I asked for seven random words. With stipulations. Two verbs, two nouns, two adjectives, and one name. You delivered. Mostly. I received one verb, one noun, two adjectives, and two names. So I used a random word generator to come up with the rest.

The final list of random words looked like this:

Verbs – appeasing, recover. Nouns – wings, lock. Adjectives – crispy, stronger. Name(s) – Virgil, Calvin Bartholomew.

And then I set to work. So here you are. A little story about what makes us human and maybe about not waiting too long to take your shot. Hope you like it.

I Had Waited Too Long

“Who are you?”

The dark shape shifted its weight.

click    click    click   click  click click clickclickclickclickclick

It sounded of insects scuttling. Or, perhaps worse, repositioning. The rasping hiss that emerged from the dark corner where it lurked dripped with oil and phlegm. And rattled like the cough of a tuberculosis sufferer deep in the grip of their illness. Then… the sound of something soft and weighty sliding against the cement floor – unmistakable and deafening in the silence between us.

*

I only needed that old coffee can of screws and nails on the shelf opposite the doorway. I’d rushed down the stairs into the basement, not suspecting I wouldn’t find myself alone. But as my left hand tugged on the worn string pull, my bare foot found what was left of the lightbulb that should have flashed to life.

I howled, of course.

Who doesn’t cry out when they’ve stepped on broken glass?

But my cry of pain awoke whatever was lurking in the shadows. Whatever had shattered the lightbulb.

It met my cry with a terrifying shriek. And I was aware, all at once, that I was not alone.

I started to scream, to run but something whipped through the air out of the darkness and knocked me on my back. The wind was knocked from me and my head hit the hard floor. For a while all I could do was lie there, gasping, trying to will oxygen back into my lungs and hold my aching skull, tears stinging my eyes, running in rivulets into my ears.

I could hear it moving. It was backed into a corner and keeping its distance from me. Something in the way it moved sent waves of unease through me. The unmistakable taste of bile filled my mouth. Its shuffling and skittering crunched, sounding almost horribly crispy, like potato chips used to simulate bones cracking for a Halloween guessing game. But underneath the cracks and clicks was something else entirely. Something soft and wet and big. Something powerful.

I’m not sure if it was afraid or calculating its next move but while it waited, I had time to recover. I got to my hands and knees and started to crawl to the door.

whip   w  h  i  p   click

The door was shut. I would have sworn I heard the sound of the lock latching as well.

It seemed it didn’t want me to leave just yet.

And now the basement was completely dark.

Moonlight shone in silvery wisps from the dirty half windows at the basement ceiling but without the light from the door I felt blind. I crawled to the corner, backing as far from it as I could. I tried to picture the layout of the basement while I waited for my eyes to adjust or for it to make a move, and began feeling around me, hoping my hands would brush against something useful.

Wings.

Or what was left of them.

My hands had brushed against the lifeless bodies of a few small birds, dismembered from what I could tell. I quickly rubbed my hands against my jeans wishing I hadn’t blindly reached out, and that I had hand sanitizer. I couldn’t help but wonder how birds had ended up in my basement and where the rest of them had gone. I knew I didn’t really want to know the answer, though. I stopped searching with my hands, afraid of what else I might find, and waited until my eyes adjusted to the moonlight.

Soon I was able to make out a large dark shape in the corner opposite me. It appeared to fill the space almost completely, hunching over to keep from reaching the ceiling. It had managed to find the one corner of the basement the moonlight couldn’t reach. Even as my eyes adjusted, I could not decipher what the shape before me represented. It could have been a large man, a coat rack with too many coats, or an eldritch horror waiting to dismember me like a little bird.

It emitted a low rumbling and the shaped rippled in the dark.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

Scuttling. Rumbling.

I searched the nearest shelf for a weapon or a flashlight or a miracle. Gardening gloves. Sewing machine. Broken tennis racket. Cleats that were much too small.

I slowly stood, hands in front of me to show I was no threat.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Ok?”

I scanned the next shelf while trying to keep an eye on the shape.

“It’s very clear that you are stronger than me.”

Watering can, a box of extra light bulbs, and another marked “Virgil” – it was full of cat toys and clothes that had once belonged to my grandmother’s dead cat.

“It would be crazy for me to try something. I know that.”

An old radio, a jar of buttons, a box marked “Important DO NOT THROW AWAY”, a music box.

The music box was open. The tiny figure of a ballerina hung limp waiting for someone to crank the key and start the dance once more. It had been my grandmother’s. A souvenir my grandfather had given her when he’d come back from the war. He’d had the little plate on the front engraved with her name, “Rose,” along with a rose, of course. I remembered watching my grandfather lift the lid in the evenings after supper and turn the key, summoning my grandmother to his arms. They would dance around the living room cheek to cheek while the ballerina danced alone in the box.

Inexplicably, I found myself reaching for the music box. I cranked the key and held my breath. I hoped music would soothe the savage beast or, at least, aid me in appeasing this ghoul waiting to devour me. The ballerina straightened and began spinning her pas seul around the music box.

The rumbling stopped. The shape stopped moving. The music played.

And then the shape began to hum.

And sway. Ever so slightly.

When the dancer took her bow and the music ended, it stopped too. No more swaying. No humming. Nothing and silence.

Then…

“Rose,” it wheezed.

Something… there was something human in it. Whatever this thing was waiting to take me apart in the dark, it had a mind, and a sliver humanity. The silence hung between us as I mulled this over, and I thought maybe appealing to its humanity was my only way out.

“Who are you?”

It shifted. Chittering and clicking, a rasping hiss belying the intelligent speech from just moments before. It sounded animal, feral, again. Whatever was human in it was gone. I was trapped and as a weapon I’d chosen a music box. But then the sound of it sliding across the floor quickened my nerves. I twisted the key in the box again. “Luna Waltz” began to play, and it stopped.

“Who are you?” I asked as the tiny ballerina spun and whirled.

Hmm hmm. It was humming.

“Who are you? Please.” I tried, salty tears welling up in my eyes.

“hmmm… Cal… Calvin…”

It cleared its throat and spoke again, “Calvin… Calvin Bartholomew Riggs.”

The music ended. The ballerina took her bow. My mind reeled. Had I just heard it… him… correctly? Had he really said…

“Grandpa?”

An inhuman shriek filled the air, and it moved faster than I could have imagined. I wasn’t quick enough with the key. He was gone. It was all that was left. The music box shattered as it hit the floor. Something grabbed me and I whirled across the room like the tiny dancer. Searing pain rushed through every nerve in me as it ripped my arms, my wings, from my body. Everything went totally dark.

I had waited too long.