When I walked into my living room and saw it, I thought I was daydreaming and it was just Butch, our German Shepherd laying on the sofa, but when I opened my eyes again and saw what it really was, I almost dropped my backpack and ran.
My mother was sitting on the opposite sofa, the one under the window, frozen, and a look of terror had swept across her face. Butch was nowhere to be seen. What lay on the sofa wasn't our loving dog... it was a huge, pale grey squid.
Its tentacles weren't long as one would would expect of a squid, but they were short and stumpy, as if it hadn't grown properly. Its head was massive and covered the whole of the mocha sofa.
The stench was horrible, but the protective slime that covered its smooth parchment skin was dripping onto the carpet. The smell reminded me of the fishmonger's at the precinct.
It had huge pebble shaped black eyes and a mouth that was almost human.
"It's eaten Butch," my mother muttered, and got up off the couch. From the kitchen, I could hear the radio, and Genesis were singing 'In Too Deep.' My brother was in there and he was looking for a knife, my mother told me. Her face looked pallid and beaded with sweat.
I stood there, unable to fathom this. Where the fuck had it come from? That was my first thought, but my mother looked equally as stunned. The squid moved and looked at me. It opened its huge human-like mouth and seemed to yawn, revealing teeth that were a mixture of razor sharp teeth and human molars. They were a brilliant white colour, as if the fucking thing kept to brushing and flossing twice daily.
"Jim!" I shouted for my brother, and the squid winced. He came to the kitchen door holding a serrated knife. The squid muttered something that sounded like "go for it, I dare you." It giggled and smiled. More slime plopped on the carpet. It stared at me again, looking right into my eyes and a cold shiver went down my spine. Gooseflesh rose on my arms. The skin on my balls seemed to crawl and tighten.
"Go on, human, cut me, and I'll see to it that you never stop screaming. You'll dream of me, human."
It uttered a high pitched warbling laugh and I grabbed the knife off my brother and slashed the side of the squid's face. A tentacle reacted and felt for the cut...gash. It was a gash. It screamed.
"No!" It hailed, and then it growled at me. "Fucking NO!"
It laughed again. Green ooze spilled from the open wound. It tried to get up, but its tentacles were to short to complete the manoeuvre. It turned and tried to roll itself off the sofa and onto the floor, but it seemed too heavy.
"Fucking CUNT!" It said, and chattered its teeth at me. Its tongue licked its lips."Come here while I taste you, you fucking human SCAB! Your father is screaming in Hell as we speak! He's screaming for FORGIVENESS!"
My father died in the winter the year before Reagan took office, from lung cancer, and this thing knew of that passing. It spoke in tongues, revealing secrets that only my father had told me. I cried and slashed at the squid again, this time cutting into one of its huge black eyes. It wailed and grabbed the knife from me. I was too close.
"DIE!" It screamed, and threw the knife. I felt the air in front of my face get heavier, and it just missed, but the knife slammed into the door and buried itself up to the handle. I saw blackness pouring out of the squid's eye.
"Shit," I muttered. My mother ran from the room and out of the front door.
"Jim," I said. 'Get the paraffin and the matches. I'm gonna burn this motherfucker!" Jim ran back into the kitchen.
"Your dog tasted just fine, Harry," the squid said. More black gunge was dribbling from its damaged eye, and I saw that the other wound I had inflicted upon the beast was healing somehow.
"It was a little feisty at first. But when I got a hold of it, it tasted...just...fahhnnn." Its tongue emerged again and licked its lips. It giggled then and I couldn't help but relate that sound to a child's laughter.
"I wonder how YOU will taste?" It said. Its voice sounded demonic.
Jim came in with the matches and paraffin. I splashed some over the pale grey squid and it seethed at me, as if in pain. The eye I had slashed was now completely sunken and gumming over with a thick slime. The black gel had stopped coming out.
"This isn't over! You hear me, human?" It promised me. Somehow I believed this statement.
I lit the match and threw it at the squid. The flames were immediate and brilliant. The squid writhed and screamed. My mother was watching from the front garden. The sun outside was lovely and I wished I had stayed at work for the overtime.
The flames started to penetrate the squid's skin and the sofa caught fire. It smelled like calamari cooking on a bed of rubber.
"We have to go," I said to Jim and we ran for the front door. I looked back. The squid looked at me with its one remaining eye and muttered "I will get YOU!" before it screamed it's final screams. We went outside.
The house was gutted. The fire brigade put the fire out and the police did their investigations. We told them the story, but they didn't believe us. In fact, I was fined for wasting police time. Next time, they said, they'd press charges. I never told them we started the fire. Arson is a terrible crime. The fire crew brought out a green pack that was slightly large. It was a heavy duty refuse sack. Yes! I thought. They've got the remains of that fucking squid!
A burly fireman came over to where we stood with the policeman and said "we found your dog. Burned to a crisp. What do you want us to do with it?"
I could only stare at him, and my mother started screaming.
We stayed with our aunt for the rest of that year. My sleep was never the same. I stayed in the same room as my cousin, Jack. What little sleep I did get, came in the early hours. It tried to evade me, but, by God, sleep DID come, only after I could hear the faint giggles of children, and the sound of slime dripping on the floor.
End
I am the writer of numerous short horror stories. I self-published my book 'From Hell' in 2012 which is available on Amazon. I have been writing since I was twelve years old. I am currently writing a novel called 'Come Back to Me.'