Shawn Oetzel

The January 2010 Selected Story is by Shawn Oetzel

Feel free to email Shawn at: oetzel73@gmail.com

SCRUNCHIES
By Shawn Oetzel

Hey you…yeah you, with the Bible. Come here quick. I don’t have much time, and I have to get the word out before I’m juiced. You may be the last hope. I have a story to tell, and I know how ridiculous and crazy it may sound, but I swear it’s true.

Good, I see I have your attention. All I ask is you hear me out and then warn everyone they’re out there. They’re still out there!

It started when my girlfriend Joan returned from shopping with her friend at the mall. It was such an ordinary day, but I guess they all are until something like this happens.  Joan…God she is beautiful with her long black hair and blue eyes that seemed to go on forever. You could get lost in those wondrous orbs and never care about finding your way back. She is as close to perfection as you can get. Maybe that’s why they chose her.

I remember having a brief conversation which started with me asking how her shopping trip went. She answered casually, and I followed up with a question, that when answered, brought evil into my life.

“Did you get anything good?”

“Not really,” she answered, and then nonchalantly showed me a white bag she was holding in her right hand “I did pick up some hair scrunchies at Claire’s. They were four for a dollar so I bought a couple dollars’ worth.”

So she bought some new hair scrunchies. I couldn’t have cared less. I mean really, what guy gives a damn about things like that? It’s not like she brought home new lingerie. Hell, I would have gotten excited about that, but hair scrunchies?

I noticed she had her lustrous black hair pulled back into a ponytail. She often did this when she did not want to be bothered with having to fix it up. She thought this made her look frumpy, but in truth, it made me want her even more.

She flashed me her million dollar smile which naturally made my heart melt, and then she turned and walked into the kitchen. At first I was preoccupied by the swaying of her cute ass, but when I looked up something caught my attention.

The face of evil was staring back at me with a look so intent, I actually felt my soul shrink back in fear. Oh, from a distance it appeared to be a red hair scrunchy, but I swear to any God you choose, that scrunchy had eyes… and it winked at me.

I can see by the look on your face you think I’m crazy. Believe me, I wish I were. I wish I was stark raving mad with drool sliding out of my mouth and feces smeared on my walls, but I’m not. I’m as sane as you are. Look into my eyes, and you’ll know the truth. Hell has vomited up an evil into this world, and unless I can get the word out, it’s going to infect everything we know. It’s already started…look what it’s done to me.

Naturally I thought my eyes had played a trick on me. It must have been some shadow or strange flickering of light which had caused my confusion. Or possibly it was some flashback to my high school days when I didn’t mind experimenting with certain pharmaceuticals of questionable legality which caused the quick hallucination. There was no way the thing was actually alive.

I decided the only way I was going to get peace of mind was to find out for myself. I felt like a complete fool, but I followed Joan into the kitchen in hopes of catching another glimpse of that demon-spawned hairpiece.

Joan had her back to me as I entered. She was bent over at the waist digging in the bottom of the refrigerator for something to drink. Normally I would have been distracted by the nice view of her backside bouncing up and down as she hunted through the fridge, but I was a man on a mission.

I could see the scrunchy still holding her hair back. It looked completely normal. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I felt.

It was strange. I was so sure I had been mistaken in what I had seen. I mean how could I not have been? The whole thing was so stupid, yet there I stood actually panting with relief.

Still, it was as if on some primal level, I continued to sense that something wasn’t quite right. Somehow, instinctively, I knew I was in the presence of evil.

I remember her turning around, and seeing the relief-stricken look etched on my face, and then asking me if I was all right. I thought I was. I thought everything had returned to normal.

Of course I reassured her that I was fine. I felt like a complete idiot. Here I was in the presence of the only woman I have ever loved, and I was afraid I might be losing my mind because of a stupid hair trinket.

I decided enough was enough, and walked over to her, wrapping her in my arms, and planting a kiss on those luscious lips. Those were the sweetest tasting lips you could ever imagine.

