Bang.
I wake up suddenly
to a sudden loud thud from down the hall. It sounds like it came from my
parent’s bedroom. I glance at the clock.
It is 3:06am. Perhaps it is my father rolling out of bed in his sleep again, or
my mother stubbing her toe on the foot of the bed as she always does on her way
to the kitchen for her traditional midnight snack. Certainly this thud is
nothing out of the ordinary. Or is it?
When my father
rolls out of bed, I always hear him stand to his feet on the old creaky
floorboards and climb back in bed. When my mother stubs her toe, there is
always the subsequent muffled muttering of curse words as her footsteps creak
past my bedroom on her way to the kitchen- yet, I hear none of these familiar
sounds. I hear nothing but an eerie silence.
Perhaps a book had
fallen off my father’s shelf –but no, a book would not shake the floor the way
this thud had. Perhaps the legs of my mother’s rickety antique vanity had
finally given way and crumbled to the floor as we always joked they would –but
no, it would have woken mother, and mother can leave no mess untouched no
matter the hour of day.
Perhaps I’m
overthinking it. Yes, I am overthinking it. It was just a thud- an ordinary thud
- no cause for alarm. I can investigate in the morning but for now I need
sleep. I’ll just close my eyes and drift off…
Suddenly I hear
what sounds like a smothered gasp for air, piercing the silence, and then:
A second thud much like the first, followed by
the same eerie silence. I am wide-awake and very uneasy now. What could be the cause of this? I am about
to spring from my bed and investigate when I hear a creaking in the hall
between my parent’s room and my own. It is not like the familiar creaking of a
person’s footsteps, but rather sounds like something heavy being dragged slowly
down the corridor.
I am unable to
move now. I am frozen in fear. Whatever is being dragged in the hall is getting
closer and closer to my opened bedroom door. The creaking is getting louder and
louder, my heart is pounding faster and faster. Suddenly against the dark of
night I see a silhouette of a man dragging two lifeless bodies down the hall
leaving a distinct trail of inky black liquid in their wake against the lightly
colored vintage maple floorboards. Suddenly he stops in front of my bedroom and
drops the bodies-The creaking ceases.
My heart is
beating like a drum – so rapidly that it feels like it is about to explode. This
cannot be real. This must be a dream. Those cannot be my parents. I am lying as
still as the lifeless bodies in the hallway hoping not to be noticed by the
man. I could not move even if I wanted to. I am frozen in fear. Utterly
petrified.
To my horror, the
man reaches down in dips his fingers in the blood coating the maple floorboards
and begins to write a message on the wall. The inky blackness of the night
veils his words from my vision. I cannot decipher the words on the wall. The man
finishes scrawling his script and turns around once more to face me. The hairs
on my neck are standing erect and Goosebumps ripple through my body.
The floor begins
to creak as he slowly tiptoes into my bedroom and crawls under my bed and lies
down on the floor directly beneath me. He must be waiting for me to awaken. But
I am already lying awake and terrified beyond comprehension. I want to scream,
but he’ll hear me. I want to run, but he’ll catch me. I am paralyzed by
petrification.
I have been lying
here for over an hour now. I can hear
him breathing heavily directly beneath me. The smell of warm blood on the cold
musty floor fills the room. The scent of death is overpowering. My vision is slowly getting used to the
darkness. I can almost interpret the bloody message on the wall.
I gasp as I read
the words
Suddenly, something
shifts beneath me.
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