Scary Stories

A Quiet Friday Evening

It was around half past twelve at night when I stumbled home. I hadn't really drunk, although most people of my age would have. My friends and I aren't really drinkers, which I kind of like. We prefer to do board gaming, whilst listening to some tunes of some independent artists we had just discovered that week. This was such a week.

The night was as silent as any other this Summer. Ordinarily no car and no drunkies were to be heard in this rural area at night, but this particular season the nights were particularly still. Normally there was at least a small wind coursing through the streets, rustling leaves on the way. But it looked like even this 'quiet' sound was absent. The only thing I heard were my footsteps and my rhythmic breathing.

The first thing I noticed about my house was that the lights were on. This was not odd. My dad never really slept with the lights out. The odd thing was that the lights were on in our garden shed, where the tools and bikes were. I bet dad forgot to put it out after he got himself a bottle of wine. He was a drinker, and he particularly drank a lot the last few months.

Before I tell you what happened when I stepped into our house, I must tell you some things about dad. He had always worked as a clerk in some hardware shop in the city. Ever since I could remember, he'd been one sad man. Constantly depressed, constantly drunkenly telling me how much he loved me, and whenever I caught him alone, he was crying. This had of course increased after mom died in a car accident, and ,a year after, the disappearance of Eddy, my little brother. We were the only two left from a family of four, he constantly helped me remember. I didn't think he had any hopes up that Eddy would ever return, and I hated him for that. Every time either my mother of Eddy was being brought up by either of us, he would tell me how much he loved me, that he would do anything to protect me. That he would never ever leave my side. It was drunken speech. I never took him seriously.
But above all, there was one emotion I felt strongest when thinking about dad. Only one thought that was constantly stopping me from hitting him, kicking him, screaming against him: pity.

When I entered the house, I noticed dad wasn't in the living room. The TV was on and the sheets were on the floor, joined by a couple of fallen bottles of beer. I thought he was in the bathroom for a piss, but there was no response when I called for him.

Something wasn't quite right, I thought. The thought that he might have died occurred very quickly. I was constantly worried about that man, so this wasn't uncommon.

I thought to investigate the shed, and put the lights out over there, so I could hit the bed. When I opened the barn door, it did not take me so long to see what happened: just beside a web of bicycles, just above a fallen stool, I saw dad hanging. He was perfectly still, like an delicate twig, not a breeze of wind to break it. His face was pointed upwards, looking at the ceiling. I wasn't surprised, weirdly enough, to see him dead. I had always been prepared for that moment. The eerie thing that made my heart sink most was that he was so still. So stiff. It didn't look like dad in the slightest. It was like an inanimate copy of dad. A doll. It didn't look human at all. But it was dad. I knew he was. He must have been hanging from that rope hours before. That poor fucking man.

I did not move for a couple of moments. I did not know what to do. I should call the police, I thought. Let this nightmare be over with. Just get him out of the shed. Just fucking bury that old sod, finally his life of melancholy and despair had come to an end. He deserved it.

It might seem funny that I felt almost this relaxed, and somehow I felt guilty for it. But as I said before, I had always foreseen this moment of happening. The sight might have been eerie at the moment. I did feel sad and sorry and shocked in a horror kind of way, but I think my pragmatism made me feel kind of relieved.

Before I turned around to walk to the house, my eye caught something on a small table right next to the door. It was an envelope, reading:

"Andy,"