The Weeping Thing Ch. 01

Jogging back outside, he came to the tree, only to find that the stick had fallen over. The weeping thing was lying on the dirt again.

"Shit." Donald said, as he reached out and gently picked the thing up.

It felt warm and creepy, like soft, hairless human flesh. The thing felt utterly repulsive, he thought, as he quickly plopped it into the bowl and hurried back into the house. Once he was safe in his room, Donald locked the door and placed the bowl on his desk. He stared at the thing, but with all the blood and dirt he couldn't make out heads or tails of it.

Reluctantly, Donald left the bedroom and went into the bathroom, where Margaret kept the dirty clothes hamper. After digging through it, he found a used hand towel that he'd tossed in just a couple of days before.

He ran some cool water over it, before he went back into his room and began wiping off the thing in the bowl. Even when he'd gotten it completely cleaned off, he still couldn't figure out what it was. It had no eyes, nose, mouth or ears, or any other feature he could discern. It was a simple clump of meat.

A clump of meat that sings its own little sad lullaby, he recalled.

"Well, you must need water, at least." Donald decided, wringing the small towel over it and forcing a few drops to evacuate and land on the thing. "And food too, even though I've no idea what to feed you, or even how to feed you."

Donald went into the kitchen and hurriedly made a sandwich. He took extra slices of meat, cheese, and a small portion of lettuce. He knew that Margaret would probably make a scene over how much he was eating, for she kept irritatingly close tabs on everything in the fridge.

"Stupid old woman." Donald mumbled at her memory, before he went back to his room.

As he ate his simple sandwich, Donald deliberated on how to feed his creature, his thing. He solved the problem by draping the extra slices of cheese and meat on the inside edge of the small bowl. The lettuce he dropped directly beside the thing, but if it could eat such food, it was in no hurry to do so while he was watching.

Later, Donald heard Margaret announcing that she'd come home by making noise all over the house. Reluctantly, he put the salad bowl under his bed. It would rest next to his shoes, in a spot he doubted very much the old woman would bother to look in, unless he somehow gave her the provocation to.

Donald made a couple of public appearances around the house, as was his usual custom. He did this mostly to deter any suspicions Margaret might think up. The last time he'd stayed in his room too long, the old hag had accused him of having a woman in there with him. She threatened to kick him out until he allowed her to inspect the bedroom. Donald had to bite his tongue that time, after Margaret had come up empty-handed.

The rest of the time, Donald was in his room, studying the thing from different angles. He whispered to it whenever he thought he could get away with it, or whenever it sounded as if Margaret was on the far side of the house. The thing divulged none of its secrets to him.

With some hesitance, Donald left his weeping thing and started making ready for bed. He had another short shift coming up the next morning. The thoughtful man went through his customary routines of taking a late shower and shaving. In his usual, methodical way, Donald selected and arranged his work clothes and shoes into their ready spots. He went on to check his email, discovering no new messages from any females that were dying to meet him, or from anybody else for that matter.

Afterward, Donald went browsing through a few websites dedicated to bizarre sightings and strange animals. He'd been hoping someone else might have come across a weeping thing, as he had. If they had they sure hadn't posted anything about it. He become engrossed in a conspiracy site, reading a thread called 'Weird Things Seen In The Woods.' He browsed through all the weird anomalies up until the moment the clock demanded that he call it a night.

Donald took one last look at the weeping thing before he went to bed. It was still there, sitting idle with its slices of cheese and meat nearby, with the lettuce parked on its side.

"Well, I guess it's good night, then." Donald told it, as he slid the bowl back under the bed.

Moments later, he was under the covers, reaching out to click off the lamp.

That night, Donald again dreamed that he was in the woods. He wasn't running this time, he simply stood among all the tall and dark trees. The wary man looked up toward their branches and saw dozens and dozens of crows staring down at him.

Donald shuddered, for this time he was unarmed. If the black horde descended on him all at once, he had no doubt that they would overwhelm him. Already, he imagined the crows lashing their wings in frenzy and screaming out their sinister caws. In his mind, he saw himself flailing his arms out savagely, trying to batter them all away. The persistent murderers were diving in at him, embedding their talons and beaks into his weak flesh. Biting and ripping away at his soft parts: his eyes, his ears, and when he tried to scream, his mouth and tongue...

