The story continues...

Hello, friends! Thanks for your patience...I know you're all dying for Part 2 of my story, so here it is! (If you haven't read Part 1 yet, scroll down to my last post!) P.S. I bought the book (The Mysteries of Harris Burdick) a few days ago (the "poster" edition)-all of the images are so intriguing!! This Harris Burdick story thing may become a regular Robot Tuesdays feature...

II

It was a sunny yet cool Tuesday evening as Frank stood on his porch and took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of autumn that he loved so much: burning leaves, a slight crisp feeling in the air, a waft of cider mulling in his kitchen. It was his favorite season, yes, but he always told his friends that it seemed tainted by the cold, dark, wintry days that followed. Frank shivered, though the action had nothing to do with seasons.

Frank’s mind wandered back once more to that evening two weeks ago. The evening he chalked up to bad hot chocolate. The cocoa company had sure got an earful the next day, and though the coupons they’d sent had appeased him a bit, he still felt troubled. He had seen something move. He was sure of it. Yet every time he’d looked around, nothing was there. No bump under his expensive, if well-worn (like so many of Frank’s possessions) Persian rug; just the faded patterns in reds and golds and greens. He hadn’t told anyone what he’d seen, not even Maggie, fearing what they might say or think.

Frank turned back into his house to attend to his spiced apple cider – his favorite alternative to the cocoa he now shied away from. Since that day, the day of the “Incident,” he’d taken to reading a little earlier in the evening, so as the days got shorter, his routine started earlier. It was unsettling to Frank, this change in his tradition, but more unsettling than that was the memory that kept popping into his mind.

Yet still…Frank felt a little adventurous trying new things, and enjoyed the slight thrill he felt each time he did something a little differently (and admittedly, that happened fairly rarely). He’d even read a few pages…ok, a few chapters…in Maggie’s book, and had to admit there was something appealing in the language of this new author. It seemed almost like some translated ancient texts he’d once read. He felt a kinship with the author that he didn’t want to admit.

After testing the temperature of the spiced cider and deeming it ready-for-reading, he poured it into his favorite blue mug (the one with the small chip in the handle) and headed for his chair. The book Maggie had given him was open face-down on the table where he’d left it the night before, and after settling himself down into his mould, he picked up where he’d left off.

Before he knew it, darkness had settled around him, his cider had gone cold, and only the last chapter of the book was left unread. Frank had lost himself in a book before, but this was an extreme he was unused to. The single lamp next to Frank’s chair was the only source of light, giving the room a slightly eerie glow. He blinked his eyes a few times as if waking from a dream, and as he did so, something moved out of the corner of his eye.

“No.” Frank’s voice cracked as the single word escaped from his lips. “No. Not again.” His voice sounded to him as if it came from a stranger’s mouth. His mind reeled back to two weeks ago, and as it did, the strange lump under the rug moved. Frank jumped out of his chair and the book in his hands fell to the floor, landing open on the rug. As if on cue, the single lump under his antique rug split in two, then four, then six…and every lump moved directly towards him.

He jumped again, grabbed a wooden chair from near the wall, and raised it high above his head. The lump nearest him moved aside, as if anticipating a blow, and jostled the table next to his chair. The small lamp wobbled almost in slow motion before it crashed to the floor making a much louder commotion than Frank would have thought possible. Frank was plunged into an inky darkness, alone, with a flock of otherworldly creatures that seemed to be chasing him…

He raised the chair once more, stared at the spot in the darkness where he’d last seen one of the lumps, and brought the chair down with a resounding crash. The chair splintered in his hands just as Frank heard a frantic knock on his front door.

“Frank? Frank!” Maggie’s worried face peered through the windows on either side of the front door. “Frank, are you in there? I heard a crash! What’s going on? Are you ok?”

Frank dropped the splintered wood he still held in his hands and stumbled toward the front door, pulling it open the moment he got there. Maggie’s fist was raised as if to pound on the door again, but she stopped cold and stared as Frank’s palid face came into view.

“Frank, wha…what happened? Are you ok? I heard…what’s going on?”

Frank stepped onto the front porch, pulling the front door closed behind him. “Maggie, there’s something I need to tell you.” He paused, his breathing coming in quick gasps as he glanced back into his dark house. “But can I tell you at your place?”

Before she could respond, he grabbed Maggie’s slender wrist and pulled her down his front porch steps.