It’s Here

My wife shakes me so hard I wake with a sharp grunt. She’s sitting bolt upright in bed. I turn my head towards her, my eyes wrinkle from sleep and confusion. Her eyes are unblinking, terrified and transfixed on something at the foot of our bed. I sit up, rubbing my eyes as they adjust to the early morning light. The white curtains ripple gently with a slight breeze, hiding the promise of a beautiful summer’s day.

Then I see the thing at the foot of our bed.

My wife and I remain frozen. At first, I’m paralyzed. Quickly my fear turns to anger. I grab my sheets and motion to get out of bed. Suddenly, I’m frozen solid by fear again as I take a closer look at the thing. The figure is tall, lean and lanky. It has the proportions of a large simian; its long arms stretch all the way to the ground, and its hands lie limply on the wooden floor. Each hand ends in five deadly claws with wicked sharp points. The thing is black as pitch, and I can’t tell if it has dark, burnt skin or if it’s made from a wholly otherworldly substance. Its mouth is large and stretched into a horrific grin. Its jagged teeth are unnaturally white and it bares them with a menacing glee. Its ears taper off into subtle points like that of an elf, and it has long straggly, black hair that has clumped and caked together by some brown material I do not wish to think about. My brain is confused by this impossible sight, and my mind goes blank. I thought it has to be a joke. But I can smell the thing. It has a smell that could not be produced by anything living. Anything natural. I’m so utterly confused still. Something like this cannot exist. How is it here on some random summer’s morning, standing here in plain daylight? These kinds of things only happen at night. There have been no other signs. No strange unexplained moving of objects, strange sounds, eerie smells and cold patches. We have not read from any weird books, played with Ouija boards or been cursed. 

But there it stands.

Grinning at us.

Not moving a single limb.

I suddenly notice the silence. It is so eerily quiet right now. But how? Nearly every day this summer the neighbors were either cutting down trees or letting their dogs and children run about and scream and bark and play, much to my chagrin. Yet now the air was thick with silence. Where are the neighbors? In fact, where are the birds? There were always birds chirping loudly outside at this time. Has something happened to them? Sweat pours down my forehead. The thing is standing so still. So silent. I hear my heart pounding and my breathing becomes quick and shallow.

Whatever this thing is it’s simply not possible. I begin to shake. I move my hand towards my wife slowly. I do not break my gaze on the thing. I stare at its eyes. They are large, white, and milky. Dead. My breath comes out hard and fast. As I grab my wife she jumps slightly, but does not turn her head away from the thing. Her face is twisted with terror and her face is pale as snow. She trembles as she squeezes my hand so tight it goes numb and my fingers turn white. All I think about is getting away from this thing. I start to whisper to my wife, when the thing slowly raises a long thin claw to its mouth. Its lips purse as a noise that does not belong to our world hisses out “Ssshhhh”. Its voice sounds slippery, slimy, squelchy. It sounds like something as it’s swallowed by a peat bog. I freeze. My heart freezes. My blood freezes. My wife is clenching so tight my hand feels like it’s being crushed. I tug at her chin and gesture for her to follow me. Slowly and silently, eyes glued on the thing, we step out of bed. As we do I grab my keys from the bedside table. I then notice my wife and I are still in our summer pajamas. Strangely, with stress pressing on my mind from all sides, I am suddenly more worried about being found dead in my Spiderman pajamas than anything else. I chuckle quietly and hysterically at this random and inappropriate thought as we run barefoot from our bedroom.

It’s in the corridor.

Shit! It’s in the corridor now.

It didn’t make a sound. I turn back to the bedroom. It’s gone. It has moved, without walking or scuttling or running. It can travel from place to place without needing to move. Does that mean there is just one of them? My heart was beating so fast I felt dizzy. It stands at the entrance to the bathroom; just to our right as we exit the bedroom. The curtains undulate gently as a summer breeze blows through the open bathroom window. The smell carried by this zephyr nearly burns off my nose. It is so wretched. The grip I had on my wife is now more desperate. There is no avoiding it. We have to run right by this thing to get to the front door. My stomach drops and my vision swims from fright.

We run passed it.

The smell gets so much worse.

It reaches out its clawed hand and caresses my face softly as we bound down the hall. My wife and I fight back tears. My mind is in tatters. All I can see now is the front door. I rip it open, and tear through the door, wife in hand, into the warm morning air. We don’t close or lock the door. The air is humid and sticky; it is hard to breathe. My chest is burning as we sprint to our little green car and leap inside.

It’s in the driveway.

It’s in the driveway! How could this be possible? What the hell is this thing, standing, grinning in the blaring morning sun? I start the car as my wife and I buckle our seatbelts. The thing just stands as still as before. Smiling that disturbing smile. My eyes pour out tears from pure stress and fear. I’m sobbing and my wife is near catatonia. I slam my foot on the accelerator and we take off straight for the thing. It jumps nimbly to one side, grinning like the Cheshire cat and just as eerily graceful. As we reach the gate I don’t check for cars. I don’t care. We live in a small mountain village and I take our chances. I swivel my head around to stare at the thing as it stands in the driveway, staring at us, unblinking, smiling. I stare at it in turn as I drive the car around a corner and watch the thing disappear as we move down the road. I continue to stare out the back window, so sure I will see it bounding after us, using its arms to run like a gorilla. But I see nothing. I turn my head slowly to face the front window. My heart beat begins to ease. Momentarily my wife and I are silent, but soon we are screaming from stress and fear. Tears flooding our faces. My wife turns to me and cries out “What the hell was that thing?”. It suddenly smells horrible in the car.

“Sshhh”, my blood ignites with fear. It’s the thing’s voice. Coming from the seat behind my wife. We freeze and fall immediately silent. Fighting back our own whimpering, slowly, we turn.

It’s in the car. It’s on the backseat.

It’s in the car now! Suddenly, I hear a noise and turn back to face the road to see that I’ve crossed lanes completely, a small BMW heading straight for me. I yell and make a sharp turn back towards my lane, my heart in my throat. As we return to the correct side of the road, I see the thing reach out a hand to my wife. It slashes her just once across her chest and neck, and it’s so fast I just see a blur and then blood. Scarlet gore spurts from my wife in pressurized pulses. I watch her bleed and gurgle. She grabs my hand, but it quickly goes limp. “I told you to shhhh” says the thing, that voice so beyond natural, it sounds like a swamp trying to speak.

I am dead and numb.

I cry out in terror and anguish. Anger, spite and vengeance quickly explode to life in my brain, vaporizing all traces of fear.  I veer the car towards a cliff. We fly off of it and into a precipice. The thing just grins as we fall.

The cops don’t believe me.

I have survived the crash. My wife is dead and they think it was me somehow. I lie and tell them a wild animal got in the car, killed my wife, and forced me off the road. They shake their heads. Suddenly, there’s a bang. A car outside the hospital has backfired. Momentarily the cops and nurses are distracted. I steal a scalpel quickly and hide it under my mattress.

It’s nighttime now. I am alone. I can see it outside the hospital. It stands and grins up at me.

I clench the scalpel in my bandaged, shaking hand. 

I lie in bed and I hold my breath.

It’s in my room now.

It’s here.