INTRUDER! – James Krendel-Clark

November 9, 2021

        I am hunched over my work station. I detect an intruder at the periphery. Its presence is obvious. Whether it is male or female is impossible to tell. But I can tell it is there, at the periphery, lurking somewhere on the edge, beyond my walls, outside, there, in the yard, I think. I grab my weapon.

        The intruder is lurking on the margins. It seems angry. I am convinced it is dangerous. It is a threat to my life, and to my family. I pick up my machete. I could go upstairs to get my gun out of the safe, but I’m not sure I have time.

        I can sense the intruder. It comes like a jolt from beyond. I can sense its murderous, evil features. Its brutal hulking mass radiates cancerous shimmers of razorglitter spores. Oh God. And horrible fractal whorls, gnarled like fungal tumors. I hate it with all my might, and I will defend my family.

        The intruder seems to have breached the walls. I don’t know how don’t ask me. Everything is tightly locked and the alarm system is set to high-alert. Somehow it has penetrated my defenses, my fortress, my skull. And yet it still seems to shimmer outside like migraine aura, it hulks forward penetrating me with its evil red eyes and blushing my forehead with its purple stare. It has a blueish black aura that glimmers with alien technology as my forehead melts to the vortex of its face. I wield my axe, equipped with hitpoints_armor. I am level 5. The intruder is at least a level 9, maybe even a 10.

        I know that I am superior to the intruder. It is nothing but a stupid murderer. It is stronger than me but I have the moral high ground here. It is like a fucking animal. A monster. An orc or ogre, a below-bridge-dweller with haunted graffiti. It drools forward with radioactive slime and I lick my teeth as I press the button that swivels my armor on to fully_locked. I swing my axe into its side as it spirits forward a horrible zeitgeist and it shatters fractal glitching in and out of tunnels and chambers like Eustachian tubes, the architecture of my domicile briefly decoheres and my wife and child are screaming horrible, distorted screams, it has clawed straight down my face down my forehead between my eyes splitting open a gash that divides the left and right sides of my face invaginating it with blood and tender meat. I lick my lips.

        I feel am a bulletproof biozord. Like Neo in the Matrix times 3. I am the righteous defender of the world of Justice and Truth. I am at least a level 8 privileged_lord or intelligent_man. I am the arch_mage of cultural research. I am Gandalf times 5. I swing my staff and shoot lightning bullets at the fucked up savagebeast that tries to maul me from behind but I am too fast, my back hijacks a path to swerve up the wall like Trinity also a character from the Matrix. Androgynous futurist grace pervades my muscles like an animal robot. I acquire the properties of evil to turn them against Satan.

        Hunched at my work_station I am working on my novel I flex my muscles. I feel powerful. Forehead aura. I am the hero of this videogame {{CRUNCH}}. But it’s not a videogame, it’s real life {{UGH}}. I love my family. I love my wife. I love my little son {{POP}}. I hate the intruder. I’ve never seen one before but I know they’re out there {{CRUNCH}}. And I’ll fucking kill them if they try to attack my family god dammit.

        M y m i g r a i n e  i s   p u l s a t i n g s p i r a l  r a i n b o w s . H y p o c h o n d r i a  t i n g l e s  i n   m y  b o n e s . B u t   I   a m   b o n d e d   t o   w h e r e   I   w o r k ,   i n   m y   h o u s e ,   m y   o w n r a g g e d   b o s s , CEO OF MY FUCKING LIFE. I  l o v e  m y   w i f e . Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø

        The intruder lurches forward from out of the trees, into the yard of the suburban home ventilated with weeping sores. Weeping profusely, retching from the tang of some deep inner psychic wound with a sick eye in the center of its face, the beast roars in an earthshattering ultraviolet detonation of pulsating electrons. The people in the house are alerted and altered by this event, especially the man who is stunned and put on the alert.

        The man stares with dead beady eyes at the intruder through the blind. The intruder weeps and screams clawing at its rotting face. The man pumps his shotgun and fires into its side through the window. It screams electronically. “You cocksucker, don’t you fuck with me or my family or you’ll be sorry you motherfucker-

        He fires again at the beast. A scream rips through the sky opening a raincloud of death. Weeping and screaming and glitching the beast howls its way into the window as if by some stuttering clench it is inside chomping the man’s head off just like that. Screaming and crying the beast tears his body to shreds in an insane rage. The woman and child upstairs sensing that all is maybe lost fruitlessly attempt to leave through the bathroom window weeping maniacally. The beast knows exactly what they are up to and is speeding to speed their death to its instant.

        The intruder is in the house. Everyone is dead.

They’re all dead. Now it is alone again, with its thoughts.

It hates this. No one understands it, this pain, this need to slay suburban families.

It only murders families with a strong powerful man who is equipped with deadly weapons, because it wouldn’t be fair to kill an underequipped family.