Antarctica

His eyes looked awfully cloudy. He seemed to stare into nothing. Suddenly, his gaze focussed and he said with a rough voice: “I want to see it”, he sounded determined.

     I glanced sideways and caught a glimpse of the shocked look on Skitty’s face. Her eyes were brimming with silent tears. She gave me a quick nod and I strode out of our home with Cricky close behind me.

     The monster was rampaging just outside our town. It hadn’t caught sight of our town and its inhabitants yet, but it was a matter of minutes before it would find out about us. Its huge hairy legs had dashed through our carefully kept gardens. It had managed to knock down our most cherished possession, our small swimming pool which was the pride of our town. Tourists from all around came to our town to experience the wonderful feeling of diving into our breathtaking pool. That was gone now, we could say goodbye to the vast flood of tourist and the extra income that came with it.

     A plan started to form in my head. A plan both dangerous and exhilarating, but it could save the town from this monster. Last time when a similar creature had attacked the city my mum and dad had died because of it, I had to stop it. A stubborn look spread across my face. I had to!

     Cricky caught the look on my face and gasped, “You’re not going to...”

     “Yes, I am”, I said, “It’s the only way to prevent that thing from killing. I don’t want to sit down and wait for it to orphan more youngsters. It’s just not right. And besides, I’ve got nothing to lose!”

     Cricky swallowed, “But, it’s huge! What are you going to do to kill it? It will kill you as soon as it spots you. You know how quick these creatures are. You saw how quickly that thing destroyed your parents...” He stopped when he saw the hurt look in my eyes.

     “I’m still going to try”, I said stubbornly, “Even if it kills me, I’m not going to sit back and wait for it to kill more people I love”. A lump had formed in the back of my throat. I stopped speaking and tried to swallow. “I have got a plan”, I managed to choke out.

I put a stone, rope, net and needle in a small cloth and knotted the ends around a stick. I slung it over my shoulder. My knapsack was ready. I tried to summon all the courage I had in me. I inhaled the fresh air and left my home behind me with a firm tread.

     Word had spread through town about my determination to slay the monster. I could feel anxious eyes following me when I walked away from town. Some neighbours came out of their homes to give me words of encouragement or a quick nod of understanding. It didn’t make me feel any better. Although they tried to speak words of comfort, their eyes betrayed them. They gave me mournful looks, as if I was walking to my grave. I couldn’t blame them. Nobody in history had managed to slay a ferocious beast like this. Would I be the first?

I felt a lot better when I reached the town boundaries. Nobody around me. Free from the anxious and mournful stares. I looked for the monster, but it must’ve strolled off further away from town. I climbed into a nearby blade of grass. My heart stopped when I got near the top. The monster was right in front of me. I was lucky, it was standing with its huge and hairy hind legs towards me. 

Then it turned.

    
From close by it looked even more terrifying. Thick black hair sprouted from every inch of its body and legs. From its jaw two huge pincers clicked in a petrifying way. Eight milky white eyes seemed to look right through me. Its eyes seemed to stare to something behind me. I resisted the urge to turn my head. It could be a trick to catch me off guard. The monster’s pincers twitched nervously as if it didn’t know what to do. I was flabbergasted, I had never seen a monster behave like this. I picked up my courage and withdrew the needle from my knapsack. When the needle caught the light the monster’s eyes twitched, it seemed like it tried to focus on what had flickered in the sunlight. Then it hit me; the monster couldn’t see properly! This was the perfect opportunity, I had an advantage. Just when I was ready to strike, the monster opened its mouth. In a hardly audible whisper it said: “Please, don’t hurt me”

     Was this a trick? Did it try to confuse me so it could kill me when I lowered my needle? Then I saw something even more confusing. A tear had fromed in one of it’s huge milky eyes. I felt uncomfortable. The whole world seemed to have turned upside down. Despite a warning voice in the back of my head, I lowered the needle. A look of utmost gratitude spread across the monster’s face.

