Becky's Horror Story.

Harmon's toe fell off.

There it was, sitting on his carpet, while congealing blood slowly leaked out of the stump where his big toe should have been. He stared in disbelief, utterly shocked at the sight. A definite ache was coming in waves from the top of his foot up to his knee. He convinced himself to think through his predicament. He'd heard of plenty of smashed toenail cases, where the nail eventually died, disconnected, and left a black and bruised toe behind... maybe this would be the same.

Now he was almost certain he'd seen a monster down the alley behind his apartment last night. He'd stumbled back, and fallen into a puddle of … goop... wearing nothing but sandals. Harmon could see his back of trash out the bedroom window, still sitting on the ground by the dumpster where he'd left it in his haste. He remembered the breath he'd taken, convincing himself just enough that he'd watched one too many horror films that month. He'd gone inside, quickly kicked his sandals into the front closet, and gone to his room, not even turning out the lights. He'd been able to get to sleep, but had not been able to go back out in the dark.

Eyes. He remembered red eyes, and shiny sharp claws the size of his head.

Harmon shook his head to clear his mind and quickly reached with his left hand for the corded telephone on the desk to call for a ride to the hospital. He felt a sudden pin prick at his wrist that made his gasp in pain. The prickling spread like electricity across his wrist and through his palm as he watched with his own two eyes a black ring form where his watch should have been.

Panic rose from Harmon's stomach to settle in his chest and around his lungs. Struggling to breathe in and out, he watched as the skin around his wrist bone peeled back wetly and his flesh was eaten way by an unseen force. Exposed white bone began to crack and pop, splitting away from his arm. His voice caught in his throat; his fingers went limp and his hand severed itself from his arm before his eyes to rest on the dresser, leaving him with a burning stump in mere seconds.

Harmon stared wide-eyed, and released an uncontrollable shout of fear as he reached over with his remaining hand to pick up the severed limb, now oozing red blood into the light wood of his dresser.

Leprosy, zombification, and Apocalypse by aliens all crossed his mind as he raced with his hand out the bedroom door and down the hall. As he ran past the bathroom, his right knee cap popped with such force he was thrown to the ground with a yelp. Unsuccessfully, he tried to catch himself with his severed limb. Harmon's cheek bone fractured at the impact, and his face rushed across the carpet.

White hot fury raged in his left hip where he heard a sickening creeeeeak followed by a slurrp, like tearing apart a cooked chicken leg. Screaming filled his ears as he dragged himself across his living room carpet, reaching, stretching for the front doorknob. There was a throbbing more intense than he'd ever felt in his life. His entire left leg now lay askew, detached six inches away from its rightful place at the base of his hip; the skin on his thigh blackened and bloody, tiny veins and muscles still attached to his body. Following with his eyes a trail of blood from his bedroom, he turned to see his right leg maimed at the knee, laying down the hall ten feet behind him.

Blood squirting from his missing appendages and stumps, moans and grunts spewing from his mouth, Harmon collapsed on his back mere feet from his dead bolted front door. Too weak to speak or call for help; too drained of blood to lift his head. Searing pain filled his side, and a warm wet feeling spread from his stomach.

A soft scraping sound came from the coat closet. Slick, wet sounding footsteps made their way across his entry way just outside Harmon's blackening vision. Seconds passed with Harmon listening to a thick drip, drip, drip like a leaky faucet, just inches from his head. Something breathing hoarsely and deeply.

Harmon felt his life seeming from what remained of his body. Darkness continued to fill his vision, and all he could feel was dull, cold pain. No time to wonder why.

The last thing he saw was the monster chewing on his severed hand.