Flash Horror

Le Fou Aveugle by Bonemeal

The revulsion experienced when you find a spider on your shoulder or a feral rat scurrying over your feet has been described as "the horror of trespass" and it is quite possibly the most instantaneous fear which can be felt.  As a fundamental function in fear, no horror collection is complete without the horror of trespass.  In "Le Fou Aveugle", we visit an uncomfortable place where our common, cleanly platitudes are at risk of such trespasses. -FleetingTerrors

"ÉTIENNE! LA SOURIS! DANS LA BAQUET!" I had been sitting on the floor with a mathematics worksheet when mother's voice came echoing through the house. My father, who had been sitting in his chair with a newspaper, sighed and got up to assist her, treading in his slippers to the bathroom. Although I tried to focus on my schoolwork, I couldn't help but listen. Finally I heard her say, "Tu l'as attrapé ?", and my father walked out from the hallway, towel in hand, to release the poor mouse who was now hearing impaired. That's how it continued on for weeks, the mice reappearing all over the new house. A man came to investigate. He stood in our parlor, his moustache moving hypnotically as he reported that a large family of mice had moved in whilst the house had been empty, years before we moved in.

The first time I saw Almos, I was traveling back to the house we occupied while our own was being fumigated. I was gripping a stick, as I had just been playing with the other boys from the area. New scabs were forming on my knees below the silly things that were too long to be shorts, too short to be pants. And as I passed the building that would later spell untold horrors, the old door swung open, revealing an even older man. His nose was swollen as if withholding enormous pressure, which inhabited a face of folded skin. He seemed not to notice m as he hobbled out onto the path, where a stone wall separated his property from the street. When he came to the wall, he reached for a mason jar on the wall. In one motion the top came off, and he he proceeded to dump the contents: some sort of pickled clumps and yellowish liquid. When he turned his head, I noticed the odd glaze of his eyes, and that I was staring at a blind man. But all he muttered was "More fingernails," before retreating into his home once more.

Days Passed, and twice we had hope of returning to our home. Though soon after the news, there were discovered more nests of vermin and our lease in the temporary home was renewed. In this time I had forgotten about my father’s newly granted wealth and things felt like the good days when we were a closely knit family striving to get by.

I was walking toward the house, dragging a tree branch. My fingers grazed the black iron fence as I turned to enter the gate. But a strange feeling struck me, and it surged into my stomach. Something suddenly was not right.

I went slowly through the house, the feeling unrelenting. And though my parents were supposed to be home, it was deserted. I promptly locked the doors and windows, sitting in my father’s chair to wait. But dinner time arrived and nobody came. My stomach urged me to brave the kitchen, and I had to pull over a chair to reach the cabinets because the electric cooler was empty. Stretching myself to eye level with the shelves, I pulled down each box individually. They had all been chewed and emptied by mice.

The mice, they scampered around below me when night came. They ran over my shoulders, squeaking and nibbling away at my nails. I pulled my feet onto the chair, awake and awaiting morning. By the time it became light, my clothing was chewed and my toes bled.

I ran onto the street, approaching the first officer I found. He looked down at me, disgusted as I told him my story.

“Young boy,” he said,  “Do I look like an imbecile?” His eyebrows raised, haughtily.  “That house has been empty for months, nobody lives there.”  

I told him my family moved here the fourth of April. But he laughed. “No family of yours could afford that place. Bother somebody else.”

Such was the response of the last two officers in the village. With my tattered clothes and bleeding feet I couldn't fault them for thinking me homeless, maybe crazy. The boys I'd played with didn’t know me. It was as if time had been pulled backwards by the teeth of rodents. That was when he called to me.

“You, boy.”

There was the odd stone house, and the same blind man. His grotesque eyes pointed above me, but one hand, looking like a large ginger root, pointed straight to my face.  “Having trouble? Come inside.”

The dim house was cluttered with empty jars and smelled rank with decay. The man dropped himself onto a filthy yellow couch. “I remember you,” he said.

“You do?” It was surprising, because it seemed like my very existence had disappeared.

“You would walk home past my house every day, I don’t need these,” he tapped a nailess finger to his eyes, “to remember.”

He was Almos. And I spent that day picking sand from his carpet, listening to him drone over discrimination he faced. With nowhere to go, however, I was content. Then night came and I placed my bowl in the sink, turning to his voice.

“You can sleep in that room, where my grandson Alphonse stays.”The door blended in with the clutter. When I approached it I felt sick, like before. As I opened it a mouse darted out.

It was dark. Along the walls were jars filled with yellowish fingernails. Blood coated the far wall in a thick crust. And on the floor, hunched in the most unnatural position, was the corpse of a young boy nearly devoured by rodents. I swiveled around quickly, and Almos was standing in the kitchen, next to the most wretched thing imaginable. It was holding the dead boy’s severed arm.

“Give me your hand, Alphonse, are you still feeling cold?”

The deamon creature watched me with deep black eyes, while from the room the mice flooded me, their new feast.