At the end of a long drive, sat a tired old house, it’s exterior color long ago washed away by time. In the light of the full moon, a formless shadow darted from the sagging tool shed that squatted beneath a knotted and gnarled oak tree. The shape disappeared behind the house, leaving only a faint foul scent in its wake.
Inside, the home's occupants slept soundly…..
Jerked awake by a long groaning ‘creeeeeek’, Joe’s eyes popped open, suddenly fully awake. He laid in the still silence for a moment, accompanied only by Kay’s soft steady breathing to his right. Starting to believe the sound that woke him was nothing more than the remains of a dream, Joe began to drift back to sleep when he heard something downstairs.
An urgent rustling, a thump, a guttural groaning, and again ‘creeeeeeek’. He KNEW that sound. Kay has been pestering him to oil the hinges of the cupboard under the stairs for nigh on a decade.
Filled with a sense of foreboding, and fueled by pure adrenaline, Joe made to rise out of the narrow bed he shared with his wife. Before he could lift his head mere inches from the pillow, he was stopped dead. It was as if his body were bound by cords of steel. He struggled against the bonds, until finally dropping his head back down to the pillow in exhaustion.
“kaaaYY!” Joe exclaimed, as loudly as he dared. “kaaAYYY! ROLLLL OOOVER”
The frail old woman, with arms hardly thicker than a broom handle, let out a short, snorting, snore and shifted her body back to her side of the bed, freeing Joe from his bonds.
Joe shoved off the covers, looking at his sleeping wife in disbelief. ‘How she manages to...I’ll never…’ Joe muttered to himself as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
His feet landed squarely into the soft soled interior of the slippers Kay had bought him last Christmas. Long nailed toes finding that familiar spot in the front of the slippers.
Thump thump thump *BAANG*
That brought him back to the present. There was someone IN THE HOUSE. He groped wildly in the moonlit darkness of the small room for the objects he always sat on the side table before getting into bed. His glasses, and his father’s old army knife, his most prized possession, given to him when was a child.
Jamming the stems of his glasses on top of his over-sized ears, and settling them on his bulbous old man’s nose, Joe clutched the knife in a white knuckled grip, and slowly made his way towards the door of the bedroom.
Cautiously, Joe edged to the frame of the door and peeked out. The short dark hallway to his right that led to the upstairs bathroom was quiet and still. He looked to his left where the flight of stairs descended into the deeper darkness of the unlit stairwell.
‘Now’s no time to be afraid of the dark old man’ he whispered to himself, silently giving a prayer to a God he had long ago forgotten.
As he edged to the stairs, he took one slow careful step after another. Clutching his dad’s knife in one hand, and the stairs rickety old banister in his other, he started his descent into the blackness.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he flung out one long boney finger and snaked his hand around the corner to where the light switch was mounted and flicked it on.
Light cascaded the room and Joe was momentarily blinded, covering his eyes with one forearm. As his eyes adjusted, he took in the scene laid out before him. Just to his right, the door of the cupboard under the stairs hung upon, completely torn off its top hinge. On the floor to the opening of the closet, was everything he had ever jammed into that old hideaway space. Coats, an old hunting cap, the broken sewing machine he kept promising Kay he would get around to fixing, a bowling pin? Ahh yes, that 300 game he finally managed to bowl, over 30 years ago..
Shaking his head back to the present, his eyes followed the objects strewn across the living room floor. They narrowed to what appeared to be a lumpy trail. Joe knelt down to the floor, old knees and old boards groaning out in protest together. He inhaled sharply through his nose at the familiar scent that greeted him. Joe’s eyes narrowed in the dim light at the trail before him and followed it to where it exited the house. There, just inside the doorway, lay a flat, round disk. Suddenly, Joe knew what it was.
“KAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY” bellowed Joe, this time not caring who or what heard him.
“SOMEONE’S GOTTEN INTO THE PIPE WEED, AND I’M GOING AFTER HIM”
Filled with a Rage he forgot he possessed, Joe clutched his dad’s army knife and marched towards the open door, into the night…
Running on powerful fur covered legs, the shadowy form burst from the doorway of the home, his prize clutched in fur covered hands. Having absolutely no idea why, he was filled with a sense of pride at his accomplishment. He finally had it! He...needed...this, substance. He craved to consume it.
Darting around the corner of the old shed, he took a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t spotted, and dipped a long-nailed finger into the container holding this, food? Snarling greedily, he flicked out a thickly salivating tongue onto the leafy substance between his fingers. Filled with a sour dryness, his snouted mouth twisted in disgust at the taste, and he began spitting and coughing and licking the backs of his hands to get that foulness out of his mouth. It tasted so unpleasant, but why did it smell SO delicious?
Hearing an angry bellow from the house, he pushed against the door to the shed until it gave way and allowed him to stumble inside. Feeling a sense of fear and urgency, his eye’s darted around the small interior of the shed, desperately searching for a place to hide.
Eyes crossing over the top of a narrow work bench cluttered with shadowy objects, the light of the moon coming in through the one small window, shone upon a long-stemmed pipe. Struggling against his confused animalistic nature, the fearsome werewolf grabbed the pipe, jammed a pinch of the weed into the bowl, and swiftly picked up the matchbook left open beside the pipe’s resting place. With a deftness that seemed unnaturally possible, the match struck, and the flame sparked. From behind him, he heard something approaching. He only needed a few more seconds…
Joe burst into the tool shed, knife raised and ready to strike. He was greeted by a thick billow of smoke that he deeply inhaled in one long breath, that was meant to steady himself, but instead filled his lungs with the sweet thick smoke of his prized pipe weed.
Waving an arm around the room to clear the air, Joe could just make out a figure laid out flat on the floor. The pasty white form laid face first on the floor of the shed, naked as the day he was born, a long-stemmed pipe clutched in one meaty fist, a twist of smoke silently rising from the bowl that contained nothing but ashy remains.
His eyes followed up the forms body to the back of a balding head topped with stringy thinning hair, with just a hint of Auburn remaining among the white strands.
It was his brother-in-law, Miles. That little sneak thief. That dirty rotten pipe weed stealing son of a bitch!
“KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY”
