Back in his chair, fresh wood upon the fire and burning bright at his side. It was beneath the chair now, out of sight but impossible to forget, conscienceless and primed. He sipped scotch, toasted and lit a cigar. He expelled smoke into the living room, a forbidden act. It no longer mattered. Time drew short.
For a moment he remembered his reaction when he had detected the sound in the hearth, seen the cloud of ash rising in the room. It had been the initial flapping that had sent his pulse racing, the sheer volume of it paired with his natural response to knowing that something that shouldn't be in the room, was. That had been the trigger, but even then there had been something more, hadn't there?
No.
Yes. Something about the cloud of dust that had begun to waft upward from the fireplace.
Your imagination.
It had only been for a fraction of a second. But in that fraction, it was true he had seen, or perhaps imagined he had seen.
Impossible.
A shape in the cloud. Some previously invisible shape outlined by the passage of the dust like a charcoal rubbing upon an eroded old headstone.
Your nerves!
Just for a moment.
A fleeting glance of a figure that might have been a child.
YOU ARE READING
Song, Unheard
Horror***Featured in Fright Profile*** Life has been different lately. She feels a growing sense of dread and wishes for things to be normal. His drinking is out of control. The child seems frightened and withdrawn. And then come the birds. Strange b...