Donald heard the weeping thing in his dream. It was singing a song, but not the usual cold lament of before. Instead, it was an unwavering hum of contentment, a single note that seemed to urge the evil crows into leaning away from it, and away from Donald. The weeping thing was protecting him, Donald soon realized. He dropped his gaze from the treetops, perhaps hoping to find another stick to use as a weapon, or perhaps to locate where the weeping thing was in his dream.

That's when Donald saw the women. He saw half a dozen of them, all young and barely clothed, pale of skin and buoyant with natural beauty. They wore crowns woven of flowers and stems on their heads. On their bodies, were draped flowing and open wraps of gossamer. The nymphs playfully skipped around him, smiling and blowing kisses in his direction. They held their breasts out as if they were offering them to him.

As the lovelies began a dance around Donald, the lonely and dejected man longed to reach for one of them. He wanted to grasp these beauties within his arms and embrace them, and to shower them with those kisses that he'd kept to himself for so long. He did reach out, only to have the targeted nymph dart away with a cascade of giggles. A moment later, the playful girl came back to the circle of lovelies, making seductive eyes at him and enticingly pressing her breasts together, as if she wanted him to go for her again.

They were teasing him, Donald knew, but they weren't being malicious about it. The women were all smiling and laughing with one another as they danced around him. They were smiling at him, too. In his delight, Donald found that he was smiling and laughing right along with them. He snatched out his arms a couple more times, but always, they would scurry just out of his reach. What would happen, he wondered, if he managed to be quick enough to snare one?

Donald wondered another thing, also. In that first dream, when he was being chased down by the mob, he'd been Donald the man but he'd also been the mysterious weeping thing. And here, with all these half-nude women around, which was he? Donald or the weeping thing? Or was he some strange hybrid consciousness of both again?

The song went on, as Donald's thoughts went back to the sensual dancers around him. Instead of dwelling on the uncertainties of his little, unremarkable life, Donald began to revel in his dream. For the first time in a long time, he was happy.

Work was a trying chore the next day, as it always was. Donald impatiently went through the motions, did his duties and carried on. All the while the man was eager to hurry back to that weeping thing under his bed. He was not aware that he had a smile plastered on his face all morning, until someone else pointed that out to him.

"She must have been a good lay, Donnie-boy." His coworker commented and slapped at his shoulder, as break time came around. The small troop of employees strolled like a tired army into the employee lounge. "Does she have a sister?"

Donald chuckled.

One of the other workers he associated with happened to be a homosexual. "Or does she have a brother?"

Donald laughed even louder this time. But if there ever was a time when he kept his lips sealed and his mouth mum, this was it. Eventually, his buddies grew tired of trying to prod the information out of him. They left him by himself while they went for their smokes or their soft drinks, or whatever.

Donald merely sat there in the employee lounge, munching down on the single apple he'd brought in, and sipping from his water bottle. As he ate, he wondered what the weeping thing was up to; all by its lonesome back home. Donald imagined it crawling out of the salad bowl and dragging itself along the carpet. All sorts of loose fibers and stray hairs were clinging to its soft, meaty flesh. He imagined the weeping thing crawling up the side of Margaret's bed, while the old woman was still asleep.

The morbid man pictured the weeping thing making its way over by Margaret's head. In a spurt of action, the thing drove itself at her face, forcing itself into her mouth and filling it. The thing choked the life right out of her as it wedged itself down her throat.

That was the moment when Donald laughed out loud. He startled several of the other workers in the lounge, for his laugh was blaring and uncontrollable. It was a maniac's laugh. He looked around, as everyone was staring at him as if he were some sort of lunatic.

Donald cleared his throat and said, "I just remembered a joke. A really funny one."

Before anyone could open their mouth to ask him anything, he was already on his feet and heading back to his work area.

