Welcome to the twilight zone (Sample Creative writing: cosmic horror)

Sample brief: Write a horror story about archaeology

Start:

My grandfather was an archaeologist. He worked during the glory days of archaeology - the mid-20th century. He in fact states that those were still far from the real glory days, which he claims was the 19th century,?

I think that’s why he was never happy. He felt that the time for a man with his talents had passed a long time ago. He had to spend most of his time giving lectures and studying to draw linkages among ancient artifacts that had already been discovered.

There was no room for adventure. There was no room for exploration, he used to say. I used to wonder why he didn’t just do something else. Instead of hanging on to a profession that he certainly believes has outlived its time.?

But there was something strange about his persistence at a field that he claimed he didn’t believe was relevant anymore. He kept studying. He kept bringing in more books from the university he lectured at. It was almost as if he was trying to…look for something.?

I once asked him about it. I asked him if he was looking for something in particular. He brushed me aside saying he was just an avid reader. So then I asked him why not read something besides archaeology and history? To which he replied snidely that he also read anthropology.

Or maybe it wasn’t snide. I just felt so because to me anthropology was well in line with archaeology and history. Nothing different or at least not vastly so. But he seemed to take each subject very seriously. As if he needed many different parts of a puzzle to finally see a bigger picture.?

What I didn’t know was that he wasn’t just looking for A bigger picture, he was looking for THE bigger picture. The biggest picture.?

Then one fine day, it happened. He was sitting reading in his study while I was sitting outside having a chat with my father (ironically about my grandfather and his increasingly erratic behavior). All of a sudden my father and I heard hysterical laughter coming from my grandfather’s study. For a second we both did a double take. Then after quickly regaining composure I told my father that maybe we should go in and check what the old man had found so funny…in an archaeology book.

My father was reluctant at first, saying it was just my grandfather’s usual idiosyncrasies playing out. But when the laughter went on for five minutes, my father and I both stood up. We didn’t say a word to each other but we both knew we had reason to go check up on my grandpa. Something was… strange.?

We knocked once, and then opened the door to the study. To our shock, we found my grandfather lying on the floor and laughing. There was an open textbook lying sloppily next to him,? and his reading glasses lay on top of the book. When my grandfather noticed us, we realized that he didn’t really notice us at all. In fact, he just looked right through us and continued laughing.

“Dad, are you okay?”, my father asked tentatively.?

Then all of a sudden, like a switch turning off, my grandfather’s laughter died. He sat up straight on the ground and looked at my father. He saw him as if he had just noticed him. Before I could? understand what was going on, we saw tears swelling up in his eyes. My father immediately got down on the floor, took my father’s hands in his own, and asked him once again, “Dad, are you okay? What are you reading?”

I could tell that the additional question was simply a way for my dad to play it safe, not wanting to let my grandfather know how truly alarmed both me and my dad were.?

But it didn’t help. Things just went from zero to terrifying in two seconds. All of a sudden my grandfather let go of my dad’s hand and started screaming. He started rampantly looking around him, as if to see where something (or someone) had disappeared.?

My dad and I were both at a loss for what to do. I knew I had to do something because it seemed like I was the only one in that room neither sad, nor terrified. I was worried. I thought this could be one of the breakdowns that my grandmother had suffered 4 years ago. She soon went into a coma, and died three weeks later. Not a clue left. Not for the doctors, nor her family. She seemed to have just read a book, discovered something no one knew, and passed out.?

She never woke up from that unconsciousness. Three weeks later she was dead. And the doctors had no clue as to what happened.

Now here we were in a very similar situation with my grandfather. However he hadn’t passed out like my grandma. In fact, he was paranoid and behaving more vigilant than ever.?

He then spoke. He said, “we are too small. We don’t matter. We have no purpose.”

I understood this as the blabbering that I had heard often accompanies a psychotic breakdown.?

I quickly took my phone out and called the emergency line to send across an ambulance. I then called my grandfather’s doctor while my dad continued to sit on the floor. He had managed to hold both of my grandfather’s hands again.?

I described what was going on to the doctor on the phone. He said we should bring my grandpa into the hospital immediately. I told him that the ambulance was on its way. No sooner than the moment I hung up, the screaming stopped.?

I turned around to see what was going on. My grandfather was sitting upright on the floor, in an almost unnatural, eerie, sort of manner. My father was sitting next to him. He looked up at me, in fear and confusion. I felt the way he looked.?

