u/Relative_Host6976

This is part I of the first horror story I have ever seriously tried writing. I have a much larger idea for this, but I am kind of using this as my training wheels to get the conventions of writing fiction down. I would greatly appreciate any feedback, tips, or tricks you might have!

It Sounds Like Them

Long memories of laughter. Shorter, more vivid memories of only the start of a scream.

Blurred images of a day spent at the beach. Clear and defined images of white fluorescent lights. 

They were so much brighter, but so much colder. 

Alone, together with, yet absolutely alone. 

The faint glow of his cigarette provided the only light in the otherwise still blackness of the backyard. Silhouettes of tall, lanky pine trees swayed with their bushy tops against the waxy, navy blackness of the night sky above. Stars by their dozen flickered as they joined the moon in promising a luminescence that never arrived on the grounds of the marsh. Toads, cicadas, and birds sung their nightsong in their natural cacophony. And here, Shelby sat alone - apart from the completely serene togetherness of a night which otherwise moved along within its own rhythm. Each breath drew a long track of smoke into his lungs, inflating his body against the rough wood of the chair. There was no respite of lightlessness from the meditative breaths of his nighttime ritual. Each drag in pushed his back against the callous, uncaring wood. Each time, in fact, the chair seemed to dig its heels deeper into the ground and resist the expanding of his back. Only when he let go, fumigating his lungs of the previous breath, would the chair seem to sway back together with him. And there he sat, oscillating between the roughness and tenderness of a chair which knew no intention towards him, taking in the night as a pure observer. Together with, yet apart from it. 

His lips bore the task of handling the cigarette alone while his hands hung loosely over the arms of the chair and dangled at the tips of the overgrown grass. He breathed in again, looking off into the masses of swaying trees which cradled themselves in the gentle breeze and lulled themselves through the night. Wiry fur found its way to the palm of his hand as Ada raised her head and pushed the wet tip of her nose against him. He smiled softly to himself and ran his fingers behind the ear of the old dog. He admired the  streaks of greenish gray which slashed against the otherwise black mop of her fur. Charcoal eyes looked up at him sleepily, and suggested that it was time to return into the house for her own ritual of a treat before bed. 

“Okay,” Shelby said with a groan as he grunted to stand up. His muscles were still from the time spent fighting the chair’s deteriorated planks. He never kept track of time when sitting out here. Sometimes, thirty minutes passed like five. Other times, five minutes felt like thirty. All the time, nothing ever called him to go back into that empty house. 

“Don’t worry we’re going.”

Ada leaned her neck forward and slightly towards the night sky, slimming her eyes as she smelled the salt and decomposing pine for one last time until the morning. He bent over to coddle Ada’s face with both of his hands, drawn against his will to the black outline of the slide of the empty playset. Long ago, he learned to quickly look away. It was easier to mask its cold stare with a vapid preoccupation with anything else. Nonetheless, his glance made him aware of its presence. While the night moved through its own motions, completely apart from any care towards his being there, the slide, swing, and climbing wall of the precut alpine playset seemed to always know that he was there. Well, more like he knew that it was and always would be there: and it would always remind him that they were gone. 

Even on those nights when he managed to avoid looking at it, managed to pretend like it was no different from the pines  beyond the fence, walking back inside always stabbed at him like small drops of cold rain. He kept the lights and tv of the living room off, their light and sound seemed only to highlight the emptiness of a house built for more than those who lived there. Living was a strange way of putting it. There was no sense of living happening in the house anymore. Walls were stained with the green paint of memories, pictures were just hollow husks of a time which could never be brought back, and his sinking into the couch seemed unbalanced against the weightlessness of the two indents beside him. And despite the obvious room right next to him, Ada always chose to lay in the chair across from the couch, just like she learned to do from times when the couch couldn’t fit another body. Her spot was angled toward the screen door which was imposed upon by the outline of that playset. She enjoyed the view of the yard, her eyes more adapted to sensing the presence of faint movements behind the fence. He guessed it was almost like her form of television. Crickets, raccoons, and birds provided entertainment enough while he sat staring emptily at a TV which couldn’t completely absorb his attention. Even here, in the false security of the blue glow of the screen, the playset still had a great view for watching at him. A place where it didn’t have to break its gaze. No, he didn’t live here. He just remained. 

