It Smells Fear

Another pasta of mine that can be found on Tumblr, Terror Tortellini and somewhere on /x/. It will reside here and there until I get the guts to submit it to the CP. Many apologizes now for grammatical and situational problems.
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“Why does weird stuff happen to you all the time?”

That’s what my sister Tina asked me when I told her about my adventures as a college student from a payphone near a diner outside Great Falls. Everyone that knew me was all too familiar with this, some made jokes out of it and one of them would always come my way if it rained on a day I left the house. Somehow and someway, the strange would always follow me.

Tina was talking about what she was up to since I left home and I did my best to make the conversation quick, being on my last of very loose change I had after spending the last few dollars I had to my name on a strawberry milkshake and a hamburger.

“When are you coming home?” Tina asked

“I should be home soon.” I said, “One of the waitresses here said a bus should be coming by this way around eight.”

“Be careful okay?” she pleaded

“I will.” I said with a laugh, “Don’t worry. I’ll see you later.”

We both parted ways and I made my way back inside and went back to the booth I spent my time at. If I wasn’t reading a book or popping coins in the record machine, I was tapping my fingers on the table and staring out into the wilderness that lurked across the road, about quarter of a mile away.My slow mental downward spiral from being awake to dead asleep came to a halt when my waitress asked if she could sit down at my booth and have a coffee. I guess my loneliness was as plain as the nose on my face, as was hers. Her name as Shannon and she had dark hair and the most stunning green eyes, almost like a cat’s eyes.

“So tell me about yourself.” she smiled, “What do you do for a living?”

“Well, I’m trying to find some luck on the West Coast.” I said, “I’m wrapping up my senior year in college soon.”

“That’s nice,” she smiled “What’s your major?”

“Psychology.” I said

“It must be really interesting.” she said

“I guess you can say that,” I said “But with the luck I’ve had, people would think of it as skin-crawling at times.”

“How so?” she asked

“One of my assignments was to interview someone.” I said, “I must have been in a daze because I opted to interview someone from a mental hospital. If it was going to bring my grade up, I was willing to do anything.”

“So you interviewed a doctor?” she asked

“No, but looking back I probably should have.” I said “I interviewed a patient who was hospitalized for severe delusions and hallucinations. The staff was very apprehensive about letting me see him, since he was very paranoid and believed that someone was out to kill him and would act violently at times.”

“What happened to him?” she asked

I did my best to yank those memories out of old storage. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying my best to remember. When I opened my eyes, I was back in that white room. There was a table and two chairs, with the patient; Steven Patterson, sitting at the table in a white shirt, sweatpants and Velcro shoes. A guard was next to him, making sure he was stabilized and wouldn’t turn violent during the interview.

