The Shed : A Short Story by Harlinn Draper

The Shed: A Short Story by Harlinn Draper.

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George Buckle had lived alone for many years on the outskirts of town, in a small house with a clear view of the neighboring property. The adjacent house was a place that wore its decay proudly. The roof sagged under the weight of years, and the paint, long chipped and forgotten, clung to the wood in desperate patches. It was not the kind of house that invited visitors or inspired curiosity. Yet George, a man of quiet observance and unsated curiosity, found himself drawn to it.

He first noticed the boy while tending to his garden. A boy no older than six, emerging from the shadows of the shed in the old house's backyard. George watched him for days. No adults, no signs of life in the house itself. The boy never ventured inside. This small, quiet mystery gnawed at George’s mind, a puzzle with pieces that didn't quite fit. The child would emerge at dawn, wander the yard as if lost, and then retreat to the shed as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.

George Buckle was a man who had seen many things, had traveled to places most people read about in books. He had served in the Korean war, had watched men fall and rise, had seen the world in its cruel, beautiful entirety. But the sight of the boy, alone and untended, stirred something deep within him he had never felt. A sense of fear, a feeling that something was terribly wrong.

As a few days passed, George’s concern grew into action. That evening he decided to investigate. The dusk sky, a watercolor of purples and reds, watched over him as he approached the shed. His heart pounded with a mix of purpose and dread. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open, the smell hitting him like a physical blow—rotting wood, damp earth, and something acrid and foul.

The shed was a scene of desolation. Pungent and utterly sickening, it was dirty, cramped, and abscent of any comfort. The boy sat there, huddled in a corner on a pile of filthy rags. His eyes, wide and frightened, met George's. They were hollow, sunken into his pale face. His clothes were mere rags, his small frame shivering in the cool evening air. George’s heart ached at the sight. He knelt down, speaking softly, trying to coax the boy out. But the child said nothing, only stared, his body trembling. George knew he couldn’t leave him there. He called the police, his voice steady but urgent. He stayed with the boy, keeping watch until help arrived.

While they waited, George felt a surge of anger, a righteous fury at the neglect and suffering the boy had endured. Leaving the child momentarily, he walked to the house and banged on the door, demanding answers. There was no reply, but he heard movement inside. He pushed the door open and stepped into the gloom. He heard a fast clattering of feet rushing across the floor.

The walls seemed to contract, as if the house itself were alive. “Where are you, you sick bastards?” George shouted into the darkness, demanding an explanation. He got nothing but silence in return. The sound came first—a wet, distorted squelch that seemed to rise from the core earth, vibrating in George’s bones. It wasn’t a sound that belonged to this world. It was something else, something that slithered out of the cracks between reality and nightmare. It shook the house, bouncing off the slimy walls, and then it twisted into an alien shriek that made George’s teeth ache and his vision blur. It was the sound of something primal, something ravenous, and it was coming for him.

From the shadows, they emerged.

At first, they were just shapes—hulking, disjointed forms that seemed to writhe and twitch as if they weren’t fully solid. But then they stepped into the eerie light, and George’s breath caught in his throat. Cockroaches. But not the small, skittering things that fled when you turned on the kitchen light. These were monstrous, towering nearly seven feet tall, their bodies glistening with a sickly sheen of dark greenish-brown fluid that dripped from their mandibles like saliva. Their exoskeletons were cracked and jagged, shifting and flinching as if they were alive with something beneath the surface—something trying to break free.

Their ommatidia—those countless, faceted eyes—caught the light and reflected it back in a kaleidoscope of cold, alien intelligence. They stared at him, unblinking, and George felt their gaze like a physical pain. It wasn’t just hunger he saw in those eyes. It was something worse. Something that understood him, that wanted him. And it was amused.

George tried to move, but his body refused to obey. His legs were rooted to the spot, his muscles locked in a paralysis that was as much mental as it was physical. The creatures crept closer, their movements erratic and jerky. Their legs clicked against the floor, the sound sharp and heavy, and George could feel each step reverberate through his chest

George stumbled backward, his boots slipping in the sludge that pooled on the floor, a viscous ooze that moved, as if alive. The creatures surged forward, their chitinous bodies sparkling under the flickering light of the single bulb overhead. Their antennae twitched, sensing his fear, and their mandibles clicked together in a grotesque laughter, like the ticking of a clock counting down to his doom.

