A Night With the Thomsons

It was an impulsive decision my dad made one day. “An epiphany” he called it. We had only just come back from a short camping trip, but my dad couldn’t stop talking about those woods. It was the silence I think. He loved the silence. Eventually we found ourselves packing our bags to take permanent residence in that forest. I didn’t really care. I never had many friends where we used to live anyway. “The less human contact the better,” I thought. My first night in that house in near absolute silence was relaxing to say the least. I began to understand what my dad had been rambling on about all this time. Eventually my comfort quickly disappeared. It was the nights I think. Those pitch black nights along with that silence just made me feel vulnerable, it made me paranoid.

I should also tell you that power outages were not uncommon. It would be strange not to have a power out at least once a month, don’t ask me why. These especially irritated me, an avid surfer of the web with no other source of entertainment. The rest of my family quickly found ourselves disliking our new home as well. In the summer of our third year, my dad finally called it quits. We were set to leave in a week, and to tell you the truth it wasn’t uninterrupted internet access, or even contact with other human beings that got me excited. It was getting away from that silence. That year round, complete and utter silence that never went away.

My dad would tell me cities were far more dangerous than rural areas, but I have never felt more unsafe than during the nights I spent in that house. I couldn’t help but feel like I was being watched with every pitch black window I passed at night. The police force was small and unmotivated, and we were a thirty minute drive from town through dirt roads and forest. Most families soothed their fear by getting a gun. This didn’t apply to our family, since we didn’t believe in violence. Our only neighbors were the Thomsons. The Thomsons were a half a mile down the road, but we were good friends. This was how it started. We decided to have a final neighborly get together at our house. I was hiding behind a tree, stifling my breath. My heart rate quickened as I heard the familiar ‘crunch crunch’ of leaves underfoot.

“I see you, Dave,” she giggled.

“That was so lame, all we can hide behind are trees,” I said as I swung around to see the familiar face of 18 year old Rachel Thomson. My twin brother John stood beside her.

“You’re so bad at hiding Dave,” she laughed, “I found John buried under a pile of leaves,” she looked over to John,”It took me forever to find him.” Rachel smiled and began walking toward my house, but John stayed behind. He was glaring at me with a smirk on his face. I could tell he was pleased with himself.

“Poor Dave,” John said as he turned to walk back to our house. I followed, visibly annoyed. So what if he had a better hiding place? It was like he hadn’t realized I had just won the game! He had a knack for getting on my nerves, especially in front of the girl I liked. Sure I knew we were moving in a few days and I would probably never see her again, but that didn’t stop me from getting annoyed. We were twins, fraternal twins. He was everything I wasn’t: strong and stupid, and he could never stop talking about his athletic awards. To him, each new award he received was one more reason why he was better than me. He even lined the walls of his damn room with them. Everything was a contest to him, even a simple game of hide and seek. Everyone loved the guy for some reason. I couldn’t stand him. As I entered our house, a greasy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to see Mr. Thomson, a slightly overweight man with a vest, jeans and a wide smile.

“Hey sport,” Mr. Thomson slurred, noticing the very unpleasant look on my face.

“What’s wrong?” he slurred again as I noticed the stink of whiskey on his breath. I quickly tried to walk off when I heard him groggily say, “Hey, ugh… talk to me Dave.” I never really liked Mr. Thomson personally. He was a nice guy and all, but I knew he was an alcoholic. This wasn’t something my dad or anyone else for that matter seemed to care about.

After a long pause I said “Not much Mr. T.” I turned and walked toward our kitchen. My mom and Mrs. Thomson were taking the casserole out of the oven, and my dad was grilling the burgers. I climbed on our couch and was just about to turn the TV on when my dad turned to me.

“Dave, we need the wood for the fire pit cut,” he said. There was a long pause.

“You’re asking me to do it?” I asked. My dad looked very confused for a moment.

“Of course not!” he laughed, “Get your brother.” He continued chuckling, but I stood there for a moment, just staring back. He stopped chuckling.

