The Beast Within

I hammered my foot onto the brakes, bringing my car to a screeching halt on the curb in front of my ratty single story home. It was a bland white apartment with just a kitchen, bedroom, living room, and a couple closets. It was a little under kept and the grass hadn’t been cut for a few weeks; I had a couple broken shingles and a broken window that was boarded up, to keep the inside cool, seeing that it was summer. Bolting from the car, I slammed the door behind me and stumbled to the mailbox with a gleam in my eye. Opening the lid on the front and peering inside, only to find that the cavernous metal box was empty. For weeks I had been waiting for a letter to arrive, the letter that says I had won the mansion giveaway sweepstakes. The contest was state wide and had admission into the competition all year long, with thousands of people that had entered, so I heard, but I was sure I would be the one that would win! It had been a week since I entered the competition, but I assumed that I needed to wait for a longer time for the results to arise. With my head hanging low I dragged my feet into the house, through the halls, and into my bedroom where I fell on the bed and fell asleep.
The next day was Saturday and I woke up sometime around noon. My head forced up against the pillow, my limbs scattered throughout the bed covers. I slowly removed myself from bed, realizing I had not removed my work clothes I proceeded to the bathroom to get ready for a day of relaxation. I brushed my teeth, feeling the pure mint breeze of toothpaste fill my mouth and the air around it. I gargled, spit, took off my work clothes, and put on the dark green robe that felt as soft as a feather pillow.
I proceeded to the outside world, hoping that today might be the day, even though I highly doubted it. I lazily walked across the straight walkway leading to the front porch. I opened the mailbox and an avalanche of mail flooded the front side walk. Surprised by the mound of mail that covered part of my side walk, I dropped to my knees wondering why all the envelopes had suddenly appeared.
‘Was the letter in here?’ I thought, ‘Could it be that I had won?’
I started searching through the pile of letters that now covers part of the sidewalk and my lawn. The first thing I picked up was a bright pink piece of paper that stated ‘Dear Mr. Kalder, the stop on your mail has been up for three days, seeing that you have not come to the post office to collect your mail we put some of it in your mail box, there is still more at the post office. It is starting to take up a small amount of space in our office so we suggest that you come pick it up as soon as possible. Thank you very much, the Post Office’
The previous week I went on a business trip to Huston. I went to the post office to stop my mail and I had forgotten to un-stop it when I returned home to Austin, Texas; that would explain why my mailbox was empty all week. I grabbed all the letters off the ground plus the remaining letters in the mail box and with my hands full like a mail sack, I rushed inside with a smile that could have consumed me whole.
I ran to the nearest table I could find and tossed the assortment of letters onto the table. Shifting through the assortment of letters I found one that said, ‘Sweepstakes Competition’. I ripped open the top of the envelope and read its contents ‘Dear Mr. Kalder, I am pleased to inform you that you have won second place…’
I stopped reading and sulked my head in despair; second place only included a somewhat large amount of money and a few gift cards. If I wanted to live in the mansion I had to win first place. I dropped the letter onto the floor and was heading back to my bed when out of the corner of my eye I saw another letter from the Sweepstakes Competition. Thinking that it was a confirmation letter I half wanted to leave it where it was, but it never hurt to check. I slowly picked up the letter with diminished strength and slowly opened the envelope. Inside was another letter, it read ‘Dear Mr. Kalder, I am pleased to inform you that the competitor that earned first place has declined the offer, so you are now our first place winner.’
I couldn’t believe it, I had won. I was speechless.
I continued to read ‘please come down to our office building by June twelfth to collect you prize.’ June twelfth was today. I had no time to waste. I crushed the letter into my pocket ran by my coffee table, grabbing my keys out of the small dish that sits on the corner, and bolted for my car.
Hopefully I was not too late.


My car screeched to a halt in front of the Korling Incorporated office building. I slammed the door and rushed inside, I did not care if my car got towed, if I got a ticket, or any bad thing that could have happened to me. I just kept running.
I made my way to the reception desk.
“I won the mansion sweepstakes and I’m here to claim my prize”, I said.
“Oh, were glad to see you finally showed up”, said the receptionist “the top officials that own the mansion thought that you might never show up.”
“Great, now where do I go to claim my prize?” I was so elated, I won, I made it on time, and the mansion was now mine.