Shelby clicked the power button of the remote which sat atop the side table of the couch, flickering on the same station which he played every night. The local news always seemed to be so benign that its droning sound provided ample safeguard against the constant provoking stare of the backyard. With the faint blue light and the far too manicured voice of an anchor who had settled into minor celebredom, sleep always came easy to him. Hell, it was the only time he could step outside of being in that house, outside of the emptiness which seemed to saturate the entirety of its space. And there on the couch he let a light sleep slowly creep over and hover him above just  sitting there. 

Dreams, however, were not so responsive to his implied pleas for rest. 

Driving, semi truck, flipping, turning, crash, screams cut short, silence. 

His eyes opened with a start as he couldn't help but taking a sharp breath. Immediately awake, he caught the end of a dull thud settling far out in the trees. Some remote bump had brought him back to being there on that couch. But now, the living room was saturated with a different hue. The sound itself was dull and creaking, like something wooden falling hard against a mattress which absorbed its impact. Something tapered off the crescendo of the fall, maybe an elk cry? It was high pitched enough to differentiate itself from the crashing thud. Something had fallen, and whatever fell was aware of the fact that it had fallen. Did a deer fall? Maybe. Must have been a hell of a deer though. The sound seemed too far away for size of the thud. He was at a loss, but nonetheless curious. His head returned from its being drawn towards the sound in the pines to the immediacy of the living room. In a way, he enjoyed sensing the house in this new light. The slight adrenaline spurred by the novelty of the sound highlighted the contours of the room with a sharper precision. Awareness grew not of the memories which covered over the space, but just the space itself. He liked seeing it this way. It was better than blurring the room through the warped lens of tragedy. The TV was still settled on playing the local news. Yet, the screen was different. Static didn’t fill the screen, but glossed over the picture giving it a milky blue hue that washed in and out of a grainy pixelation. Sound faded over itself as it was caught repeating the same loop, sometimes quieter, sometimes louder. 

Ada was already staring beyond the door and fence, intently interrogating the pines.

“Another thing to be on the lookout for in the coming hours folks. Big thunderstorms are on their way and we can expect heavy rainfall. Here to tell us more about what to expect is our man with his eyes on the skies  -”

There it was again, that same crying sound. It was like an elk but… lower. It held the same dissonance of the whistling cry an elk makes when it desperately reaches out for the safety of its herd. A long held lower bellow finished off with a higher, sharper note. Low, high. Low, high. Low - It stopped, emphasizing the immediacy of the silence which had basked over the usual pattern of the sounds of the night. No more birds, no more insects, just silence. 

The loop played again as sound waved in and out through low tones.

“Thing… lookout… storms on their way… eyes on the skies”

Ada’s head turned alertly to the screen door without barking, then back to Shelby. Then back to the door, then back to Shelby.  Her ears were perked and her usually soft, tired gaze had changed into a wide eyed stare. Something was out there, in the direction of the thud. She leapt up and ran over to the screen door, jumping up to bat both of her paws against the glass. Whenever she landed, she would turn in circles before returning to the glass to continue pleading with Shelby to let her outside, to let her go investigate whatever was bothering her. What was it? A tree falling that spooked a deer or something? Who knows. Maybe the rolling of quiet thunder? The weather was always strange here, and the neighborhood always seemed to catch storms before the rest of town. Shelby chuckled, maybe the weather station should just set up shop here. That way, they would always get a glimpse of what was coming to the rest of the folks down the way. 

The sounds of the night began again without much of an announcement. In fact, Shelby had barely noticed at all that the night was imbued again with its tonal familiarity.

Shelby sighed and threw on his rough canvas jacket, it was sprinkling and he didn’t feel like getting his sweatpants wet. It was late after all and he just wanted to go back to sleep after satisfying Ada’s innate curiosity. He would’ve been fine to just lay back down, but he knew all too well that Ada would not let it go. Anyway, more so than the thought of storms, the crashing of Ada’s prancing against the glass would definitely keep. Lacing up his boots, Ada came over with her head bent low and her ears tucked back parallel to the ground. She licked anxiously at his hands, aware of the fact that the ritual of shoes meant he would be accompanying her on her outdoor excursions. As curious as she was, she didn’t want to go out there alone. 

