Short Fiction Horror: String
A flash of foolish violence unleashes something beyond imagining.
Hi! N. J. Glemboski here. I write books and short stories. If you missed my last short-form horror post, check out “Wall Dreams.” This Substack is free, but if you’ve enjoyed my writing and would like to show your support, consider picking up my latest novel, “Sol’s Ladder.”
String
"Hey, Francis! It's that old geezer again with the damn string!"
Francis hated his name. He hated hearing it almost as much as the woman who had stuck him with it.
He turned to look in the direction that Craig was pointing. Sure enough, old man Else was making one of his duo of daily laps around the block.
For as long as Francis could remember—and he'd lived in this neighborhood his entire life—Richard Else had made this exact loop every day at sunrise and sunset. There was much speculation as to why, but by now these walks were as much a part of the architecture of the neighborhood as the cathedral at its center.
Most days, Francis didn't take notice of the crazy old man, but today, the ridiculous ritual just rubbed him the wrong way.
"Before I get out of here, I'm gonna put an end to that insane loop," Francis said, more to himself than anyone.
"Sure, Francis," Craig said as he wiped his mouth and tossed an empty soda can onto a nearby roof. "I'd think you two would get along considering you're both going to be stuck spiraling the drain in this place for the rest of your lives. You two could be best of pals—"
Before Craig could finish saying "pals," Francis had reached out with a well-practiced knuckle and landed a sharp tap between Craig's ribs. Craig immediately doubled over, gasping as his eyes bulged, all the snark gone out of them.
"Will you boys cut it out?" Gina "Jet" Gibson said as she came up behind Francis and gave his shoulder a solid shove. "You two are supposed to be adults now. Coulda fooled me."
Francis turned to look at Gina. She had her arms folded in front of her chest, which only enhanced her distracting curves.
You're lucky you're hot, Francis thought. Otherwise, you'd be wheezing along with Craig.
He'd always had a thing for Jet, and they'd even made out a few times, but he could never seem to get anywhere serious with her.
Just like Craig, Jet had prospects, and Francis didn't. When the end of summer rolled around, they'd be gone, and he'd be right here. Craig wasn't wrong. He was like old man Else. He would be stuck turning the same corners he had been all his life. Round and round. The thought was more than Francis could take.
Francis watched the old man as he passed in front of Saint John's Cathedral. Why did he walk that same path, day after day, dragging that red string?
The string itself had always weirded him out a bit. Yeah, dragging it was strange, but the crimson thread felt unnatural somehow. Despite being dragged along the sidewalk every day, it never seemed to get dirty. It felt as if even bits of dead leaves and bird droppings knew to keep their distance.
Old man Else shuffled on, and Francis felt a new loathing growing in his gut. That would not be his fate. That would not be him.
Francis reached out a hand to steady himself against the patinaed brick of an abandoned storefront. His fingernails dug into the disintegrating mortar. He felt the urge to claw at it, like a prisoner scratching desperately at a cell wall.
Francis's fingers found purchase on a loose brick. It pulled free like a rotten tooth long overdue for extraction.
"Hey, Craig!" Francis called out. "Ten bucks says I can convince old man Else to leave his loop unfinished today."
Craig snorted. "He hasn't missed a single day in our entire lives. Even in that freak blizzard a few years back. It was like twenty below, and that nut job was still circling the block. So yeah, I'll take your money."
Craig laughed and took a seat on the hood of a car that wasn't his.
"What are you gonna do, Francis? Talk him out of it?" Jet asked. "I think the flunked English class that helped you fail high school would suggest an eloquent argument isn't really your strong suit."
Jet said it jokingly, but she knew the instant the words left her mouth that it was too much too soon. Her and Craig's graduation, and Francis's non-participation in that event had been just last week. It was a fresh wound, and she had just scraped off the scab.
Francis smiled. Jet took a step back as if Francis had just raised his fist.
"I think this is one bet I'm sure to win, Craig," Francis said as he stepped away from the wall and swung back the hand that held the brick. "I've just gotta put it all on red."
Richard Else put one foot in front of the other as he made his way past the cathedral. The walks felt harder lately. He wasn't sure if it was his aging body or the poorly maintained sidewalk that was to blame. In any case, the string felt heavier today.
Richard gripped one end of the crimson thread of yarn in his bony left hand as if his life depended on it. The truth was, it did. Everyone's life did.
The string would catch briefly as it wound its way down the pitted sidewalk. It reminded Richard of the times he'd gone fishing as a boy—the short jerk of a fish nibbling at the end of his line.
