Here's the deal...

Make it as short as you can to push a thought across... your story does not have to begin, nor must it end - you can write from the middle if you wish. It doesn't really matter.

Just do us a favor and be serious about the thread.

This is not work so don't beat yourself up! The idea, is to give ourselves the opportunity to see into each others minds. Perhaps to gain a new perspective - take our brains out for a walk, as it were...

Try not to read the postings of others, until you have posted yours.

Wanna post it in this thread, and submit it to the site? No problem. This is not meant to be restrictive.

Please hold back on commenting on the stories posted here until Tuesday, February 26 - after which time, you may go appropriately nuts... That will allow us to have a clean thread of stories.



Start your story with this sentence:

Larry walked through the door and the first thing he noticed was that the dog's water bowl was empty again.

Larry walked through the door and the first thing he noticed was that the dog's water bowl was empty again. He sighed as he picked up the bowl and took it inside to refill it for the 100th time in the last week. Such a pain in the ass he thought as he looked down at the small dog cowering in the corner. But he bent down to pat the dog on the head and petted him thoroughly for a few minutes.

After Larry got off the floor, he looked around at his barren apartment and wondered where his life had gone. At 40, he was homeless and alone. His wife told him that she didn’t want him in her house anymore. His kids, his beautiful children would never come running to him after he came home from work. Where did he go wrong?

He thought back to when he first met Maria. She was so pretty, so smart, and so full of life. He knew that he killed part of the life in her when he had gone to live with the other woman for a while. But she had taken him back when he realized that he had made a mistake. His beautiful Maria had loved him unconditionally, but he saw the sadness that he had put into her eyes. It was so painful to accept that he had put that sadness there.

He thought everything was okay between the two of them, thought that the sadness in her life was going away. She laughed at his jokes, laid with him in bed, made love to him with passion, but apparently things weren’t right with her. He knew that he wouldn’t let her go anywhere or do anything. He loved her and wanted her to be with him. Why would she ever want to do things that didn’t involve him?

He looked at her picture on the dresser. She told him to get out and never be a part of her life again. He knew that she would fight for the children. He knew that she was right; he didn’t help her raise them. He knew that she was the responsible one and he was the fun one. He should have helped her more.

He wondered how long that the other had been a part of her life. He wondered how often the other had been at their house while he was gone. He wondered how long it would take for the other to move in and take his place. As bitter as Maria was at him, he knew that it wouldn’t be long. He knew that he should have been a better husband, paid more attention to what she wanted, but she never said anything. How was he to know?

He thought back to all the times that she had done what he asked. He thought about all the times that she did as he pleased. He thought about the time she asked to take an art class. He had said no. He wondered if he should have let her go. He knew that he should have done some of the things that she wanted to do. But at the time, she never told him it wasn’t okay for it to always be about him.

Why didn’t he see this coming? He should have known that something was up with her. Lately the sadness was back in her eyes. She told him that she didn’t think she loved him anymore. She told him that she couldn’t take the verbal abuse anymore. She said that if she listened to him all the time, she would think she never did anything right. Did he really treat her that way? He tried to think of how he had talked to her, but all he could recollect were subtle hints of the way she should be.

Larry still couldn’t believe that Maria wasn’t in his life anymore. He couldn’t believe that everything that he had was gone. He missed his kids. He hoped that she would let him see them every once in a while. He wondered if she would get over this and let him back into her life. After all, he loved her. He had proved it once before when he had come back to her. But he knew the presence of the other would keep that from being a reality. She loved the other she said. And he loved her, loved her enough to let her live her life.

With a heavy sadness in his heart, he looked back at the small puppy that was his only family now and turned crying to the bathroom where he went to take a shower.

Larry walked through the door and the first thing he noticed was that the dogs’ water bowl was empty again. His dog Tubby had collapsed with his head hanging over the empty water bowl. Larry picked up the panting dog and placed it gently on the sofa, his tears fell on the dog as it nuzzled into his chest. Larry came back to Ireland to care for his dying father and all he had now was a dying dog and a rotten cottage.

His fathers’ last words were “Walk the dog and don’t let those bastards get you,” and that was it. He would have preferred a “thank you,” for coming home and as he watched his dog struggle to breathe he realised that he was losing the last thing that reminded him of his father. The dog began to pant again and Larry ran to the kitchen to get more water, the tap grinded as nothing emptied from it.

Larry remembered the well had run dry; he picked his coat, torch, and bucket before walking towards the whining dog.

“Don’t worry lad, I won’t be long.”

He walked outside to the waiting moon and before locking the door, a howl broke out of the silence and he remembered his fathers’ theatrical stories about THEM.

“Their larger than the biggest of men but if you stay in the house at night, you’ll be fine,” his father would say as the log fire lit his wild eyes.

