Zippy
A short horror story for pet lovers
Jonathan Burke stared at the ceiling’s exposed beams. A second, odd noise made him lower his laptop and enter a hallway. The Yorkshire teenager had not really wanted to housesit his neighbours’ farm, but the money was good and the Daltons seemed like okay, if dim old farts.
What had really irked him was their repeated insistence that Zippy, their precious pet, was to be strictly left to her own devices upstairs. As if Jonathan were stupid or something. Besides, he hated animals and avoided them like the plague.
Jonathan snorted and returned to the living room. He stared at the numerous wooden masks, weapons and photographs of what looked like rainforest, in South America or somewhere like that, dotting the walls. So, the Daltons weren’t just dim, but weird also . . . and probably loaded too, if they could travel like that.
Smirking, and about to settle back down again, Jonathan then jumped as something smashed overhead. ‘Stupid cat,’ he said and punched sofa.
Jonathan stomped up the winding staircase, its steps seeming to go on forever. Hey Zippy he thought, now gripping a rolled up magazine. Here I come you little shit. He was boss here tonight, and wasn’t going tolerate any kitty crap.
Jonathan smiled upon reaching the last step — his foot creaking wood — before something leapt on him. Something not a cat, if hissing and powered by hairy legs. The boy screamed briefly, before the shadows swallowed him and all was silent.
The Daltons arrived home the next afternoon. ‘Jonathan? Where are you boy?’ Mr. Dalton called twice, checking all downstairs rooms, before his wife’s sudden cry brought him upstairs.
‘Oh my George,’ said Mrs. Dalton, one hand holding a broken lamp and the other pointing towards a flight of collapsible, attic stairs. ‘I forgot to close up again.’
‘Ah Beryl,’ George said with a sigh, and then grinned. ‘Keep this up and we’ll never be able to go away again! Now go on down dear . . . I’ll close it up.’
Beryl smiled and went downstairs. George went up the attic stairs and clicked a light on. Near one cobwebbed corner, something like a greyish, man-sized tarantula crouched upon a wrapped shape.
George just stared a moment. ‘You naughty baby,’ he then said and wagged a finger, to make the beast scuttle back submissively. The old man then departed and pushed the attic door shut behind him — the light fading on Zippy’s eight eyes, and Jonathan Burke’s remaining one.
Copyright © Emlyn Boyle 2024
This started out as a simple sentence exercise, (the fifth paragraph) before a further story grew around it. I’ve always loved old-style farmhouses, with their exposed beamed ceilings. But I’m not so fond of spiders, and thought of the J’ba Fofi — a cryptozoological species of giant spider, said to haunt the Congo Basin, Africa. That said, I dislike people who are cruel to animals even more. So it was inevitable that all these subjects would finally collide. Thanks for reading.
