Dawn of the Melon

J Trombey - Barrage

"It must have been the wind whistling through the gap in the window frame" said Kenneth, aloud to himself, as if the announcement might make it more certain, or at least to fill the silence with some noise he could be certain of. "But what sort of wind makes a noise like that?" he thought. It was then that he realised he had left the curtains open to a churning night sky, the cold, hard air blowing all the life from the room and the darkness creeping stealthily around him. Outside, the writhing fingers of bare branches clawed at the sky while wind whipped them to and fro. Kenneth looked across at the light switch, and pondered his defence tactics should he leave the safety of the chair. He began to edge round the room, his back to the wall, one eye on the switch, when the tiniest of sounds made him freeze. With his back against the wall, and the screaming wind blowing through the window straight onto his neck, every muscle in Kenneth's body was poised to hear again that mysterious noise. He reached out in the darkness, his hand feeling along the wall for the switch, while his eyes darted about the shadowy room onto mysterious shapes and hideous possibilities. His breath was gone, and his brow was icy as his fingers edged ever closer, each passing second letting the darkness close in a little more. Suddenly there was the noise again - right in front of him. In a panic Kenneth darted for the switch, flooding the room with a blinding flash of incandescent light, revealing in all it's horror a terrifying, bloated, red and seething mass of evil on the chair where he had been sitting moments before. Kenneth let out an oath, and cried "it has returned!"