“Now,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I sighed. I climbed off the couch and walked toward the front door. Dad had no faith in me. John and I were both 17 after all. It’s not like I wanted to chop wood like some caveman, but it’s the fact that he didn’t think I could that got to me. I saw them as I walked out our front door. There on the front porch John and Rachel sat, leaning together in a kiss. I froze in place. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My good for nothing brother had stolen the one thing I wanted, the one thing I wanted in this fucking place. This was unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. John looked up at me, and smiled. He didn’t even like her. She was just another trophy for his damn shelf. He knew perfectly well what he had done. In that instant something in me broke, and I acted on impulse. The two of them followed as I stormed to the back yard. I stomped to the chopping block and slammed a log down. I heaved our old rusty axe and swung with all my might. I was dead set on hearing that wood crack. I needed some sort of consolation, no matter how small. It didn’t split the wood. It didn’t even get halfway. I could hear John’s laughter as I pried the axe out.

After having the laugh of his life John walked up to me and said “Give me the axe Dave.” He grabbed for the axe, but I pulled it away.

“Dave, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but you’re just too weak,” he said. I gripped the axe tighter

“That wasn’t nice,” Rachel yelled as John continued his laughter. My knuckles whitened.

“Dave, Rachel doesn’t like you–,” John never did finish that last insult, but what did follow was a resounding “Crunch.” Shock filled John’s eyes as he stared at the large axe head imbedded in his right foot. Would it be wrong to say I was satisfied? Yes, I felt relief when I heard his bones break. I was excited when I heard his screams. But that’s when I saw the look of horror on Rachel’s face as she stared at me. And that’s when I saw the blood, so much blood. I wore the same look of horror then, and I realised what I had done. My parents rushed John to the nearest hospital, a thirty minute drive of agony. Rachel backed away from me. She was afraid of me. Mr. Thomson was the only one to approach me, sobered up after the all the commotion.

“We should go,” he stated. Mr. Thomson gathered his wife and daughter into his beat up truck and sped down the road, obviously breaking the speed limit. None of it felt real. I must have stood by the chopping block for an hour. I was in shock.

“What did I do,” I whispered. I felt such unbridled disgust with myself. I made Rachel hate me, my whole family hate me. I was worse than John. But you know what I did next? I took a walk, still dragging that axe with me, the thing slathered with my brother’s blood. I didn’t know where I was going. I just walked down toward the Thomsons’ house. Maybe I was hoping I could talk to them? Talk to her? Could I somehow get her to forgive me? Then I remembered that look of horror on her face, and I stopped myself. That’s when I realised I was at the pond. Without hesitation I threw that axe into the murky water, enraged when I saw the tip of the yellow handle just barely sticking out. I made it back home just before the sun sunk below the horizon. I took a long shower, silently sobbing as the warm water ran through my hair. I was alone. After using all of my tears and all the hot water, I got dressed and headed down stairs. I sat in the living room, just staring at a wall. Hours passed. It was dark outside, a new moon. Silence engulfed me as I sat there, but it didn’t bother me, not yet. That’s when I heard a soft knock at the front door, breaking the silence. “Bum bum bum.” The front porch was pitch black. I imagined it, it must have been the mice in the walls. Who knocks at your door at 12:00 AM in pitch darkness? Plus I would have noticed a car pulling up next to our house, it’s a forest after all. Reassured, I resumed my business when I heard it again. “Bum, bum, bum.” I slowly turned my head toward the door and I heard the monotonous knock a third time. “Bum, bum, bum.” I hesitantly walked toward the door, turning the lock first, and flipped on the porch light.

A man stood at my front door. It was Mr. Thomson, wearing his usual attire. Relief momentarily struck me when I realized this. He probably felt bad for leaving in such a hurry and came to check up on me. He walked all this way in the dark, he was that kind of person after all.

“Hey sport,” he slurred with a big smile across his face. The smile seemed unnatural, as if he was just spreading his mouth rather than genuinely smiling. Was he drunk? His eyes, they looked hazy, and he just kept staring into space, not really at me but past me. And his skin, it looked stretched. It was sagging. His jowls drooped slightly from his face, and his chin sagged so much that it jiggled when he spoke. It looked as if he had aged 10, maybe 15 years.

“Are you alright Mr. Thomson?” I asked with real concern.

“We should go,” he said flatly, only something was wrong with the way he said this. It sounded recited, and there was no slur this time. I might have opened the door, might have, if it weren’t for those eyes. That skin. That stale tone. Something told me this wasn’t Mr. Thomson. It couldn’t be. Everything about him felt wrong. It was unsettling. I felt a sudden sense of dread within me. I had realized that I was in middle of the woods with a man at my door, a man pretending to be Mr. Thomson.

