Flash fiction, a little slice-of-life tale that I posted on my website as a freebie.

Something is in my ear.

It crawled in when I was sleeping. Really deep. I can feel it tickle against the side of my brain.

I tried to kill it with a sharp pencil.

There was a lot of blood. But it didn’t come out.

I stuck some pliers in my ear, to pull it out.

But it went in deeper.

Then it started to talk to me.

It didn’t sound like words, not at first. More like chirping.

Kind of like a cricket.

But if I concentrated real hard, I could understand.

He says his name is Markey.

Markey talks to me all the time. He tells me he understands me. He knows that I’m different.

Markey says we’re going to be famous one day.

He wants me to kill a little girl.

I don’t want to. Killing is bad. I tried to get Markey out of my ear by banging my head into the wall, over and over.

Markey didn’t like that. He made me hold my hand over the stove burner as punishment.

It hurt a lot, and I had to go to the hospital for a while. The doctors were very nice. They asked me what happened.

I told them it was an accident.

I didn’t tell them about Markey.

When my hand got better, Markey was nicer to me.

For a while.

Then he started talking about killing again.

He said I should bring a little girl back to my basement and do mean things to her with a hammer.

Markey said it won’t be much different than all the cats he’s made me kill. Except this will be even more fun.

Markey has made me kill a lot of cats.

I have a table in my basement with straps on it. The straps are strong, so the little girl won’t get away when I’m putting the nails in her head.

I drive a school bus.

It would be easy to grab a little girl.

Better than cats, Markey said.

I was so alone before Markey crawled into my ear.

He’s my best friend.

I’ll grab the little bitch tomorrow.