Linoleum

The Linoleum is a scary story about a married couple who buy a cheap roll of kitchen lino at a department store.

My wife and I live in a small apartment. One morning, when we woke up, we found that the pipes had burst and the kitchen was flooded. It was terrible. We managed to mop up all the water, but the linoleum was ruined. We were forced to buy a new one.

The next day, we went to big carpet store and strolled around the linoleum department, looking at what they had. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of money and everything seemed to be out of our price range. We asked the store assistant if there were any cheaper options and he quietly pointed us towards the discount section.

In the corner of the store, hanging on the bottom shelf, there was roll of thick, beige linoleum with a pattern of triangles and squares on it. When we looked at the price per square meter, it was so low that we immediately decided to buy it. We took the roll of linoleum to the sales assistant, but he couldn’t find any barcode on it. We asked him why the price was so low and he muttered something about a fire at the factory. If so, our roll of linoleum seemed to have escaped undamaged.

We paid for our purchase, carried it out to our car and put it in the boot. On the way home, we noticed something strange. The linoleum had a sickly sweet smell about it. It didn’t smell like burning at all, but rather something like a mixture of oriental spices and rotting fruit.

When we got home, we carried the roll of linoleum up to our apartment and placed it on the kitchen floor. While we were fetching some tools and preparing to lay it down, our pet cat came over to inspect it. He gave the linoleum an odd look, poked it with his foot and suddenly jumped back with a terrible hiss. Apparently, he didn’t like the smell of it. We laughed at our lovable but foolish feline and got down to work.

By the time we were finished, the kitchen looked great. The color of the linoleum matched our kitchen cupboards and it felt soft and warm to the touch. My wife and I were really pleased with our purchase.

That night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly felt my wife shaking me.

“I heard something in the kitchen,” she whispered.

At first, I didn’t understand what was going on, but then I listened for a few moments. I could hear a strange creaking noise coming from the kitchen. It sounded like someone was walking around. My wife thought it might be a burglar and she wanted me to go and check it out.

With a sigh, I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen, but when I switched on the lights, there was nothing there. The window was firmly shut. The kitchen was completely silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the dripping of the tap. I tightened the tap, turned off the lights and went back to bed. We didn’t hear any more noises that night and slept peacefully.

However, the next morning, we noticed something strange. Our pet cat was missing. We searched the entire apartment, but the cat was nowhere to be found. I thought he must have gotten out somehow during the night, but it seemed impossible. The front door was locked and all the windows were closed. I had a feeling that there was something strange going on and it sent a chill down my back.

I spent the day, driving around the area, searching for our missing cat. However, after looking for hours, there was still no sign of him, so I had to call off the search. That night, when my wife and I went to bed, I was feeling very tired. My wife couldn’t sleep because she was worried about the cat. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, she got out of bed and said she was going to get a drink of water.

I had a nightmare. In the dream, I found myself walking down a long, dark hallway. Up ahead, I could see a door. There was a bright white light coming through the gap under the door and I could hear a low, rumbling sound. When I reached the door, I turned the handle and it suddenly swung open. What was behind it was so terrible that I immediately woke up in a cold sweat.

It was morning. The sun was shining through the bedroom window and birds were singing outside. I rolled over to give my wife a big hug, but her side of the bed was empty. I got out of bed and noticed that the apartment was strangely silent. When I went into the kitchen, my wife was nowhere to be found. She was gone, but her clothes were still in the wardrobe, her purse was still sitting in the hallway and her keys were still hanging on the hook beside the front door.

I couldn’t understand why she had gone out without telling me. I was about to call her when I noticed that her mobile phone was lying on the table beside her bed. It was as if she had suddenly and inexplicably vanished during the night. I called her parents and her friends, but they hadn’t heard from her. Eventually, I was so worried that I went down to the police station and filed missing persons report.

I felt awful. I missed my wife terribly and, every night, I dreamed about that long, dark hallway with the door at the end. I was worried sick and stopped eating. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to work.

A week after my wife’s disappearance, I began to notice a strange smell in the kitchen. It was coming from the linoleum. When I took a closer look, I saw some reddish-brown liquid leaking out from the edge.

With trembling hands, I tore up linoleum. When I saw what was underneath, I vomited.

The floor beneath the linoleum was covered in a puddle of putrid, decaying, bloody grue. The worst thing was what I found on the back of the linoleum. There were two sets of faded footprints… Four feline paws and two human feet.