DO NOT OPEN Read online

  DO NOT OPEN

  BY A.ROSARIA

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Alex Rosaria

  This e-book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Brandon Thompson stood at his bedroom‘s doorpost watching his wife Laura read the local news from her laptop. He‘s been standing there for close up to fifteen minutes and not once she looked up at him. He didn‘t really mind that, he loved looking at her. His eyes traveled up her long legs, over the slope of her butt, along her thin waist, paused at her perky breasts with nipples barely touching the mattress, to end at her angelic face with her ginger hair tied in a tail over her shoulder. He couldn‘t grasp this beautiful woman being with him. Most he admired her for being the nicest person he knew, for having the patience dealing with his overworked self and his mood swings while trying to prevent the house being foreclosed. She was it for him, the one that complemented him completely.

  Her brows narrowed and with every passing second her angelic face turned more into one of distaste. She must have read the newscast. Tara their sixteen year old daughter told him before he went upstairs about another shooting that had happened. The killing was all on the local news channel. Sometimes it worried him the empathy Laura showed with anything troublesome happening in the world, like they didn‘t have enough of that on their own.

  “Hon,” he said.

  Startled she looked up at him. “Huh?”

  Brandon smiled at his dazed wife. Waiting for her to connect the dots.

  “Oh, hi.” She sat upright. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Not long. The store was closed.”

  “I told you it was.”

  “Well I craved some beer, can‘t blame a man for trying, can you?”

  Her eyes grew big, she pushed herself closer to the edge of the bed, but before she could get up he sat besides her. “I didn‘t go to the liquor store.”

  “I really don‘t want you to go out this late.”

  Maybe she shouldn‘t read the news, he thought. He would love to tell her not to, but he knew no gentle way to do this without offending her or make her worry more than she already was. He sighed. She was right, it wasn‘t wise risking it these days with the murders going on. These kind of things just didn‘t happen in their town and certainly not in their part of it, but now it did. Together with the economy everything else went to shit.

  The killings happened during the evenings and late at night and always completely random. She would turn crazy if it started happening during the day. The day being her only safe haven away from the worries.

  “I‘m always careful, you know this.”

  “One can never be too careful, it‘s better avoid these things.”

  He squeezed her leg. “You‘re right, honey.”

  Laura relaxed her shoulders. “It‘s been enough for today.” She turned the laptop off.

  Smiling she looked up at him. “Are they sleeping?”

  “Tara‘s downstairs watching the n…” he saw her face darken “…some stand–up comedy show. And Luke is in his room.”

  “It‘s late.”

  He had a Friday feeling this Thursday, having taken the Friday off. After having worked a string of twelve–hour workdays and working last weekend, he felt he needed a day respite. The high school he worked for, wanted their papers sorted to get the needed extra governmental grants. The cuts taken left the school scrounging for every last penny. He could forget any pay raise anytime soon. The only way to compensate for this was working any extra hours available. With the interest rate resetting to a higher one, he really needed the cash. A house doesn‘t pay itself. Maybe he shouldn‘t have taken the day off. The thought of losing the house and his family gripped his throat. He needed the rest, because a broken man can‘t work and that would spiral them further down the debt hell. She reached out and kissed him.

  “Go sleep honey. I‘ll take care of the kids.”

  She put on her robe.

  “I‘ll leave you be tonight,” she smiled, “can‘t promise I will in the morning.”

  With one smile and a promise she lifted the burden of the past days from his shoulders. All thanks to a wife that knew his needs better than himself. However he didn‘t mind a little bit of rumble right now.

  “I‘ll wait up.”

  “No you won‘t.” She smiled knowingly closing the door behind her.

  He took his clothes off, and went in the en–suite bathroom. Under the shower he brought the water on temperature. Like a miniature army marching over his back the warm water streamed down on him, mending his muscles to a suppleness that eased off the stress. After a long while he shut the shower and haphazardly dried himself. Still wet, he shambled to his bed and fell down on it. His eyes closed the second his skin touched the sheet and sleep followed before he finished his thought on the hope of loving desire.

  ***

  He growled at the tapping sun–light against his face. How long did he sleep? He blinked once, shut his eyes, blinked again, yawned, and managed to keep both eyes open. He stood up with no effort of himself. His sight swam in front of him, seeing the room blurred. It seemed smaller somehow, and had an earthly damp smell. What did she do to the room? He laughed, but no sound came out only a yawn.