“We should go,” the imposter repeated. I backed away, unsure of what to do next. The police weren’t an option. They wouldn’t come in time, they couldn’t. I could only call the Thomsons. They could help me, and the real Mr. Thomson had a gun. But something was terribly wrong. If this man just wanted to kill me, or even kidnap me, why hadn’t he just opened the door, snuck in, and done it while I was sitting on the couch? I was alone after all. Why did he have to knock and pretend to be Mr. Thomson?

“What’s wrong?” the imposter asked, no longer smiling. I panicked. I hurriedly locked the back door of the house, the imposter just kept repeating “What’s wrong” over and over again. There was no variation in his tone at all. And then it stopped. Silence. He was no longer at the door. I grabbed a kitchen knife and ran up the stairs into my room, slamming the door. That’s when I heard loud scraping noises just above the ceiling, like something was desperately trying to hold onto the shingles of my house. He was on my fucking roof! I was breathing heavily, my heart was pounding. I grabbed my cell phone and called the Thomsons. It rang and rang, and then I heard their dial tone. It was Rachel saying: “You just reached the Thomsons! Please leave us a message and we’ll return your call!!” I began to hear shuffling and thumping above. I scrambled their number into the phone and called again, no answer. The shuffling stopped directly above my room. Screw it, I was calling the cops. Just as I pressed that second one in, the power went out. Darkness, silence, and no service. Everything was still, well, except for me. I shivered there in the darkness. I wasn’t cold, I was afraid. A loud thud came from my skylight. I could hear the glass cracking. I shined my phone’s light toward the sound. The imposter was crouched on the overhang of the roof, slamming his head over and over into the window. I stared in horror as he continued his assault on the glass pane, bloody chunks of hair falling out with each thud. Still holding the knife, I stumbled in the darkness of the hallway as the window shattered behind me. Making it to the bathroom, I slammed the door and locked it behind me, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face. He was inside. I could hear him moving in the hallway, making his way in the darkness. There was silence once again.

“Hey sport,” he said. He began to rattle the door handle. I struggled to stifle my shaking breath. The rattling stopped, and a long scratching noise came from the wood. He was clawing at the door with his bare hands.

“Hey talk to me Dave,” he demanded, giving the door a hard slam. My body began to quake in terror. A lunatic was in my house. I was about to die. He slammed into the door again. I could hear the hinges creaking, the wood splintering. It wasn’t going to hold. I might have died then and there. Luckily there was a sort of hatch in my bathroom that overlooked the kitchen area. It’s purpose was to let steam out through the kitchen skylight. That day it served as my escape route. I tore off the flimsy chains holding the small wooden door and I awkwardly crawled out. I slammed into the kitchen floor, the wind was completely knocked out of me. As I laid there struggling to breathe I heard the bathroom door collapse. The imposter was frantically searching for me. Taking my breath of air, I hauled myself off the ground and made my way to a door. I swung it open and crawled into our filthy, unfurnished basement. There was a putrid smell in the place, a sort of mix between mice feces and decaying matter. I hid behind a stack of boxes, and waited. There was silence again. The basement door slowly creaked open. The imposter descended the stairs, only something was off. The way it sounded, it was as if two sets of feet were hitting each step. There were either two men in my house, or this goddamn lunatic was crawling down the stairs. I held my breath, not making a sound. He was getting closer, closer to me. How did he know where I was? It was pitch black. I wasn’t making a sound. He made it to the boxes and this man, this thing, gave them a long and loud sniff. This wasn’t the sniff of a human, this was the sniff of an animal. He was like a bloodhound frantically tracking his prey, tracking me. Darkness couldn’t help me, and there was nowhere I could hide. I didn’t panic. He didn’t know I was here, not for sure.

I gripped the knife, still in my hand, and hurled it to the far end of the room. I could tell the thing whipped its head around in surprise. I heard it hobble off toward the clatter. That’s when I made a break for it. I ran out of the basement, out of that house. I could hear the thing screaming. It was an unspeakable, unholy howl that resounded throughout the forest. I was desperately trying to make my way to the neighbor’s house. I held my phone’s light out in the darkness, dodging trees as I shot passed them in the fastest sprint of my life. I could hear it in the forest. It wasn’t far behind me. I could hear it moving, and judging by the sound anyone would have said I was being chased by a coyote. This thing was no animal. It wasn’t human either, it couldn’t be. It was screaming nonsense. I couldn’t make out what it was saying, but I could make out one thing.

