The antique fox (standard:horror, 2127 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Aug 02 2007	Views/Reads: 3421/2286	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Maybe he should not have bought the unique gift for his father's birthday...

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

but Thomas was glad he spared him that. 

Neil Walters had left the fox on the counter in the garage until he
decided what to do with it. It was still there a few days later, 
staring at him as he worked on the car. As it was putting him off, he 
decided a good place for it was the small bedroom where nobody ever 
ventured, hardly even him. The room was a makeshift storeroom, a place 
for those items that have no use, but are too good to throw away, a 
place for unwanted gifts. 

That night, Neil sat in bed, bathed in muted light from a bedside lamp.
He poured another measure of whiskey, having already cleared nearly 
half of the bottle. His senses had become almost numbed, and his 
vision, although never clear, was now much worse. His hearing was 
similar. It was just about adequate normally, but both of those senses 
at present didn't necessarily need to be used, so he indulged in an 
ever growing passion for whiskey, perhaps to forget that he was 
becoming more and more alone. He would frequent the local pubs, going 
partly for the surrounding social atmosphere, because there were people 
in there. It didn't matter that they were strangers. That was usually 
preferable to an empty house, watching television. He had made a few 
friends in the pubs, people who could be described as local. People 
like him. That slowed down the growing depression that was caused by 
isolation, but now, when surrounded by quiet, was when loneliness sank 
its teeth in deepest, so he numbed his senses with his second passion, 
and that was when he was past caring. Nothing mattered when in a 
drunken stupor. Things that had he been sober would have put his senses 
on full alert, did not work while alcohol was in his system. Things 
like the sound of scratching at a door. A door creaking open. More 
scratching, closer this time, louder, but still unheard by Neil. What 
his sense of sight became aware of was the bedroom door slowly opening. 


The following morning, Thomas was feeling bad about the present he had
given his father. What seemed like a good idea at the time, eroded away 
to make him feel quite low. So he decided on buying the biggest bottle 
of whiskey the off-licence sold and driving around straight away. He 
was soon knocking on the front door, bottle in hand with an expression 
of sorrow on his face. He had keys to let himself in, but had never 
used them. There was no answer after a few knocks, so he took out his 
mobile phone and tried ringing him. Still nothing. Obviously he must be 
out, he thought, so decided to leave the whiskey inside, so that when 
he came in he would see it. A good place, he thought, was the kitchen 
counter. It couldn't be missed there. Soon, he was in the living room, 
leaving the bottle on the cluttered coffee table. Ever since Neil 
became a widower, 9 years ago, he had let the place become cluttered 
with useless items, such as old newspapers, leaflets, paraphernalia 
that helped to personalise the house, and define a huge portion of the 
personality of the owner. An untidy household reflected the fact that 
the owner simply didn't care what people thought any more. What he did 
in his own house, and what it looked like, was his business, nobody 
else's. Why should he tidy up when he had no reason to? Cleanliness was 
not a concern Neil had, and Thomas was certainly aware of it. It seemed 
to be messier than the last time he was here, and he wondered if the 
bedroom was in a similar state. Up the stairs he went, and was 
surprised to find the curtains still closed. He could not make anything 
out properly, only that the bed was occupied. He guessed that he was 
asleep, and stepped close, his eyes gradually adjusting. He saw that 
his face was much darker than what it should have been, as though he 
had splashed oil onto his face. Thomas was aware that there was an 
odour that could well be blood. He was about to fling the duvet back in 
panic, but before he touched it, it went back itself to reveal the face 
of something he couldn't quite place. Shock was only a split second 
away, and in that split second, he realised it was the fox, no longer 
stuffed, and very agile. It leapt at Thomas's throat, but the shock had 
numbed the pain. 

After a few moments, the fox came out of the bedroom onto the landing,
its mouth dripping blood. It didn't know where to start looking, so it 
tried the other bedroom and began searching. 

The antiques shop had a closed sign outside. This had happened many
times when normally it would have been open. Inside, upstairs, the 
owner, still in his white suit, sat cross legged on a mat, his eyes 
closed. In all corners, incense burned. Its thick smoke curled slowly 
into the air, and one candle burned in front of him, on the floor. In 
his mind, he could see through the eyes of the fox. He was controlling 
it. It was a kind of telepathic remote control. He was searching for 
something valuable, something that could be described as antique. 
Something he could sell in the shop, along with all the other items he 
had taken from those who had bought the fox previously. The fox would 
find something it could fit in its mouth, in its empty stomach, then 
find a way out of the house. Sometimes when it could not find a way 
out, it would have to wait until night time, before smashing out of the 
back or kitchen window. It always found a way out. The shop owner would 
come when it was least suspicious and retrieve the fox. That way he 
didn't have to break and enter, and become an ordinary burglar, or 
thief. 

The fox found an old pair of spectacles that wouldn't have looked out of
place in the seventies, and an ornament of a small bird. It looked like 
a kingfisher, or sparrow. It found the garage open, so went in and 
decided to wait by the Chevrolet. There was light coming in from 
beneath the main garage door, indicating that it wasn't locked 
properly. It just needed somebody to come along and lift it open. The 
antique shop owner smiled, knowing that he would do just that. When he 
opened his eyes, and cut off the connection with the fox, the fox would 
snap back into the position that it was found to be in, in the shop 
window.  He stood up and extinguished the candle. He decided to go 
straight away to collect the fox. That way if the bodies were 
discovered, the finger of suspicion wouldn't be pointed at him, not 
when he had wiped away the blood from its jaws. 

Approximately a week later, a man and wife were passing the antiques
shop. The wife stopped at the window. “Look at this,” she said, her 
husband wandering back to see what she had spotted. “A stuffed fox” he 
said. “Yes, we can afford it, can't we?” . The husband thought for a 
moment, then reluctantly agreed. They entered the shop, the bell above 
the door ringing once again. 


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