The Inevitability of Dusk Swallowing Twilight

The dark, faceless monster from my nightmares invaded my reality, breathing alcohol fumes and barking obscenities. It gripped my neck with one tentacle, ripped open my robe with another, and forced my legs apart with another two. I tried to free myself from beneath the monster but it was too strong and too heavy, so I reached over with my right hand and pulled open my underwear drawer. I plunged my hand into the thicket of underwear and frantically felt for the gun. Having found the gun I pulled it from the drawer, a white pair of panties hanging from the barrel. I felt the monster trying to force another of its tentacles inside me, and I pointed the gun at the dark, faceless head and shot through the crotch of the panty dangling from tip of the barrel. I squeezed the trigger again and again until the monster collapsed on top of me.

I rolled the monster’s heavy carcass off me and sprang to my feet, horrified by the sight of blood gushing from the space where its face was supposed to be. A red pair of panties slid from the barrel of the gun and landed with a splat on my right foot. I kicked away the blood soaked underwear but most of the blood seemed to have stayed on my foot. My trembling trigger hand, still wrapped tightly around the gun, was also red. I stumbled into the bathroom and was startled by a crimson face framed by red highlighted hair staring back at me from the mirror above the basin. I dropped the gun in the basin and shed my robe before stepping under the shower and turning on the water full blast onto my face. I lathered myself from head to toe and scrubbed frantically, repeating the process over and over until I was convinced that I had gotten rid of every speck of blood from my hair and skin.

I stepped out of the shower and dried myself with a white towel meticulously checking for any residual specks of blood I may have missed. I wrapped my hair in a towel and tiptoed back into the bedroom trying to avoid getting any blood on my feet. The smell of blood, which seemed stuck in my nostrils, became stronger as I reentered the bedroom. The sight of the bloody, mangled face of the corpse of my stepfather shocked me anew. I grabbed a comforter from the closet and threw it over the body, making sure to completely cover the blood soaked halo around the head of the corpse.