Hi, I'm Llrâc Nôdbé (Pronounced ‘Lark Nod-Bee’), or simply 'Lark' for short.
I'm a British Armed Forces and Gulf War Veteran, with a sarcasm to match.
I write whatever the voices tell me to write, and they don't always have something nice to say.
Because I've spent most of my life there, I tend to live in the past, and you can find me lurking around the 80's.
Listen out for the voices here https://www.facebook.com/LlracNodbeAuthor
SCRIBBLER
by
Llrâc Nôdbé
Finn knew that this drawing wasn’t right, either, but his eraser was lost amongst the bedsheets. He lowered his HB pencil, tilted the book in his lap, and watched the wonky apple that he had just drawn roll off the page and thud to the floor beside his bed. Hearing the landing floorboard creak, Finn brushed the pile of disfigured apples under his bed, slid his notebook and pencil under his pillow, and pulled his quilt up to his neck.
Once his mother had tucked him in, switched off the light, and left, he formed a tent with his knees, gripped his torch in his teeth and continued drawing. Hours later, eyelids drooping, it was complete; shaded to perfection. Miss Jenkins will love it. He closed his notebook and drifted to sleep.
#
Finn gently rocked in his seat, hands cupped over his ears, trying to dispel the roar from Class 2B. When Miss Jenkins read out his name from the register, he smiled and opened his notebook with a tilt. The luscious, green apple rolled off the page and onto his desk, and was snatched in an instant by Thomas Tolputt. Thomas bit into it before the cry had escaped Finn’s throat and, just three bites later, it was almost demolished.
Finn began rocking violently in his chair, whilst tearing at his hair and thumping the side of his head, which only fuelled Thomas and his cronies even more. Their name calling was unbearable, but it was when the rest of the class began laughing that Finn started to cry. When his right hand found his HB pencil, his body immediately calmed.
The pencil darted back and forth of its own accord, dragging Finn’s hand with it. Squiggles, both sharp and smudgy, filled the page, slowly forming a stick man. A few misshaped circles became the head and eyes and, with a swish of the pencil, the stick limbs fattened into lumpy sausages. Thomas leaned in and laughed at the picture, attracting the attention of his classmates; peer pressure causing them to join the ridicule of Finn’s artistic endeavours.
Finn’s nostrils flared, dragging his top lip into a snarl, but he refused to look at them as the pencil busied itself. The tendons in his hands twanged like piano strings while he scribbled another head and scrubbed the eyes until they were dense, black pits of nothingness. Close to tearing, the paper crinkled under the bombardment of lead, but still it held firm, as though protected by an unseen force. The sausage limbs had now grown grotesque appendages with long, sharp nails; far too many to count, and much more horrific than anything Finn could have imagined.
Miss Jenkins shushed the class, which quietened to hushed murmurs, but she failed to see Thomas kicking Finn under the desk, or his compass, which he repeatedly stabbed into the flesh of Finn’s left arm, drawing pearls of blood. But, no matter, the drawing would soon be complete and after writing, ‘Die, Thomas, die,’ it was.
The pencil dropped, causing blood to rush back into Finn’s knuckles and fingers, which he flexed and wiggled on the desk. He sat back and admired the work—the pencil’s work—and the scribble monster stirred; claws broke through the page surface and grabbed the notebook’s edges. Slow and erratic, it pulled itself free and stood erect: one head turned toward the teacher, whilst the other sought out Thomas. No taller than Finn’s pencil, it was a miniature thing of nightmares.
Elongated claws gripped the wooden desk before the creature clickety-clacked its way to the floor. The black smudges Finn had used to highlight the drawing began to expand at speed. Rising like smoke, it flooded the aisle, pushing desks aside until the two heads grazed the ceiling tiles. It was huge. Finn’s classmates started screaming as the desks violently moved and shook, and some of them yelled ‘quake,’ which made Finn guffaw for the first time in ages. No one but Finn could see this masterpiece of indescribable, obscene horror — not even Thomas with eyes open wide; ever so wide.
With one sausage-shaped limb shoved deep into his throat, forcing his tearful eyes wide, Thomas struggled to breath, never mind scream. Sinewy limbs with hyper-mobile joints wrapped themselves around his torso and squeezed, causing muscles and tendons to tear before Finn heard the sickening pop and crack of bones.
Flup!
Thomas’s chest collapsed, sagging inwards like a deflating balloon as the lead creature continued to compress him. The girl behind Thomas fainted, and confused screams became deafening while the children watched Thomas imploding of his own volition.
One by one, his legs deflated and disappeared up inside his body, quickly followed by one of his arms. The creature then ripped his left arm off and tore the radius, wrist and hand away, whole. After pushing the remains of the arm through the gaping shoulder socket, the creature slid the radius bone through his innumerable teeth, stripping away the skin but leaving the hand untouched. Satisfied with his work, the creature stabbed the radius bone down behind Thomas’s collar bone; his left hand hanging limp and swaying from the end like a bloodied leaf in the wind.
‘Get out, it’s the Cythraul!’ screamed Miss Jenkins.
By this stage, she had herded half of the terrified children into the corridor, although many remained at their desks, covered in vomit, unconscious or frozen in terror.
The creature’s heads turned swiftly to look at Finn, as though seeking approval, before they simultaneously butted Thomas’s head, smashing his skull into tiny shards. With a blur of black smudges, the creature shoved the remains of Thomas’s head downwards, and squeezed and moulded the remains of his body into shape. Happy with the masterpiece, the creature slid to the side, so Finn could see the result.
On top of Thomas’s chair, sat a gory lump of flesh, compressed and moulded to form a huge, grotesque, bloodied apple.