He swung his arm, a wild, desperate arc, but it was no use. One of the roaches lunged, its barbed legs sinking into his flesh with a crunching sound. George screamed for help. The creature’s jaws closed around his shoulder, and with a sickening pop, his arm was ripped free from its socket. Blood sprayed in a arc, splattering the walls, and George stared in horror as his own arm dangled before his face, tendons and white meat swaying like morbid streamers. Pain exploded through him, white-hot and searing, but it was quickly replaced by a cold, creeping numbness that spread through his veins like poison.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the boy’s face in his mind, pale and terrified, staring back at him from the shadows. Then the creatures were on him, their bodies merging into a single, all consuming mass of legs and mandibles. They devoured him in seconds, their grinding jaws reducing his flesh and bones to a pulpy slurry that oozed between their legs. When they were done, their bloated bodies stretched grotesquely, and they released a flood of steaming frass, a putrid mixture of orange and yellow that splattered against the walls and pooled on the floor, hissing as it burned into the wood.

Fifteen minutes later, the police arrived. Officer Banks and Officer Snell found the shed empty, the boy gone without a trace. The house waited in the darkness, its windows like empty eye sockets staring out into the night. They rang the doorbell, but the house remained silent, its only response the faint creak of a door swinging open on rusted hinges.

The stench hit them like a physical blow, a nauseating mix of rot and excrement that made their stomachs churn. Inside, the house was horror made tangible. Scraps of clothing lay scattered across the floor, soaked in a dark, congealing liquid that looked like old marinara sauce but smelled far worse. The walls were lined with fleshy sacs, pulsating obscenely as if something inside was struggling to break free.

Officer Banks stepped closer, his flashlight trembling in his hand. The sacs were translucent, and through the thin membrane, he could see the shapes inside—tiny, squirming forms with disturbingly human features. He froze as one of the sacs burst open, releasing a flood of cockroaches with twisted, humanoid faces. They scattered across the floor, their tiny legs clicking against the wood, and Banks realized with a gut-wrenching horror that their faces were familiar. They were the faces of people he knew—neighbors, friends, even George Buckle, the man who made the call to them.

A shriek tore through the air, a sound so high-pitched and bone-chilling that Banks’s eardrums burst, blood trickling down the sides of his neck. He stumbled backward, his shoulder slamming into one of the fleshy sacs. It burst open with a wet splat, and he was enveloped in a sticky, larva-filled goo that clung to his skin and burned like acid. He screamed, clawing at his face as the tiny roaches swarmed over him, their human faces contorted in chilling smiles.

Snell raised his sidearm, firing wildly into the swarm, but it was no use. The roaches kept coming, their tiny bodies absorbing the bullets like they were nothing. Then the two giant roaches appeared, their massive bodies filling the doorway. They moved with terrifying speed, their legs clicking against the floor as they advanced. Snell emptied his clip into them, but the bullets only seemed to enrage them. Brown-green fluid sprayed from the wounds, and Banks screamed as a droplet landed on his cheek, sizzling as it burned through his skin and melted the flesh down to the bone.

Snell turned to run, but one of the roaches was already on him. Its mandibles closed around his leg, and with a sickening crunch, it tore the limb free. He fell to the floor, screaming in agony as the roaches swarmed over him, their tiny jaws tearing at his flesh. The last thing he saw was the refrigerator lifting into the air as if it weighed nothing, and then it came crashing down on top of him, crushing him into a soupy mess of blood and bone.

The house fell silent, the only sound the faint rustling of the roaches as they feasted on the remains. Outside, the night stretched on, endless and dark, as the evil within the house waited for its next victim.

Somewhere in the night, the boy wandered alone, the memory of George's kindness was now a useless hope. George’s house remained empty, a cold tribute to his final act of bravery. The garden he had tended began to wither, overtaken by weeds. And in the darkness, the parasites thrived, waiting for their next victim.

The neighborhood on the outskirts of town had become a cursed patch of earth where even the bravest dared not tread. It was a place where the air seemed to curdle, and where the stories in the papers were so grotesque they felt like crazy dreams. People vanished without a trace, swallowed by the night. Police officers—men and women who had sworn to protect and serve—were found in pieces, their uniforms shredded, their flesh gnawed down to the bone. The boy, wherever he was, carried the scars of that terrible night, both physical and mental. His face, once innocent, now bore the hollowed-out look of someone who had stared into the abyss and seen it stare back.

