Hi, Kai! Everyone!
I have decided to write this story in parts to wring out the sense of suspense :laughing maniacally: I hope you enjoy!
Okay, standard disclaimers! Don't own them, wish I did. (Life is sooo cruel!) I have a few thank you's that need saying, but I'll make them fast. Or try to, anyway!
Okay, Thanks to Chad, who read the rough (and I mean rough as bark!) draft of Shinigami and the Dragon, misspellings, bad grammar, abbreviations and all. And in case you are reading this, I am still not buying a Sega Dreamcast! My heart belongs to Playstation 2! grin
To Charledean (did I spell that right?) for reading both of my song fics. I'm glad you liked them! To Sarah, for asking me to send her a copy of this story even before one word had been put to paper err~ screen!
Gee, this is starting to sound like and Academy Award speech!
To SpassOnna who replied to my e-mail. I really do love your stories!
To Spell Check!!! Because my spelling is bad and my typing, WORSE!
And last, but definitely NOT least, my webmaster, Kiba Kai! Thanks for this and your other site, Original Sin. You gave me my first taste of being ON THE WEB! My eternal gratitude!
Okay and now to our feature presentation! (Big build up here!!)
I tried to make you laugh in "A Port In Every Girl"
I did my best to make you cry (or feel SOMETHING) in "Royal Oak",
Now I will attempt to scare your pants off with this little chibi Duo fic entitled...
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Part One
Duo Maxwell lay on his stomach on his bed, buried under a thick comforter, reading a battered paperback copy of "Peter Pan". The seven year old boy, an avid reader, could always be found with his nose buried in one book or another. He enjoyed many different types of stories. His mother had often referred to him as an equal opportunity reader. And he was. The brown haired youth had a keen and open mind when it came to books.
The reed thin youngster loved all types of stories, even the ones that were assigned to him in Literature class. Fancy that! But what he loved more than anything - more than Westerns, with stirring tales of heroic sheriffs and dastardly cattle rustlers, more than science fiction, with it's promise of distant futures, some good, some not so good - was fantasy. He loved fantasy above and beyond all other genres. Tales of bizarre planets, fairy princesses, heroic knights in shining armor, dragons, and magicians! In fantasy, anything could and often did happen. So different than real life, with all it's bitter disappointments...Reading helped the youth escape from the cruel reality of the world, at least temporarily.
(Give me a good book over real life any day.)
Duo shivered slightly and pulled the comforter up more snuggly about his shoulders, cutting out the sneaky draft that had found it's way into his warm haven. He really liked his current foster home, really he did... It was much better than the one he had been in before, but... He just wished it wasn't so very cold in his bedroom. Giving a small shrug of the shoulders, the young boy sighed. (I guess it really can't be helped.) he thought. This room was, after all, one of the northern most rooms in the house. And it was in the middle of winter. A very cold winter. It didn't help matters any that the only window faced north. No golden warm rays of sun ever found their way into the small, neatly maintained room. That was a fact!
Suddenly, the temperature in the room felt like it dropped twenty degrees. Dread pooled in the young boy's belly like a serpent coiled to strike. He cupped his hands over his nose and mouth, as if to warm them. His breath formed icy vapors in the still air. His heart hammered in his throat and his breathing quickened until he was all but panting.
The boy's whispered in terror as his violet eyes widened in fright. "Oh, go away... please go away..."
Duo was not fully sure of who, or what he may have been speaking to, and he really didn't care at this particular moment in time. All he needed to know was that there was, without a doubt, something lurking in his room with him. And not for the first time, either. No, the same thing had happened on two other occasions. Something cold, unfeeling...dangerous.
The small child sucked his breath in harshly as he felt, or thought he felt, something brush against the bottom of one of his feet. Realization dawned in a hurry that he had let them trail over the edge of the bed while he had been reading. That was bad, very bad! He scrambled to his knees and pressed his back against the head board. Small helpless whimpers escaped from his tightly clenched throat. Impossibly wide eyes scanned the room continuously. Back and forth, back and forth... There was nothing there! Oh why, wasn't there anything there?! Any adult would have reasoned that he should have been relieved at that bit of knowledge, but he wasn't. Not one little bit! The child knew better.
