Nightmare on Bobrich

I have a dirty little secret: I like horror films. 


Not the ones that almost pass into the realm of pornography, but definitely psychological thrillers, some monster movies, a few slashers slashers, and a bunch of zombie flicks. As with most dirty little secrets, mine has its problems. Combined with an already over-active imagination, my appetite for horror can quickly spew yuckiness all over innocent situations. 


Like the time I came home from my job at Hardee's to find blood all over the front step.


And the front door slightly ajar.


And no movement from within.




Every single alarm bell inside my skull started clanging. "Don't go into the house!" one part of my brain shrieked. "No, wait!" shouted another, "maybe you can still save your family from...whatever is within." Another bit chimed in, "Sure, assuming it isn't standing somewhere, waiting for you, cleaning the bits of your mom out of its teeth."


Freddie Krueger. Jason. Michael Myers. Cujo.


The Loch Ness Monster.


The hair stood up on my arms. My heart threatened to creep into my throat and strangle me. I crept slowly up the step and onto the porch, noticing that there were bloody footprints going in...and bloody footprints going back out again. Did someone try to escape? Were they successful? (I could imagine the roaring buzz of the chainsaw.)


I slowly pushed the door the rest of the way open, my eyeballs moving everywhere at once, trying to discern whether or not some hideous monster lurked just out of sight, ready to spring at me, fangs bared, knife-like fingernails poised for slashing, untrimmed toenails ready to gouge at my kneecaps. (It always happens at the most innocuous of moments, you know. Like on a nice drive along a lonesome highway: "Wanna see something really scary?")


The trail of blood led from the front step, through the entry hall, and into the kitchen, where it got smeared and went in circles and was overlaid with another set of prints. A bloody t-shirt was flung to the side. (The demon in Jeepers Creepers didn't need his victims' clothes. Just their spare parts out of which he was building his own body.)


The house was silent. Dead silent.


No note. No indication that the bloody victim had left the kitchen to roam the rest of the house. (Because that is, after all, what bloody victims do, right? Especially if they're...the Living Dead.)


And then...


"Why is the front door wide open?"


<Aaaaiiieeeeeee!!!!!>


My mom stopped dead in her tracks. (Well, not dead in her tracks. But you know what I mean.) "Why are you screaming?"


I decided to deflect her irritation with some righteous annoyance of my own. "Where the heck were you? And where did all this blood come from?!" 


"Oh," she responds. "That's John's."


I'm now picturing my poor, murdered brother, rushed to the hospital, followed by my mother, who was...oddly composed, given that she'd just lost her only son.


Mom continued, "He stepped on a broken bottle on his way home from work, and it went right through his tennis shoe, into his foot. It was a mess!"


"So," I shout, "John comes home gushing blood and spreading it all over the house, and you take off without leaving a NOTE?! Are you crazy?! It looks like there was a massacre in here!"


Mom looked around. "Huh. Yeah, I guess it does. But writing a note wasn't my top priority at that moment."


John hobbled in from the car just then and waved cheerfully, "Hi Denise!" before heading upstairs to change out of his work uniform.


No matter how many times I muttered "Beetlejuice" under my breath, no one appeared to shake them senseless.