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Nobody Heard Me Harvey Kennett
I walked through the front door and almost vomited on the carpet. The stench was nauseous and I knew something was wrong. There was a pile of unopened mail just inside the door.
The smell reminded me of rotting meat. It was heavy and odious, with a slight sweet smell. I wondered if I had forgotten to empty the rubbish before I had left some weeks ago.
I placed my hand over my mouth and walked down the dusty hallway to the kitchen.
Everything was in place exactly where it should have been. There was a teacup in the sink, with some water filling it. I must have forgotten to put it away. There was a thin layer of dust on all the surfaces. I tutted to myself. The rubbish bin was almost empty, except for a wrapper from a pack of biscuits and a crumpled box of empty cornflakes.
The smell caught me again and I retched in to the sink. Fortunately nothing erupted from my mouth. I hate the sight of vomit.
Seeing nothing untoward in my kitchen, I followed the hall down towards the living room. I felt a strange tingling in my stomach, and a sudden feeling of malaise washed over me as I entered the living room and looked inside.
He sat, in his favourite chair, facing the telly. A slave to the infernal box in his life, he now sat motionless in a mockery of viewing beyond his own life.
In his skeletal right hand he held the remote control for the television, gripping the inert plastic like some macabre zombie addicted to the great God of T.V.
His left hand hung motionless over the left arm of the armchair. At least it had some flesh to it as far as I could see.
His body too was still mostly complete. The skin had tightened on his face, and the colour had drained. The lifeless eyes looked at the television with a vacant expression, not unlike those who watch daytime T.V. I suppose.
He still wore the clothes he died in; a faded brown shirt, black corduroy trousers, black socks and brown leather shoes.
I immediately turned from the room and made my way back to the hallway. I picked up the phone and dialled the emergency services, but the line was dead. Perhaps the phone had been cut off because the bill had been unpaid. Maybe it was not working. Perhaps someone had cut the line and then murdered him.
My head swam with disturbing thoughts.
I raced back in to the living room. I studied his body for signs of violence. I found none, but then I am not a coroner. Something possessed me to lift him from the chair, so I placed my left hand under his legs and my right upon his left shoulder.
As I lifted him, I heard a faint, wet “plop” and something fell on to the carpet.
I looked down and saw a writhing ball of maggots that had been dislodged from his frail intestines wriggling on the carpet. His stomach lining must have burst and they rolled down the inside of his trouser leg to land on the floor.
I screamed and threw the body to the ground. It exploded in a sight so terrifying that I cannot recount it further. The floor was alive.
I ran straight out of the house in panic in to the street and screamed for help.
But nobody heard me.
People just walked right past me, as if I were a ghost….
READER'S REVIEWS (4) DISCLAIMER: STORYMANIA DOES NOT PROVIDE AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEWS. ALL REVIEWS ARE PROVIDED BY NON-ASSOCIATED VISITORS, REGARDLESS OF THE WAY THEY CALL THEMSELVES.
"Were you a ghost?" -- mattie.
"The story was good, but the end looked a lot like the movie '6th sense'..." -- Luis Felipe Moura, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
"one of the few really short short-stories read recently which had an impact. keep up the good work." -- ashish, singapore.
"Interesting read, but the ending was sort of senseless." -- Forrest.
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