     “What’s wrong with you?”, I asked.

     The monster looked nervously from left to right as if to check if anybody was listening. “I am banned”, it said quietly.

     “Banned from what?”, I asked confused.

     “Banned from the spider’s community of course”, it said bitterly.

     “But why?”, I asked. It started to shift its eyes again and stepped closer towards me. Again, I rejected my instincts to take a step back.

     “Because I am not normal”, it said in a low voice, “I am not a proper spider. I –, I –“, Its head was now an inch from my face, “I don’t eat meat”, it finished its sentence. And with that remark it broke down in tears.

     I didn’t know what to do. How do you comfort a spider? “I think you are still a proper spider, even if you don’t eat meat”, I tried.

     The wailing stopped, and a grin spread across its ugly face. “You do?”

Skeletons in the Closet

Maggie and Ray both jumped when a loud knock on the door interrupted their heated argument. As always they had accused each other of wrongdoings. This time the argument was somewhat different. They were fighting over a very heavy subject: The disappearance of their only daughter. Maggie had accused Ray of being too relaxed and Ray had argued that Maggie was way too tense.

    Another knock, more urgently this time, brought them out of their trance. With a reproachful look at Ray, Maggie hurried to the door. With a look of relief she saw inspector Pollard standing on her doorstep, accompanied by his assistant Ian. Maggie had known Ian since he was a little baby. He was the first person she thought of when she had discovered the un-slept bed of her daughter.

    “Come in”, she told the two men. They followed her into the house. Ray still stood on the same spot Maggie had left him on. He looked from one man to the other and asked brusquely: “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

    “Pollard, inspector Pollard”, Tomas introduced himself shaking Ray’s hand, “and this is my assistant Ian, your wife told me you know him.”

    Ray’s eyes widened and he looked at his wife. “You told them to come here?”, he said, “What on earth are you thinking? We can solve this by ourselves. We don’t need this inspector with his assistant!”

    Maggie’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t you care about our daughter?”, she chocked, “She never leaves the house without notice and this time she didn’t even leave a single note to tell us where she might be. What if something bad happened to her? I would never forgive myself…”, her voice trailed off. With a sudden jolt she had realized something. “I know where she might be, at Luke’s! She spends a lot of time with that creep. He might look handsome but I have never trusted him. He always gives me the feeling that he’s hiding something...”

15 minutes later Tomas an Ian arrived at a cosy looking house at the outskirts of town. Tomas knocked on the door and a few moments later a handsome man in his early thirties opened the door. Tomas flashed his badge and asked if he could come in. With a shocked look on his face the man opened the door for Ian and Tomas.

    Ian had asked for the criminal record of Luke and he was still waiting on it. His phone beeped and he could hardly suppress his surprise when he looked at the information. Luke had a nasty criminal record. He had gone to jail for immense cruelties. he had tortured two of his classmates when he was just 17 years old! He hadn’t shown remorse towards his fellow students and was sentenced for 10 years in prison. He had never given a reason for his torturing.

    “We want to ask you a few questions Luke”, Tomas said, “We’ve heard that you have close contact with Noa, is that correct?”

    “Yes”, answered Luke, he shuffled in his chair.

    “When was the last time you saw her?”, Tomas asked.

    Luke looked suspicious. “Why are you asking me that? Are you accusing me of anything? It is my business what I do and don’t do!”

    “Answer the question!”, Ian interrupted with a furious look.

    Luke hesitated, “I saw her two days ago. I always see her on Wednesdays because I give her guitar lessons every Wednesday morning”. Ian noticed that Luke didn’t make any eye contact.

    “Do you also meet up with her on other occasions?”, Tomas asked.

    Luke shrugged, “Sometimes, is it a crime to like someone?”.

    “Where were you yesterday night between six and ten PM?”, Ian asked, ignoring Luke’s question.

    Luke fiddled with his shirt, “I –, I –,err, I was at home. Alone”

    “Can anybody confirm that?”, Tomas asked.

