breaking what little sanity she had managed to retain, as it began to shed the Summer shaped outward disguise, piece by piece, almost as though a lizard sheds its old skin, only the disguise also contained bone and tissue, an almost perfect copy of Summers own body were it not for the disgusting discarded slop that represented her now lying with carefree abandon on the floor. The creature turned one last time and looked Judith in the face, its black eyes, splintered with fiery orange strikes glowing with as much menace as the expression on its face. The look of the creature was such that had she been sane at this point Judith with have lost it trying to explain it. The entities skin moved, rippled and squirmed as though it both hid creatures beneath it and yet had some sort of independence from the creature itself. Its colour shifted from vivid green to oily black-grey with every possible colour in the spectrum in between. An ooze like sweat seemed to bead all over its both inter-gendered and yet sexless, naked body. Reaching up toward the window, the entities arm seemed to stretch along with its clawed fingers, which teased the window open and reaching through, grasping the outside. It pulled the rest of its horrendous body up and out through the gap it had now created and disappeared.

  Chapter 12

  Judith heard shouts from outside. She wasn't sure how much time had passed between the entity leaving and the loud banging at the front door. It could be thirty seconds or three hours, maybe three days. Time had stopped and become irrelevant to her. Everything seemed like a dream. It was as though she was high, and everything had simply become one massive head fuck of a hallucination.

  The officers forced their way through the front door and inside the house. Two of the men enter initially, before they motioned for the others to follow afterwards. The house was eerily silent. Calling out, the leading officer asked if anybody was home but received no reply. Walking further through the home, they ended up in the kitchen. Noticing the cellar door was open, they made their way i
mmediately to it, weapons brandished, just in case.

  The bright light of the torch lit up the area, picking out the reflection of Judith's eyes, momentarily blinded, she turned towards the light despite its painful glare.

  “Freeze! Don't move!” Came the demands from the officer, the one she could begin to make out.

  Judith just stared back at them. There was nothing she could do. Summer's body lay, plain to see underneath it's carefully placed shroud, A mass of bone and bloody flesh lay in a sloppy mass beneath the window, Andy's decapitated body lay on the floor directly beneath the stairs where the officers were grouped together, his head lay in her lap, blank, cold eyes staring out to a world that had already forgotten him and a bloody shovel lay at her feet. She couldn't explain any of this. She couldn't explain anything to her own mind, never mind explain it to the police.

  Judith looked up at the officers, her eyes wide and wild, her brain was no longer able to process what she had seen and been through, even more unable to understand what was happening right then at that very moment. Her entire cognitive function seemed to have shut down, leaving her stranded with all this horrific evidence, a phone call from a woman talking about someone trying to kill them and yet she no defence for herself. She wondered if the officers would shoot if she tried to move or even escape.

  About The Author

  Author of several books of varying genre from humorous novella Life With Boris Karloff to WW2 drama Sofiah, and from poetry title Stripped Unconsciousness to Horror such as The Caretaker and The Grays Anatomy. Rob has no genre specificity, instead he likes to write stories that appeal to himself and that simply spark inside his mind. The important thing is to enjoy writing, it doesn't matter what you write so long as you enjoy the art of doing it. Rob shares his home with his Wife Michelle, son Daniel, grumpy and somewhat psycho but adorable cat Jinx and slightly unhinged and late in the queue for IQ; Ethel, the Sharpei cross.

  The saying goes that everybody has one good book in them, in that case I intend to flood the world with genius.

  It doesn't matter if you write 1 paragraph or 100 pages a day or in a week, the important thing is that you 'write'.

  The impossible is always possible, you just have to know how and where to imagine.

  Born in Basildon, Essex in 1978 Rob now resides in Thurrock, Essex.

  For more books by Rob Shepherd visit:

  http://www.amazon.com/Rob-Shepherd/e/B00C2VW65W%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share