(It's just hiding...) the boy's mind screamed. Now where in the world would IT be hiding? Why under the bed, of course! Naturally! All really scary creatures hid under the bed! Or in the closet! Any two year old could tell you that!
Rational thought tried to intervene. (Baby, you baby! This is getting ridiculous! There is no scary monster hiding under your bed! If you don't believe that, why don't you just go down and take a look, you chicken!)
Duo shook his head in mute horror, his long chestnut brown bangs sticking softly against his sweaty brow. "No way, man!" he whispered back to his own mind, his voice high and trembling. "No way am I going to look under the bed! What? Are you joking!" He clenched his eyes closed and choose to ignore rational thought. Rational thinking would get him killed quicker than snot!
He could just see it now... Carefully, oh so carefully, he would creep to the edge of the bed, he would pull up the covers, and slowly stick his head down for a quick look see. Yeah... His long braid would fall down and dangle, just barely brushing the thick shag rug. He would come face to gross face with some unimaginably AWFUL creepy crawly thingy with blood red eyes and long, slobbering fangs. That sight alone would probably blast his young mind to bits mere seconds before the nameless horror would latch on to that oh so tempting braid and yank him, kicking and screaming uselessly under the bed where all the little dust bunnies stored all the socks and buttons they stole. It would drag him under the bed to...to...to...
(To eat you!) A horrible image popped, all Technicolored and as real as life and twice as ugly, into his seven year old mind and Duo realized with a jolt of panic that the thought, that horrible picture had not been of his own creation! No, he could never have conjured up such vivid horrors! Not in a million years! Something black and slimy (he imagined) had somehow managed to project that delightful image into his numbed brain and it hadn't been his thought! No sirree BOB!
Small, cold hands pressed over his ears. They were, fortunately, his own. A tiny, helpless moan of pure terror rushed past his trembling lips. Here's a lovely thought for you, my boy! Maybe it wasn't under the bed! Let's just suppose for one moment, ladies and germs, that the dreaded boogieman wasn't under the bed at all! What if it was in... His breath stilled ominously in his chest as Duo felt his eyes being drawn, pulled, almost against his will, towards...the closet.
(Why don't you just go and check it out?)
Rational thought was stubborn. Very persistent. You had to give it some credit, it- never- gave- up! Duo shook his head once, very slowly. No way! No way! What if he was wrong? OH, WHAT IF HE WAS WRONG AND IT WAS UNDER THE BED?! He'd be dead meat for sure!
How long would that small, helplessly afraid boy have crouched, cowering on his bed? The world would never know for at that exact moment, there came a sharp knocking against the door to his bedroom. This startled a shrill, breathy shriek out of the braided boy. The door swung open to reveal... his foster mother, Roseanne.
Her large blue eyes were wide with surprise. She absently swiped a stray lock of blond hair out of her face that has somehow managed to escape from her ponytail . It stayed were it was for a moment, then decided it liked where it had been before better and fell back into it's previous position. This time she left it alone. She then absently ran her hands over the white frilly apron she wore over a forest green turtleneck. The apron was covered with tiny little frogs, every one of the cute buggers holding up a sign demanding that each one was, in fact, a royal prince in disguise. A kiss was all it would take to set them free. Yeah, right...
"Are you okay, Duo? I thought I just heard you scream." She entered his room, crossed over towards his twin sized bed, and plopped down on the mattress. She smoothed her red skirt under her legs as she did so. Even gripped in his terror, Duo realized that, even though it was winter and freezing cold, he had never once seen his foster mother wearing a pair of slacks or even jeans, not once in four months.
The child managed to find his voice. Oh, goody! He even sounded almost normal. Things were indeed looking up! He looked into those beautiful, blue eyes and smoothly lied through his teeth!
"I was just reading a scary story, Roseanne. I must have let my imagination run away with me, that's all..." Duo managed a small nervous chuckle. His foster mother did not appear to be convinced by his little performance.
