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A TIF Inanimate Objects Short Story

It had been a long trip.

The conference in Munich, and meeting the rest of the European team, had went well. He was too old to be staying up so late and drinking so much, but luckily he hadn’t done anything stronger. That was definitely a lesson learned from last time.

For one reason or another it had been a while since they had been together, so it was great to catch up with everyone.

Of course, there had been a few incidents towards the end of the night, which he couldn’t fully remember, but wasn’t that always the case when a bunch of rowdy sales guys got together?

Anyway, after battling through security, passport control and boarding, where everyone seemed a bit rude and snotty, and his patience was severely tested, the flight was slowly descending into Edinburgh airport. He would be driving home before long.

Hopefully the car had enough range to get him up the road. He was sure he had charged it the night before he left. Then again, he had been so busy with prepping his presentation and organising his agenda, that it might have slipped his mind. That seemed to be happening more and more these days. Probably just old age creeping up on him, he thought with a sigh.

However, something else was nagging at his mind.

The wing pierced the puffy lair of cotton wool clouds that shrouded the rugged land from sight as the aircraft began its final descent. A small shudder of turbulence rattled the fuselage and he grasped onto the seat in front of him, causing a sharp pain in his hand, whilst a memory finally surfaced.

He’d had an EV charger fitted at home a few years back, after his company car scheme went fully electric. The control box was on the outside wall of the house, just at the front gate that led to the garden. However, the keys for the box were in the drawer in the utility room, so it made sense to go out the back door and round the house if he ever needed access.

For some reason, in the last few months, the charger fuse had started tripping when he plugged in the car. Not right away, and not all the time. It always seemed to take a few minutes to fail. Just enough to make him think all was working well before the electronics gave up. The frustration being it always needed a hard reset, and that meant going outside to switch it back on. Fine in the summer with light evenings, but this was November, and the depth of a Scottish winter.

On the night before he was due to drive to the airport he had plugged it in and waited.

The green light briefly pulsed for a couple of flashes and then went dark. Cursing, he had grabbed the keys and headed out.

As he had never got around to fitting an outside spotlight, he’d left the back door ajar so there was some illumination to find his way. They had lived here for twenty years, but in the dark, everything became uncertain.

It was a meagre light, and by the time he got to the side of the house, it was almost completely gone, with the street lights only seeming to add to the lengthening shadows.

A strong wind was blowing making the light drizzle that was falling sting his eyes, and spray the taste of metal into his mouth on the back of its swirling gusts.

Swearing under his breath, he had tried to fit the small plastic key into the lock, but couldn’t get the right angle, as if it kept dancing away from him, and it fell from his fingers, quietly clattering onto the slabs. He palmed around on the damp ground as his curses became more industrial. Just at that moment, the wind picked up with such ferocity, that it caused him to stumble back against the fence.

“Jesus,” he muttered, and didn’t like the little crack in his voice when he said it. He had never been the most patient man and he could feel his head begin to thud ominously. The thought of planting his foot through the cover, to gain access to the switch within, began to seem like an appealing option.

Finally his hand closed over the key and he sighed in relief. Get this done and get to bed. Early rise tomorrow.

It was then that he heard the noise.

He wasn’t sure what it was initially.

Could it have been the cry of a bird? He looked above, but couldn’t see anything in the inky blue night sky.

There it was again. A high pitched keening sound.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose and his mouth went dry.

What the hell was that?

Linda was travelling on business in Dubai and Jamie had moved into his flat for university just a few weeks ago. No wait, was it weeks or months ago? It was getting hard to remember. So much going on. At least he remembered taking the dog to the kennel earlier. No one to look after him with them all away. Probably be good for him to see other dogs. He had been acting weird since Jamie left as well. Whole lot of weirdness going on recently, and now this noise …

He straightened and walked tentatively towards the back garden. The leaves on the overgrown hedges rustled furtively in the breeze, the garden furniture, he hadn’t yet put away for the winter, lurked on the unevenly slabbed patio and the long damp grass swayed and whispered. But all these things he recognised and understood. The other noise was the stranger in this familiar surrounding.

As he fully rounded the corner of the house it came again, and he let out a sigh of exasperation and relief.

The back door was blowing back and forth in the wind, and because he hadn’t got around to oiling the hinges recently, they were making an annoyed screeching noise at the neglect.

Letting out a little chuckle, he had walked back into the house to get his torch so he could see what he was doing.

“David,” said a soft voice.

His heart skipped a beat.

“Linda?”

It had sounded like his wife and yet not. Similar intonation, but older with a sinister rasping tone.

“Hello?”

