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When The Sun Goes Down

The Nicest Nana in the World

By Kei TatePublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 9 min read
1
When The Sun Goes Down
Photo by Kyle Richner on Unsplash

I had to pee.

Grandma had told me to go earlier.

But I didn’t want to stop shooting people.

My thumbs moved swiftly over the Playstation controller I held in between my hands.

Grandma had stood tsking at me in the doorway of the old farm house. She was a very tiny and thin looking woman. She walked around sometimes like a skeleton wearing a loose suit of skin. Her bones moved first and her skin moved second but her eyes were always kind and she was always giving me a smile. Even as she tsked at me from the doorway.

“Jeremy,” She said her voice was small and trembly the way really old ladies' voices are sometimes, “Put that down, go potty, and go to bed. You know those violent games are not good for you. They rot your brain.” She pulled her housecoat around her and her hands shook as she zipped up the sweater that she had on over top of that. Sometimes I called my grandma the Layer Lady. She always wore so many layers of clothes it seemed like she was drowning in them. But I only called her that in my head. Outwardly she was Nana, and probably the nicest nana a kid could have, and i’m not just saying that cause she’s mine.

I groaned as my guy got shot in the chest. My player went down and I mashed the B button so hard my thumb started to hurt. “None of my stupid teammates are going to revive me,” I muttered angrily, ignoring my sweet little Nana in the doorway.

Nana had sighed, walked over on silent feet, and dropped a kiss on my forehead. Then she ruffled my hair. I hated when she ruffled my hair. It made me feel like a little kid, and I was a whole 5 year old now! I grumbled something that sounded like “leave me alone” but grandma was hard of hearing and to her it probably sounded like gibberish.

I wish I had just listened. My team lost anyway.

And I really had to pee.

My leg shook under my Captain America blanket as i tried to ignore the really full feeling in my belly. It felt like a water balloon that was so full, if you took even a step it’d burst all over your hands. Except, instead of being pelted at the face of my enemies, it was in my belly.

I glanced around my room. The closet door was closed. But my night light was turned off. Grandpa must have turned it off while I was asleep. Where grandma was all soft kisses and chocolate chip cookies before bed time, Grandpa was a bit more no nonsense. He was still nice except, instead of cookies Grandpa let me work on his old cars out in the garage and let me shoot guns out in the fields, as long as Nana didn’t find out.

But unfortunately for me Grandpa also always lurked about the house in the morning, in the middle of the day, and late at night murmuring about ‘lectricity and his thermostat. He was always turning off the lights, and turning off the heat.

I shivered in my bedroom.

I really had to pee.

When I was seconds from peeing my pajama bottoms I threw off the covers and hopped to the floor. I did a little jig next to my bed as I grabbed the flashlight from the night stand. I dropped quickly to the floor and flashed the light under. No boogie men in sight.

Relieved I padded across the floor. My flashlight held in front of me like excalibur clutched in the hand of the mighty King Arthur, that was the story Nana had read to me tonight. I grabbed the stuffed blue dragon off of my bed just in case. In the story King Arthur also had a shield.

I turned the handle and slowly pulled open my door.

“Nana? Grandpa?” My voice echoed down the dark hall. That thing that feels like monsters breathing against my neck and ghosts hiding in the shadows crept like slimy tentacles up my spine. Nana calls it “the heebie jeebies.” I took a deep breath and remembered that I was King Arthur, and monsters were not real..at least that’s what Nana says.

I crept down the hall skewering through the shadows with my blade of light. “Nana? Grandpa?” I stopped at the door to their room and slowly pushed it open. Their bedroom was halfway between mine and the bathroom, but the room was empty.

The tree outside their window was blowing wildly in the wind and it scratched against the panes of glass. I was trembling now.

I really really had to pee.

I closed the door to their room and bolted down the hall, my blade of light bounced around the walls as it quivered in my shaking hand.

I opened the door to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and shut it firmly behind me. My breath was escaping almost too fast for me to suck it in now and my heart was knocking against my chest like it wanted to escape too.

********

I felt a lot lighter as I stood washing my hands at the bathroom sink. In the bright light of the bathroom it was easy to forget the monsters creeping along the walls outside the doors. I finished quickly and dried my hands.

“Nana? Grandpa?” I called out as I opened the door again. There was no answer. I debated going back to my room, the safest option, but I couldn’t ignore that pull that Nana said meant I “wasn’t minding my own business.”

Not minding my own business I crept down the staircase shining my sword into the living room. “Nana?” My voice seemed to travel a few feet in front of me before being sucked away by the oppressive stillness that seemed to fill the whole house. I was starting to get worried now.