After another two weeks of paper work and hiring movers, I had finally moved into the mansion that was much larger than I had expected. The front of the place had round dirt drive way with a brick sidewalk leading to the main door that was twice the size of an average person. tIt was made of brick and cement with two marble colums that held up an overhang for the doorway. The majority of the mansion had vines and ivy gathering on the walls, some reaching to the roof; there were also some broken window that were boarded up with glass, bricks that had fallen out of place, and shingles that scattered the lawn. From what I was told it was made in the late 1800’s, covering twelve acres, and expanding over a few million square feet of interior flooring. All the furniture from my old house was able to fit in one of the living rooms, so that told me I needed some new stuff. Seeing that the mansion was in a bit of disrepair and the sweepstakes only gave me one thousand dollars, it would have to do for now.
My bedroom was the coolest of all, and although I felt like an ant, I had fulfilled my dream, by living the life of luxury. The place was huge and I had a hard time finding my way around for the first week, but after that I started to get the hang of it. From my room I took a left down the hall, down the spiral staircase, a right down another hall, and then a left to the kitchen. That was the main route I usually took besides parking out front and walking to my room.
Sometimes, though, I felt like I was being watched. There was one time I was walking down the hall and I could have sworn that there was someone walking behind me, but when I turned around nobody was there.
That sort of stuff started to happened a lot, right after the second week of me living there. Every once in a while I would even shout
“Is anyone there?” Most times there was silence, but once there was a strange scuffling noise that went from the floor in front of me to the ceiling and then disappeared down the hall behind me. The lights were on, but every bit of me was having a hard time believing what was going on.
I began doing some research on the mansion to see if there had been any odd occurrences in the past. At first I was turning up nothing but articles on the mansion’s design, but then I finally found a book that had the history of the mansion up until 25 years ago. According to the book, the original owner had built the mansion and died there. The reports said that he was no longer seen leaving the house and was presumed dead, even though his body was never found. After his will had been read, his family was gifted the home and due to the overwhelming size of the mansion, they decided to sell it. Since then the house has had many owners, each saying that it gave them the creeps, up to a point where they couldn’t stand it anymore, and were forced to sell the house.
After I did that research I had an electrician come over and install more lights in the halls and my room so I could see better. After that the sounds stopped happening and everything was calm again.



A month had passed since I bought the house and I hadn’t had a house warming party yet. Seeing that all the “troubles” were behind me I decided to have a party that weekend. I had all my co-workers and some of my closest friends come over. There were about twenty seven of them in total and the majority of the party involved everyone talking to each other and sitting around drinking a few glasses of wine. Three people left after the first two hours and everyone seemed to have gotten really bored after that, slumping down in their chairs and speaking in somewhat depressed tones. By the time midnight came around there were only ten people left, myself included, and everyone was getting ready to leave.
It was twelve thirty when people were grabbing their car keys and walking out the door, when the lights turned off suddenly. I walked to the nearest light switch and flicked it a couple of times, it seemed like the power in the entire house had turned off. A few seconds after that an ear piercing screech flew throughout the entire mansion, making my ear drums rattle even when they were covered. When it stopped one of the guests began screaming at the top of his lungs, fell over and was being dragged away by something in the shadows. The other guests flooded out the door pushing me onto the floor. Looking at the door that was left ajar, I could hear the car doors being slammed, the engines revving, and the wheels turning as they picked up loose pieces of gravel that was scattered about the dirt driveway. Being the owner of the house I had an obligation to find out what happened to the guest so picked myself up onto my feet and began to journey down the hall, listening for any signs of noise that would let me know where my guest had gone.