Donald jumped off the bus the moment the doors slid open for him. Spryly, he made his way back to the house. Luckily, Margaret was still out. He quickly hurried over to his bedroom, where he locked the door behind him. Donald lifted the bed skirt and ducked his head down to find the salad bowl, right where he'd left it. Carefully, he brought the bowl out into the open.

The weeping thing was still inside, sitting placidly and ebbing slight warmth. It took Donald a moment to figure out that the food he'd left in the bowl was now gone. Also, the pieces the crows had bitten out of the thing were scabbed over with coarse purple-red coatings, much like a normal person's.

"So you can eat people food." Donald marveled, as he studied the numerous little scabs. "And you can heal, too."

He thought about what else he could feed the thing, without Margaret finding out about it. Pensively, Donald turned to a corner of his dresser and spotted a box of kid's cereal. He'd gotten it a few weeks back when he had a craving for it. Margaret had such a hefty tirade over how a children's cereal should be eaten only by children, that Donald had taken the box into his room and hidden it there. Now, he left the glass bowl just long enough to retrieve the small box. He brought it over and undid the plastic bag that held the sweetened treats captive.

"I'll only give you a little of this, because I don't know how much sugar you can take." Donald spoke to his new pet, as he reached in and grabbed a small handful of bits.

He opened up his hand to allow the tiny pieces to fall out, meaning to simply drop them in on the side as he'd done with the lettuce the day before. What Donald saw down there in the bowl, however, was enough to make him jump back and drop most of what he was holding. In his haste to flee, he also tipped over the box of cereal and sent a small mob of its pieces to invade the carpet.

Absently, Donald clutched at the remainder of the cereal as he ran to his bedroom door. He unlocked the door and opened it; ready to run out of the room or out of the house even. Only then did he realize that Margaret was just coming in.

"Shit." Donald muttered, as he quietly shut the door.

The scared man put his back against the wall, where he could keep a close eye on the bowl. He stood that way for a few minutes, before he remembered the last few little pieces of oats and marshmallows still in his grip. The sweat from his curled hand heated against them. Recalling how much he'd spent on that box of cereal, Donald quickly stuffed the bits into his mouth and chewed them up.

Donald locked the door again. Slowly, cautiously, he made his way toward the salad bowl. The weeping thing was still there, a featureless pulp as it had been earlier. Donald started to question what he'd just seen, what made him panic to his feet just a few seconds ago.

"I'm imagining things, that's all." He reasoned with himself. "Seeing things. I must be tired from work."

He stared at the thing in the bowl, but it did nothing.

Pieces of cereal had fallen on top of the weeping thing. Gingerly, Donald wiped them over to one side. On the floor, he saw the small mess of cereal that had scattered out of the box. Once he scooped up what he could save, what hadn't reached the carpet but only the box top, Donald wondered what to do with the rest. He gathered the rest in his hand and meant to drop it into the bowl, when he had an idea. Donald pinched a single bit of sugary, shaped oat between his index finger and his thumb. He held it over the quiet form of the weeping thing.

In terror, the man watched as what happened before started happening again. On the surface of that pink, meaty thing, several tiny slits began to open, as if they were little tiny mouths that wanted to be fed. There were at least a dozen of them, each perhaps half an inch long, if that. From what he could see, each had its own little tongue and was shaped very much like a tiny human mouth.

Donald gulped. With a growing anxiety, he lowered his fingers and placed the bit of cereal into one of the little mouths. He yanked his hand away a moment later. With a dreadful fascination, he watched as the mouth slowly closed up like a Venus Flytrap that had just captured a juicy morsel.

Full of wonder, Donald dropped down on his butt. He wished there was someone he could call, someone that could come over to his room to witness this strange monstrosity with him. That person could tell him that no, Donald, you are not going insane. We are witnessing a real thing here. This is really happening.

Donald looked back into the bowl. This time, the mouths hadn't closed up. The first one had gotten a taste of the sweet and now the others wanted a taste too. He glanced into his palm, knowing there was plenty of cereal for all of them.

The next tiny mouth got a taste of colored marshmallow. This was bound to make the rest jealous, Donald nervously chuckled to himself. He began alternating piece of oat, piece of oat, and piece of marshmallow. Eventually, all the mouths were closed so tight they were practically impossible to locate. The rest of the cereal he dropped down into the edge of the bowl where the first bunch had gone.