I wanted her, but then again, I always wanted her. I was still on edge, but the thought of some hot sex with this perfect beauty pushed my growing fears aside. It’s funny how the lure of a wild round of monkey love can cure any problem…almost.

I could see by the look in her eyes, she was of a like mind, and more than willing to lead the way to our bedroom. Knowing Joan, however, with her passion, we might not have even made it up the stairs. Many a time we would only make it to the living room, stairway, or even the hallway before our desires would get the better of us, and we would give in.

Knowing that a good time was about to be had, I grabbed her tighter, and we shared one of those long, wet kisses that make your toes tingle. I can see by the smirk on your face…you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I reached up with my hand, and slowly traced my fingers through the smooth silk that was her hair. I let it flow through my fingers as we continued to share our kiss; our passion growing more intense with each passing second. That is until I brushed my fingers against the scrunchy that was holding her hair in the ponytail.

I had already forgotten about the craziness from mere moments before. I guess evil decided I needed a reminder. As I began pulling the scrunchy down in an attempt to free those black locks so they could cascade over her shoulders, I felt a sharp piercing pain in my finger.

I yelped like a puppy that’s had its tail stepped on. I pulled away from Joan forcibly. I know a look of utter confusion with subtle hints of horror was plastered across my face. I know this because I could see myself reflected in Joan’s eyes.

“What the hell was that all about?” she asked.

I told her the first lie that leapt into my mind. Sure it was lame, but it’s all my frightened brain could come up with. “I think I snagged a hangnail in your hair.”

She looked at me like I was a complete moron. I couldn’t really blame her, though. Here, she wanted sex, and I was jumping around like a kid afraid of his own shadow.

“Well, if you’re too hurt to continue, I guess I will have to fly solo,” she said, teasing me.

I so wanted to play along, but the shock of the pain was still washing over me. Luckily, she mistook my odd behavior as a result of her teasing.

“I’m going upstairs. If your injured nail is not too bad, feel free to join me,” she said as she swayed past me.

This naturally got my engines going again. I am a man, after all. I was torn between my horror and my desire to get laid. I continued to watch her, and was glad to see that she reached up, removed the devilish hair scrunchy, and tossed it on the coffee table as she passed through the living room on her way upstairs.

Still, I couldn’t make myself follow Joan. I stood transfixed. When Joan was up the stairs and out of sight, I finally ventured a peak at my still throbbing finger. There on my right index finger was a circle of red. There were tiny drops of blood oozing from the wound, but I was able to clearly make out a small bite mark. I am not ashamed to admit I almost threw up.

I turned my head and could only stare at the discarded hair scrunchy as it lay seemingly harmless on the coffee table. Slowly, I was able to get enough of my wits about me to walk into the living room. My feet felt as if they were wearing cinder block loafers.

When I finally found myself standing before the coffee table, I knew I had to get rid of the vile demon, but I was too scared to reach out and touch the thing. It had already bitten me once.

It was Joan who broke the spell caused by my fear. I heard her taunt me from upstairs. “All right, cowboy, this is the last call. If you’re not up here in the next five minutes, happy hour will be over.”

I wanted to get rid of the scrunchy so that things could return to normal, so that I could join Joan upstairs. Lying on the table next to the scrunchy was one of Joan’s puzzle books. She loved doing crosswords. Out of the bottom of the book I could see the end of an ink pen she used as a bookmark.

In a moment of inspiration, I grabbed up the pen, slipped it through the scrunchy carefully so it would not touch any part of my hand, and charged back into the kitchen. Without any hesitation, I headed straight for the sink, dumped the scrunchy into the garbage disposal, and flipped the switch to grind the hairpiece into shreds.

I watched with morbid curiosity as the scrunchy was sucked into the drain. The grinding of the disposal was music to my ears. I felt as if a huge weight was lifted off me. Whatever evil had created that thing could have it back. As far as I was concerned, the garbage disposal was sending it straight back to hell.

