October Night/ 1988

It's 2:00am and I'm alone in the house tonight. The rain began about an hour ago, and now, through the window I can see the wind strengthening...the tops of the trees whipping back and forth. A fence separates the back yard from a wooded area just beyond. How far those woods go back and where they lead... I do not know, but they are filled with tall, dark, misshapened trees with limbs that cast eerie shadows that stretch even as far as the concrete patio. On the curtains the shadows move like bony fingers scratching on the bricks of the house. The sound the wind makes as it whistles through the treetops is frightening...sort of unsettling.

Now the television has gone blank except for the static...the white noise coming from the speaker. At least I think it's coming from there...the sound could be the noise that the storm is creating outside...the constant downpour of the rain. It is the kind of night when I feel isolated from reality...it is the kind of night when I hear sounds from dark corners and from the other side of closed doors. Just a moment ago I heard a shuffling...like something being dragged across the ground just outside the door that opens on to the patio and the back yard. Just now I heard someone or something scratching at the kitchen window from out in the dark. When I checked the window there was nothing there except some small clumps of dirt and mud smeared across the sill...and a kind of handprint...barely visible. Maybe it isn't a handprint... after all no one in his right mind would be out in this miserable storm...not in his right mind...not even a burglar.

Besides, whatever it might be surely knows that I am here and that the house is not empty. Maybe my imagination is running wild. If only the television would come back on...maybe this icy chill shooting down my spine would go away.

One hour has passed, and now it's starting again...the scratching at the door, but I think it's coming from the front door now. That's odd...very odd. There aren't any trees in the front yard so it couldn't be the trees...and besides...I hear the doorknob turning slowly. I would have sworn that I locked it. The white noise from the television seems to be getting louder. It's very irritating. I think I just heard the front door swinging open with that God awful creaking...like a house warning it's inhabitants of the terror that awaits on the threshold. Perhaps I should calmly walk into the front room and check to see if the wind ...but the doorknob turned...check to see if the wind has somehow blown it opened.

Now I hear it clearly and I feel the blood running out of my face and down to my feet. My name...my name...I think it was my name...spoken by something unearthly or something long dead. If only I could bolt out the back door, I would, but my legs feel numb and my heart is pounding in my chest. My body refuses to react now. If I didn't know better I would think I was going quite mad, but I know it isn't true. Wet, damp footsteps are rounding the corner to the den and I now see the nightmarish figure...pale,grey and decayed, covered in mud and moist dark earth... standing before me with dark. lifeless eyes.