Afterward, Donald just sat back and contemplated on what he'd brought into the house. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. As far as he could tell, it was unlike anything that anyone had ever seen.

The days began to flow by, with Donald being no closer to discovering a romantic interest than he had been before. The man did take some consolation from the weeping thing, however. Dutifully, he fed it and spoke to it in soft tones, as if it were a new puppy he'd brought home.

Its scabs had all healed over and fallen away, leaving it an unblemished and plump-looking mass of meat. The thing seemed almost to lean towards his fingers sometimes, as Donald reached over to caress its flesh. It returned his attention and concern with its own special little warmth.

The steady diet was making it grow as well. Whereas before it had only been about the size of a fist, it was now the size of two and a half. A full half of the salad bowl was now being taken up by the thing's form.

It stopped weeping, too. The constant lamentations Donald had first heard from it were replaced by a more pleasant and steady hum. Perhaps this was the thing's way of purring, the man wondered.

More days passed, where the weeping thing had grown to take up nearly three quarters of the space of the bowl. It weighed about as much as a cat, Donald surmised. By then, he had become comfortable enough to pick the thing up and set it on his lap.

Donald stroked its curve tenderly, speaking to it as one would to a favored potted plant or a pet. He considered how it looked like a semi-firm, semi-malleable egg yolk the color and texture of human skin. He cleaned it up as best he could. Usually, Donald used damp towels or moist pads. He carefully applied these on the more stubborn spots like when he'd fed the thing soft pieces of chocolate. The man tried as hard as he could to see the many slits of its mouths, but other than the chocolate smudges he could not discern at all where they had once been.

Then, came the fateful evening when the weeping thing had started to grow larger than the salad bowl. Donald took it out and set it on his lap, as he tried to figure out where he could house his pet next.

"You're getting too big for your britches, aren't you?" Donald asked it, but of course the thing never replied. "Well, I suppose we can put you in one of my moving boxes, but then you'll be out in the open. I may have to keep the top on the box while I'm out, so Meddlesome Margaret won't come in and find you. She's bound to have a heart attack over how she told me there were no pets allowed here." He glanced down at the mass resting on his thighs. "I hope you're not claustrophobic."

As Donald considered the ramifications of his new friend being discovered by the crabby old woman, he absently began stroking the thing and listening to its low, relaxing murmur. He sighed, comparing how its flesh was so much like human flesh, and in particular like a woman's flesh. It had been some time since he'd held a woman close to him. While Donald kept caressing the weeping thing, he imagined sneaking a woman into his bedroom while the old hag was out.

"Oh, I'd have some fun then, if I did that." Donald mused.

There was some motion from his thighs. The man paused his soft rubbing of the thing and observed that many of the little mouths were opening. They were getting quite large by then, each one perhaps half the size of an adult human mouth.

"Don't tell me you're hungry again?" Donald asked. "I just fed you a little while ago!"

While he observed, many short tongues began emerging from the many little mouths. The ones closest to his hand began wrapping themselves around his fingers or licking at his palm.

Disconcerted, Donald took his hand away. With more than a little apprehension, he asked, "What are you doing now?"

The tongues slipped back into their mouths. Right after, the mouths closed up so tight he could hardly tell where they'd been. They always sprouted instantaneously, the man knew, and vanished just as quickly.

Slowly, cautiously, Donald lowered his hand back onto the weeping thing. The mouths soon reappeared and the tongues re-emerged. Again they began licking at this fingers and at the spaces between his digits. Two of these tongues slid across the underside of his hand, leaving wet and sensuous trails across the cracks and expanses of his palm. He watched those tongues slide back and forth, moistening his hand, licking wide, licking narrow, and wrapping themselves halfway around his fingers. The man shivered, sitting there on the edge of his bed, as the many tongues attended to his hand.

Donald felt his body responding to their erotic motions, felt his flesh becoming aroused by them. Excitedly, expectantly, he took in the formless mound on his lap, recalling how previously, he'd seen teeth in those many mouths, which looked much like miniature human teeth.