“Grandpa?” He wasn’t in the kitchen.

I stood at the top of the stairs to the basement and peered down into the inky darkness that seemed to reach out towards me from below. I slammed the door shut. “Not down there,” I whispered to myself. I laughed but it wasn’t from anything funny. It was the kind of laugh you get when your palms start to sweat and you feel ants in your pants.

I stood in the living room disappointed. They wouldn’t leave me in a house all alone would they? I was about to give up and head back to my room when I spotted it.

The light on in the old barn.

I narrowed my eyes. Grandpa always said nobody could ever go in there! “It would fall right down on your head.” He had told me, his eyes serious in that way that said he meant business.

But here I was staring right out at proof that he had lied.

I was going to give grandpa a talking to, I thought as I threw open the front door and stepped out onto the porch. I hopped down the steps and raced across the field. The cold, dead, winter grass stabbed into the soles of my feet as I hurried along with excalibur pointed out before me. The wind bit at my cheeks and nibbled at my nose and ears. I reached up and rubbed warmth back into them.

I was closer now and so I slowed. The door was ajar and I could hear voices inside, whispering. The voices sounded harsh like they were arguing. I could feel the warmth from the light of the barn now and so I stopped, turned off my sword, and peered around the door.

There was Nana. Her back was to me. She stood stooped over but her shadow was large and danced along the walls of the gutted out barn. “I’m telling you it’s not ready Charles,” She snapped at him. I stifled a giggle behind my hand. It was always so funny when Grandpa got in trouble with Nana.

Grandpa stood next to Nana. I could only see his profile but he was looking down his long nose to something on the floor before them that I couldn’t see. His shoulders were rising slowly and his chest puffed out before deflating. He was sniffing something. “Yes Miriam but soon.”

It was really warm in the barn and I was starting to sweat despite only being in my Spongebob pajamas. What were they staring at so intently? Silently I edged around the crack of the door and hid myself behind one of the rafters. From my new position I could see a fire and what looked like a large cooking pot.

Nana had only given me broccoli casserole for dinner, and I hated broccoli casserole. I clenched my fist. So this is what they did at night? They snuck out to the secret barn and had yummy food without me! Some grandparents they are.

I was about to step around the beam and give them a piece of my mind when I stopped. Grandpa was looking up at the ceiling and sniffing deeply. I sniffed curiously and my nose was assaulted by a smell I hadn’t paid attention to before. It smelled like barbecue but not quite.

Oh it was just getting worse. I pictured my grandparents having a feast of ribs while I lay in the cold dark house all alone. Pressure built behind my eyes and I sniffled. It sucked sometimes being a kid and missing out on all the fun.

I stepped back into my hiding spot determined now to find more evidence of their transgressions. Grandpa was still staring up and I followed his line of sight up and up and I fell back at what I saw. Rotating from the ceiling by the thick rope tied around their waists were Alice and Alex the twins from far down the road.

Earlier that day they had driven their bikes all through Nana’s tomatoes and she had chased them with a broom. She had stood their huffing with a gleam in her eye.

“I’m going to get those brats.” Nana had said and then she’d noticed I was there and smiled at me. “Would you like a cookie?” She’d asked and I had shrugged, the kids forgotten, and followed her inside.

And now they hung in our barn!

Their eyes were closed and a sprig of some sort of plant was stuffed in their mouths. “Rosemary was such a good choice Charles.” Nana said her voice rumbled in her chest like she was purring.

The sight was too horrifying. I pinched myself. Maybe I’d fallen asleep on the toilet. But the image didn’t disappear and I wasn’t safely back home tucked on the potty. I clambered backwards frantically. My heart was a baby rabbit trapped and trying to flee home.

I scrambled along the floor, my shield and sword fallen forgotten behind me.

I froze as a loud clatter sounded next to me.

My breath stilled. Slowly I turned with wide eyes to the bucket handle trapped around my foot.

Terror caught my breath and ripped it from my chest. Dread clenched at my shoulders and I turned slowly towards my Grandpa and Nana.

They were staring at me. Their eyes were sharp, the dark part was dilated into little pin pricks, and the colored part seemed unnaturally bright.

Nana smiled at me like she always does but there was something different moving behind her eyes.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of dentures.

“Look Charles! Our dessert has arrived!” She cried as she popped them into her mouth.

And then…

Her whole body seemed to coil like a snake and she leapt towards me, bones first and skin second.

Horror
1

About the Creator

Kei Tate

Just a girl aspiring to be a writer while studying to be a nurse.

Fun Fact About Me: I'm currently writing a debut novel on my phone. I sold my computer to take my kids to Disney World!

Brightside: I'm a faster texter now!

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