Richard grimaced. If only it were just an earthworm at the end of his thread. If it were as simple as that, and he was just nuts like everyone thought, he wouldn't have to make this cursed loop at the cost of his aching knees.
The cathedral loomed to his right. Richard passed into its shadow and felt a chill. As the days ground by, it was easy to forget why he did this. The cathedral stood as a grim reminder of what was at stake. The angular faces embedded in the stained glass windows seemed to follow him as he made slow progress down the street. It felt as if they were daring him to alter his course.
For over fifty years he'd held true. He wasn't about to change that today, no matter how loudly his knees pleaded.
Richard heard the brick before he felt it. With so many years walking the same route, anything remotely out of the ordinary stood out, and the sound of the brick tumbling end over end in his direction certainly qualified. The last thoughts that went through Richard's head before the brick smashed into it were ones of curiosity and excitement, quickly followed by pain and confusion.
It felt like his ear had spontaneously exploded. Richard's vision went blurry, and he found himself falling toward the cracked sidewalk. The stained glass windows looked on as the sudden violence played out before them.
As Richard's tired body hit the concrete, he felt something he hadn't experienced in fifty years. He felt the string leave his hand.
Francis let out a whoop as the brick completed its perfect arc toward the old man's head.
"Time for a new route, Grampa! That sidewalk's mine now, and I'm declaring it a no head case zone!"
"Francis, what the hell?" Jet screamed. Her hand went to her left ear as if she could feel the damage done.
Craig backed away from where the old man had fallen. "Nice throw, but we've gotta get outta here, man. No way I'm getting arrested this close to getting out of here."
Jet took several steps toward the crumpled, bloodied form before Craig put a hand on her shoulder. She turned and glared at him, but he shook his head.
"Not this time, Gina," Craig said. "You've got as much to lose as I do."
Jet opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out. She took one last look over her shoulder at the old man and his string and was about to turn and follow Craig when an odd detail caught her eye.
One end of the red thread was rising from the ground, as if answering the song of some unseen snake charmer.
The string hung there for a moment, one end held aloft by an invisible force as the other end dragged along the ground.
With growing dread, Jet realized the impossible thread was moving toward her. It moved like a ghost, steady and weightless.
"Is it...is there a balloon?" Craig muttered.
The string slowed as it approached Jet. She took a step forward and reached out to pluck the crimson oddity out of the air.
It was at that moment that the strangest thing happened. Both Francis and Craig saw it. If Jet had seen it and reacted in time, it might have saved her life. At least, that's what Francis thought every one of the million times he played back the memory.
Jet's right forearm vanished. It happened so quickly and completely that even Jet herself didn't react right away.
The three of them stood there in silence for what felt like minutes.
Thinking back, Francis could never remember if the spray of blood from the stump of Jet's elbow came before or after she started wailing. As Jet backed away from the still floating string, she stared at the place where, just moments ago, her forearm had been and screamed. The scream sounded like it came less from pain and more from pure shock and madness.
There is no part of the human brain equipped to process a limb vanishing for no apparent reason.
"Shit shit shit!" Craig gasped, tripping as his own shock gave way to panic. He joined Jet in her wailing as he struggled to choose a direction to escape a thing he couldn't see.
One of Jet's legs shot out. She looked frozen mid-kick, until the other leg shot out as well, leaving the rest of her to gravity's mercy.
Jet's head hit the ground and didn't have time to bounce before she was dragged sideways with sickening speed.
It gave Francis small comfort later to think that Jet was knocked unconscious at that moment. He had to believe that. The thought of her being awake for what came next was more than he could bear.
Much like the string had, Jet's limp body floated up into the air, legs first. Her face dragged along the pavement until it too lifted off the ground.
Francis was so stunned by Jet's levitation that he almost didn't notice the fact that her legs were disappearing. The air itself appeared to be consuming Jet. Her blood told a different story.
An arterial spray shot into the air and hung there as if gravity had taken its leave. As the droplets of blood pooled and dribbled down, the invisible surface they clung to took shape.
Francis's mind struggled to make sense of the form that came into view. No movie or nightmare had ever come close to creating a face like the one his friend's body was now disappearing into.
The bloody image didn't last long as the blood rolled off it like oil on Teflon. What stuck in Francis's mind was the flat, ridged head rimmed by rows of what were either eyes or nostrils. The mouth that Jet was disappearing into seemed to have no teeth from what Francis could make out. Instead, a barbed tongue worked back and forth, ripping apart everything that came near it with horrible rending friction.
