The Shed by Chris Philbrook

Author:Chris Philbrook [Philbrook, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror
Goodreads: 35894389
Published: 2017-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

- Part Eight -

PONG. PONG. PONG.

Just like Nana, Tony was hungry.

Just like Nana, Tony went without.

His fear of running out of the food he had led him down the path of starvation. Surrounded by gallon upon gallon of vitamin laced, delicious, sugary drinks, and boxes of cereal and dry milk, and a metallic mountain of canned goods he ate next to nothing. He feared starving so much, he had found a way to save his food and starve anyway.

Out in the red metal shed he heard as his nana banged against the wall over and over again.

PONG.

PONG.

PONG.

Her pace had become almost perfect in its robotic precision, and it was one of the things on the long list of things driving Tony mad. He’d sit there, looking out the window above the sink for hours, listening for the sound of her voice in the metal coffin he’d put her in.

“Antonio, it’s Nana. I’m okay. Please come outside and let me out so I can cook you some supper,” he hoped he’d hear. But no. Just PONG. PONG. PONG.

Even his terrible sleep offered no reprieve. He’d sit in the dark, sweating under the cleanest of all his stained sheets thinking about his family so he’d dream of them but when he succumbed to sleep the dreams he had were never the ones he wanted. He’d dream of his frightened grandpa, and after his nana died he’d dream about her, but he never once dreamed of his mother, or father or little brother.

Until one night he dreamt of his little brother Frank, and somehow that made everything worse. Tony stopped trying to dream about his family.

The dogs never trusted him again. They’d skulk in the other rooms of the house when he was awake and when he slept, they’d slink into the kitchen with the cats and eat their meager rations, dispensed by the weary and lonely teenager. He’d let them out each morning to piss and shit, and they’d circle the shed a thousand times before he got angry and hissed at them to return. They’d come in, frightened of him, and inevitably they’d shit on the kitchen floor. Tony had no paper towels left to clean the crap up with, so he used a spatula, and flung it out the door into the neighbor’s yard with his puffy, swollen hand.

All the while… PONG. PONG. PONG.

“Shut up, Nana!” He hissed at her one morning as he tossed the dog’s shit across the driveway. “I can hear you, the neighbors can hear you, the students up at Auburn Lake can hear you. You’re going to get me killed,” he said to her. “You’re yapping like a hungry toddler.”

Tony felt bad for talking at his nana’s corpse like that, and he retreated behind the screen door and sat on the floor, crying. His mind ran to his mom, and how she’s beat the snot out of him for saying what he’d just said. He was out of line, and he was-

Right. He was right. Nana was yapping like a hungry toddler.

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