Just when I was starting to feel better, I heard the scream coming from the drain.

So help me God, the thing screamed in pain as it was ground into bits!

If there was even an ounce of doubt about whether I was mistaken or not, it was gone. I couldn’t hold it back anymore; I leaned over and threw up into the same sink.

Surprisingly, emptying my stomach did make me feel better. I reached over and turned the garbage disposal off. In the aftermath of the grinding and that unearthly scream, the silence was almost overwhelming.

I splashed some water on my face, and then stood there, letting the coolness settle into my skin. I felt like the whole world was closing in on me. I started feeling claustrophobic, and fearing that I might start to hyperventilate, I sucked in two deep breaths. Along with the cool water, the breaths helped calm my nerves. I could feel the shaking in my hands begin to subside, but when I reached up to wipe my brow, I could still see a slight tremble. I think I was still in shock because the details of the rest of the night are a little blurry.

Not really knowing what to do next, I made my way upstairs to Joan. I know I must have looked like a robot because I felt stiff and mechanical in my movements. I remember making it to the bedroom, and I know I had sex with Joan, but the details have all slipped from my memory. I think with everything that had happened, I was on a sensory overload. It wasn’t until the next morning things became crystal clear again.

I remember waking up and feeling completely refreshed. The events from the previous day were nothing more than a vague fuzzy memory. In fact, I had convinced myself it was all a dream. As I remembered bits and pieces of the oddities from the day before, I assured myself that they were only leftover phantoms from some strange nightmare. In an odd sort of way, I was more right than I knew.

I was in bed alone. Joan had awakened before me, and with the aroma of bacon frying wafting into the bedroom, I quickly guessed she was back in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I was truly happy in those fleeting minutes before I got out of bed. That was the last time I’ve experienced that feeling. My life has been one excruciating horror after another since.

I walked back down the stairs, and nearly fell to my knees when I saw a white scrunchy lying on the floor. Then I noticed another one, a dark blue scrunchy sitting on the same coffee table where Joan had tossed the one I had destroyed the night before.

I know Joan said she had bought eight of those little demons, but why would these two be here in the living room at this time? She normally kept her beauty items in the bathroom.

The warm feeling of contentment was rapidly fading as the gut wrenching fear began to creep into my body once again. A quiet rustling sound coming from the general area of the coffee table drew my attention in that direction. It was the sound of someone leafing through a magazine.

I turned, and to my absolute horror, a the white scrunchy from the floor had joined its partner on the table.

I stared at the pair of evil hair fasteners, and watched, trance-like, as they seemed to scoot closer together. I could feel what little grip on reality I had left start to strain and then to slip away.

I sneaked passed the scrunchies, and then almost sprinted into the kitchen. I was welcomed by the sound of dishes clattering as Joan was setting the table…and the sight of more vile demons.
There was one scrunchy on the counter by the sink, one sitting in the middle of the table, one peeking out from behind the glass cow-shaped cookie jar sitting on the counter, and one more sitting among the cereal boxes on top of the refrigerator. I could feel their beady little eyes watching me; taunting me.

Joan was oblivious to the whole thing. When I entered the kitchen, she looked up and smiled at me, but there was something different. The spark in her eyes was gone. Those normally gleaming blue orbs of hers were dulled almost to a gray. It was as if someone or something had sucked the life out of her.

She didn’t say a word as she turned her back to me to grab a bowl full of scrambled eggs sitting on the counter next to the stove, and that’s when I noticed yet another scrunchy tying her hair back.

At that moment, I knew. Those damn scrunchies had taken my Joan, and left this hollowed-out imposter. They had sucked out everything that made her precious like some sorts of vampires. I came close to breaking down right there, but I didn’t.

A clinking by the sink worked its way across the room and cracked the cone of silence which had settled over the kitchen. I nearly gave myself whiplash I turned my head so fast to see what made the noise. There on the counter amongst the dirty dishes was yet another scrunchy. This one was white, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt, it was the one from the living room, staring me down. I could make out two small red eyes, and they were looking right at me filled with pure malice.

