Yesterday's Specter
An original flash fiction horror story
She was not supposed to be here.
Kirk's throat tightened and his back stiffened as he pressed up against the couch cushions. Gabrielle flashed an impish grin. Her expression sent chills down his spine. She glided toward him. Her raven-black hair and white night dress fluttered as though troubled by an unseen breeze.
He cast his eyes at the window behind her. Window sealed. Drapes closed. His eyes trailed over to the door. Shut and locked.
How did Gabrielle break inside his den?
“I'm losing my mind.” His voice barely rose above a whisper. “You're not really here.”
“Your mind fled long ago,” she scoffed. “I am no mere dream nor a vivid hallucination. I stand here before you as real and tangible as everything else inside this room.”
Kirk's heart raced faster than before, galloping with the speed of a frightened horse behind his ribs. He drew the rough blanket closer with one hand and clutched the TV remote with the other.
“Please leave me alone. I've done nothing to deserve this torment.”
“You are deserving. You know what you did was wrong and is still wrong.”
Each one of Kirk's breaths escaped from his lips in panicked short bursts. He surveyed the den, searching for a weapon beyond the worn leather couch and now darkened TV screen sufficient to work against Gabrielle.
Kirk assured himself he destroyed her permanently when he sealed her corpse inside the barrel and turned the slain monster over to the proper authorities. Aubrey's sky-blue eyes, brimming with tears, flashed through his mind. Sorrow mixed with the fear already gripping Kirk. He took comfort from the thought he avenged his wife and set her soul at peace. Gabrielle's reappearance told him otherwise.
“Fear comes from knowing you will die,” Gabrielle said, stretching her arms wide. “Horror arises from realizing you won't die soon enough.”
Her lower jaw unhinged, and her mouth widened, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Kirk scrambled off the couch as she lunged forward. He crawled over the area rug and across the wooden floor before pulling himself to his feet.
“How many times will you try to kill me before you accept that it won't work?”
Gabrielle's rhetorical taunt enraged Kirk even while deepening his fear. Aubrey already fell victim to this monster. They first realized something horrible happened the morning after their new neighbor's housewarming party. She awoke at dawn suffering from major abdominal pains. A swollen pregnant belly greeted their eyes.
Aubrey had not been pregnant before going to bed.
She and Kirk had little time to figure out what to do and who to call for help before his worst nightmare unfolded. They got dressed and headed to the car when severe contractions stopped them inside the kitchen. This creature soon clawed its way out of Aubrey's uterus and ripped her completely open. Kirk sank to his knees in a pool of his wife's blood, sobbing as this naked monster — now resembling an older human child — identified herself as Gabrielle. She boasted she found Kirk once again before uttering a vicious growl and springing toward him.
Kirk evaded her grasp and slew Gabrielle after much difficulty, carving her up with a butcher knife. This ordeal should have ended once he stuffed the inhuman creature’s bloody remains inside a barrel.
Why did it not end there?
A now fully-grown Gabrielle let out a piercing shriek and dropped down on all fours. She charged at him as Kirk reached a golf bag resting next to a bookshelf against the opposite wall. He drew out a putter and drove the club into her upper jaw. Gabrielle's head snapped backward, and her neck also snapped like a dead tree branch.
She collapsed to the ground. No fear resided in Gabrielle’s eyes or her expression. Only raw hatred mingled with a scornful laugh.
“You were my supposed to be my father each time before I died.” Her pale blue eyes seemed to bore a hole into Kirk's soul as she spoke. “I will be your daughter again. You will never rid yourself of me. No matter how many times you are reborn, it will never be enough to escape what the Order planned from the beginning.”
Kirk raised the golf club over his head and bashed in her skull before Gabrielle said another word. He cast the bloodied club away after the creature disguised as a human stopped writhing and sank to his knees. Kirk buried his face in his hands and refused to stop sobbing.
He wasn't sure which reality frightened him worse — learning he spent multiple lifetimes trying to slay this monster or the fact Gabrielle kept returning to torment him again and again.
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