Fifteen minutes had passed since the guest had disappeared and I didn’t know how much more I could take. My heart beat quickening with each step I took and each corner I walked by. I was just about to give up the search when I heard faint noises down one of the halls that I was not to familiar with.
I peered my head around the corner of the hall and that was when I saw a large hulking beast lurking over the guest’s carcass, slowly eating him limb by limb. The beast itself was nearly twice the size of a normal human that looked like a pale-dark green torso with a head and four arms where his limbs where. The beast’s arms were not arms though, they were more like limbs with four razor sharp digits with claws sticking out the ends. And his bald earless head had a very broad jaw with two small tusks, that looked like they would be used for much larger kills, and a set of smaller teeth on the inside, very similar to a dog and how it would latch on to its kill only releasing when it had tore limbs off for its next meal.
It was almost like watching one of those horror movies that you could not look away from, one where the monster would eat its victims limbs clean off and using their bones as tooth picks, but this was much worse. The beast would use his pincer like hands to precisely pluck the muscular tendons for the guest’s arms, similar to the snapping of a guitar string that splatters bright red blood across the walls, the floor, and sends a fountain of juice dripping down the monsters face. Seeing the flesh rip from the bone, each muscle forming the ligaments that were his arms and legs. Each tear of the thick muscle forcing hairline fractures to form throughout the bone. Once he was finished eating the tender meat of the one arm it took the remaining bone and ate it whole crunching it with ease, almost as though the bone was its form of rock candy. He then plunged his hand straight into the guest’s torso and tore open his rib cage, snapping all the bones that were left intact and sending a fountain of blood to flow through the hall. One by one it would alternate its hands breaking the arteries and tearing out the vital organs that keep a person alive. First the heart then the lungs, the spleen, the kidneys, and anything else it deemed as food. Shoving each organ into its razor sharp teeth, practically swallowing each one whole. All that was left in tack was the head, a head with a screech forever imprinted into the morbid state of his skin. As the beast finished off the chest cavity, it began working on the head. Using the delicate portion of his finely tipped claws to pierce the soft flesh on the eye balls, slowly applying the pressure to break the tendons that connected the eyes to the brain; breaking the individual cords with his claws once they were as removed from the skull as possible.
Knowing that I could no longer watch, I slowly began to back away when the floor board creaked. The monster then looked directly into my eyes and I looked into his yellow-red corneas and the blood that splattered them. He began to move in my direction and I bolted down the hall, not knowing which way to turn I tried to run in a direction that would not put me in a circle. I could hear the heavy breathing and claws scraping the wooden floor as the beast tailed me at a speed that was just faster than that of a dog.
I turned left, then right, then right, then left. I could tell I was out of shape and that he was gaining on me. My heavy breathing was slowing me down, but I knew that I couldn’t stop otherwise he would get me. Finally I made my way around a corner and saw the front door to the mansion, nearly out of breath I used the last bit of my strength and ran as fast as I could. For a split second I looked behind only to see the beast blur around the corner and bolt for my position. I knew that I wouldn’t make it to the door in time and with him almost upon me I dropped into a slide tackle. As I watched him jump over me I pushed my hand against the floor, putting myself into a sprinting stance just as he rammed into the solid wood door. I bolted into the kitchen, while he was still getting his bearings and made my way for the hard metal door that lead into the industrial freezer.
Just as it made its way through the archway I closed the freezer door and locked the door from the inside. With the power out, the freezer had stopped working, but the insulated room had been keeping it cold and I could tell that if I didn’t find a way out of this mess soon I would be next on his menu. I tried to find another door but there was no such luck the only thing that was in here were the boxes of food that lined the shelves against the wall. A few bangs and scratch noises filled the frozen wasteland that was my slowly awaited death.
Thinking on my feet I grabbed all the boxes of meat and poured their contents into one large pile on the floor while stacking the empty boxes into a wall I could hide behind. Once all the tenderloin and ribs were in place I hid behind the box wall, unlocked the freezer and saw a blur flash by my eyes as the best ravenously devoured the meat. I moved out the door and slammed it shut, almost certain that I drew the beasts attention to the door. I then locked the freezer from the outside and bolted to the small dish by the front door where I keep my car keys.
Shifting through the few keys that were in there, I could already hear the beast trying to escape from his frozen prison. It didn’t matter if the door held or if my stuff was left behind or anything else, I didn’t want the life of luxury if it came at the price of my life. I finally grabbed my car keys and ran out the front door. Sprinting down the large pathway that led to the round driveway in front of the mansion, I could still hear the loud banging of the freezer door from outside. As I made my way around the back of my car and stumbled to the driver’s side door, I gripped the door handle and took one last look at the mansion and what it had meant to me in the short time I had been there. I opened the car door and got in, putting the key into the ignition. Frustration filled my heart as the engine turned over and over and over and over, gas flooding the engine as it tried to get a solid fire in its belly.
Suddenly the engine revved and the car was ready to leave. Just as I looked back at the mansion I could see the beast getting closer to my car. I slammed my foot onto the pedal until the mechanics wouldn’t let me push it any further. The speed increased from 0 to 20 to 70 all in a matter of seconds, but it didn’t matter. The beast slammed into the car turning it onto its side, I was screwed I knew it, there was nothing left I could do. The beast, knowing it had won prowled around the car stopping at the front windshield to stare it me with something that somewhat resembled a smirk. After giving me a once over he went to the hood of the vehicle, now lying on the ground. I heard nothing for a few minutes, sitting, waiting, for what he might possibly do next, and as I sat there waiting his pincer like hand busted through the room gripping my skull. It applied a severe amount of pressure, enough to make blood flow from my ears, nose, and even tear out my eyes.
I wondered was this how he killed his prey, my making them depriving them of the one thing that kept them alive. As far as I knew it didn't matter, I felt my brain being crushed by the pressure and realizing that I was breathing my last breath, time slowed and my life passed before my eyes.
CRUNCH!