An odd one, to say the least. I laughed when I saw the image. I laughed when I wrote the story. Sometimes you just need to write something bizarre. Here is my entry.
Thanks for reading.
Artwork by Skiegraphic Studio
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nYOGlo
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
Squeak.
“You hear that?” Dave said around a mouthful of Cool Ranch Doritos.
“Huh?” Greg said, meandering through the parking garage, punching the radio tuner buttons to fight the static.
Squeak.
“That,” Dave crunched.
“I’m trying to fix it, all right? This fucking car…”
“Turn off the damn radio,” Dave said and tossed the empty bag on the dash.
“Hey man,” Greg said. “Not cool.”
The car swerved, grazing a tiled column.
“What the fuck?” Dave said. “I could have choked you asshole.” He rubbed his throat while swallowing down the last crumbs sitting on the back of his tongue.
“Light was out,” Greg said.
It was, and the other lights only made the lack of light here darker. The column looked like a dark passage to an elevator, and the parking garage beneath Dave’s apartment complex had plenty of those. Fuck, he needed to move.
Squeak.
“You hear that?” Greg asked.
Dave sighed, “Fuuuuuuuck,” and did some breath work to calm his heart. It beat his ribcage like a punching bag.
“Seriously, though,” Greg said. “You leave your dog’s toy in here again? You know I hate that fucking thing. Stinks up the car.”
Squeak.
“No,” Dave said. “And yes. I heard it.”
“Rats, then. You live in such a shithole.”
Dave turned to Greg, ever so slowly, making sure to not make eye contact until he had made it through another calming mantra and had another deep inhale and exhale, diaphragm centered.
“Just park,” Dave said. “And–” He scanned the car interior that looked like it had been attacked by a thousand cats, then pissed on by a thousand more. Stained and beyond stinky. Although Dave had gotten used to breathing through his mouth when he rode with Greg. Eating the Doritos had been a mistake. Choking on chips or the smell of cat piss weren’t good options. “Never mind.”
Dave grabbed his backpack from the floor, took the bag of Doritos, because he wouldn’t give Greg the ironic satisfaction, and slipped his hand out the window hole, because there was no window, to open it, because you couldn’t open it from the inside. He stopped when he saw Greg’s face, a strip of light crossing his eyes like those shots in horror movies. They were wide as hell.
“You all right?” Dave said.
Squeak.
“How many drinks did I have?” Greg said.
Dave’s blood chilled, his skin riddled with gooseflesh. He wasn’t driving, so he was okay, but Greg was always his ride, and if he got a DUI, Dave would be stuck walking again, or worse, taking the bus. He slapped his face to jog his memory for any fool-the-breathalizer quick fixes, but he was a little buzzed, too, so came up empty.
“Just relax,” Dave said. “Let me talk, okay?
Greg nodded, bangs flinging up and down.
Dave cupped his hand over his mouth to smell his own breath–a trick that never seemed to work, then turned to the window hole. “Officer–“
In the parking spot next to them, well, the KEEP CLEAR spot that had earned him plenty of tickets back when he had a car, was a shoe. A big fucking shoe. Laced the way shoes are for store displays. And, inside, was a big fucking duck. Not a real one. A rubber one. Sitting right where a giant fucking foot would if it were wearing this shoe.
SQUEAK.
Dave flinched. Greg screamed. Dave laughed, neck ready to burst, abs cramping, undigested Doritos ready to erupt. He rolled in the car seat, stomping his feet, then fell back, legs still going, and lost a shoe through the window hole.
“You–fucking–” Dave couldn’t finish, consumed by laughter.
After he was finally exhausted and felt like he’d sprinted a mile, he sat up, fumbled with his phone to get a shot of Greg’s face, which was still plastered with fear.
The selfie camera blipped on, and next to his silhoutted blur of a head, was that rubber duck, head turned to look right at him.
For some reason, all that went through Dave’s head at that moment was the fact that those rubber ducks didn’t have articulated necks. They couldn’t turn at all.
In the span of that thought, the shoe launched into the air, shattering the column between it and the car in a spray of tile and concrete. Dave found himself on the floor of the car, tangled, chin pinned to his chest, throat pinched closed.
Through the window opening, he saw the bottom of that shoe, and it was anything but clean. Smeared with gore, particulate hit him in the face as it flew over the top of the car to land on the roof.
SQUEAK-CRUNCH.
Every time it came down for another hit, the squeak intensified, harmonizing with Greg’s screeches as he pawed at the door to get out. His fingers remembered the technique and he slipped onto the wet concrete. His hands and feet unable to get him up, the best he could do was roll onto his back, and his eyes held the same expression when they had been in a rectangle of light.
SQUEAK-SPLAT-CRUNCH.
Flesh and blood and bone were stomped by that big duck and its shoe until Dave was as flat as the rest of the scum skinning the parking garage floor.
Dave clambered to the driver’s seat and fell back to the floor when the duck took another stomp on the car’s roof. Hand to the gas pedal, the car revved. He fumbled blind with the gear shift. The car rolled back while he tried to get in a seated position. Hands finally on the wheel, the toe of the big shoe rushed toward the windshield as the car hit the very thing Greg had nearly crashed into.
Strange how pretty it looked, the windshield shattering with a perfect symmetry, punctuated by a SQUEAK that almost sounded like it was sorry for what it was about to do.
And all Dave could do was laugh.
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