Then, very slowly, my grandpa lifted his right hand and pointed towards a shelf; one of many in his study. There was only one notebook lying on that shelf along with a black marker.

I hurriedly went over to the shelf and picked up the book. For some reason I decided to open the notebook and take a glance before giving it to my grandpa.?

And I was horrified to see what I found.

It was pages and pages of black scribbling. You could tell by just looking that the marker had been pushed hard into the paper. Many pages also had small tares in them, possibly from the harsh scribbling. I flipped through the entire book once and nearly closed it back before I spotted something on the very last page.?

It was a written word. Just one word.?

Infinite.

It read.?

That was possibly the most difficult clue anyone could leave for their family to decipher. It was so ambiguous. There was no telling if it was a reflection about something, if it was an observation from somewhere, or just a random doodle of an old and senile man.?

“What is it?”

My dad’s voice broke the silence. I showed him the notebook. Once again, my dad looked as horrified as I felt. When he reached the last page he asked, “Infinite? What’s that supposed to imply?”

My dad, the brilliant engineer that he was, could ask the silliest things at times.?

“I don’t know dad…”, I replied patiently.

Whatever ‘code’ my grandfather had cracked seems to have culminated in this one word. A word that truly opens more questions than answers. I heard the siren of an ambulance at a distance. I was relieved. The doctor would see my grandfather and would know exactly what was wrong with him. And then we could all relax again…

It was almost as soon as the ambulance orderlies entered my house that things turned for the worse…once more.?

My grandfather passed out;? flopped over and hit his head on the ground.?

My father and I both let out a small shout and rushed towards the old man. The men from the ambulance told us to back away and let them investigate. I was more than happy to let them, so I pulled my father back.?

One of the men from the ambulance checked my grandfather’s pulse. I wondered why he would do that. But I didn’t have to wonder for long.

“Bring in the defibrillator!”, the man holding my grandfather’s hand yelled.?

And then, for some reason, I knew it was over. My old, experienced, and once brilliant grandfather, was now gone.?

The next few hours went by in a daze as the defibrillator did nothing to revive my grandfather and soon we were all sitting in the ambulance riding to the hospital with my grandfather placed in the middle with a stretcher. He was declared dead on arrival.?

Old people die. This was a fact of life.?

But not all old people spend the last few years of their lives rigorously searching for something and then one fine day have a hysterical breakdown, leading to death.?

This was something my family had to make peace with. I don’t know how we would do it. But I knew I would find answers in my grandfather’s notes. Not the notebook that was lying on the shelf today, but older ones, perhaps when he was more in his senses.?

….

After the last rites of my grandpa’s passing, I stayed away from his study for a few days. But then curiosity had me too restless to not go in and search for his notes. Which I did.?

On the fourth day after my grandfather’s passing, I went into his study. I went in on tiptoes, not wanting to disturb anything from its place. I knew where he kept his notebooks. I opened the drawer next to his bed and found three.

I opened the first one, almost with a sense of dread, to see what had captivated my grandparents so much in the months before their passing.?

To my surprise, I found the notebook filled from the first to large page in a script I did not understand. I thought it was Latin at first. But when I paid attention, I realized that it wasn’t any language at all. They were random signs and symbols. On and On. Line and line, page after page.?

I was worried.

But my worry soon turned into horror. When I reached the last page of that notebook. Because the last page was written in English. Ignorance truly would have been bliss in this case I believe. But in any case, I read the page. It had something resembling a letter written on it. It read as follows:

Dear Son,

I want you and your son to know that I have discovered something. The creatures who created us are not divine or selfless. On the contrary, they don’t know that we exist. We are just byproducts of an experiment created by monsters of a different realm.?

And sooner or later you are going to find out this truth.

The truth that the terror my eyes have seen has no words. It is only when you know, that you know. I am leaving myself behind as I no longer have any desire to stay alive in a world where my existence has no place. And where I can come under the great monster’s thumb at any given instant,? without him even realizing.?

I am too scared to spend another instant alive because I know that any instant could be my last. The universe is not inherently uncaring like I used to believe, but is inherently evil…

It is with this truth that I want to leave my goodbye to you. Take care of yourself. But if you’re sensible, you will end our gene pool and not allow my grandchild to ever have any children.

Live as carefully as you can. And pray that you never see what I have.

I love you.

Dad.?

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