Weeks turned into months, and the house on the end of the neighborhood became a monument to dread. Its windows were dark and lifeless, like the eyes of a corpse. The garden, once tended with care, had devolved into a tangle of wild growth, vines twisting and curling like the fingers of the dead. One night, a homeless man, drawn by some inexplicable need, found himself standing before it. He was a small figure, silhouetted against the dying light of the sun, his breath visible in the cold air. He hesitated, his instincts screaming at him to turn back, but something pulled him forward—a pull he couldn’t name or resist.

Inside, the house was a mausoleum of memories. Dust motes floated in the air, catching the last rays of sunlight that filtered through the cracked windows. The man moved through the rooms, his steps soft and tentative, as if afraid to awaken the ghosts that lingered. The air was thick with the scent of decay, a smell that clung to the back of his throat and made his stomach churn. In the living room, he found a photograph of George Buckle, a faded image of a man with kind eyes and a gentle smile. The man reached out, as he traced the lines of George’s face. For a moment, he felt a connection, a shared sorrow that transcended time and space. He sat there for a long time, until the light outside faded to darkness and the house was swallowed by the night.

As the darkness deepened, a chill settled over the house, a cold so profound it seemed to seep into the man’s very bones. He shivered, pulling his ragged clothes tighter around him. He knew he couldn’t stay. Suddenly, a noise shattered the silence—a soft scuttling, the sound of many legs moving in unison. The man froze, his heart pounding in his chest. He turned, his candle wavering shadows on the walls. From the darkness, they emerged. Tiny, menacing cockroach creatures with human faces. Their mandibles clicked together, a sound that made the man’s skin crawl.

He backed away, the candle shaking in his hand. He stumbled, fell, the flame extinguishing as it hit the floor. In the darkness, he could hear them moving closer, their chittering a crescendo of fear. He fumbled for the door, his fingers slipping on the cold, damp handle. The creatures were nearly upon him, their grotesque forms a blur in the pitch black. Just as his hand found the handle, he felt a jolting pain as many of the smaller roaches latched onto his leg, their mandibles digging deep into his flesh. He screamed until his lungs began to bleed. They ate him slowly, methodically, their tiny jaws tearing away strips of flesh, exposing the bone beneath. He kicked wildly, trying to dislodge the creatures, but they only seemed to burrow deeper, their tiny legs gripping his skin with a relentless strength.

He managed to wrench the door open and stumbled out into the night, the roaches still attached to his leg. In the distance, he heard the faint sound of sirens. Help was on the way, but he knew it wouldn’t come in time.

The officers moved cautiously, their flashlights cutting through the darkness. They found the homeless man on the ground outside, his leg a bloody mess covered in hundreds of humanoid roaches. They called for an ambulance, their voices tense with fear. Inside, they found the remnants of the horror—the fleshy sacks pulsating on the walls, the excrement smeared in grotesque patterns, the twisted faces of the creatures peering out from the shadows.

“We need to get out of here. Now,” one of the officers screamed, his voice trembling.

But it was too late. From the darkness, hundreds of massive, cockroaches swarmed, their bodies jerking and shifting unnaturally as they advanced. The officers fired their weapons, the shots ringing out in the confined space, but the creatures kept coming, their exoskeletons absorbing the bullets like they were nothing.

The boy from the shed watched from the safety of the forest, his heart pounding in his chest. He had escaped the clutches of the roaches once, but the scars they left were far deeper than mere flesh. They had dug themselves into his mind, burrowing into his nightmares and refusing to let go. As he watched the creatures take over the neighborhood, a cold grip of fear enveloped him, a shiver that seemed to reach down to his very soul. He knew he wasn’t truly free. He had merely delayed the inevitable. One day, perhaps, he too would become one of them—a creature of the dark, a roach scuttling through the ruins of forgotten lives. Amidst that terror, a strange, bittersweet certainty took hold. He knew he would see George again, in a place where the darkness could never reach, where light was eternal and nightmares had no dominion. But until then, he would live in the shadows, haunted by the knowledge that the creatures were always watching, always waiting, always hungry.