What a glorious payoff with the use of practical special effects and makeup work. I certainly didn't expect filmmaker Phillip J. McLaughlin to take it to that level, as most horror short film fail to stick the landing when it comes to the terror and supernatural element, just due to the nature of the limited budgets. That's certainly not the case here. For those of you that don't have a fear of Amphibians, watch this film!
Warnings: pet death. Murder (yes, it's a spoiler, it's also a horror story)
“Johnnie's been having bad nights lately, so no sweets after seven, to bed by eight-thirty, and make sure to keep the door cracked and his nightlight on,” Mrs. Klein said as she was putting on her coat. “He has already finished his homework and dinner is in the oven. Be sure he eats his green beans, not picks them out.”
“Aww, Mom,” whined Johnnie.
Secretly Carol agreed with him. Green beans went well in any number of dishes. Mexican casserole was definitely not one of them. Still, she nodded, “Yes, Mrs. Klein. I have your number in case anything happens, and I will make sure he eats properly.”
Still, Mrs. Klein dithered in the entry until Johnnie left to watch TV after hugging his mother good-bye. Then she waved Carol close to the door. “Please keep an eye out for Snowball. She's been missing for two nights now and Johnnie was quite worried. He finally calmed down today, but he loves that cat. So please watch the yard and, if you hear her meow, please grab a flashlight and look for her. There is one hanging by each of the doors.” She definitely seemed worried and glanced over towards the living room to check to see if Johnnie had heard while talking. Then, she pulled the door open and stepped out. As she was closing it, she said, “I'll be back no later than eleven-thirty. Toodles!”
Carol watched her walk down the path until she got in her car and sighed. Poor Johnnie. He had confided in her a few weeks ago that he had been having trouble at school. To lose his beloved Snowball, who had slept in his room or kept watch much of the night? The poor kid just couldn't catch a break.
When they sat down to eat, she reflected that Mrs. Klein may have loved her son and worried about him, but she really needed to worry more about her cooking. Carol may ave been from the Midwest, but she was rather sure that no Mexican casserole should have had green beans and diced pickles. Still, Johnnie was digging into the casserole with more relish than usual. When he saw her picking out the bits of pickle from her plate, he piped up, “Leave them in! They disguise the taste of the green beans.”
Carol thought that the grossed out face he pulled at the last two words was absolutely adorable. He was such a sweet kid. He always helped with the dishes, brushed his teeth without asking, and went to bed on time. It seemed like his only flaw was that he would drop his backpack and toys in the upstairs hallway and then just shove them into his room when she asked him to pick them up.
After dinner, as she was washing the dishes and he was drying them he suddenly said, “They aren't in my head.” When Carol turned to look at him he said, “Mom says they are, but there really is something. Last night, it ate Snowball!” His eyes filled with tears, but he didn't let them fall. “Mom says that this is a tough time and I need to get used to it, but I don't want to! I-I-” The tears finally spilled forth. He was sobbing and Carol hugged him.
“It's all right. It is. I know, I went through it, too. It's all a part of growing up,” she said, remembering some of her dreams as a child. The ones that seemed so much more real and vivid than her waking life had. Sometimes she had walked around talking about events that she had dreamed and had truly believed had happened. And surely if something had happened to Snowball, Mrs. Klein would have seen something. Snowball was a white ragdoll with light tan markings. If anything bad had happened to her, there would have been fur all over, not to mention blood. It must just have been a dream born of fear because she had been missing for a couple of days.
He pulled away from her and looked up, his eyes entreating. “Really? You did?” At her firm nod, he broke into a watery smile. “I was so scared.” He hugged her again and asked, after a quiet sniffle, “Did it get better?”
Even though he couldn't see, she couldn't help but smile. “Yes, really. And it did get better. I had trouble with it for years but, eventually, it all worked out.” When he seemed calm and was no longer clinging to her, she said, “Lets finish up here and we can have some ice cream, OK?”
But to her surprise, he shook his head solemnly and pointed to the clock. It read seven twelve. “It's too late. Mom said sweets before bed will make it worse and I'm already scared.”
She smiled at him, but her heart hurt. Normally he was a conscientious child, but he had to truly be afraid of these nightmares for him to turn down his favorite dessert, so she crouched down to look him in the eyes and promised, “All right then, next time, we can have dessert first.”
“Wait, really?” He looked at her nervously, afraid that he would get in trouble for this, but still hopeful.