ED: Hello? Mr.Patterson, my name is Eric Donovan. I’m here for the interview.
SP: Please…sit.
ED: Let’s start off with some basics. Tell me about yourself.
SP: Myself?
ED: Yes. Tell me about yourself. What are your interests?
SP: I like rabbits.
ED: Good, what else do you like?
SP: I used to like hiking.
ED: What happened that caused you to not like that anymore?
SP: It.
ED: It? What is “it”?
SP: It lives in the woods. It likes the dark. It likes the taste of flesh. It smells fear. It ate the Captain.
ED: Who is the Captain?
SP: He liked boats. He had one that me and some people went on. We went to a little place on holiday. There were trees as far as I could see. No sand. Just dirt and rocks. No little animals running or flying around.
ED: No rabbits?
SP: No rabbits.
ED: What else do you remember?
SP: There was a little house. White house. White house. There was a clearing too and a little cave at the bottom of the slope. That’s where it lives. -breathing becomes heavier-
ED: Mr. Patterson, are you okay?
SP: -speech becomes quicker- It knew we were there. It KNEW. It found the Captain. He..he..he warned us. He told us to never leave the house or it would get us. Nobody listened. They left and they got eaten. It ate them. It them alive and screaming as their flesh was ripped off of their bones and their skulls were crushed by its powerful jaws.
ED: Mr. Patterson, where are you right now?
SP: I should have told them…
ED: Who?
SP: They took me on a boat…they had their skulls… they looked at me with their sunken and hollowed eyes. It burned like fire.
ED: They? The police?
SP: The dead. There were so many of them in the cave. More than I can count on my fingers and toes. The only body I was able to identify was Bill…they didn’t find the others.
ED: Was Bill the Captain?
SP: No. The Captain was much taller.
ED: Who was Bill?
SP: Bill brought the camera. He made a video about the birds when we was at the dock. He wore khaki pants and a blue shirt and blue sneakers. Oh! And he had a baseball cap. He must have liked the Yankees a lot. He let the Captain borrow the camera for a while. He got very scared when he came back and didn’t let us look at it. He said if he did it would get us.
ED: Did you see the video?
SP: -long pause- It got inside. It ripped the door off of the Captain’s room and ate him alive. He was screaming as he was pulled down the hall…then it stopped. It got really quiet. Then Bill was screaming.
ED: Where were you when this was happening?
SP: A little crawlspace in the attic. It was so dark and unnerving. I could hear them moving across the floor… there was so much blood. So much blood.
ED: I take it you phoned the police or the coast guard soon after?
SP: Blood. So much blood. I was so scared. I was scared. I hid for days. I was unconscious in a broom closet when they found me.
ED: Mr.Patterson…
SP: It saw me.
ED: Mr.Patterson…
SP: I know it saw me. It smelt me. It could sense my fear. It knew I was going away. It followed me. It…it explains why the police never it. I know it’s following me. I saw its eyes.
ED: Eyes?
SP: When I left the Interrogation room. I saw its eyes out the window from the patch of trees beyond the parking lot and a fence…I saw its eyes. They were red. Like burning hellfire. It saw me. It smelt me. It could sense my fear. I KNEW it followed me.
ED: Maybe you were looking at a radio tower or guides for airplanes.
SP: NO! NO! I know what I saw and I knew I saw it. It looked at me. I could hear its wings open and then it flew when I went to go find someone for help.
**Name Withheld**: Time’s up Mr.Donovan.

I gathered my stuff together and went for the door, while the guard grabbed Mr.Patterson by the arm.

SP: Mr. Donovan… be careful. It smells fear.

I made my way out without saying another word to any of the staff and cancelled my next session with Mr. Patterson. I should have been declined and went to interview a doctor or staff member. I loaded up my belongings in my car and went back to my dorm and that was that. I rested my head down on the pillow and my eyes shut almost instantly. When I opened my eyes, I was back in the diner; Shannon was looking at me with fascination, but her eyes screamed disturbed and terrified.

“Wow, that’s crazy!” she said

“I brushed it off as a writer gone mad.” I said, “From what I found out, Mr. Patterson was a horror writer who went insane and believed he was one of the characters in his story.”

“People these days,” she sighed “It’s hard to know who has a foot in reality anymore.”

“Yeah.” I said

“Shannon,” another waitress said “Your break is over.”

“Oh darn, I forgot!” she said “It was nice talking to you, Mr.Donovan.”

“Call me Eric.” I smiled

“Well, it was nice talking to you then, Eric.” she smiled “If you’re ever in the area again, we can talk more.”

“Sounds good, Shannon.” I said, as Shannon made her way behind the counter.

I threw my backpack over my shoulder and went outside to wait for the bus, which according to my wrist watch would have been arriving in a matter of minutes. As I waited for my ride on the bench, I couldn’t help but to feel something in the air. Something was pulling on me, trying to direct my attention to something. I figured it was more than nothing but a bug in my peripheral vision. I gave in and looked out to where my eyes wanted to go anyways. It pulled me to the trees a quarter of a mile away. It could have been my eyes going bad, but in the dark I thought I saw something that resembled glowing rubies or flames from a lighter…burning hellfire.

I felt something wrap around my throat and I struggled to breathe. I was on the verge of screaming. I was about to fall on my knees when I was saved by white lights, bright headlights from the bus I was waiting for. I quickly scrambled to pick up my belongings and jumped onto the bus, getting on the nearest seat and took the bus to the end of the line. What scared me the most was that as the doors to the bus shut, I could have sworn I heard a faint sound of wings flapping in the distance.

Somehow…someway…the strange always follows me. I didn’t know it could smell fear too.