Larry heard them at night prowling around his land, he never saw them but just assumed they were wild dogs let free from a farmer. He grabbed the spade and walked to a well which lay near a deserted cottage, and apart from his own cottage the valley had many of these shacks lay ruined. Occasionally Larry heard sniggers rising from the heather but he began to relax as he neared the old well.

Something large dived at him from behind a boulder and dropping the bucket Larry struck it with the spade, another being attacked from behind but Larry hit it with his torch. Four creatures circled Larry as two lay whining beside him. He studied them for a moment as they planned their attack, they were more like large wolves than dogs but there was something about their eyes. Larry hovered over one of the fallen creatures with his spade shouting at the other wolf-like creatures.

“If any of you come nearer, ill kill it.”

Their moon-filled eyes moved away from Larry as his one hand tugged at the bucket from the well. He quickly filled his own bucket and watched as one of the braver beasts approached him. Larry struck it watching it knock down one of its comrades, he ran towards the only light in the dark valley. Larry threw the spade and torch towards the nearest growl, a response of a whimper echoed around him. Water splashed on his trousers but as long as he had enough for the dog he didn’t care.

Grabbing the keys from his pocket he yanked the door open crashing into his house, his arms hugged the bucket of water as some sacred possession, his feet slammed the door shut on the beasts outside. Their screams and howls began to fade up the hill as his own heart beat thumped through his chest and it was only now that he noticed his fathers’ holy statues that hung around the house.
His father wasn’t religious, he even told the priest to “feck off,” when he was offered the last rites. Larry picked himself up and walked towards Tubby with the replenish water bowl, the frail dog wagged his tail and tried to stand but couldn’t. Larry held the bowl next to the dog; Tubby eagerly drank the water and although he had only two bowls left Larry knew that by morning his companion would be with his father, the dogs’ true master. Larry fell onto the sofa cradling the dog in his arms, one hand took a photograph of his smiling father and then he heard his fathers dying words.

“Don’t let the bastards get you.”

Larry placed the photograph beside him and spoke to the dog that began to breathe faintly.

“Why didn’t he just tell me they were werewolves?”

The wind snaked along the house, whistling on the eves and humming along the door. Scattered leaves danced in a solitary minuet along the drive, content to dance and be unseen.
A figure perched on a limb far above the world, gazing down with poignant love on the landscape below. For many years now, he had lived here, and, at one time, had thought he would remain here forever, oblivious to the sands of time.
Swinging his feet over the edge of the limb, dangling them over the deadly precipice, the young man slid off of the limb. Rough bark scratched at his legs through the faded denim of his jeans. The wind sighed through his hair as he became airborne, caught in the gentle embrace of freefall, subject to the cruel mercies of gravity. In the moments of bliss, those few moments where he was neither of the world nor in the world, he felt safe.
Pulling his feet beneath him and bending his knees, the young man prepared for the jarring strike of reality on his body. The ground, which had seemed so far, was rushing up to meet his frail human body. Striking the ground with his toes first, he rocked forward, shifting the pressure of the fall onto the cartilage in his knees. Extending his hands, he slowed then stopped his fall by catching himself on the heel of his hands.
Turning from the beauty of the tree and the fertile ground beneath that place of solitude, the young man began to climb a hill, placing one foot above the other on the slope. Rising slowly, the young man glimpsed his home, a modest home, not given to extravagance. Simple beige siding and light brown shutters added a quaint feel to the small home. The yard, once strewn with trucks and mud pies, now lay calm and neat. The clipped grass blew slightly in the warm breeze that flirted with the young man’s hair.
“Ben-oni! Where are you? We are leaving soon!” a jovial voice called from within the house. Follow the call, a young man of the same stature emerged from the front door, carrying a duffel bag and a cardboard box. The other young man set his burden down by a growing pile beside a well-loved car and straightened slowly. Blue-eyes met identical blue-eyes with warmth and understanding, passing message from countenance to identical countenance.
“Don’t wanna leave Dad behind do you, Benjamin?” Ben-oni Judah said quietly, speaking the thought that he and his twin brother, Benjamin Reuben, both had.

