Been sleeping really fucked up hours. Hit bed at 11 tonight, slept around 4 hours, woke back up... read /x/ and rolled to write creepypasta OC. First two I didn't like despite other people really enjoying one of them ut this one... this one was fun. Its my own little insomniac crap attempt at an homage to Fritz Lieber's story of a family's curse.
Dad was always tinkering in the basement when I was growing up. I'd be in the basement family room playing some nintendo game and he'd walk through with his toolbox. He'd stop, maybe sit with me and ask why Mario was squashing those turtles. I'd respond like the kid I was, chattering away about the pixels on the screen. He'd listen like a dutiful father, then with a sigh he'd stand up.
"Back to work," his tone was always so odd. Sad, almost. He'd go into the laundry room, the door would close, and I'd hear the radio turn on.
WLS, or a Cubs game, would fill the room, and under Steve Stone's insightful commentary, I'd hear a metal on stone sound. Scraping. Harry Carry's drunken jovialness would blend with a metallic hammering. Steve and Gary would war with wet splashing sounds I could never really figure out.
Sometimes hours would pass, and I'd invariably press my ear against the locked door, desperate to figure out what he was doing in there, but I never could. I'd hear power tools, hand tools, voices that must have been bleedover from other radio stations.
Finally he'd open the door again, give me a playful shove with his foot, and go upstairs. I'd always go into the laundry room after, and I never saw anything change.
It turned into one of those odd childhood events that others would have found strange but to me was just part of life in my household. My mom made stir-fry every sunday, and my dad went into the laundry room twice a week. Life went on.
I was 15 when dad finally shot himself. I was chatting on IRC with some friends (One of whom I'd eventually move across the country to live with for a time) and there was dad. He was weaving a little... drunk again. Its funny that what you ignore as a kid, you see as an alcoholic father when you grow older. He came up behind me, and patted me on the shoulder.
"Remember, hit at an angle." The fuck? I just sort of half nodded. The asshole was in my space. He walked into the laundry room, the door closed, and there was a sound like a firecracker going off inside a melon. A sharp "bang" with a bursting sound and splatter. I hit the door, finally unlocked, and fell immediately as my heel hit a patch of dadbrain. That's how I thought of it, and still do... its funny what your brain makes light of. Dadbrain, sounds like a cartoon character. I landed with my head next to what was left of his... mostly just a lower jaw, teeth, a flopping tongue that hadn't stopped. I remember thinking it looked like a beached carp. Then I remember throwing up and blacking out. Well, I don't remember blacking out, but I did.
Fuck it, you get the point.
When I came to, I was still covered in vomit, but Dad, and the Dadbrain, was all gone. The blood, the body, and in its place was dad's red toolbox, a couple PB+J sandwiches, and a note in my mom's handwriting.
"You'll be good at this. Stirfry when you're done, baby. <3 Mom."
I could see it now. The concrete floor wasn't smooth anymore... it was etched with words I never could have read until now. Spiraling patterns that defied comprehension underlayed the words, and inbetween the designs danced a creature I couldn't describe correctly if I wanted to. Tentacled, feathered... worms. Fanged things, like live at the bottom of the sea, only worse, more alien... because I in them I saw... Dad. Uncle Alan. Uncle John. Grandpa. I felt... kinship. And now I could feel more... leathery, feathery things sliding across my skin, under my clothes, brushing my face... and the same feeling inside, trying to claw its way out... the only way to keep it down, to keep -them- where only I could see them clear.
I splashed the paint in the right places, I marked the designs, and I made sure to hit it at an angle. The spiral would continue until I couldn't fight it anymore, and I'd pass it to my own sons. I'd play the radio, I'd lock the door, and I'd be sure stir-fry was always on Sunday.
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