As the last of Jet was lost behind wriggling lips, the final drops of blood fell to the ground, leaving Francis staring into empty space once more. In the absence of visible horror, Francis became aware of a pounding sound. With great effort, he turned his head and saw Craig banging his fists on the front door of a nearby butcher's shop. He didn't seem to have noticed the sign in the window that read "Closed till Monday."
"Let me in!" he shrieked.
Without warning, Craig was pressed flat against the door as the back of his clothes disintegrated in a wave that ran from his calves to the back of his head. Much as the blood had revealed the creature's face, so too did the bits of torn cloth make visible a spiny tongue that vanished behind invisible lips.
Before Craig could begin to turn, a second lick removed the skin from the back half of his body, laying bare the veins and muscles beneath.
It reminded Francis of the anatomical cutaways he'd seen in his high school biology textbooks. Not that he'd ever actually read them, but the pictures had stayed with him.
A series of rapid licks followed, removing Craig from existence like a reverse 3D printer. As the last of Craig was stripped away, the horrible worm-like creature disappeared once more. The only proof of the violence was the two pools of blood where his friends had last stood.
The crimson string drifted down and touched the concrete near the puddle of Craig's blood. A moment later, the blood, and what appeared to be a layer of the sidewalk below it, rippled forward in an elongated wave that rose a few feet into the air before blinking away.
Like the world's best mob cleanup crew, the worm's tongue ripped up paper-thin layers of viscera and street until no trace of the carnage remained. There was no evidence of the horror but that damned floating string. The string and its invisible attendant now moved toward Francis.
He knew death was moments away, and he prayed in earnest that the mouth and not the tongue was the instrument of his end.
As he backed away in a futile attempt to add a few more useless moments to his miserable life, he tripped on the curb and fell flat on his back. When he'd recovered from the momentary surprise, he looked down to see the crimson thread brushing tenderly against his pant leg as it made its way up his body. It stopped at waist level. Then the worm opened wide its jaw.
Francis knew this not because he could see it—he couldn't—but because of the rotting stench that flooded over him. An otherworldly sound began to build in the creature's invisible throat. As it reached its crescendo, Francis's bodily functions gave way in anticipation of what was coming next. As his own stench mixed with that of the worm, he hardly noticed when the string went limp as a noodle and coiled in his lap.
He looked and saw that one end of the string was now clutched in the wrinkled, bloody hand of old man Else. The master of the infernal yarn.
"There isn't much time if you want to survive this, boy. You or anyone for that matter," he said, his voice faint but certain.
When Francis's only response was an empty stare, the old man replied by slapping him across the face. The swing was all his failing body could muster and didn't amount to much more than a tap, but it was enough to wake Francis from his stupor.
"Save—save my life? How? What the fuck is that thing? Where did it go? Is it still here?"
The old man raised a trembling hand and waited for Francis's verbal torrent to stop.
"It's always here," he said with an exhausted sigh. "It's been here since the day another old man wrapped this soft, red chain around my ring finger. Mind you, my hand had far more strength and far fewer wrinkles at that time."
The old man paused, his breath coming and going with a ragged gurgle that spoke of unseen damage within.
"I've been walking the sacred circuit ever since," he said with a scornful laugh. "That's what he called it anyway. 'Cursed circuit' is a more accurate description."
As if in penance for his laugh, the old man was thrown into a coughing spasm. Spittle and blood speckled the back of his sleeve as he tried in vain to bring his body under control.
Some life returned to Francis, and he found himself crawling backward away from the string like some feces-stained human crab. The old man's coughing subsided, and he gestured for Francis to come closer.
"Don't be a fool, boy. I'm dying. If you don't want to share my fate, I suggest you listen carefully."
Francis stopped crawling but made no move to return to the old man.
"Mr. Else, I just wanna get out of here. I don't know what's going on, and I don't think I should. I just don't wanna die, but that string..." His voice lost strength as his eyes locked onto the thread dangling from the old man's hand.
"Mr. Else," the old man said. "So you do know my name. You are the sort of boy who would throw a brick at a face and name you know. Interesting. Maybe there really is a rhyme and reason to it all. Well, a rhyme anyway."
The old man stared at Francis for an uncomfortable moment, then took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was still quiet, but it had a new resolve behind it.
"Listen carefully to every word I say, boy. Goodness knows you're going to play this moment back in your head a million times over, so you'd best listen well."
He waited, silent until Francis finally nodded.
"You are going to hear. I will cut your hand, soak this thread in your blood, and wrap it around your left ring finger. If I do that quickly enough, you won't die when I do, and I can assure you, I haven't got long."