While it was dark, the backyard was fenced in. Shelby couldn’t quite see the end of the yard, but he felt safe enough knowing that there was no way an animal could get to Ada. She would probably just go, smell around, see what was what, before trotting back inside with a great deal of pride in her accomplishment that, in her eyes, she was protecting the household. Casually, without much thought, he walked to the screen door with Ada circling behind his legs and leant to the right to flick the switch for the lights along the back of the house. In the dull orange glow, the outline of the fence was visible, but any particulars above or below it were hazy at best. Even the crest of the trees breaking from horizon to sky was impossible to define since the clouds had muddied the silver light of the night sky. Close enough to the lights, however, was the dark pinewood frame and green plastic slide which too receded into the darkness. He closed his eyes and tried to switch his attention back to Ada. As soon as a crack appeared as the door creaked against its hinges, Ada darted outside, barking as she launched towards the back end of the fence.

Startled by the noise, the neighbors dogs soon joined the cacophonous chorus of the directionless excitement of canines from deep inside their house.

“Ah, shit. Sorry Paul.” 

He wasn’t stood there for very long, maybe a few minutes? Soon, his mind turned from the source of Ada’s worry to his own about preparing for the weather. Flash floods were nasty business around these parts, and he didn’t particularly feel like replacing the spending an evening moving water that leaked in through the backdoor. Much less, he didn’t want to spend many more evenings worrying about the possibility of water damage to the floor. He was going to have to get sandbags, but damn that would be a chore. Maybe he could ask Paul for help, phrase it under the guise of them doing the task together where conveniently he could grab some for his own house. Nothing like the headache of house troubles to motivate men and women into ceaseless chatter and worry. 

Piecing together a plan as how to both ask Paul and his missus for their aid in getting the sandbags, while also simultaneously avoiding placid conversation around the troubles of weather, Shelby notice that the sound around him had changed. Not that there was any new sound, but rather that there was none. The barking had stopped. In fact, all of the barking had stopped. All that was left to fill the sound of the night with life was the harmony of owls, toads, and cicadas. Somewhere, lost in that gentle white noise of the shift of the forest's nighttime inhabitants was a sole woodpecker. The drilling of its beak always seemed to relax him and put his mind at ease. He didn’t think that he had ever heard one this late at night before. But then again, very rarely was he ever outside this late and paying such close attention to how the woods sounded. 

Closing out his thoughts and bringing his attention back to the matter at hand, Shelby walked to the end of the backyard and began to call Ada’s name to summon her back to his side. Every few steps, he would stop to call out, hanging on the first A and sliding the note a little upwards as his tongue landed on the consonant. 

“Ada…”

He took a few more steps forward.

“Ada…”

A couple paces more.

“Ada…”

Finally, he lost a bit of patience. Dropping the cuteness of the first letter and instead opting for a slightly harsher tone, muffling himself just a touch to keep his voice at a reasonable volume so late at night.

“Ada!”

She came. Prancing back towards him, Ada still had her head low, but her ears perked up and her eyes wide and unmoving. 

“Did you get them, girl?”

Ada breezed past him and took herself back towards the screen door where she sat patiently, staring through the glass and occasionally turning her head to check on his progress of walking back. When he wasn’t there by the second glance, she raised her left paw and stiffly batted at the glass. 

He picked up the pace slightly. After all, he felt bad. Her fur was soaked and her paws were muddy. Poor thing probably just wanted to get inside where it was dry. Arriving at the door, Ada remained seated and waited for him to open it for her. Again, the door creaked as he pulled it and braced for the usual thud of Ada eagerly shoving her body past his legs and through the gap in the door. Nothing. The door was half open but Ada still sat waiting with her head slightly bowed, ears perked, and eyes wide. Shelby cocked his head sideways and puzzled over Ada. Ada tilted her head in kind. 

“I thought you wanted to go in?”

It was almost like Ada didn’t hear him, her eyes remained set on staring through the doorway. Curious, he opened the door the rest of the way to make it abundantly clear that the way was open for her to go inside. She obliged. Picking herself up and trotting off into the house. Shelby closed his eyes and shook his head. What a strange, strange animal. But at least she offered some personality through her strange mannerisms. He followed close behind her as she walked knowingly past the couch before turning right and heading off into the bedroom. Her kennel had some pretty fresh towels laid down, she’ll lay down there before properly drying her off. There, they parted ways as Shelby promptly plopped himself back down in his spot to watch some more TV before going to bed. He was tired, but not tired enough to sleep. Laying down would only either bring back the coldness of bad dreams or keep him awake to stew in his thoughts. 

