The Creature (a really "short" story)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Some people say he’s a monster, pure evil. Others call him all that embodies hell, the devil incarnate. It’s true that one eye is red and the other blue. How can such a thing not give the world an abnormal perception of him? And all things being fair, how can it not give him a twisted view of the world?

He’s like most people of his kind, rich. He has people that see to his needs for him and he never worries about things that busy the commoner. He’s above the economy. Anyone with the smallest measure of authority looks down on this foul being. Despite his wealth, he wears filthy clothing, and badly at that. Sometimes he smells as horribly as he looks. He opens his cracked lips revealing several empty spaces where teeth were once rooted and makes no effort to conceal his dastardly appearance.

After a day of crafting havoc and terror, he makes his way back to his lair. The menacing creature walks with his head down, the sidewalk swaying back and forth in a blue/red blur. Most people turn the other way when they see him traverse the cobblestone street, but the few who don’t pay with their lives. Perhaps it’s their gaze that he doesn’t like or maybe he’s just having a terrible day. Whatever it is, it doesn’t stop him from reaching for the cannon that’s dutifully strapped to his hip and shooting them right out in the open. He then returns to his pace without a trace of remorse, not once glancing back as they go into their heartbreaking death throes. Other people observe these things take place but immediately turn their backs as if nothing’s happening. No one will do anything about this foul being. They know that if they do, they might be next.

He slams the heavy wooden door to his lair and carelessly tracks in filth from the streets. He removes the pistol from his side and lays it on the table by the door. A voice resonates from within, “Bobby? Is that you?”
A tall person emerges and is appalled at this ghastly sight.
“Bobby! What’s happened to you? You’re filthy! Take off those 3d glasses and go put your gun in your room. Then go wash up. Dinner’s in five minutes!”
Comments welcome, of course

2

Are you allowed to “bump” your own post up in a shameless effort to get at least one comment?

3

This is how I would edit/write this. YMMV. I’m not a professional. And for some reason my writing seems horrible to me right now. Anyhow.
Some people call him a monster. Pure evil saturates their minds at his very mention. Others believe he is all that embodies hell; the devil incarnate.

It’s true that one eye is red and the other is blue. In a society where appearance is everything, how can mismatched eyes not tell the world he is bent on its destruction? And in return, he must know they expect this of him. If he acts on the expectation, but it wasn’t his in the first place … then who is to blame?

He’s rich. He has no menial worries or tasks; nothing to get in his way. Nothing that gets in the way of destruction, say some. Nothing that clutters up his day, he says. He doesn’t live from paycheck to paycheck; he lives without worry of paychecks.

He also lives without worry of style or cleanliness. Like a creature born of a fetid bog he arises from wherever he had been, clothes (or rags, more likely) tattered, cast loosely on his body, and his face follows suit. It is as though some hideous beast (hideous even to him) played the piano on his teeth, then cast out the white keys and left the others to rot and infect anything he breathes on.

Having no errands, no task at hand, he is left to his own devices, and those which most would (and do, if they are so vexed as to be in his vicinity) run from. His bidding done, he hulks back to his lair. His walk is as ungainly as his appearance is unsettling, and his vision is colored by those eyes that, when he looks forward, tell all who did not yet know who he is. Those who had not known sometimes do not; if they are not quick to run, they are quick to die at the hands of this beast who cares none for those who care none for him.

He is without remorse, even, regardless of his opponent. Quick to kill and without mercy (a cannon is strapped to his hip; he makes and has no apologies for unintended victim), he is at best a sociopathic mercenary and at worst … far, far worse.

When none remain in his path, he returns to his lair with no trace of remorse, leaving injured to die or to live; he cares not for the pain he has caused, nor its victims.

He need not safeguard himself; none know a weakness, none dare cross him, none dare enter his lair, none wishes to try (let alone succeed) to cheat death. And so he lives without opposition, without challenge, no barrier to whatever plan is in his mind.

With a thick wooden echo, the entrance to his lair is closed to any and all who might trespass. If he had worry, he is safe from it here. If he were running from some foe, it will take time before this underground fortress is breeched.

His lair is kept as he keeps himself, but with fewer teeth. No comfort is offered and none required; he does not bask in ease but in filth. He is the mentor of all things putrid, defiled and wretched, and space is all that keeps him from containing it all within this sanctuary of disgust.

From the shadows of the damned lair, a taller person emerges and is appalled at this ghastly sight.

“Bobby! What’s happened to you? You’re filthy! Take off those 3d glasses, put your ray gun in your room and go wash up! Dinner’s in five minutes!”

“But mooooom-!” the creature starts.

“I said NOW! GO!”

No justice for the damned, for the destroyer of peace and keeper of all chaos. No rest for the king of the hill. This fetid collection of filth and grime must be cleansed before the monster, Lord of all that is sordid and malevolent, can dine on the flesh of slain beasts.