His voice was flat and muffled in the quiet house, and he shuddered at how dead it sounded.

David shook his head.

Linda was in Dubai. Jamie was at his flat in Glasgow. The dog was in the kennel.

Weren’t they?

As the wheels bumped down onto the runway with an alarming jolt, David came back to himself.

Yes, he was sure he had gone back out and sorted the car. Of course he had.

He remembered it taking him a while to get to sleep and waking up suddenly thinking someone was standing over the bed, but there was no one there. Just too many beers, he reckoned.

But, man, that had been one strange night.

As usual it seemed to take forever for people to do the simple task of lifting their luggage and shuffling down the aisle. By the end of it, he was telling a few of them to hurry up and was thinking of shoving the rest in the back to get a shift on. But finally he made it back into the airport and headed for the car park.

He had stopped off for a few essentials at the Marks and Spencer as he would have to make his own dinner with Linda still being away. He had been doing that a lot recently. She sure was a busy woman these days. Travelling far more than he could ever remember. They had crossed words about it in the past. It had seemed odd to him, her being away that much.

The woman helping at the self service tills had been watching him carefully as he packed his bags, and David wondered at the attention. Probably just thinks I look exhausted, he thought. Which was pretty much on the money.

“Long week,” he said to her, and was met with a thin, unsure smile.

Making it back to where he had parked, his steps slowed as he saw the large grey score across his red front bumper.

“What the hell?!” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Bloody airport car parks!”

However, looking at the damage, it didn’t seem like a dent from someone reversing into his car, but as though it had been scraped across stone. Had he done that? Not that he could remember. A headache built on weariness and stress began to grow once more behind his eyes, and he put down his bag of shopping to rub his face. The glass bottles clinked loudly on the stone floor, echoing around the low ceilinged structure.

“Just go home,” he ordered himself.

This could all be figured out in the morning.

Night had fallen by the time be made it out onto the road. Sure enough the car had enough charge, but he kept the radio low, trying to focus on when he might have scraped the bumper, but the recollection still didn’t come. He let it go. He was going home and that was all that mattered.

Red brake lights of late rush hour traffic told him it was going to be a slow drive, so he turned up the music and tried to will away the next thirty minutes to his house.

The last few miles of his drive was on an unlit single carriage way. He had been driving it for twenty years so knew every twist and turn. Other drivers weren’t so confident, and in the dark, it was even worse. He ground his teeth as he slowed to forty miles an hour as the wary few in front slowed everybody down.

A light rain began to fall. The wipers came on automatically and smeared the water over his greasy windscreen. They really needed replaced. He would book the car in for a service as soon as he got a chance.

Visibility wasn’t great as he finally rounded one of the last bends and turned onto the back road to his house.

Standing on the grass verge across from the junction, illuminated in the twin beams of his headlights, was his son.

Jamie was dressed in just his shorts and t-shirt as if he had been out for a jog, despite the weather. He slowly raised his hand in a slow, welcoming salute, a malice filled grin on his face.

As he passed, David turned in confusion to look back at the figure, briefly letting go of the wheel. The car drifted across the lanes and the bellowing cry of a trucks horn brought back his attention.

“Shit!”

He swung hard right, across the junction, into the adjoining road as the truck roared past, missing his car by just a few inches. Another scream of its horn faded into the distance as it thundered past.

The shakes came, and sweat sprung out on his forehead as he slowed to a crawl, pulling over next to the kerb. Opening the door, leaving the car running, he jogged back down the road and stared all around.

Jamie was nowhere to be seen.

He had never been there. Of course he hadn’t. He was in his flat in Glasgow. University, he told himself. Remember.

Of course, if he had been there, it wouldn’t have been the first time Jamie had done something daft, and David had to put him right. That’s what fathers were for.

David began to feel sick. He walked back to the car and drove the short distance home.

The house skulked in darkness on the quiet street.

Linda wasn’t back yet, and he had to pick the dog up tomorrow, but it still felt eerie turning the lock and opening the door onto the heavy silence.

Quickly flicking on all the lights, David walked from room to room, checking everything was as it had been when he left.

There was a bad smell in the air. A pile of dirty plates lay by the sink in the kitchen, jackets and clothes were piled on the dining room table and a thin lair of dust seem to coat everything in the living room, but it seemed secure.

Remembering the strange incident before he left, he cautiously made his way to the bedrooms. Again, all was silent and safe. He sighed and went down to turn on the heating and get to work on the shopping he’d bought.

With his suit hung up, the TV turned up too loud, and the washing machine rumbling away washing his clothes from the trip, David began to feel slightly more normal. It was still odd that the house was so unnaturally quiet, but these background distractions kept his mind from it.