    Luke looked doubtful, “No, I said I was alone and I didn’t see anybody”

Ian navigated the car skilfully through the traffic jam. Tomas was deeply in thought. What was Luke hiding? Did he do anything to Noa? Did he know anything about her disappearance?

    Ian interrupted his train of thoughts: “I know he has something to do with it. Did you see how nervous he got when we asked all those questions? And his criminal record definitely speaks against him. He could have easily killed her or harmed her, he doesn’t have an alibi!”

    “Don’t jump to conclusions this soon in our investigation”, Tomas said sternly. “You have been wrong before Ian! Luke is innocent until proven guilty.”

    Ian’s cheeks flashed bright red. He didn’t like to be reminded of his last fiasco. He had believed that a mother murdered her own daughter because she kept giving different pieces of information. It had turned out that the mother was in the first stage of Alzheimer’s and the shock of her daughter’s death had speeded up the process.

    Tomas stopped Ian’s flashback by saying: “But I do agree that it is a bit fishy. I would like to search Luke’s house, we might find some clues there.”

It took a long time to get the warrant to search Luke’s house. Two days later Ian and Tomas walked up to Luke’s house. Their knock on the door was answered reluctantly by Luke. He didn’t look as handsome as before. His hair looked like it hadn’t been washed properly and he had dark circles under his eyes. When he saw the warrant his eyes opened wide and he asked in a panicky voice: “Now?”

    Tomas nodded and they entered the house. A peculiar smell entered their nostrils. Ian looked at Tomas and saw that he had recognized the smell too. It smelled like a dead body. It seemed to come from upstairs. Ian followed Tomas hastily up the stairs. The smell seemed to ooze out of the bathroom. Tomas opened the bathroom door and stepped back in revulsion at once. It looked like a huge fight had broken out in the bathroom. The wall of glass that had separated the bathtub from the rest of the room was broken in a hundred pieces. Blood had filled the bathroom floor and the source of the blood lay face down in it. A young girl lay sprawled on the floor, her neck in an unnatural position. The blood seemed to had come from a deep cut in her head, a huge shred of glass was sticking out of it.

    Ian took immediate action. He ran downstairs and found Luke sobbing in the kitchen. He didn’t object when Ian handcuffed him and put him in the back of the police car. He looked timid and kept on crying.

Tomas looked into Luke’s face. Luke’s eyes looked dully into empty space. “Why did you do it?”, Tomas asked.

    Luke’s eyes seemed to wake up and he said: “I didn’t. This is how I found her when I came home on Friday night.”

    “You mean to say that you had nothing to do with it? How can you prove that?”, Tomas shot back immediately.

    Luke looked ashamed. “I didn’t want to tell you… It’s such a mess… I didn’t know what to do… My past – ”, he broke down in sobs.

    “Tell me the truth Luke. What happened on Friday night? Start from the beginning, please”, Tomas said.

    Luke blew his nose loudly and manned up. “Ok, but I have to start a bit further back in time to give you a clear picture. When I was 17, yes I know that you must know that by now, I tortured two boys. I am gay, you see, and those boys made my life a living hell. I had the chance to take revenge and I took that chance. I never told anybody why I did it because I feared the reactions I would get from the people around me if I would tell them I was gay. I’d rather spend time in prison, I thought. This is the same reason why I didn’t tell you where I was on Friday night. I had gone to a gay bar and when I got home I discovered Noa dead on the floor of my bathroom. She must have tripped, the floor is very slippery. I was so afraid to get the blame for her death that I didn’t call anybody. I was terrified that my past would put the blame on me somehow. . I know it sounds stupid now, but…”

    “How did Noa get into the house?”, Tomas asked.

    “She had the key to my house. She told me that she hated it at home and that she would love to move out. I told her that she could always stay at my place and I gave her the key. Her parents drove her crazy. They argued all the time and didn’t seem to be interested in Noa. Who's fault is it than that she is dead now?"