Short Stories of Dread and Wonder

Heirloom

An elderly nurse walked in the room with a box in her hand. The face of the boy in the bed vaguely suggested a Mayan heritage, but his fair skin gave away the truth of the matter. His father, only partially Mayan, had married a white woman. He sat on the side of the bed, and he swung his feet back in forth in anticipation.

Nurse handed the boy the box, and he tore into it ravenously. He smiled at her as he pulled the stone figurine from the box, and placed it underneath his pillow quickly. The mildly baffled nurse walked out of the room, and gently closed the door behind her. Reform Mental Hospital, the plaque on the door read.

Outside, the doctor was looking at the boy through the window as he curled up in bed and began to fall asleep.  “That’s what he requested?”, the doctor asked in confusion. The boy hadn’t slept in days, and to see him fall asleep so quickly came as a surprise.

“Mhm. It’s the only thing that he asked we bring him. His father says it’s an old toy that had been passed down through his family for quite some time. From what I saw, it was a stone man cut from the bottom of the torso to the neck, exposing his innards. Rather grotesque. I, for one, wouldn‘t let my boy  play with it.” The nurse walked away with a look of disdain present on her face.

~

The stagnant air was a thick, acrid, and tangible mass that swelled about the boy lying on the floor. Upon awakening, he noticed first the damp moss between his fingers. He dug them deeper in anguish, and cobblestone met his fingertips. Next, his eyes began to adjust to the sickly green pallor of the stone corridor.

Glancing up, he noticed the source of the green light to spill out from beneath a thick, oaken, hulk of a door. Its unsteady wavering set the scene into motion, and everything seemed to move in accordance to the light.

He made a dizzying effort to stand, only to slip upon the moss blanketing the floor. Relentless throbbing in his skull kept the boy on his hands and knees, inching along at a painstaking pace.

Three feet from the door... two… one. It opened with a sickening ease.

Inside the room was only a mirror. He looked into it, and found his disheveled appearance unsettling. But as he stood there, confused, he noticed a murmuring. The boy listened closer, and the murmurs formulated words. Closer still, and they proved to be sentences. Sentences in a language entirely foreign.

Listening only doubled the pain in his head. He reached out a hand to steady himself on the mirror… and fell through it. He grasped at the air around him in a fervent attempt to catch himself. His hands found no purchase, and he began a swift descent.

Downward he dropped into the darkness. Was it downward? He wasn’t certain anymore. He had lost all sense of direction, and all that could be witnessed was the murmur of the voices. They had returned, their words shrill and fast. The voices increased in volume, pitch, and rate as he traveled through the blackness. In a matter of moments the words became an unbearable whine, high pitched and loud in his ears.

Silence.

He awoke again, this time his feet firmly planted on the ground beneath him. In front of him stood the same figure that had terrorized his sleep since shortly after birth. A long, beak like nose protruded from his face in a horrifically subhuman way.

Stumbling backwards, the youth sprinted away as fast as his feeble legs would carry him down the corridor. Every few steps he would glance back to find the man closer. The form seemed to swoop down upon him like a vulture as he neared.

Two doors ended the passage. Two doors identical in appearance and size. He had to make a hasty decision. He reached out for the handle of the door on the right, and the voices returned in an eerie giggle. He reached for the other handle, and the voices began laughing again, this time a loud cackle. The man was within thirty paces now. The boy swung the door open wide, and rushed inside.

Three feet, by three feet. The room was little more than a glorified closet. He looked around hurriedly for a means of escape. Nothing.

The man closed in upon him. He grabbed him with his talon like fingers,  and stared into his face. The boy shut his eyes tightly, and awoke.

The all too familiar face of his mother stood over his bed, her hand on his shoulders. “Ryan?”

“No, no this isn’t right!” Ryan shouted. He slid his hand under the pillow, and just as he suspected, the figurine was gone.

“What did you do with it?!”

“Ryan, baby, calm down,” she countered in the most soothing voice she could manage. “You needn’t play with that wretched thing. It’s not fitting for a boy of your age to hold something so terrible.” The woman reached down to grab her son’s hand in hers, and he pulled away is disgust.

“You… you don’t understand,” he stammered out.

“Please, just listen…”

“NO mother, you listen. I can’t sleep without it. He… he won’t leave me alone. He hurts me…” he replied, softly rubbing the new scratches around his wrist.

At this point the doctor walked in the room. “Perhaps, ma’am, it would be best to humor his…”

She cut him off with an icy stare.

“Alright. Here.” She dug into her bag and produced the statuette. “You can have it.”

Ryan latched onto the figure immediately. “…promise?”

His mother nodded absentmindedly, and turned to walk out.

“Mommy?” She turned back. “I’m sorry… I love you.”

She smiled at him, and left the room. Ryan fell asleep once again with a smile on his face.

~

The boy’s mother fumbled with the keys to her sedan in frustration. Why must she drive such an old, hideous thing? “It’s all my damned husband’s fault. If he had a job that paid half of what my father’s job paid…” She muttered.

 A man, standing behind her, called out.

“Ma’am? I don’t mean to be a bother, but as a curator of a museum I couldn’t help but notice. The statue that your son had is an ancient Mayan artifact. It depicts the human sacrifice used to ward away demons and evil spirits. It could fetch a handsome sum of money. But of course, there would be the complications of selling it. I could buy it off of you for a still very respectable amount.”

“A respectable amount, you say?” Greed danced in her eyes like the flames of a funeral pyre.

A deal was reached, and the woman began to walk back inside. A smile spread across the mans face, just below his large, hooked, beak like nose.