From The Front Door

Week 36: Written September 5, 2016

Sometimes, you need to take a breath before you walk outside. Other times, you need to take a baker’s dozen.

Paul Kafka stood by his front door for damn near an hour watching the events on the other side unfold, but it only felt like a few seconds. He didn’t notice the dog barking, needing to shit in the backyard, or his phone ringing over and over again as his boss called to see where the hell he was. He was only electroshocked back into coherence when one of the drooling ghouls outside started banging violently on his door, screaming for help.

Paul leapt back, reaching out only to lock the bolt and latch the chain. Even that, though, didn’t seem sufficient enough protection. The monster on the other side was strong, stronger than any human should be. The entire house shook with each pound on the door, and after just a few knocks, the rattling windows threatened to shatter in unison.

There had to be a safer place to hide.

As a kid, Paul had been terrified of the basement. He suffered from night terrors from ages 8 to 11, and the basement seemed to be the source of all his worst nightmares. There wasn’t a dark corner down there that wasn’t home to something awful, something that could eat him in one bloody chomp. But now, the basement seemed like his only available safe haven. It had only one door (in the kitchen) and two windows that were too small for any humans — or monsters — to squeeze through.

Before the drooling creature outside (formerly known as neighbor Ned Greer) broke in, Paul bolted for the basement door. He nearly tumbled all the way down the creaky stairs, but grabbed the wooden handrail just in the nick of time, enduring only a few splinters in the ordeal. He slammed the door shut and locked the knob.

“Are you sure we don’t need a bolt for the basement, too?” Gloria had asked him back when they renovated the house.

“What for? If anybody breaks in and wants to steal an old bookcase and a box of Van Halen cassettes, they’re welcome to it.”

He had far too many regrets for a 35 year old man.

From the refuge of the dark, dank basement, Paul listened as Ned’s monster burst through the door and ran into the house with all the pomp and circumstance of an elephant stampede. It sounded as if Ned had transformed from a balding, 150-pound accountant with glasses and a mustache into something at least three times heavier — and far stronger, too.

How long had that transformation taken? God, it felt like no time at all. Paul had seen the whole thing happen live, right before his eyes, through the smoked glass in his front door.

Ned was mowing the lawn, as he always did on Thursday mornings, rain or shine. He worked from home, and except for tax season, he lived a pretty calm life. He had his routine that was as predictable a clockwork, always where you expected him to be. But this Thursday morning, just as Paul was leaving for work, he noticed something strange going on with Ned. His ordinarily pristine lawn was unusually messy, with random patches of grass untrimmed and other spots mowed all the way down to the soil. Even more concerning was Ned’s appearance. His hair — what hair remained — was stuck up in the air like he’d just stuck his finger in a power outlet. And his skin was a pale shade of green. Paul was about to step outside to check on the man when Ned starting projectile vomiting everywhere.

It was enough to turn Paul pale in seconds — not just the amount of vomit or the color (an almost neon, Halloweeny green and orange mixture), but the distance. Some manager to hit Paul’s living room window, all the way across the street.

That was about the moment Paul took his hand off the doorknob and just watched, afraid to take his eyes off of it. Because the same thing that happened to Ned started happening almost instantly to everybody else out there on the street. Sandy Dinks, one house over, practically exploded, like a water balloon on concrete. Paul went to call 911, but then he saw that she was, somehow, still alive. Or at least something was still alive, something monstrous that remained in her place.

Neither Ned nor Sandy were themselves anymore. In that moment, Paul was unable to imagine that they were just, all of sudden, monsters. He thought they were just sick, or injured, willfully ignoring that they had changed into completely different creatures. Looking back at it, just an hour later, it was obvious. And a chilling thought occurred to him.

If they can spontaneously morph into giant monsters, could they become tiny monsters, too?

He looked to the basement windows in a panic. They were both shut, locked, and he saw nothing behind either of them except blades of glass, quietly waving to and fro in the morning breeze, as if nothing in the world were wrong. Just another day in Anytown, U.S.A. Nothing to see here.