  Like an automaton he entered the bathroom and turned on the lights. It was like he floated, his movements not his own. He washed his hands. His wrists were thicker and his hands covered with scars. He gasped, but no sound came out, instead he washed his face. He grabbed a cheap plastic throw away razor, not his, most definitely not his. He looked up in the mirror to start shaving. Wild eyes, more white than pupils, looked back at him. A bearded and mustached face, with wild thick black hair. Not his eyes. Not his face. Not his hair. Not him at all. This couldn‘t be, he must be dreaming.

  “No,” the man mumbled, a hoarse voice with a thick foreign accent he couldn‘t place.

  It took more than one pass with the razor to shave the beard and mustache off. Next the man combed his hair. He looked much more representable, but his eyes still betrayed him for what he was. The sense Brandon got from him was that of a wild caged animal about to snap and strike at its handler. He so liked to wake up, but try as he might he stayed stuck inside the man‘s head.

  “Not a nightmare yet,” the man said smiling at his reflection in the mirror.

  Brandon saw the man put on clothes like he was doing it himself. The weirdest notion he had ever experienced, so lifelike he could feel, smell, hear, taste, and see everything from another man‘s viewpoint. All this while laying in bed deep asleep. Good thing it was his day off, because after this he couldn‘t imagine enduring the additional work stress as well.

  The man put his shoes on, grabbed his keys on a table near the front door, and left the spartan furnished house. He stepped into a blue sedan and drove off.

  The sun stood low on the horizon, too early for his kids to go to school, or for him to wake up. Laura would do anything to accommodate him to allow him to sleep in. He would be stuck in this man‘s head for a long time. Brandon‘s mood soured, it being a dream there was no way to tell what time it was in the real world. He couldn‘t know when he would wake up, it could take seconds, but it also meant he might just now have fallen asleep. It felt uncomfortable how real this all felt. He never had these inner arguments with himself dreaming. It always been him just experiencing his imagination, no stops to po
nder, no doubts, no nothing.

  The man pulled down the car‘s sun–visor and smiled at his own reflection in the mirror attached on the visor. There was no comfort in that smile, a cold knowing smile hiding its intent behind a terrible secret Brandon wouldn‘t even dare guess at.

  The man drove toward the town center. The neighborhood they were in was unknown to Brandon, it being a shadier part of town he didn‘t frequent often. Laura would have a fit were she to find out he was here. Silly really, it not being real and he worrying about what she might think. The man turned left and drove straight for a couple of minutes. Brandon recognized the area being near the high school he worked at. The man took the same route he used each working day to drive home. It didn‘t sit well with him at all. Why would he dream about someone other than him driving home?

  “Are you real?” Brandon asked, not knowing if the man could hear him and if he did, would bother answering him.

  The man laughed, looked in the mirror and winked. He heard him alright. They parked in front of his drive way. The man‘s eyes focused on the house number while his hand rummaged in the glove compartment. He grabbed something heavy that Brandon couldn‘t see.

  “What‘s are you doing?”

  The man opened the car door and slammed it closed behind him. He leisurely walked to the front door.

  “Stop, Please don‘t.”

  The man knocked on the door and waited, tapping his feet.

  “Who is there?” Laura called out.

  She sounded so real. Could it be? What if this wasn‘t a bad dream, that really some unknown scary eyed mad man knocked on the door?

  “I‘ve got a package for a Mr. Thompson, Brandon Thompson?”

  “Laura, no! Don‘t open the door.”

  “Can‘t you come back later? He‘s sleeping.”

  Brandon cheered, thanking God for her wife‘s carefulness with anyone and anything unknown. He felt as much relief a disembodied entity could have. The creep, real or not, wouldn‘t be let in.

  “It‘s a package from work, principal Carson sent me to hand it over in person.”

  Laura grunted. “One day he asked. One day! Can‘t they ever leave him be?”

  “Please, ma‘am. I need a signature.”

  He heard Laura turn the lock. The door opened and his wife stood in front of him, eye to eye, but she didn‘t see him and how could she. She saw what he had seen in the mirror. Her eyes grew suspicious noticing that the man had no package. She opened her mouth to scream, but was cut short with the blast of the gun and her left eye being shot out. She collapsed to the floor, blood and brains dripping from the back of her head.

  Brandon screamed, anguish gripping his soul. He tried to wake up, to flee the nightmare, to know for sure this wasn‘t the reality, because this just couldn‘t be. He stayed awake and inside the monster.