“Really. We won't tell your mother. After all, even when you get older, it's good to have dessert first sometimes!” And that was true. Of course, if they had just ice cream and none of Mrs. Klein's terrible casserole well, it wouldn't hurt him for one night, would it?
The rest of the night, Johnnie seemed to try to act calm, but became more and more nervous as the night wore on. He even had to be prompted to brush his teeth. Because he seemed so afraid, she stood in the doorway and watched as he slowly, carefully brushed his teeth. He seemed to be dawdling, staring at the sink and avoiding his own reflection in the mirror. Carol still shivered at the memory of the thing that had come out of her mirror in the past. So, when Carol was tucking him in she asked, “Do you want me to stay here until you fall asleep?” Snowball used to. She had always found it a little creepy the way she would sit there and stare at him, unmoving, until he fell asleep, but he had to miss her.
Johnnie sat bolt upright in terror and tried to push her off the bed. “No! No, you can't ever come in, not for the rest of the night!”
Carol wished that there was something, anything she could do to prevent his awful nightmares. “I promise.”
He looked at her and whispered, fear in his eyes, “Promise. Promise me you won't come in. No matter what you hear, no matter what I say, promise me you won't ever come in after I go to bed.” He took a deep breath and then blurted, “I'm not supposed to say, but there are rules. If we all obey the rules, then it won't happen, but if you do, if you break your promise...”
Carol smiled and, knowing that there was no way she could ever keep it, she promised. “I promise you Johnnie. No matter what. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He looked at her, his eyes suddenly too old for him, as he nodded sadly. “I thought I saw Snowball under the bush by the back deck when I was brushing my teeth. Can you go and check?”
“Of course! Why didn't you say so earlier? I'll go find her and bring her back if she's out there! You get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.” She turned out his light, closed the door most of the way, stepped around his backpack, and hurried downstairs to grab a flashlight. She couldn't suppress a flicker of annoyance that he hadn't told her earlier. What if Snowball was gone by the time she got down there?
The porch light barely lit the darkness as she opened the back door and, in her haste she forgot the flashlight and had to check her flight out the door by grabbing the frame and pulling herself back towards it. Her hand scrabbled for the flashlight on its hook and then she was across the porch and down the steps, making the psst noises people always think will get a cat's attention.
She swept the beam of the flashlight across the yard without success and her heart started to sink. In desperation she called, “Snowball, din-din,” but she heard nothing. Usually that had the cat pelting towards her dinner bowl, so her heart sunk further. But, Johnnie said he had seen her around the bush, so she turned around and started searching under the bush. And there! She could just see a part of Snowball's tail under the bush! Inspecting it as she tried to slide under the bush, she could see why Snowball hadn't moved. She must be badly injured to allow all of that dirt and mud in her fur. Normally she was a fastidious cat and always liked to be brushed.
She had finally fought her way under the bush just enough to be able to grab Snowball's tail and, with a silent apology to Snowball for how much this was going to hurt her, she pulled hard to drag her out. It took barely any force and, as she stared at her hand in shock and then a growing sense of horror, she realized that was because she had barely any of Snowball. Just a part of her tail was in her hand and she screamed as she tried, in a panic, to flail her way out of the bush. But, as she had discovered wriggling in, some of the branches were rather sturdy, so all she did was churn up the ground and bruise herself a bit.
She panicked, terrified, and all of the horror movies she had ever watched ran through her head as she forced herself, with great difficulty, to breathe and calm down enough to think her way out of her predicament, rather than trying to brute force it. It took far, far longer than she would have hoped, but eventually she got out from under the bush and streaked back into the house, calling herself twelve kinds of a fool for leaving the back door open in her haste. She had no idea who or what could have gotten into the house with the door open like that!
She closed and locked the door, then did a circuit of the ground floor rooms, making sure the doors and windows were all locked. Then she ran upstairs and did the same for all upstairs rooms, except Johnnie's. There, in deference to his fears, she just shined the flashlight around the room including under the bed and into what little of his closet she could see from the door. Once that was done, she took a moment to breathe, leaning her head on the door frame until she caught a whiff of a hideous odor. She looked around until she saw the dark slime she had transferred to the frame. With resigned horror she looked down at the hand she had used to grab Snowball.
