A Foot on the Other Shoe
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
He takes a clumsy breath through his nose, dragging mucus and other bacteria back down into his throat like a vacuum cleaner over the carpet. He swallows uncomfortably, his throat tight, then he curls his lips and lets out a gasping cry, baring his teeth as if he were some rabid animal.
He breathes out, spitting a wash of green saliva across the space before him. He stammers and stutters as it drips from his unkempt moustache. Another breath squeezes out of his infected chest while the cup hovers inches from his lips before he slobbers a sip of the dark coffee. He screws up his nose and gasps again.
He grips his wrist as an uncontrollable spasm trembles through it, the murky coffee sloshing against the rim as he sets it onto the table.
He sighs in frustration and collapses back into the seat, rubbing a dirty cloth across his face, dragging the infection dripping from his lips across broken skin, and hisses with a grunt as his flesh begins to burn and blister almost instantly.
He gasps, then lets his eyes fall on the television. He lazily holds a single-button device out towards the television. It clicks loudly and the room is engulfed in a low, inhuman hum as the screen flickers to life, displaying a rolling test pattern that cuts through the darkness with its overly bright glow.
He winces as a sharp high-pitched wail tears out from the speakers that are wired directly into the room’s walls. It’s quickly followed by splintering electrical sounds before the image goes black, then after a few moments a sea of blurry colours spreads through the darkness, and slowly a boy of roughly sixteen, dressed in a suit far more dignified than his age allows him, comes into focus.
He smiles nervously as he shuffles his way through papers that sit in front of him before he looks up, then down through the camera’s lens, the smile becoming a wry, mocking grin instead of one meant to comfort anyone.
“My people, we have the invaders on the run, taking back over a quarter that was lost only nights ago. This is a victory we cannot let slip by, for even though this small sliver means nothing in a larger picture scenario, in my regime’s plan this victory is the beginning we desperately required. The technology housed in this area is vital to my…” he stops as his lips tremble and he winces before letting out a breath. “To our continued survival, as this will ensure our rising rebellion can outlast the annals of time, and soon, we will take back everything else that was lost, and then we will start taking what our enemies have. Though our numbers are depleted, and many of our allies have fallen, left us, or in some instances have joined our enemies’ ranks, forming trusted trade alliances that will see them prosper while we, we who were once great, are now visibly left to die in our defeat. We will still be triumphant in the end, for many times have we been backed into a corner, many times have we faced extinction, but we are still here because we are unstoppable, we are undeniable, we are un…”
His brow furrows, his eyes narrowing as he leans forward, pulling an uncomfortable face with his lips twisting sideways.
“Is everything okay, sir?” a voice asks somewhere in the room.
He points off to the left of the camera and waves his hand about.
“T-The teleprompter thing stopped right in the middle of the speech, c-can you help me out? Can you get it back up? I-I’m looking like an idiot!” he mumbles nervously with a now painfully awkward smile on his lips.
“W-We don’t h-have a teleprompter, s-sir, y-you have everything noted in front of you. I-in your hands,” he stammers.
He looks down at the papers in his hands, laughs to himself, then looks up into the camera, a broad grin spreading across his glowing cheeks.
“We are undeniable!”
The room falls silent as he stares into the camera with a glassy stare.
“S-Sorry, sir, but you already said undeniable,” the voice from behind the camera says, only for his smile to grow wider.
“Undeniable,” he repeats, as does the man sitting on the couch, his eyes burning, as the blisters continue to spread across his face, but beneath them, he forces a smile.
Did this one sink its teeth into you?
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