The Weeping Thing Ch. 01

That's when the pitch of the weeping thing's song changed. It was calling him, he knew. Donald walked over and stood beside it.

It had become a thin blanket of meat. In its song, the weeping thing told Donald of how comfortable and peaceful he would feel, if he only took off his clothing and lay down on top of it. It promised to take him away from that house, away from his useless job and away from his lonely life. All he had to do was to trust it and lie down on it.

Donald took a breath, for somehow, somewhere deep in his psyche, he knew this might happen. He might have suspected this earlier or only become aware of it now, but that didn't matter. He knew very well what the weeping thing was asking of him.

"I've got my shit job and Margaret on the one hand," Donald compared. "And six lovely nymphs in the woods on the other one." He grinned. "It's a tough choice, isn't it?"

He sobered up quickly, though. "Will this hurt?"

Of course not, the weeping thing consoled him.

As nervous as he could ever recall being, Donald stripped off his clothes. He doubted he would need them in the place where he was going. When he was finished, Donald stepped onto the thin rug of flesh and settled his body down over it.

Donald waited for something to happen. He was near enough to panic that he almost felt like rolling away from the thing and snatching up his clothes. He could see himself running out of the house, and this time, staying gone forever.

Donald shuddered, as a new expanse of flesh started to rise from one side and slowly slipped over his frightened form like a pink tidal wave. It went over his head and body, enveloping all of him. Just like a Venus Flytrap would do to a juicy morsel.

As the flesh draped down over his face, Donald could see dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of little teeth forming. When the last of the weeping thing had enclosed him, he was left in the dark and could see nothing at all. This was when the entity that was the weeping thing finally told Donald its name, and welcomed him to his new home, forever.

Hundreds, and perhaps thousands of small teeth began to grind down on Donald's body, while the man lay there on the floor of the bedroom. Donald did not feel any of this, because he was dreaming again. He found himself naked and back in the woods, surrounded by half a dozen laughing, playful nymphs. They were running away from him, drawing him closer to them with their smiles and their hands. After a moment of indecision, Donald too smiled and ran after them.

Several hours later, Margaret came home.

She wasn't in as glum a mood as usual, for her blood tests from the previous week had come out clean, although her blood sugar was borderline unhealthy. Now, all she had to worry about were her most recent blood tests, but she wouldn't get the results for those for several more days.

Margaret took her seat on the living room couch, in her favored, most comfortable spot. As was her habit, the next thing she did was to reach out for the remote control. The TV set was soon blaring out at her, as she skimmed over the programming. Talk show, court show, talk show, court show, she saw, unhappily. In the end, Margaret settled on a talk show.

Being a suspicious person by nature, she soon set the volume on mute and tried to listen in on what Donald was doing in his bedroom. If he'd brought a woman into the house, so help him, Margaret was going to toss him out on his can. He and his belongings would be sitting on the curb come the evening...

There was a strange sound, emanating from the rented bedroom.

Margaret leaned forward, trying to focus on it further. It sounded like a child sobbing. With a growing dread, Margaret considered that her renter might have kidnapped some little girl, or worse, a little boy. The old woman cringed at the thought that Donald had a child trapped in the bedroom. She set down the remote, replacing it in her hand with the cordless phone. As she left the couch, she was good and ready to call the cops if she needed to.

Following the soft sounds of the crying, Margaret quietly crept toward the room to investigate that strange weeping sound.