Paul sighed with relief. It wasn’t a good time to panic, not with Monster Ned tearing the ground floor apart. Is he looking for me? Paul thought, staring up at the basement door.

The hot water heater made a loud, clanking noise, and Paul jumped. He turned to see an orange glow get bigger and brighter behind the steaming metal tub, and it felt like all his worst nightmares were suddenly coming to life. Any minute now, he thought, the ground will erupt with zombies and man-eating worms.

He pulled out his cell phone, but he already knew that he got no reception from the basement. There was no calling for help down there. And by the sound of things, Ned was still storming through the house in search of…something. There was really only one thing left to do.

Paul looked around for some sort of weapon. It needed to be a good one, too.

Another Gloria quote came to mind.

“I think we should have a gun, just to be safe.”

“Seriously?” he’d responded. “The crime of the century in this neighborhood is getting shorted on your change at the grocery store. I don’t even think the cops carry guns around here.”

Another wise choice by certified smarty pants Paul Kafka.

While he didn’t have any firearms, he did have a bat. It was a classic Louisville Slugger, one he’d kept from his Little League days. It had a couple dings and chips, but was otherwise a solid piece of wood that could do a load of damage. There were also some heavy wooden shelves lying in the corner, but Paul felt more comfortable with the bat in his hands. He took a few practice swings before making his way, nervously, up the basement stairs.

It had gotten quiet, and he thought maybe — finally! — Monster Ned had moved on to another house. But it would be foolish to be too sure. These monsters seemed wild and crazy, but what if they were smart? What if they actually knew they could draw out their prey just by pretending to be gone?

He gripped the bat tighter and quickly swung open the door.

“Ahh!” he yelled. It was just an instinct, half expecting the creature to be waiting for him on the other side of the door. Instead, there was nothing — except the ruins of his house.

It looked like an earthquake had shaken the house to bits. Entire walls were gone, and parts of the ceiling had caved in. There was a bathtub in the living room now, which was not a welcome change.

This wasn’t the time to worry about filing insurance claims, though. Not yet.

Paul made his way through the wreckage carefully, holding the bat like Babe Ruth, ready to slam a homer the moment any monsters pitched themselves towards home plate.

The whole front half of the house was gone. Paul could see the entire front yard without interruption, and the streets were, surprisingly, clear and quiet. Everything was a mess, obviously, and Paul found that his house wasn’t the only one destroyed — but there were no monsters, none that he could see.

He turned a corner and there was Monster Ned, passed out on what was left of Paul’s microfiber couch. God, was he an ugly site, some nasty combination of a hairless dog and an obese rat. There was even a long, brown tail stretching out from underneath his snoring body — at least Paul hoped it was a tail.

He carefully checked his phone, saw there was reception, and decided to quietly, delicately, make his way as far away from Ned as possible before he called for help. He didn’t want to wake the sleeping beast.

But then, as you always do in horror movies, his foot found a fallen pane of glass and loudly shattered it in one step.

Ned’s glowing red eyes burst open. He growled and leapt to his feet.

“Shit,” Paul said, getting back into his hitter’s stance.

Ned jumped at him, and Paul swung. It was a fastball and by some stroke of luck — or divine intervention — the bat hit the pitch head-on. Ned’s dograt head exploded on impact, showering the entire room in green and orange goop. Paul covered his mouth and nose as he took a nauseating sigh of relief.

He looked outside, expecting to see police cars, ambulances, fire trucks — some sign that the authorities knew what was going on and were on top of it. But there were none. He heard no sirens, only faint growls in the distance. Lots of them.

Paul pulled out his cell phone. He had twelve missed calls, eight angry text messages from his boss, and no service. None. It was like the world had suddenly disappeared, replaced abruptly with monsters.

As he stared out at the ruins of his block from inside the ruins of his own life, Paul came to the sneaking and terrifying suspicion that he was the only living human left on Earth. And given the increasing number of growls in the distance, he feared that his reign as the last man on Earth would be very short-lived.