Finally, amiright? It’s only been nine months.
There’s not much I can say about this one. I rushed it because I needed the weight off my neck, so I don’t think it turned out as well as it could have. And I’m not convinced I nailed the technical restriction. But it ended up going in an interesting direction, so I’m happy enough with it, I guess.
Here’s that much needed refresher of the restrictions:
Title: Never Leave Cooking Unattended
Premise: Man wakes up in the morning, everything seems as usual, opening the bedroom door reveals a staircase only with his house in ruins. The neighborhood is in ruins. He has no idea what has happened, when suddenly there is a rumbling sound in the distance, getting louder and louder…
Dialogue: “So I found the notebook, but it’s all gobbledygook! Why is this so important anyway?”
Technical: Write the story from the perspective of a third party following the main characters without being seen.
Never Leave Cooking Unattended
He slept in, as usual, and when he woke at first everything appeared normal. I had taken great pains to keep his room sanctified, considering what was going on elsewhere. The Boss had left the cooking on, you see, and the end result was not pleasant.
I was in my usual place, standing by the end of his bed. If he could see me, or conceptualise how I looked, he might have noticed that I wasn’t looking my usual pristine self. This room, this sanctum, had been under assault for half the night, and it was only by sheer force of will that I had kept it safe. One by one I had felt my co-workers failing in their duty, their wards obliterated and they sent back to Headquarters. But when it was my turn I had refused to break.
I do not break.
So anyway, it was almost noon by the time he woke and like I said, everything seemed normal. He pottered for a bit (he tended to potter immediately after waking, getting dressed and the like) before leaving his room. That’s when the shit hit the fan.
Most people don’t realise the power of one’s personal space. Houses have a special something, sure. They are sanctuaries for those that live there. Or rather homes, I should say. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a house. But your personal space within that home is so much more potent. Whether it’s your bedroom (most common, because where you sleep – and hence are most vulnerable – tends to intrinsically become your safe place), your kitchen, your man cave, every person has a personal space that they inhabit that reflects their very soul. Because of that, for that person, it becomes the safest place in the world.
For my guy it was his bedroom. He also used it as an office, so he spent a lot of time there. The bottom line being I had a serious amount of help during the night, which was the only reason I was able to keep him safe.
Not so much the rest of the house. I hadn’t seen it myself, and I must admit it was quite a shock, even for me. The bedroom may have been untouched, but let me just say it appeared in no small part due to luck. It was on the second floor, and aside from the staircase and a few supporting pillars everything else holding it up was gone. It was a miracle it hadn’t fallen. There are some things even I can’t protect against. Like physics.
The entire house had been demolished. A few remnants of the walls formed a grid containing the piles of rubble that it used to be. More broken timber and smashed drywall was piled high on top of the box that contained the bedroom, or strewn down the length of the stairs.
When it couldn’t get into the bedroom the thing must have lashed out in a rage. From what I could see it hadn’t been quite as destructive to the surrounding houses. They had been smashed beyond repair, sure, but I suspect that after it got to the juicy human or humans at the centre it moved on to the next.
As my juicy human surveyed the ruin about him in shock there was a rumbling in the distance. At first I thought nothing of it, nor did he. Thunderstorms were common in our area, and there were grey clouds as far as the eye could see.
Then it started getting louder. That’s when I realised we could not only hear it, we could feel it. The ground underfoot was vibrating to match the rumbling.
It wasn’t the inconsistent rumbling of thunder. Nor was it the rhythmic pounding of giant footsteps, as you might have been anticipating. This was more like… you know when a twenty-tonne truck rolls past, and the rumbling and the shaking underfoot slowly increase as it does, like someone is turning up the volume dial, but it’s a smooth, constant increase. This was like that. Something was rolling towards us. Only, it wasn’t a twenty-tonne truck.
My boy, showing the infinite wisdom of the human race, decided to start walking towards the rumbling. Not that there was anything I could do about it, but I figured I might as well fly up above the ruins around us to see if I could see anything. I could only fly so high – each of us is tethered to our ward so can only travel a certain distance away from them – but what I saw filled me with a mixture of horror and revulsion.
Revulsion at the thing itself, and horror, not for my own safety (since I, basically, can’t be hurt and can’t be killed), nor for my ward’s safety (since it’s my job to keep him safe and all but he’s a little shit and if he wants to walk into this then fine, he can walk into it and I’ll do my best to keep him alive but let’s be honest I was already pushing my limits inside his sanctuary and that’s like a nuclear bunker versus Hiroshima ground zero out here), but over the fact that my Boss could cook up something so grotesque and inordinately wrong, even by accident.
Then again, He came up with the tick, and He did that on purpose.
This thing that I was looking at was an amalgamation of nightmares. A giant, fleshy mass, forty feet tall and punctuated in dozens of places by gaping, toothy maws. It had no limbs, but dozens of lamprey-like tentacles tipped with circular, serrated mouths stretched out from it like feelers. It slid across the ground like a slug, leaving a thick trail of ichor behind it, and while I could see no eyes I got the distinct impression that it knew where it was going, perhaps through some kind of animal sense.
The fleshy creature was worryingly close, and my fool of a ward was heading straight for it. I rushed back to his side, but there was nothing I could do to stop him, and he walked out and directly into the path of the creature before he saw it.
When he did see it he froze in terror. Perfectly understandable reaction, really, although the one I’d have preferred would’ve been for him to turn and run, screaming optional. Standing still as he was, it meant I’d have to try something instead.