“Dave!” it called. It was almost here. My chest was heaving. My heart felt like it was going to explode. And then my foot got caught on something. A stray root? I tumbled for a while, I hit a tree and landed in water. I was in the pond, but I could hear it advancing. I sunk deeper into the muddy water as it made its way near the pond. I struggled to stifle my heaving breath. I couldn’t see much, it was so dark outside, but as my eyes adjusted I could just barely make out the silhouette of that… that thing. It was standing on all fours, like a fucking dog. It was breathing heavily. It didn’t move. It didn’t know where I was. We both sat there, unmoving for minutes, maybe an hour. I couldn’t tell how long it had been, but then the thing just took off. I waited there until I was sure the thing was far away. I was laughing quietly. I had survived. It was gone, at least for now. I knew it was waiting somewhere, waiting for me to show myself. Covered in mud and soaking wet, I crawled out of the water and ran in the darkness. My phone was soaked, it was completely unusable. With what little light it still had I finally made my way to the Thomsons’ house. I didn’t even knock. I whipped that door open and slammed it closed behind me. I turned the lock.

“Help!” I screamed. Tears of relief streaming down my face. I was finally safe. I made it. Sitting there in the darkness I waited and waited. There was no response. I walked deeper into the dark house.

“Mr. Thomson? Mrs. Thomson? Rachel!” I called. I was worried. I was desperate! Were they still afraid of me? Were they hiding? Suddenly my phone’s light went out, and then I stepped in something. I slipped and tumbled down a short set of stairs. I was in their basement, and I was laying in a slick mass of… something. There was that silence again, and that’s when I knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. As if on cue, the power came on again. Pipes shaked, machines turned, and yes, there was light. But I wasn’t happy. I was horrified. I screamed. I vomited. All while crying. There I sat on the skinless bodies of Rachel and her parents. I could see their muscles… their bones. The stench, it was just too much. I threw up a second and a third time. They were like freshly butchered cattle, piled there in the basement like animals. There was blood, so much blood. Liters of blood pooled on the ground. It was all over the walls, the ceiling…. and yes, it was all over me. They were covered in wounds, scratches and bite marks. And their eyes, they… they were gone. Scooped out. That thing… it did this. This was what it was going to do to me. It would hold me down and skin me alive. I was screaming and crying uncontrollably. I shakily tried to stand up, only to slip again and land on top of what was left of Rachel.

I crawled up those blood-soaked stairs. I had to get to their phone. I knew they only had one. After I had limped to their kitchen and grabbed the phone, I saw them. On the well lit lawn passed the three large windows of the kitchen were the skins of Rachel and her mother. They were spread flat on the ground, like trophies of a hunt. Their eyes laid neatly on what used to be their faces, and their clothes were piled at their feet. I struggled not to vomit again, and then I saw it. It was perched on a fucking tree, just sitting there, not looking at anything particular. This thing crawled down the tree like… like a fucking spider. As it stood up I could tell that somehow, for some reason it couldn’t see me. But I couldn’t move. I stood there and watched as it shed the saggy and decaying skin of Mr. Thomson. The abomination that stood behind that glass was anything but human. It was humanoid of course, covered in dirt and grime, but it had no skin. I could openly see its muscles, tendons and bones moving freely about its body. There was no blood. It was a mix between red and grey, as if its tissue was trying to decay but couldn’t. Its hands, its feet, they had horrific claws. They looked inches long, sharp as daggers, and they were made of bone. And the most hideous sight was its face. There was no skin to cover its gruesome mouth, forever frozen in a chilling smile. It had too many teeth, several were crooked and stuck outward. They were long, and they looked deadly. They looked like they belonged to some deep sea fish, not a human being. A chunk of cartilage was openly attached to its face in what I thought was its nose. And its eyes, it had no eyes. Just empty sockets. This thing must have relied on sound and smell the entire time. It reached down and inspected the skins of my neighbors, like someone trying to decide what clothes to wear for the day. It dragged Rachel’s off the ground, and I watched in horror as her skin stretched over the creature’s body. Once the skin was secured, it seemed to stick in place. Its claws couldn’t be covered, but somehow those teeth weren’t visible at all. It put on her jeans and her plaid shirt. And finally, it picked up her pale blue eyes and put them in its empty sockets. It was the most terrible thing I have ever seen in my life, a scene that will haunt me until the day I die.

