Title:           Horrors! 4 - After the Hook
Author:          Mr_Sympathy
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/Uy29RKLV
First Edit:      Tuesday 17th of February 2015 01:07:22 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Tuesday 17th of February 2015 01:07:22 AM CDT

After the Hook
by David Annandale
 
We all know the story. The secluded spot. The car. The necking couple. The report on the radio of the hook-handed killer. The terrified girl. The annoyed boy. The peel-out. The return home. The boy's faint. The hook dangling from the car door.
Yes, yes, we know this. But what next? What happens after?
Well, what do you think? The girl runs into the house and calls the police. They tell her to stay calm, that they'll be right over. The words of reassurance, of the end of a story, of happily ever after.
But not in this kind of story. In this realm, those words are the lie of an Indian summer, of false dawn, and of the eye of the storm. In this story, the girl, who thinks the tale is done, who cannot read the shadows around her, goes outside again to try to wake up her boyfriend. She realizes, one beat behind and far too late, what sort of story this is when she sees that her boyfriend is gone. And so, of course, is the hook.
She stands frozen for the space of one deep, shuddering breath. Then she looks back at the house, at the door which she has left open. She runs inside, a moan rising from a core of solid fear. She slams the door and locks it.
But her back was turned for a few moments outside. She knows this, and knows also that a few moments is all it would take. So now the house is hostile. The only lights she turned on earlier were in the entrance and the living room. Everywhere else is dark: the house as jungle, where be tigers. Shadows lick and snarl at the edge of light, flexing their muscles and doing what they do best: concealing. Even the objects she can see are enemies now, because they are keeping secrets. They know, but aren't telling. Outside isn't an option, because that is the great river of shadows, of which the house is only a tributary.
She crouches down, huddling against the front door. She will stay here, in the light, by the exit, until the police arrive. She will not step into the shadow, or search the house, or check the basement. She will not follow this storyline anymore. She gets off now.
Only it doesn't work that way. She hasn't ended the story. She had merely stopped reading. This changes nothing. The last few pages will always be there, waiting. Nothing will happen until she moves. The police will never arrive. They can't until it is too late. The shadows are patient, as is their secret. They have all the time in the world. The narrative has been frozen, but the ending will not change.
And the girl? At some level she knows all this. But she doesn't want to die, and really, who can blame her? Not that what she wants matters. The story wills out. So she crouches, becoming cramped and sore, throat torn by the jagged edges of her sobs. She is trapped on the steel point of a moment in time, wriggling. Skewered.
Hooked.