The TV had moved on from the loop it was caught in, and instead was playing the end of some rerun. He leaned his head back against the top tim of the backrest and closed his eyes to bathe in the masking sound. He breathed, three counts in and three counts out. He breathed again, three counts in, and three counts out. Finally, rest gave headway. He didn’t intend on letting it go. Patiently, as not to scare off the oncoming of sleep, he raised himself up and walked into the bedroom. Shit, Ada. With a sigh, he turned to the right once he entered the room to fulfill the deal of responsible pet ownership. He kneeled down to stick his hand out for her wet nose to sniff and gently lick, a peace offering of sorts or an apology. Nothing came. He put his hand in deeper, just a touch so that the motion would catch her attention. Again, nothing came. Poor girl fell asleep wet and was cold. He lowered his hand to gently pet and wake her. His hand laid down on empty towels. He put his hands on his knees to aid in standing up. She probably went to lay either beneath the kitchen table, or she was just off exploring the freedom of a house without his watchful eye to call out her, at best, questionable behaviors. She always did enjoy stealing a shoe when no one was watching. Resigned, he walked over to the bed and laid down. Crossing his legs and breathing again with an intentional three counts in and out, sleep finds its way back over him. Sleep was always a strange beast of burden. Much like a timid animal, it has to be gently coaxed over, shown that it can trust you almost. Any movement too fast, or too slow, and it would dart away. Its almost like you have to pretend its not there. Let it do its own thing, let it come to you. Too much thought, and it would dissipate. Too little thought, and it would never come. What an absurd balancing act. But here his head went again, bubbling with the exciting fizz of new thoughts which themselves would deny sleep. It was almost hilariously cruel, thinking about sleep, even longingly, was enough to make it stay away. Breathing, he found, kept him walking across that tightrope. It was intentional enough to peak the interest of sleep, but not so absorbed that - 

Bump Bump Bump.

The familiar sound of paws against glass startled him awake. Did Ada want to go out again? Jesus. With a disappointed groan, yet motivated by the kicking reminder that he forgot to dry her off, he rolled over to get himself up and out of the bed. Sleep had nearly taken a hold of him, and walking to the door incurred far more stumbling steps than he cared to recount. Closing his eyes and sighing, he turned past the couch to face the screen door. No Ada. This damn dog was really starting to annoy him, where could she have - 

Bump Bump Bump.

He tilted his head and squinted his eyes, again turning to face the door which stood at the barrier of the warmly lit interior of the living room and black exterior of the night cast over the yard. From the darkness, a paw reached up and batted at the glass followed by an excited jump and spin. 

Ada was outside.

But how did she get out there? Did he forget to close the door all the way when he came back in and she just pushed her way through? He walked to the door and wrapped his hand around the lever-like handle. Without clicking it forward, he tested his hypothesis and pushed the door forward. Not an inch was given, and the door tapped against its own frame. Before meditating too long on his thoughts, he again turned his attention to Ada, opening the door to let her back inside. She immediately darted over, around, and between his legs with her ears tucked back and her head low, licking at his ankles and hands while he tried to assess her. She was completely soaked, but the rain hadn’t picked up? Sure she would be wet, but this looked like she had been out there all this time. Did she roll around in a puddle? But then how would she have gotten outside? The door was completely shut, there was no way that she could’ve gotten out there without him knowing. Maybe, he thought, it was open, and she darted outside which made it close fully when the door shut behind her. Sometimes without realizing, he would let go of the screen door behind him and it would slam shut with far more noise than he thought capable of being produced in such a short distance. But, then again, he didn’t hear it shut. He didn’t hear it shut. 

He grabbed a towel and got to work drying Ada off, interrogating her in a soft, kind voice all the while. 

“Where have you been girl? How did you get outside?”

After drying her off, he finally could go and lay down and fully surrender himself to sleep. Third times a charm. He crashed into the bed, arms spread out beside him and he laid on his back. Slowly, he adjusted himself into a more comfortable position, tucking the pillow beneath his head and pulling the blanket up over his waist. For the first time in a while, he was actually tired. He liked feeling this way, it would be easy to slip into sleep, whatever dreams it may bring.