  “Mom,” he heard Tara yelling hysterically.

  “Run.”

  The man walked inside the living. Tara stopped mid–run, paralyzed, her eyes wide on the gun. He shot twice. The bullets passed through her chest splattering the wall behind her and flung her against the wall. Loosing all strength in her legs she slid down leaving a trail of blood on the wall. She wheezed a last breath. Her eyes quickly faded, losing all the luster it had moments ago.

  “No,” Brandon cried. “Not her too.”

  He couldn‘t wake up. He tried, but it was all in vain. He just lost his wife and daughter, it must be a nightmare. Yes that‘s it. Were it real, the gun shots would have woken him and whisked him away. Just a bad dream. The man stopped at the stairs and looked up. He went up stamping hard to make sure whoever was left upstairs knew he was coming. Brandon couldn‘t help himself. He could convince his mind it was a horrible nightmare, but his emotions told him otherwise.

  “Hide, don‘t come out no matter what.”

  The man stopped at Luke‘s bedroom door. He raised his feet high and kicked the door. The wood around the lock splintered. He kicked again and the door slammed open.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  Silence answered him.

  Luke wouldn‘t come out, he‘s not stupid, Brandon thought. Whatever the monster may think, time was running out. A neighbor probably called the police after the first shot fired. They must be on their way and closing in. If Luke stayed hidden he might survive the ordeal. Brandon laughed nervously. What is this? What‘s with this thinking like this is all real?

  “Suit yourself,” the man said.

  He raised his gun, pointing at the closed closet doors, and emptied his clip. The closet doors pushed open with Luke falling out. He crawled away from the man. Blood gushed out his chest with every heavy breath he took. The boy spat blood and looked up at the man, his eyes pleading. The man watched as the boy bled. Brandon knew the monster enjoyed himself. He could feel the man‘s excitement, the sick throbbing between the leg. The impossibility of this nightmare crawled on up to him. He would never ever imagine something like this, never.

  The man released the empty clip and pushed a new one in. He shoved Luke, cocked the gun, and took aim. “Bye, bye, kid.”

  The shot ran out blasting the boy‘s lovely face away and shattering the father‘s soul. Brandon tore inside the man, screaming his boy‘s name on and on, howled the anguish, but no sorrow, regret, or anger brought him back awake to his own body.

  The man entered the master bedroom. There Brandon lay peaceful, unaware, on the bed just as he had before falling asleep. He couldn‘t care less what happened to his body, having lost everything worth a damn in his life. The man grabbed a nearby towel and wiped the gun clean. He put the gun in Brandon‘s hand and chuckled. Brandon came to hate that chuckle and the man himself. The man that killed his family. The man that put the blame on him. He‘ll kill that monster.

  “Go back,” the man said.

  A bright light flashed once and within seconds darkness claimed him. A sensation of warmth washed over him, followed by a sharp pain traveling from his brain to the nervous system of his body. He gritted his teeth. Raised his hand, pressing the trigger, firing bullets where he thought the man stood. With each bang it set in that it was all real. His family was death, and the one thing left for him to do would soon be too.

  Light slowly returned to his eyes and with it a blurred vision of his surroundings. He was gone. He couldn‘t be far. Brandon wiped his bloody hands on the bedsheets. With renewed resolve he grabbed the gun, stood up, and left the room. He ran downstairs. Seeing his daughter sitting against the wall in a pool of blood placed the last nail in any notion that this could still be just a nightmare. His heart contorted with the pain of loss, his eyes filled with tears, and he swallowed his sobs to not break down. He tore his eyes away from Tara and ran to the front door, dreading to see his dead wife. There she lay, the back of her head blown off. He couldn‘t contain it any longer and broke out sobbing. Shaking all over his body he hugged himself and fell on his knees. The man had killed his life. His blood swept up. He had to make him pay for that. Brandon stood up clenching the gun tight.

  “Police, drop the gun.”

  “Huh…”

  “Last time, drop your gun.”

  He looked at the gun in his hand and back at the door. A silhouette of a man, a police officer, or… him. He quickly raised his hand. The shots rang out, stinging his chest where they hit him. He crumbled down on the floor. With his life fleeting fast he attempted to touch his wife one last time. His fingers stopped an inch away. In his dying seconds he heard the cop say. “Jeez, Another damn familicide.”

  THE END

  Also by A. ROSARIA

  Inheritance

  Gone World

  Don't Believe What They Say

  Death's Given Chance

  Absentis

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