I was completely surrounded.

In those terror-filled moments, I knew what I had to do. If anything was going to be able to put a stop to this madness before it got completely out of control, it would have to be now. It would have to be me.

I know you think: I am trying to make myself sound like a hero, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I didn’t feel brave or heroic in the least. What I actually felt like was pissing myself.

Everything kind of became cloudy at that point. I may have swooned; I don’t really know. I do know that I got up from the table, and without even a glance at Joan, I made my way to our basement. I could feel evil glares staring daggers through my back as I crossed the kitchen to the basement door.

I love the outdoors. Anything having to do with outdoor activities I am all over. Biking, hiking, fishing, and especially hunting are my real passions in life. I keep all of my equipment in our basement. This included my favorite 12 gauge Remington shotgun. It was this very weapon I knew would be the solution to the growing scrunchy problem which had somehow taken over my residence.

I went to the workbench where I kept my hunting guns.

There, hanging on the wall mounted gun rack, shining like a beacon of hope, was the Remington. It really was a beautiful weapon with its glossy black metal barrel and polished oak stock. It was a pump action and could hold as many as fifteen shells. It was completely state of the art, and I knew it wouldn’t let me down. It never has.

I loaded it unconsciously as images of the demons that had taken over my house, and even worse my girlfriend, played through my mind. There was no doubt about what needed to be done. I had absolutely no second thoughts.

I pumped in the last shell with a satisfying “snick” sound. I could hear Joan moving around upstairs. Sweet Joan, I had to save her. You have to understand, there was no other choice.

I slowly crept back up the basement steps. All of my hunter’s instincts were primed and ready. This was it; it was go time.

When I slinked back up through the basement door, the house was eerily silent. The kitchen was empty. I quickly surveyed the entire room; looking everyplace I could remember having seen the demon scrunchies, but I didn’t see any. My nerves were shot at this point. I was so on edge.

And then the oppressive silence that had fallen over the house was shattered by the ringing of the telephone. I was running totally on instinct by that point, and as soon as I heard the chirping ring of the phone, I spun towards the sound, brought the shotgun to bear, aimed, and fired. The telephone disintegrated into pieces of plastic shrapnel.

The blast from the gun was deafening, and the pungent sulfurous smell of gunpowder filled the immediate area surrounding me. I was so tense, the recoil nearly dislocated my shoulder, but the pain was a secondary thought.

Whatever last thread of self control I had been able to maintain snapped in that first blast. I fired again and again at the places where I had earlier seen those damnable scrunchies. My first shot was by the sink shattering dishes, and then the table leaving a double fist size hole in the cherry wood, and finally on top of the refrigerator destroying the boxes of cereal being stored there.

I stood in the center of the room, desperately trying to catch my breath, and to stop the shaking that had taken control of my body as a rain of Rice Krispies and Fruity Pebbles bounced off my shoulders. I could still hear the echoing of the shotgun blasts as they bounced around the house, or maybe it was only in my head. At that point, I honestly couldn’t say.

I walked into the living room. It took all of my strength to lift each leg. With every step, my balance teetered and I was on the verge of falling over. If anyone had seen me, they would have sworn I was liquored up, but I think the truth of it was simply that I was terrified.

Then, and I swear to God, in slow motion, Joan came down the stairs and faced me. She turned those now dead eyes on me. I knew everything I loved was gone, and I could see over the crown of her head a blue scrunchy glaring at me from her ponytail.
 
The crippling trembling that raked my body stopped as an eerie calm settled over me. She stood a little over five feet away, and I knew it was now or never. I took a step back as the doppelganger trying to play itself off as my Joan raised its arm and pointed its finger at my chest. The whole thing seemed surreal, like it was all part of a bad dream.

The monster before me that looked like my Joan started to open its mouth as if to speak. I have no idea what kind of filth it was preparing to spew at me, and I had absolutely no intention of finding out.