Needless to say, I dropped the phone. It came crashing to the ground, the batteries were flung this way and that, but I didn’t care. It turned its head straight at me. It knew I was here. I was chilled to the bone. This was fear, true fear. This wasn’t our petty day to day dread. It was irrational terror. I was afraid of that thing more than I was afraid of dying. I think that was what made me do it. I ran to the basement, back to that disgusting mass of flesh. I covered myself in their blood, head to toe. My entire body was dyed red as I cowered in the corner. The sound of glass breaking could be heard in some remote corner of the house. It was in. I knew Mr. Thomson had a gun. He bragged about it all the time. “Old reliable” he called it. It was a 12 gauge shotgun, and it just happened to be sitting at my feet. Had Mr. Thomson put up a fight? I should’ve grabbed it then, but the thing was already crawling down the stairs. I watched as it creeped down to the mass of bodies. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe. It was sniffing the air viciously. It knew I was here, it just didn’t know where. I must have held my breath for five minutes. My vision was hazy. I was going to pass out. It was crawling back up the stairs when I exhaled. I never knew breathing could be so loud, so resounding. My gasps for air broke the silence, and by the time I looked up it was already sitting several feet in front of me. It was looking right at me, and a sickening, unnatural smile was stretched across Rachel’s face.

“You’re so bad at hiding Dave,” it laughed in Rachel’s usual teasing tone. I felt like I was going to be sick. I held my breath again and grabbed something, I didn’t even know what it was. I just hurled it across the room. It made a loud clang, but the creature didn’t turn. It just kept staring straight at me.

“I see you, Dave,” it giggled. Its smile stretched impossibly wider, and I could clearly see its rows of hideous, crooked teeth. At that moment I realised that it must have been watching me. It had to have been stalking us during the party. It was hiding in the shadows during our game of hide and seek, and it must have been right outside my house when I was talking to Mr. Thomson. The thought that this thing was that close to me this entire time, it made my skin crawl. It was waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack, the opportunity I created when I slammed that axe into my brother’s foot. I knew, in that moment, it believed it had won. I already had the 12 gauge in my arms before it could lunge at me. It didn’t know it was in danger, it couldn’t see after all. Good thing Mr. Thomson always kept old reliable loaded. I didn’t kill it, but it did lose an arm. I tried to escape, but I could barely run. I was so sore, so tired. It was still following me through those woods in a sort of rushed hobble. I was shaking. I had to make it home. I knew where John usually kept his phone. It should be there, it had to be there.

“That wasn’t nice,” it screeched. Its breath was heavy. It was just as tired as I was. There was light in the distance, peaking through those shadowy trees. I could see my house, and for a moment I thought I could make it. Then its teeth sunk into my shoulder. I screamed in pain, and again fell into that pond. It was thrown off me. I didn’t know quite where it was, but I could hear it. It was screaming and hollering. It was angry. I don’t think anyone had given it this much trouble. I waded through water for a long time as it frantically searched for me. And then my hands found the yellow handle of that old rusty axe. Light had just barely found its way over the horizon. I could see it clearly as it flailed its lone arm in the mud. It was pathetic. The first swing hit it in the back with a viciously satisfying “Thrack”. A wide smile came over my face as it collapsed at the pond’s edge. With every swing its voice changed. It was my mother, then it was my father, and then it was my brother. It begged for help, but with each swing my smile only grew wider. I hacked and hacked and hacked until there was nothing left. It was gone, and then there was silence.

“Hehe Hehaahaahaa!” I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. It was hysterical, without control. There was silence. Beautiful, uninterrupted silence. It was reassuring. It was relaxing. I climbed out of that pond covered in cuts and bruises, mud and blood. As I stumbled through my front door, would you believe it, there was another one! It just stood there in my house. It was wearing my Dad’s skin! But I knew better. My dad was at the hospital, and he would never leave his favorite son’s side. He begged and pleaded, but he couldn’t fool me. Would it be wrong to say I was satisfied? Yes, I felt relief when I heard his bones break. I was excited when I heard his screams. And you know what I did next? I took a walk, still dragging that axe with me, the thing slathered with blood, so much blood. I didn’t know where I was going. But I knew, I knew that I never wanted to leave this place, this silence. This year round, complete and utter silence that never goes away.