I flew directly into the path of the creature and pressed against it with my will, the idea being to stop it or at least slow it enough for my boy to come to his senses and flee. The creature responded by lashing out with one of its tentacles and biting one of my wings off.
Remember when I said I don’t feel pain? Apparently I was wrong. That fucking hurt.
No, hurt is an understatement. Imagine never having felt pain before. You’re probably human, which means you’ve been feeling pain since before your memory starts. Pain is an intrinsic aspect of human life.
Not so with me. I’d never felt pain before that moment, and let’s be honest, it was a pretty big one to start off with. The sensory overload shocked me flat. It was like a bug hitting a bug-zapper. I was down and out. Out for the count in a heartbeat.
A moment later I was automatically recalled to Headquarters as my ward was, um… devoured.
As I blinked back I was thrown into a room of frantic action and panicked movement. Everyone around me was shouting. Papers were being thrown around. Apparently they were still trying to come up with an answer to the flesh creature.
“How big is it now?”
A strong pair of hands grabbed me and spun me around and I was greeted by the face of the Night Manager (at Headquarters, the Night Manager manages the day and the Day Manager manages the night – don’t question it, just accept it).
“Do you mind?” I said, gesturing towards the ruin of my left wing.
“Join the club,” he said. I took another look around and realised that I wasn’t the only one to have had a nasty run-in with the creature. Injuries graced half those present, ranging from smaller bite marks to missing limbs.
“How big is it?” The Night Manager repeated with urgency.
“Forty feet,” I guessed.
“It’s growing exponentially.” The Manager dropped me and hurried off, repeating himself over and over. “It’s growing exponentially.”
I followed in his wake until I came out of the Entrance Hall and into the Main Chamber, where things were just as frantic. As I entered someone rushed past me, going up to the Day Manager (he’d been called in – things were very dire, then).
“Sir,” said the newcomer, producing a leather-bound book.
“What is it, Tobbs?” said the Day Manager.
“So I found the notebook, but it’s all gobbledygook! Why is this so important anyway?”
“That’s the Boss’s notebook,” I said, pushing my way towards them.
“So?” said Tobbs.
I snatched the book from him and wacked him in the forehead with it.
“It contains everything He used to create this abomination, imbecile,” I said. “Which should give us an indication of how to unmake it.”
“Hopefully before it’s too late,” the Night Manager said, joining us.
“It’s never too late,” the Day Manager said to him. “You, out of all of us, should know that.”
“Yes, but-”
“But there’s nothing here,” I said. I had opened the notebook to the last filled page and it was the last thing the Boss had created, before the flesh creature. I flipped through the rest of the book, but it was all blank. No skipped pages, no hidden ink. No nothing.
“That can’t be,” said the Day Manager. He took the notebook and checked it, but after a few minutes of rapid page flipping he nodded and licked his dry lips. “Nothing.”
“Why don’t you call the Boss?” I said.
“He’s in his room,” the Night Manager said. “You know the rules.”
“I’d call this an emergency. You need to get Him.”
The Night Manager looked at me like I’d spawned a second head.
“Look at what’s going on down there,” I said, pointing at the floor.
“But the rules-”
The Night Manager fell silent. In fact, the entire room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop as every eye turned to the long, curved staircase at the side of the room.
They say ‘speak of the devil and he shall appear’. Well, sometimes it works on the other one, too.
The Boss, wearing a silver-sheened robe, dishevelled and groggy, was making his way down the stairs. He stopped half-a-dozen from the bottom and turned his gaze upon the crowd.
WHAT IS WITH THE RACKET? He said, his voice the bastard lovechild of a thunderclap and a razor blade. I ONLY SLEEP ONE DAY IN SEVEN. CAN’T I HAVE FIVE MINUTES OF PEACE?
“I’m sorry, Boss,” said the Day Manager, approaching the stairs. “There’s a bit of an issue down below.”
WHO SCREWED UP THIS TIME? the Boss sighed. He noticed the notebook in the Day Manager’s hands and grinned sheepishly. OH. IT WAS ME, WASN’T IT?
The Day Manager nodded. “Afraid so, sir.”
The Boss glanced past the Day Manager, saw me, and frowned. For my part, His eyes pinned me in place. My legs turned to jelly. Not just jelly – jelly that had been left out for so long it had turned stale, and hardened into concrete. Does jelly go stale? Regardless, my legs turned to concrete jelly. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to.
The Boss descended the last few steps and walked towards me, the crowd passing in front of Him like you know who and that sea. He reached me and lay His hand on my shoulder. I felt a tingly burning sensation in my back, like when you have cold hands and feet and you step into a hot shower. A moment later my left wing was completely regenerated and I was whole again.
“Thank you, Boss,” I said.
He nodded and bent forward, reaching His hand through the floor. A moment later He straightened back up, now holding the flesh creature between His thumb and index finger. It was no bigger than an ant.
The Boss tutted and crushed it with His fingernail, like you would a tick.
SORRY ABOUT THAT, He said, to the room at large. WELL, BACK TO WORK. NEW ASSIGNMENTS, DAMAGE CONTROL, ET CETERA ET CETERA. He looked at the Day and Night Managers. YOU TWO TAKE CARE OF IT, WOULD YOU?
“Yes, Boss,” the Day Manager said.
“Of course, Boss,” the Night Manager said.
GOOD BOYS.
The Boss put His arm around my shoulders and led me away from the hubbub.
A DAMN SHAME, he said. He lifted His finger, with the crushed remains of the flesh creature still on the tip. THAT, MY BOY, IS THE DANGER OF LEAVING COOKING UNATTENDED.
I have to say, I couldn’t agree more.