Larry walked through the door and the first thing he noticed was that the dog’s water bowl was empty again. He let a little chew drip into his Styrofoam spit cup and scratched his head underneath his number 3 ‘Intimidator’ cap. Water missing from a dog bowl wasn’t so strange in a house with two dogs. What confused the hell out of him was how it got empty so fast when he just filled the damn thing no more than a minute ago.
A lot of strange things had been happening around the house ever since that explosion in the piss-pond the night before. It was a half-hour past Jay Leno, and Larry and his two pit bulls had just snuggled up for the night, when a bright flash lit up the bedroom and made such a whump that it scared the bejesus out of Larry and both his babies. Dale and Junior pissed all over Larry’s favorite bedspread, took off running, and he hadn’t seen neither since.
Larry grabbed his shotgun and went outside to check the pond. There was a bright glow at the bottom that changed from yellow to orange to red and finally dimmed out. Whatever it was, he’d check it out the next day, when he could see further than the front of his nose.
He was about to go outside to check the pond this morning, when he noticed the water bowl. Well, he wasn’t going to worry about it. Nothing he could do about it but fill it again, which he did.
He walked outside to the pond and looked as hard as he could in the middle of it, but only saw a dark blob at the bottom. If he remembered, he’d sell that damn sow of his, and get one of them doc’s to taser his eyeballs so he can see better.
He spit some chew half on the ground and half on the toe of his Dingo’s, and glanced at Mary before heading inside. Mary was his one cow, but she was a prodigious producer of milk. He stood for a good half minute watching Mary.
“Who the hell painted my cow white like that?” he said out loud, and ran as fast as he could in those damn tight boots, to Mary.
“Jesum Crow!” he exclaimed, as he stood over his prodigious cow. Mary hadn’t been painted white; she’d been completely stripped of her flesh, organs and all. The bones were white and chalky, like they’d been bleached in the sun for a year. Larry spit and wiped a tear from his eye.
“A damn good prodigious cow, dead an gone. Damn shame to kill Mary like that. Damn shame.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a swarm of mosquitoes heading directly for him so he ran hard for the house, but the swarm was too quick for the lanky farmer. The mosquitoes knocked Larry to the ground with amazing power and flipped him on his back. The swarm hovered for a moment over Larry and then pounced on him just like Dale does when he jumps a rabbit. Larry screamed as the mosquitoes cut deep in his flesh. It was as if every pore in his body bled at once. One of the critters landed on the lens of Larry’s eyeglasses and was magnified seven times its size in the glass. Larry’s eyes grew wide as he stared in shock at the tiny black creature with its sharp metal teeth protruding from a helmet attached to a tiny spacesuit.

Larry walked through the door; and the first thing he noticed was that the dogs’ water dish was empty again. There was nothing unusual about that. For the last thirteen years arriving home from work, the water bowl was always empty.

For the last thirteen years it had been the same routine. Every morning at five thirty, Max would jump up in Larry’s bed with the leash in his mouth, nudging him with his cold nose and awakening him from his golden slumbers. The alarm clock that sat next to his bed served only the time; it had been years since the alarm was actually needed, ol Max made sure of that. But whether it was raining, cold or just plain nasty out… he didn’t mind, he enjoyed the walks as much as Max did. He was a faithful dog and he loved him more than life itself. Max was his best friend, and Max was his only friend.

With the loss of his wife and daughter in a tragic accident fifteen years ago; Larry delved into a secluded world that consisted only of memories, pictures, booze and self pity. Even with his job at the factory he hadn’t any friends. For two years after the tragedy he was a lonely figure in a lonely world, until the day he decided to change all that by bringing Max home from the pound, and after a few hard months of house breaking, life was fun again. Max was full of energy, and the new dog even helped pull him out of his state of latheriest. Since he never had the desire to remarry or even date again, he devoted all of his spare time into training Max and making him the most obedient dog he had ever owned, and by doing so, he quickly developed an emotional bond he hadn’t felt in quite some time, and with his new friend in his life, he was finally happy again.

Every morning at five thirty he would rise out of bed; brush his teeth and have a bite to eat, with max slopping up his own food right along side him by his feet. It was then after they ate that he took Max for his three mile walk/run journey through the neighborhood. Upon returning home he would get Max a bowl of fresh water as he showered and got ready for work, and everyday he would return home to an empty bowl of water and a dog eager and ready to play, with he himself being more then willing to oblige. On weekends, he would take Max to the country or sometimes even to the beach if the weather was sunny, and with a Frisbee have the time of his life. He would also love to take Max down by the river and have the children take their turns petting and throwing a ball that he would always return with. Max was the best dog that anyone could imagine. The bond he and the dog developed was uncanny, and almost odd in nature. It was if the dog was becoming part of him, and he part of the dog.

Max was a pure bread golden retriever with a coat of brown silk and a spotted tongue, but as he grew in age he developed gray markings around the eyes and mouth. But even in his old age he would always wobble to the front door and greet his master arriving back home, and even on some occasions have the leash in his mouth. It was out of routine for him, but the dog was becoming senile, and Larry knew that he would soon lose his little buddy. For thirteen years he had the same routine, and he knew that it would be hard to break some habits when the time came to say goodbye to him.