So, when he heard the first noise from up the stairs, he didn’t pay it any mind. It could have just been the boiler cranking into action. But when it came again, he knew there was someone up there.

Putting down his glass, he muted the volume on the TV, stood up, wincing at the pain in his back and knees, and crept into the hallway.

Had he left the lights on in the top landing?

Suddenly he heard a sharp squeaking sound like nails scraping across the glass of the front windows and then the clatter of claws on the tiled kitchen floor. A child’s giggle came from above as he craned his neck to try and see, his hand a frozen claw on the banister. Was that blood under his finger nails?

This time he was sure he heard footsteps and he angrily stamped up the creaking stairs, puffs of dirt lifting up from the threadbare carpet with every step.

A wall of pain was forming behind his eyes again and he wasn’t sure anything could break it down this time.

“I’m coming for you,” he snarled.

The rage was rising with the pounding in his head. Whoever was doing this was going to pay for their tricks. No one ever got away with fooling him.

Banging from room to room he slammed open doors and checked under beds. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

Then he realised he hadn’t looked in the cupboard in the main bedroom, where Linda kept all her clothes, and retraced his steps, his fists clenching, convinced this is where he would find the intruder.

Instead it was empty. But not completely.

The suit he had just removed hung from the one and only hanger.

He stared at it in confusion.

Where were all Linda’s clothes? The dresses, jackets, trousers and blouses? The cupboard should be full of them.

He lifted out the suit as if to confirm it actually existed and wasn’t an optical illusion to cover up some kind of trickery, but it was real enough. However, he noticed for the first time the elbows were scuffed and the knees seem to be tattered and holed. Before he could investigate any further, there was the clatter of bottles being knocked over from downstairs. He threw the suit to the floor and ran back down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Who are you?” he gasped between breaths.

As he stumbled back into the living room, his feet caught the empty whisky and beer bottles that had fallen and sent them spinning across the wooden floor to join the scattered remnants of long forgotten others, dribbling out the last of their flat and bitter promises under the sofa.

The door crashed shut behind him and he jumped back in fright.

As he turned, for the briefest of seconds, he saw Linda and Jamie standing there, watching him sadly, and then they were gone.

The alcohol burned its way back up his throat and he rushed to the bathroom.

There was no time to lift the toilet lid so he puked his guts out into the small sink. As the toxic bile splattered against porcelain and once freshly painted white walls, David felt like he was dying. And yet, at the back of his mind, he knew he would never get off that lightly.

When it was finally over, he grabbed the towel and wiped his face, lifting his head away from the foul stench and then looked at himself in the punch cracked mirror.

His left eye was bruised and bloodshot. A ragged cut on his lip had burst open again and wept slowly down his chin. Two red scuff marks from flailing fists marked his forehead and cheek.

David stumbled back and looked down at his hands. The knuckles were scraped and swollen, his fingers aching as he moved them. What had he done?

Then he remembered the fight. About something and nothing. Rolling in the street as the other guys pulled him off and sent him back to the hotel in shame. A career in ruins.

Stumbling back into the hall, he shook his head in horror, but there were worse memories fighting their way to the surface.

As he made his way back to the living room he saw the chaos and mess that lay all around. Bins overflowing, empty booze bottles everywhere, pictures hanging askew or lying shattered on the floor, from where they would have been bumped into in a drunken stumble, and then thrown to the ground in a petulant fit of anger and loss.

Because he was alone. He knew that now.

Linda wasn’t in Dubai. There was no dog to pick up. He remembered Jamie cursing him as he slammed the front door, swearing never to come back.

His temper and drinking just too much for them. Months and years of it. Rage and accusations. Suspicion and paranoia. Screams and fists. Until they had all finally had enough. Leaving him to rot.

The doors in the house all began to slam shut. One after another. Closing off the rooms where memory and love had once long ago resided. But that time was gone. Driven away by the monster he had become.

This home, witness to his many crimes, was finished with him.

As the kitchen door banged, the front one swung open with a final weary groan, and the lonely night waited impatiently for him over the threshold.

“Get out,” a hate filled voice whispered.

David stumbled forward, sobbing pitifully, still hopelessly searching for a life that he had lost, as the darkness reached out hungrily to embrace him. The front door slowly closed on his dwindling form.

The house sat empty and watched him go.

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Happy Halloween everyone!

A huge thanks to Erica Drayton and the Top In Fiction team for the inspiration behind this domestic horror story with their Inanimate Objects Writing Event : -

Ordinary Objects. Extraordinary Terror.

It’s certainly different from my usual tales of terror, so I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

Photo by Sixties Photography on Unsplash