The Intruder - Original Writing

The Intruder - Original Writing

‘It’s always best when the light is out, I am the pick in the ice

Do not cry out or hit the alarm, you know we’re friends ‘til we die’

- Thom Yorke (Radiohead), ‘Climbing Up The Walls’

‘Alone. The most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold

a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.’ Humphrey had read

this somewhere, probably in a Stephen King book, he couldn’t remember

exactly which, but he agreed with the passage then and he sure as hell

agreed with it now.

Though Humphrey was not alone, he was anything but alone. Humphrey was

crumpled into the corner of his bedroom, his arms covering his head,

his entire frame trembling, his pores and eyes unreservedly

discharging sweat and bitter tears. He sat there in his darkened room

with Dread, who poked him mischievously with his cold fingers. With

Sorrow, who warped his heart and ate him alive. With Darkness, who

shrouded Humphrey and the entire room under his tattered cloak.

But worse than any twisted emotion, worse than any mutual deception of

the eye and the light, worse than any melancholic betraying thoughts

Humphrey may have had, was Death, who came in the guise of an Intruder

that occupied the downstairs of his house, ravaging his house in a

relentless chaotic frenzy.

Despite Humphrey’s feeble efforts to block out the noise, he could

still hear everything. The crash of the tableware and glass, falling

and ultimately exploding into pieces as they collided with the floor

and the walls. The loud bang as his television was thrown across the

room, smashing into a wall and the sizzle of the circuits bursting.

The scornful cackle of the Intruder. It was a hair-raising, vulgar,

sharp screech that penetrated Humphrey’s delicate ear-canal-walls,

went straight to his brain and exploded, the shrapnel of the explosion

cutting his soft organ.

It took a moment for Humphrey’s mind to register that all sound and

movement had ceased downstairs.