The Unseen One
SKU:
$19.99
$19.99
Unavailable
per item
An excerpt from The Unseen One
As in the living room, the wallpaper in the hall hung in torn rough strips, the plaster broken, falling off in places and the baseboards were split and shattered. The doors to the bedrooms and bathroom were gone. The pictures that once hung on the walls of the hallway were also gone; no surprise, it is after all an abandoned house but what unnerved Vest was what had replaced the pictures: animal heads. The heads were hung like trophies, such as a hunter might hang in his den but these were not the heads of deer, elk and the like. These were the heads of dogs, cats, cows and the wings of birds.
Vest approached the corner of the hallway, turned and began a very slow walk down the elongated hallway. As he walked he watched the trophies hanging on the wall; tears dripped from the animal’s eyes and their noses oozed black and green mucous. The bird wings flapped in a very slow and uncoordinated beat. The first two cow heads watched him as he passed, their dull, clouded eyes tracked him, mouths agape, tongues dry and cracked hung down past the lower jaw. Vest looked up. The two clear glass globes that once housed the hallway light bulbs were now dirty and stuffed with a tangled mass of writhing gray eels wetly wrestling and slipping past one another inside the dirty globes. Vest could hear the slurp of the eels’ bodies as they slipped around one another. Now and then a dark lifeless eye of one of the eels would catch Vest’s eye momentarily and then look away.
Vest moved forward a few steps, more animals’ heads followed, nodding slightly as he passed. The bird wings stilled as he passed, a few feathers fell to the floor. At the end of the hallway where once there had been the door to Mattie and Mumps’ bedroom, there now sat an oversized rough-hewn child’s highchair.
The chair had a Gothic, heavy, and rough hewn look. The chair was much larger than normal. The uneven seat of the chair was perhaps four or five feet above the floor. The legs were grotesquely thick, oddly angular and splintered. The tray was flipped up and back in the position one might use to place an infant in the chair at mealtime.
The dark brown wood looked old and abused. Inexplicably, Vest reached out and touched the seat. When he did, a loud tortured child’s scream filled the hallway.
As in the living room, the wallpaper in the hall hung in torn rough strips, the plaster broken, falling off in places and the baseboards were split and shattered. The doors to the bedrooms and bathroom were gone. The pictures that once hung on the walls of the hallway were also gone; no surprise, it is after all an abandoned house but what unnerved Vest was what had replaced the pictures: animal heads. The heads were hung like trophies, such as a hunter might hang in his den but these were not the heads of deer, elk and the like. These were the heads of dogs, cats, cows and the wings of birds.
Vest approached the corner of the hallway, turned and began a very slow walk down the elongated hallway. As he walked he watched the trophies hanging on the wall; tears dripped from the animal’s eyes and their noses oozed black and green mucous. The bird wings flapped in a very slow and uncoordinated beat. The first two cow heads watched him as he passed, their dull, clouded eyes tracked him, mouths agape, tongues dry and cracked hung down past the lower jaw. Vest looked up. The two clear glass globes that once housed the hallway light bulbs were now dirty and stuffed with a tangled mass of writhing gray eels wetly wrestling and slipping past one another inside the dirty globes. Vest could hear the slurp of the eels’ bodies as they slipped around one another. Now and then a dark lifeless eye of one of the eels would catch Vest’s eye momentarily and then look away.
Vest moved forward a few steps, more animals’ heads followed, nodding slightly as he passed. The bird wings stilled as he passed, a few feathers fell to the floor. At the end of the hallway where once there had been the door to Mattie and Mumps’ bedroom, there now sat an oversized rough-hewn child’s highchair.
The chair had a Gothic, heavy, and rough hewn look. The chair was much larger than normal. The uneven seat of the chair was perhaps four or five feet above the floor. The legs were grotesquely thick, oddly angular and splintered. The tray was flipped up and back in the position one might use to place an infant in the chair at mealtime.
The dark brown wood looked old and abused. Inexplicably, Vest reached out and touched the seat. When he did, a loud tortured child’s scream filled the hallway.