Mr. Else paused again. Francis nodded once more but remained frozen where he was. He felt far more like an observer than a participant in this moment.
Mr. Else sighed. "What's your name, boy?"
"Fra—Francis."
"Well, Francis, let me make things simple. When I die, the creature at the end of this leash will be without a master. He will also be hungry. In fact, you could say that he is hunger. Without a master holding him at bay, he will be free to consume at will. You will be the first thing he sees. Do you wish to be consumed as your friends were?"
Francis shook his head vigorously, setting loose particles of sweat and snot.
"That's good. Then you must become its new master in the manner I just described. If you understand, then I need you to come here. Now. Time is growing short."
With this last, Richard Else spiraled into another coughing fit.
Francis regained enough composure to force his body back toward the old man and the string. He arrived just in time to catch Mr. Else as he collapsed onto his back, nearly hitting his already bloodied, bald scalp on the pavement for the second time that day.
"Give me your left hand," the old man said when his cough abated.
Francis brought his left hand forward and noticed for the first time the fresh gash on his palm.
I must have gotten it when I fell, he thought absently.
"Good, you're already cut," said Mr. Else, "because I don't have a knife."
Francis flinched as the innocuous string was pressed roughly into his open wound.
"Ow!"
The old man ignored him and proceeded to wrap the now bloody thread around Francis's left ring finger. It felt like the sealing of some unholy engagement.
"Do you know the circuit I walk, Francis?"
Francis tried to reply and nearly choked on the dry phlegm in his throat. He realized he'd been hyperventilating with his mouth hanging wide.
"Sorta," he gasped. "You loop around the church, right?"
"More or less," said Mr. Else. "Specifically, I start on Clark, walk till I can turn up Fifth, then right on Century, right on Seventh, and back to Clark. Have you got that? Say it back to me. Clark, Fifth, Century, Seventh, Clark."
Francis repeated the directions without thinking. His eyes were locked on the string wrapped around his finger. He was knocked out of his blank stupor by another slap across the cheek.
"Focus!"
A comforting wave of anger washed over Francis, bringing with it a brief reminder of what normal felt like.
"Don't fucking touch me!" he spat. "Why does doing a lap even matter anyway?"
"I asked the man who passed this curse down to me the same thing. I'll tell you what he told me. I don't know why it matters. I just know something bad will happen if you don't."
The old man's eyes drifted as he absently rubbed his now bare ring finger.
"Without this ritual, something will be unleashed before its time."
"Unleashed? Like what?"
Mr. Else seemed to come back to himself. He was looking ghastly pale now; his already paper-thin skin seemed to cling to his bones.
"I honestly don't know. The circuit goes around the church, so maybe something in there. Or maybe it's just the abomination at the end of that string. It doesn't really matter. If the creature is real, then we have to assume the consequences of failure are too."
"Do I?" Francis asked, still riding his youthful anger. "How long do I have to keep this up? I've got a lot of plans. I'm going places."
Mr. Else seemed to rally some strength as he fixed Francis with a steely glare.
"Forever, Francis. A lap at sunrise and a lap at sunset. I'm afraid you're not going anywhere. The sooner you come to terms with that, the happier you'll be."
"Hell no!" Francis nearly shouted. "No way I'm spending the rest of my life in this dump!"
The old man opened his mouth as if to respond, but a bloody wheeze was all that came out. With ever shorter inhales, Richard Else lowered himself to the pavement and breathed his last.
Francis stared at the still form for several minutes. The bloody crown of white hair was starting to dry as the flow of fresh blood ceased.
The sound of sirens in the distance jolted Francis back to his grim reality. He didn't know if they had anything to do with the horror show that had just played out around him, but he wasn't going to wait by the old man's cooling corpse to find out.
Francis paused in front of the church. He was nearly done with today's final circuit. It was his seven hundred and thirtieth.
A whole year down the tubes, he thought.
The setting sun was painting his surroundings a glowing red that almost matched the string dangling from his fingers. He held the thread loosely between his thumb and index finger, almost daring it to fall. He found himself to be more reckless on days like today—days when he wondered if the creature had even been real.
Doubting was easy when all the evidence had been literally licked clean out of existence.
"It would be easy," Francis muttered, though whether to himself or his invisible ward, he couldn't say. "I could just let go and walk away. Or maybe I'm wrong, and I don't get to walk away. In either case, I'd be free of you. Free of this place. Free of this nightmare loop."
Francis rolled the thread between his fingers and hung his head.
"Maybe tomorrow," he whispered.
And with that, Francis turned and walked into the waning light.
His demon followed.
THE END