With instincts honed from years of hunting, I raised the shotgun and settled it firmly against my shoulder. I stared down the barrel; lining up the perfect kill-shot. I sucked in a long breath. The Joan-thing started to turn around to run, but I knew I had to kill it before it could make its turn complete. I squeezed the trigger. The sound of the blast was ear shattering in its explosiveness.

My aim was true, and a red mist filled the space where Joan had been. The force of the buckshot had knocked her off her feet, and she was sitting on the floor with her back leaning against the wall. There was a softball-sized hole where her left breast should have been.

I pumped the shotgun; ejecting the spent shell, and loaded another into the chamber. I was not about to take any chances. I took one step forward, and sighted in another shot.

I hesitated in firing for a brief second when I looked into Joan’s eyes. For a moment, the old luster was back. It was almost as if she was sending me a message; thanking me for setting her free.

Tears sprang to my own eyes as I fired that last shot, and Joan’s head exploded like an overripe watermelon.

*****

It took the jury less than an hour to find me guilty of murder in the first degree and to condemn me to death. Little do those poor fools know that by sentencing me to death and silencing me, they were in fact signing their own death warrants.

I am the only one who knows the truth, and by shutting me up, they could very well be condemning mankind. The evil is still out there.

I’ve been rotting away in this cell for two years trying to tell anyone who’d listen. While my lawyer was playing out the melodrama that is the appeals process, hoping to somehow save my life, I have been here trying to get someone…anyone…to pay attention to me.

I would gladly give my life if I knew it meant that the evil could be stopped, but those scrunchies are still out there. Who knows what evil they have wrought while I have been locked away?

Ten minutes, that is all the time I have left. They will be coming to get me after that and strap me to a gurney so they can pump chemicals into my body. I’ve been told I will just drift off to sleep like some dog that’s been at the pound too long.

You know, I am actually looking forward to it now that I have found you to believe me. Who knows, maybe I will get to see Joan again. That would be poetic justice I think.

I can hear their footsteps coming for me. It’s time. You can carry on the fight now.

Hey…wait a minute. What’s wrong with your eyes? They seem duller, lifeless. What’re you doing? Why are you reaching into your pocket? What is that? Oh my God! No! Guards!

*****

“See, I told ya he was crazy.”

“Yeah Tom, I guess you were right.”

“I’ve had to listen to that psycho’s bullshit for two years. Its nut jobs like him that make our jobs as prison guards unbearable sometimes.”

“I can’t believe he kept screaming about those stupid hair scrunchies right up to when they dosed him.”

“I know, as if blowing your girlfriend’s head off with a shotgun wasn’t crazy enough, he has to try and blame it on hair scunchies. The guy deserved to die, if not for murder, then for coming up with the lamest excuse known to man.”

“Yeah, I thought I’d heard them all, but that one was definitely original. If those scrunchies were so bad, why was he carrying one in his pocket?”

“You’re kidding?”

“No man, I swear. I saw it in his pocket, when the Doc removed his shirt to hook up the IV’s.”

“What a waste of space that asshole was. Hey, what was up with that minister? Man, he kind of gave me the creeps.”

“I know what ya mean. I think it was his eyes. It was like nobody was home.”

“Yeah man, they were lifeless.”

“You know, come to think of it, the minister had one of those scrunchies around his wrist like a bracelet.”

“What?”

“I’m serious dude, I saw it.”

“That’s kind of weird.”

“Hey, you don’t think…”

Shawn Oetzel currently resides in Illinois with his loving family. It is there he dreams of writing full time and longs for the day he can see his beloved Cubs play in a World Series. Shawn's first published novel, Dying Moon, is available from LBF Books. His second novel titled The Agency will be available soon.

Shawn has always had the aspiration of becoming either a Superhero or a writer and is extremely glad he has made good on at least one of those endeavors.
You can visit Shawn at his website www.shawnmoetzel.com or feel free to look him up on Facebook.