Looming

A heterosexual man and woman sat on either side of a long dinner table. Oak, smooth, a fine table for a couple that truly love each other. The man sat in his black and white suit, bowler hat not tilted at any jaunty angle. There was no time for such eccentricities. He was a busy man who worked. He delicately cut his steak with his knife and fork, each move carrying with it poise and grace. He was happy, so long as he didn’t pay attention to it.

“Would you be able to pass the pepper, Harold my love?” Gertrude said, cutting off the silence.

Harold cursed himself. He caught himself thinking about it. And thinking turns to noticing quickly.

“Please,” Gertrude said, a plea moreso for his attention than the spice.

Harold smiled at Gertrude, who sat effortlessly in her dowdy white gown, her hair in a brown bun. She brought his mind back to the present. Nothing could hurt him while she was in his life. He leaned over and Gertrude breathed a sigh of relief as he came back to reality. A sigh that seemed to pass through and relax her whole. He grabbed the silver art deco pepper shaker and reeled it back, ready to slide across when, at the full retraction of his arm, a slimy black tendril flopped onto his hand.

He knew better than to freeze up, and it knew that too. Without thinking he slid the shaker with great force and it scattered black pepper grounds across the table, creating a mushroom cloud.

Harold pursed his lips and concentrated hard on the table. It was still on his arm. He slowly sat back down, the tendril sliding back off of his wrist as he did so and leaving a slimy residue.

“I don’t know what came over me, I suppose my aim is worse than I thought,” Harold mumbled, staring at Gertrude who looked back in her now-blackened dress.

She sneezed a few times as the cloud dissipated, and stood up, her gaze locked firmly on Harold, lest she look at what resided between the table and the door.

“I can get a new shaker. I can…” she trailed off. Chanting had begun emanating from it. Sounds that a human throat could never make, nor any creature alive. She stood in this silence, until she fell back down onto her chair, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Harold. I just can’t do this,” Gertrude sobbed, her head disappearing into her hands.

“Gertrude, dear,” Harold said, his eyes wide and bloodshot locked on her, “You need to cease these hysterics right now.”

The thing looked at her, its one eye trained on her. And it moved towards her, tendrils rising slowly up like a spider about to strike.

“No!” he shouted, just as it was about to touch her.

And then he looked at it. He had acknowledged it. There was no other reason he should be looking at that spot in particular, except to look at it. And it knew this too. Gertrude stopped crying, ice filling her veins. She lifted her head up and stared at him in horror.

The chants came back. Blood pounded in his head. A red glowing aura rose from the creature as the world faded away from Harold’s vision and all that remained was the creature.

The front door flung open at what used to be Harold and Gertrude’s house. Inside it looked like nobody had lived there for years. The creature, waltzing outside, grew more stark in the broad daylight.

There, humans moved back and forth doing their suburban business. They walked their dogs, watered their gardens, played with their children in a game of street hockey. And each, to a one, was shadowed by a creature. Each human had saggy black undereyes, raw sleeplessness draining them. And yet, they all remained focused on exactly what they were doing, lest they made it clear their awareness clear.

Harold and Gertrude’s creature wandered off, looking for a new family to join.