Scotty's Revenge

Paul Stewart proposed a challenge, the details of which are here:

I then wrote an entry for the challenge and you can read it here:

This story is a continuation of it, seeking to balance things out after Bob's seeming heartlessness.

***

Bob settled down for a night on the sofa. He had his whisky on the rocks in a tumbler, the remote for the TV resting on the arm and his cat, Bobby, snuggled up to his thigh, purring contentedly. He was in the mood for some comedy and was flicking through the channels when he heard something at the window.

It sounded like skittering raindrops, a squall blown by wind against glass. His curtains were closed as it was now dark so he could not see that it was a clear night, moon brilliant.

He ignored it and took a sip of his whisky, flicking channels until finally choosing a film. The cat continued to sleep by his side and he continued to ignore the pelleting of his lounge window. He was content, warm and relaxed with nothing disturbing his night. Life was good.

*

He was woken by glass smashing and his tumbler appropriately tumbled its contents and itself to the floor, where the remote joined it, clattering, thrown by his jerking elbow. The cat had disappeared and he felt cold, his skin just starting to cool from sleeping uncovered in a room whose warmth was dissipating, the heating having gone off on the timer. The curtains were moving and he could see shards glittering as well as small pieces of grit and one large cone shaped rock, like a stalagtite or -mite, one of those found in a cave.

He went over to it and picked it up, watching where he placed his slippered feet. It was a weird thing to find on his floor but Bob was not one easily troubled. He opened the curtains and looked out. No rain.

He looked back to the floor. Glass from the window but also little pieces of grit and pebbles. He bent to look at them and so, was easy to stun from behind by the unseen figure. Bob fell to the floor and the figure dragged his prostrate form across the splintered fragments and gravel to the garage.

*

There were no lights on in the garage. Bob woke to something tickling his face. He was face up on a cold floor. He tried to raise his head but something was restricting his neck and it felt thin and tight, threatening to cut into his skin if he moved too much.

There was a smell of damp earth and decay but also drains, drains that needed rodding. He disliked the smell. It was rotten.

Whatever was on his face had weight and with every breath he took, it moved its fibres, their light touch glancing across his nose. He needed to move it as it was irritating but when he went to move his arms, he couldn't. He was restrained completely, unable to move at all.

Bob was not one to panic but he could feel his heart rate increasing exponentially as he realised that he was pretty much helpless and for a man who enjoyed control this was the worst scenario that he could find himself in.

What to do? He shifted his head and winced as the band, like a cheese wire, sliced into the sinews of his neck. He needed to get this thing, whatever it was off his face! He needed to see! To assess!

Despite the pain and the wetness of the blood that his movement had produced, he shifted the furry object and it fell to the side, away from his face. It was a dead weight as it landed with a small thump. He stared straight ahead, his eyes adjusting and while there were no lights switched on, he thought he was in his garage. So, someone had brought him in here. He remembered the window, the strange cone-shaped rock and the thump and became aware of the throbbing on the back of his skull.

He needed to know who he was dealing with if he was to get out of there.

"Who are you?" he shouted out.

No answer.

"Who's there? What do you want?"

No answer, not even a rustle.

His eyes were adjusting more and more and he could see above him that something was positioned, suspended above his head. It looked enormous and heavy, like a boulder. It had protrusions all over it of varying lengths and he realised that it was a cave ceiling or an approximation of one with stalagtites hanging down. A drip hit his nose.

What supernatural shit was this? He was in his garage. He knew he was in his garage so how could there be a cave ceiling above him?

And then a voice spoke up.

"You left me to die."

Scott? Scotty? Bob's mind scrambled. No. It couldn't be Scotty.

A thin, wraith-like figure emerged to stand over Bob. He was skeletal in his features and his eyes bulged, like he'd starved to death. He resembled Scott but he was something different too, something otherworldly. He stank. Bob tried to manage his emotions - he was a cold bastard after all - but he struggled to hide his revulsion, surprise and disdain.

"You left me to die." The figure, Scott, repeated, without anger, just matter-of-factly.

Bob had never felt terror but he knew it. He went to speak, to protest, plead even, but was denied the chance as the cave ceiling suddenly plummeted to trap him and pierce him and his dead cat on his garage floor, crushing the life from him.

The skeletal figure stood and watched as Bob twitched under the weight placed on his supine form, squeezing out every last drop of life with the completion of its vengeance.

"You left me to die," it uttered one last time before leaving the way it had come.

*

When the neighbours reported that they had not seen Bob for weeks and that there were a lot of flies and an offensive smell coming from his garage, and when his employer had reported that Bob had not turned up for work, the police discovered Bob's decomposing body where it had been left by the figure.

There were no visible signs of foul play but the autopsy revealed that Bob had been broken, bones shattered multiple times as if he had fallen from a plane or just as unlikely, been crushed by something enormous like a landfall or a boulder. They also found the crushed bones of a small animal believed to be his cat.

It was classified as a suspicious death but with no real tangible cause.

***

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