Monsters

Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, TAK. I paused, thought for a moment, and continued typing. For a long while, the only sound I could hear echoing throughout the small room was the tak-ing of the keyboard. Rows and rows of green-tinted numbers flashed before my eyes, whispering to me in a secret language only spoken by a few.

Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, TAK. I paused again, this time not for thought but because I heard a noise - a slow succession of creaks that could only come from the wooden floorboards underneath my desk and chair. Thinking it was nothing but my stressed imagination turning the tak of my typing into the footsteps of some unholy demon, I kept tak, tak, tak-ing away, trying desperately to ignore the creeping sensation of someone, something, approaching me.

[Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak. The creeping sensation was gone, had been for a few hours by that point. I smiled grimly to myself. Looking at the clock, I realized my wife would be waiting for me at home. The kids were probably in bed, but she would be up waiting like she did every night. I stood, the quiet squeak of my chair announcing my departure.

I froze. The sensation was back, suddenly, without even the footsteps as a warning. I nonchalantly picked up a single pen from beside my computer and slowly turned to face the door of the tiny room.

Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, TAK. A creature was standing in the doorway. It smiled wickedly at me, it's teeth clicking as it hissed a gruesome name. I recoiled slightly as the thing stepped into the light. It had the body and head of a man, though the face was mutilated and the grinning teeth were razor sharp and gleaming too perfectly. Four long, stick-thin limbs stuck out of the body at odd angles, and with the four shredded stumps of limb attached as well, the thing looked like a poisonous spider fresh out if the stretcher and with half the limbs to show for it. The thing hissed the name again and lost it's mocking smile. It quickly began to walk towards me.

"Come no closer, demon!" I shouted. The thing stopped and just reached out with one frighteningly long arm. It hissed the name and asked:

"Are you alright?"

I lost control of myself.

"Begone, devil creature!" I screamed at it, lunging forward and lodging the pen in its throat. It writhed around as I shoved the pen further into its neck. I laid on top of it until it ceased movement. I then stood, and walked out of the tiny room - triumphant.

Voices chattered and machines beeped and blared as busy-ness filled the office. An ambulance sped away as more police filed into the building to help contain the murderer.

"He always stays very late in his cubicle," a woman was trying to explain through sobs. "Everyday, Jeff goes in and tells him it's time to close up. We don't know where he goes after work, but he never comes late and never leaves early."

"Does he have any family or friends at all?" a police officer was asking another man.

"No," the man answered. "His parents are dead and he never married."

"Does he have a history of violence? A history if insanity, perhaps?" yet a third cop asked.

"Nothing," another woman replied, "I mean, he talks to himself, but with his job who wouldn't? Just entering numbers all day? Probably not exactally what he was looking for in the graphic design field."

Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak. A man sat typing everything on a laptop in the corner of my room, and police surrounded me. Three men stared at me, glaring from behind their dark glasses. They started at my every move, even just shifting in my chair, and flinched every time I coughed.

Tak-a, tak-a, tak-a, tak. I winced at the harsh sound. It followed me wherever I went, from the clacking of the monster's teeth to the click of my assistant's stiletto shoes sprinting down the hall to call the police and all the way to the steady rhythm of of the officer's fingers on his keyboard.

"There is evidence suggesting that you killed this man," an officer told me once more. I nodded.

"That's fine," I replied again. The officer stared at me.

"So, you are admitting that you killed Andrew Sanchez?"

"It was self defence," I answered cooly.

"He was coming to tell you it was time to to home!" A woman shouted from across the room. The police shushed her and took her from the room.

"It was attacking me. If a deformed monster ran at you in the comfort of your own office, gnashing it's teeth, reaching claws towards you, and shouting curses, you would attack as well, no?" I smiled as the police just stared at me in awe. Before they could answer, yet another team of officers burst in the door.

I won't go to great lengths to describe what happened next. It mostly involved lots of paper work, court dates, prison, and then admission to a psychiatric ward soon after I was deemed crazy.

I don't often come out of my room anymore. The ward is filled with creatures watching my every move. I'm surrounded by slug-like masses, whispy breaths of people, and more and more spidery villains. I'm being nursed by giants and pixies, counselled by grinning animal heads, and surveyed by burly cyclopses with tiny clipboards and official looking hats. I still dream of the de-limbed spider sometimes - usually after the sluggish cooks serve me their famous Ten Pepper Chili - but the cops make sure I can never have a pen around these monsters again.