She rushed to the bathroom, tripping once again over Johnnie's backpack, and scrubbed at her skin until it was abraded from the nail brush she was using. She then pulled some of the leaves and twigs from her hair and washed off her face. Her clothes were a wreck and she could see some holes that her struggles with the bush had torn in her shirt. She walked over to the window and stared, unthinking, at the street on the side of the house as she wiped dirt from her arms and the back of her neck. Occasionally cars would drive by, their lights illuminating the lawn and an oak tree, branches bare at this point in the season.
She then took the washcloth and wiped down the frame to Johnnie's bedroom. There was no way she could possibly tell him about this. This whole night was terrifying and horrifying and, frankly, she just wanted Mrs. Klein to come home. As she turned away, she tripped over Johnnie's backpack yet again and, unthinking, set it inside his room next to the desk. Then, she winced. It was just one step into his room and he was asleep, but she had done what she had promised not to. Still, when she looked over at him in the night light's glow, Johnnie was still sleeping, curled on his side with his stuffed dog clutched to his chest.
As she went to the bathroom to rinse out the washcloth, she realized she would have to call Mrs. Klein and let her know. She also resolved to subtly hint that she wanted to go home. Now.
So that Johnnie hopefully wouldn't overhear, she closed the bathroom door, then locked it as the phone rang. The second the call connected she said, “Mrs. Klein? I think I've found Snowball! Or, well part of her.” She was drawn over to the window to stare down at the bush where she found her. But, she realized in confusion, she couldn't. Mrs. Klein was talking, but Carol wasn't really paying attention to her words. She was on the wrong side of the house. But then, how had Johnnie...? She knew that he had brushed his teeth in here, she had been watching from the doorway. And she remembered that he hadn't looked out of the window. That wasn't possible, though. Johnnie loved that cat! If he had known that Snowball was out there, he definitely would have said something immediately, not had dinner and watched TV first. Except, she remembered, hair raising on the back of her neck, he hadn't.
She shook herself, cut off Mrs. Klein's assurances that she was sure Snowball was just injured, and decided enough was enough. “Mrs. Klein? You need to come home. I'm leaving.” She hung up the phone immediately, cutting off her protestations. She felt real guilt for deciding to leave Johnnie alone in the middle of the night with the horrors from his mind, but had long ago learned to trust her instincts and they were screaming. This dichotomy took her several moments to pull herself together.
She took a couple deep breaths and made sure she still had her cell phone and keys. Then, she unlocked the bathroom door and turned to go down the stairs. But she couldn't help but check on Johnnie one last time. She knew it was undermining her decision to leave, but she had to be sure he wasn't having a nightmare before she left. When she looked into his room, he was still curled up on his side and clutching his stuffed dog to his chest, but there was a big grin on his face. She couldn't help but smile, too. He had been so afraid earlier. She turned around, stepped over his backpack, and started down the stairs. She knew suddenly in her bones she had to hurry, that something was wrong, but just couldn't think through the fog of fear and shame what could possibly be wrong.
She had rushed down the first two before she realized what her instincts had caught that she had missed. The backpack. She turned to look towards Johnnie's room where it should have been sitting next to the desk and saw him silhouetted in the doorway. That was when her foot went out from under her, sliding on something spread on the tread. She tumbled down the stairs in a flurry of pain and, when she landed, she heard something crunch. She tried to move, but could barely flail her arms. The room was spinning and the pain was making her vision go strange.
She could still see Johnnie come down the stairs holding a knife, though. He called, in a sing-song voice that would have put chills down her spine if the pain hadn't already, “I warn-ed you...” Tears were streaming down his face and he was shaking his head in tiny movements back and forth. “I warn-ed you and you still di-id it...” He giggled, an altogether terrifying noise. Then, his demeanor changed, his tears slowed, and he glared down at Carol. “And you said you knew! You said you'd gone though this! You promised!” He stared down at her, inhuman rage in his eyes as he snarled out, “You lied!” Then, he rushed down the last few stairs and started slashing at her chest and face.
Carol gasped, “Johnnie, please, stop...” but could barely move. It was all she could do to curl up to try to protect her head, but she couldn't lose consciousness. She had to live. She had to!
But Johnnie didn't stop. “Snowball didn't listen, either.” It sounded like he was crying again, but Carol could barely hear over the ringing in her ears. The last thing she heard was Johnnie saying, “...said it's something in the blood.” Soon after that, the blows stopped before she felt something sawing at her.