And lima beans.

4

The premise is ok but I spent the whole thing waiting for the punchline. Don’t try so hard :slight_smile:

I picked on this paragraph because 4 out of the 5 sentences start with He.

Also the only action taken in this section is him opening his mouth. You also give away the fact that the creature is a human here - was that intentional? There are also way to many filler words. “He has people that see to his needs for him” People tend to his needs? Others provide for him?

Dastardly has the connotation of schemingly evil - not quite the same as the cthuluesque creature implied in the first paragraph. All I could think of is the cartoon guy, Muttly or maybe Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

You try to paint him as powerful and above the economy and then you say people with authority look down on him and then you go on in the next paragraph to insinuate that people die simply because they failed to look away from him. Which is it?

Oh and my first thought with the “some people say he’s a monster” was Who? Why? Simply because he is ugly?

And the red and blue eye thing. I was confused by how his eye color would change how he saw the world. It is not like someone with blue eyes sees things tinted blue where someone with green eyes sees things tinted green. I wondered what he had over his eyes. Of course I haven’t seen 3D glasses in about 20 years :slight_smile: But I was thinking about his eye cover and wondering again what the catch was.

5

Ok, maybe you missed the punchline. The punchline is not that the creature is human, but that he is a child.

This is why some people would call him a monster. Children (at least mine) are commonly referred to as “monsters” or “evil” in a joking sense.

The two different colored eyes are only because he’s wearing 3d glasses.

He’s only “rich” and has servants (parents) because he’s a child. A child has no mindfulness of any “economy”. That’s also why he’s so dirty.

The teeth are missing because he’s a child. He doesn’t care that their missing (or about his looks) because he’s a child.

Authority looks down on him because he’s SHORT, hence “short” story. That was a clue.
He only pretends to kill/shoot people because his gun is a toy. This is why people turn their backs…it’s unimportant. The people in the “death throes” are merely playing along with the kid. That’s why he shows no remorse.

Thanks anyway for commenting on it. I guess it doesn’t give the effect I wanted it to.

6

Iampunha,
<<<<<<<<“But mooooom-!” the creature starts.

“I said NOW! GO!”

No justice for the damned, for the destroyer of peace and keeper of all chaos. No rest for the king of the hill. This fetid collection of filth and grime must be cleansed before the monster, Lord of all that is sordid and malevolent, can dine on the flesh of slain beasts.

And lima beans.>>>>>>>

I like that part.

7

I got that he was a child and that he wasn’t really killing people.

I wasn’t sure what you were going for as an effect.

My comments about his lack of authority were based on my thinking that you wanted to make the reader think of him literally as a creature and then have a nice little “lightbulb” moment at the end when you reveal him as a kid.

I won’t comment any more.

8

Are you shunning yourself from commenting anymore?

I appreciate the comments. I guess I wanted the reader to think he was anything but a child. I really wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he was human.

I’m new at this though so the comments do help.

9

I think, tanookie (though I could easily be wrong), that it was the sort of “it was only a dream!” effect Rooves was going for. First he draws us in with the talk of the senseless, uncaring destruction inflicted by this beast upon the street-walkers of the area. We hear about how he doesn’t care how he looks and he doesn’t care about anyone else, and we get the impression that he has no incentive to stop.

Then we get the “wash up for dinner, little boy” comment and the punchline is revealed.

If I were going to portray this more effectively, I would treat this monster as a sort of identity-less (ape? man? alien? non-corporeal entity?) being. Don’t assign gender (much more easily done in English than many other languages), make humans obviously unsympathetic to it (i.e. they don’t like it, don’t want it around, they shun it; obviously, reactions to this beast are dependent largely on how much they fear it). How antagonistic you make it to humans will largely color what it does, what its thought process is; and the more human you make its thought process, the easier it will be to identify it as human.

If you craft this properly, you can have the reader see the evidence that this is a child and that reader will think it’s some sort of hallucination. You can lead the reader to think the monster’s having some sort of flashback or nightmare, both of which lend a tortured or troubled past aspect, and both humanize the monster. Remember that sometimes people who can’t find their glasses or pencil find same object resting on their ear(s). People love a good story, and if you can craft it well they’ll fool themselves in the name of entertainment.

Just for some perspective, Rooves, I’ve been writing (various genres, though mostly not horror) for probably about ten years, and the stuff I was putting out when I was a young teenager I now look back on as utter crap. You don’t magically get better at writing, though some people are naturally better at it in the first place and improve faster than most. And sometimes you just have to accept that a particular piece you’ve written is bad. The less you cling to what you write (for example, writing something that’s bad but long and keeping it long because you see length as indicative of writing ability), the more open you are to improving it and the smoother the transition will be from what you write now to what you write five years from now. If you are writing for a specific audience this is even more important; if you have already developed a voice and people have come to you because of what you write, this is less the case.