Roseanne glanced over at the book opened face down on the rumpled pillow. It was the copy of "Peter Pan" she had gotten for the little book worm from Mary's Book Exchange last week. It was one of the least scary books she could imagine. She turned her eyes back towards the boy huddled beside her. His bangs were plastered to his forehead with sweat and he looked a little too pale for her liking. But she wasn't going to pry. He would open up to her if and when he felt he wanted or needed to.
"Are you sure...?" She couldn't help the concerned tone that had crept into her voice. She was a mother, after all. And this child, whom she had grown quite fond of in the last few months, was obviously scared stiff. (Don't push him, remember. The counselor said he would open up to you eventually. Just give him some time and space.) When the little boy nodded again, she stood up with a sigh.
"Well...you shouldn't read such scary stories, Duo. They'll rot your brain, you know. Probably even give you nightmares." The tall, slender woman moved off towards the door and called back over her shoulder. "Why don't you come down and help me set the table for dinner, hmm?"
Duo hopped down from the bed and quickly followed the woman out of the door. Anything to get out of that room! He shot a glance back towards the closet. Nervously he nibbled on his lower lip. Could he have been mistaken? Had he indeed allowed his vivid imagination to carry him away as he had explained? Maybe... but he didn't believe it to be so. He could not have imagined that sense of overpowering fear that had clutched cold fingers about his heart. No, it had not all been in his mind...
*****
Roseanne's husband, Jeff, had joined them for dinner for a change. Usually he worked the second shift at a factory called AirLite Plastics from 3 p.m to 11 p.m. Tonight had been his day off. Jeff was a kind man with wavy brown hair, laughing brown eyes and a preference for colorful polo shirts. He was the nicest man Duo had ever meet, besides his deceased father. He would ask about the boy's day and really listen to what Duo had to say. That was pretty rare in an adult as far as the shy child was concerned. Many would ask questions but never really pay attention to what he had to say in response. It was frustrating.
After dinner, Jeff went to bed to catch up on his sleep. (Can you really catch up on lost sleep?) Duo wondered. It was a nice thought, but it didn't seem likely. Over the past few weeks, the boy had lost a lot of sleep, mainly from nightmares and such. He had never been able to catch up with the sleep he had lost, not really. It just played havoc with his internal clock. Maybe grownups had a knack for it...
Duo was finishing putting away the last of the clean dishes when, Alexis, Roseanne's baby, began to cry fussily from her crib. Someone must sure be hungry judging from the tone and volume of the insistent cries. Roseanne sighed. She would never manage to get everything done. There were only so many hours in a day and she had only two arms. She glanced over at Duo, a glimmer of an idea forming rapidly in her mind.
(Maybe he wouldn't mind helping out a little. I could give him a bit of allowance for doing chores. Sounds like a plan!)
Roseanne dried her soapy hands off on her apron. "Hey, Duo? Could you do me a small favor?" The small boy turned and looked calmly at his foster mother. His amethyst eyes questioned silently. He seemed much calmer than he had been right before dinner. That was good. He had almost scared her. "Could you please take the load of towels out of the dryer and fold them up? I would really appreciate it. I would, but I've got to feed Alexis."
The boy's mind froze solid. The laundry room? Oh, no! That's the second scariest room in the whole house! Duo's small mind was screaming and shouting to JUST SAY NO!!! No way, José! You can count me out! But without even a seconds pause he replied, "Sure, Roseanne, no problemo!" He mentally kicked himself for a darned fool. (You moron! Do you have a death wish?)
The braided boy found himself standing on top of the flight of steps. His heart was rabitting in his scrawny chest and his palms were slicked with sweat.
(You are not going to go down there are you? Is there any way I can talk you out of this? Please...!?)
Duo did his best to ignore his babbling mind. He wanted to help out Roseanne. It made him feel like a contributing member of the well, ...family. The two grown ups had been nothing but kind to him. It was the least he could do.
Taking a deep gulp of air, Duo started down the steps.
*****
Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Cricket chirps...pin drops... I sweat drop... FEEDBACK, PEOPLE!!! PLEASE!!! lol