When Larry walked through the door, the first thing he noticed was that the dogs’ water dish was empty again. There was nothing unusual about that. Everyday he would fill Max’s bowl up before he left for work; it had even become a habit. But this day it was quite unusual that the water dish he filled up that very morning by sheer habit was now empty... because,

He had buried his faithful friend Max...two days earlier.

Larry walked through the door and the first thing he noticed was that the dog's water bowl was empty again. The dank smell of the old basement mixed with feces and urine filled his nose as he stood at the top of the ten steps and stared down at the bowl.

“Thirsty *****,” he muttered.

The water bowl sat at the bottom the staircase.

Flashlight in hand, Larry casually strode, barefoot, down the steps to the bowl. Once on the basement floor, he knelt down to pick it up.

“You’re drinking an awful lot,” he said aloud. He could hear the dog chain rattling in the far corner. He knew it had to be because of the lack of food he was giving her. That’s good though. The more hungry she was, the better she would fight… at least that was his logic.

She had reluctantly, yet ferociously, won her first three fights and now he was down to feeding her just four times a week. Her next fight was tomorrow night and he was getting a little worried about how much she was drinking. The last thing he needed was for his ***** to cramp up right in the middle of a good and bloody fight. He could lose a ******* bundle and that bothered him. He considered feeding her tonight. Then, again, maybe after the fight. Save it as a reward.

She moaned. A pitiful, painful, lonely kind of moan.

He made his way along the basement with his flashlight, now flickering due to its weak batteries.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked in that high-pitched mushy, shitty tone that most people use when they’re talking to a baby. He approached her corner, the dim beam of his light threatening to leave him. On the way, he came to his work bench against the wall and groped for some new batteries.

In the corner he could hear the chain. She was moving a little.

Larry found his new batteries, cussing himself for not replacing them before he came down. He turned on the fresh beam and turned towards the bitch’s corner.

He took two steps and realized his feet had splashed in something wet. He looked down seeing the small puddle he was standing in. His beam of light traced its source to an overturned water bucket a few feet away then quickly shot across the room to the corner. She was gone. Only the tattered blanket, dirty pillow and dog chain were there. The chain led away from the bed to right.

Larry’s light streaked along to the wall and quickly found its target. She was there, huddled against the wall.
Breathing heavily, chest heaving, her dirty, unkempt skin stretched across her ribs like a thin sheet of rubber. He then saw her eyes. From under the stringy mass of disheveled hair, those eyes had a different look to them than usual. It was the same devilish look he had seen when she tore each of her opponents to pieces in the fight pit. A demonic gaze of sorts.

In her left hand was the chain, no longer around her neck. In her right hand she held one end of an extension cord up to a power outlet on the wall.

A cold chill crawled up Larry’s spine.

Larry looked down. Next to his left foot in the puddle, barely noticeable, was the severed end of the extension cord, its exposed wires attached to the lid of a coffee can.

It only took a second for Larry to figure out were all of the water had been going. And that was one second too long.

A sharp jolt flew through his body, gluing him to the floor. The numbing sensation filled every fiber of his being. His vision went white. His flashlight hand shuttered as his body tensed. Every muscle ached. His heart felt as if it were going to explode.

Then it was over. He collapsed to the floor of the basement and she was on top of him instantly; unashamed of her nakedness as her thumbs sunk into his eye sockets with a sucking, wet feeling and he squirmed and groaned weakly, unable to respond; still stunned by the jolt of electricity but no doubt feeling the pain she inflicted upon him. His flesh ripped in ribbons as she tore at his face like the animal her had turned her into.

She opened a geyser when her nails dug into his soft, vulnerable throat tissue. Blood rushed out in strong gushes as his heart pounded in his chest.

Larry made a ghastly gurgling noise as she ripped his neck apart; possibly his final attempt to holler out in pain.

Covered in blood, dirt, feces and urine, delirium had taken her over to the point that she couldn’t even remember her own name anymore.

How long had she been his *****? Where was she? Where did it all begin? Faint images of another life haunted her brain. A college. A party. Drinks with a handsome guy from out of town.

This handsome guy! This ************! He wasn’t so handsome anymore. She half-heartedly laughed at the thought.

She approached the stairs, her nude body breaking out in goose bumps from the cool breeze that flowed from up above. Slowly, she made her way up towards the door. The blinding light of freedom made her eyes water and she rubbed them as something moved beyond her field of blurred vision.

A sharp pain in her face.

The smack of skin on skin.

She was falling back down the stairs. Hitting the bottom hard.

A figure appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs.

Her blood was still boiling. Adrenaline rushing through her veins. She shot up the stairs; three at a time. She was too fast for whoever was at the top. In two moves she was at the door as it was closing. She bolted through it like a cannon ball and her fight for freedom began all over again.

***PUBLISHED UNDER HORROR AS "The House of Grimm Presents: THE *****"***