{"sf1_id":1178108,"sf2_id":"rn97K70e","title":"The Grin in the Window","author":"charles_they","words":293,"posted_at":"2017-05-05T23:26:00.000Z","tags":["Canine","Horror","Period","Poem","Poetry","Speculative","Supernatural","narrative"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1178108-the-grin-in-the-window","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/rn97K70e","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/0e/1d/0e1dec76-7a92-454e-aa6e-04e4a769f11d","description":"A short horror narrative on things that lurk in dark places with grins that are too bright.","content":"### The Grin in the Window\n\nWhile writing late into the night, beside a fickle candle's light,\n\nIn hopes of holding fast my fractured mind—\n\nMy tortured eyes caught foul a sight, a fearsome, freakish, fatal fright,\n\nA grinning ghoul with muzzle most maligned—\n\nA simple pane of glass it lay behind.\n\nIts wicked grin gave me a start, I rose—and fell, struck faint of heart,\u0026nbsp;\n\nI scrambled swiftly from the watching wight—\n\nIts flashing fangs did dread impart, yet then from view it did depart,\n\nA being born from only sin and spite—\n\nA Cheshire grin it wore as it took flight.\n\nMy mantle bore my saving grace, a rifle framed beside his face,\n\nWith pallid paws I knocked aside our start—\n\nMy harrowed heart did throb and race, and aiming for the glass I braced,\n\nAwaiting then the ghoul along to dart—\n\nA corpse returned by means of blackest arts.\n\nSo standing, shouldered, tension taut, my canine nose in search of rot,\n\nMy senses seeking but the slightest trace—\n\nI felt the fade of every thought, that night and all the Hell we wrought,\n\nAttempting to forget his last embrace—\n\nA clatter came upstairs—a fallen vase.\n\nI started slowly up the stair, below my breath a paltry prayer,\n\nMy finger on the trigger growing fraught—\n\nAnd freshly fetid was the air, it brought to mind his earthly lair,\n\nA shallow grave untended in its lot—\n\nA cracking followed swift my first gunshot.\n\nIt hid inside the looking glass, its smile was cruel and crude and crass,\n\nIts gleaming grin was more than I could bare—\n\nI shot again into its mass, until the fiend within did pass,\n\nA rifle's roar a deafening fanfare—\n\nAlive again, I came back to my chair.","series":{"name":"Poetry Postings","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1177036-spinning-straw.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1180703-bottle-bottle.json"}}