Chapter 2
The night ebbs on, my heart marking the seconds ticking by. My window is now shut tight, probably never to be opened again. At least while I’m inside this house. Or any house. I’m pondering getting one without windows now, once I move out. Seems like a good plan…
There’s a sound of something shifting in my room and I whirl around to find its source, only to see my kitten stretching, deep in sleep. I don’t know if I’m jealous of his slumber or grateful I awoke. How did that woman find me? Could this all possibly be a dream?
Emotions rage inside me, something like a world war twisting inside my stomach and poking holes in my lungs. I can’t pick apart reality from fantasy—does this mean insanity isn’t far from my reach?
I walk over to my cat, Bo, on wobbly legs and squat down, my knees cracking over the sound of my noise machine. I can’t sleep in silence, my brain keeps me up with ideas and questions and hypotheses.
He wakes with a sound resembling a pigeon, cracking his eyes open and stretching again. He begins to purr as my adrenaline starts to cease. The little rascal put me out fifty bucks just so I could take him home, and at the time we thought he was a she. His name had been Bella, and, one day—I’ll skip the story for your sake—I found out he was no Bella. And recently, Stephanie Meyer had come out with a gender-bender book of Twilight, where Bella became Beaux. So, as the Twi-hard fan I used to be when I was, like, twelve, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a cat with a name from one of those books when the genders are opposite, now that I’m nineteen. As for the spelling, I wanted it to be different (as if the name isn’t different enough, especially for a cat).
I let my mind wander about my kitten for a little while longer before checking my closets for any signs of her goons. I find nothing, but it still doesn’t ease my mind or quiet the rapid pace of my poor heart. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just… you know. The woman crushed it with fear.
I sit on my bed and run my fingers through my thin ash-blonde hair, trying to make sense of it all. Could it be possible, all the myths I grew up with, all of the stories I heard, even the book I would read for my online college class—could it all be true? Could she be a…
I shake my head, almost laughing at myself, when I stop suddenly, three raps on my window with—most likely—knuckles. My stomach leaps into my throat and I stare at the pink curtains hanging before my window and hiding my room from sight. My body begins to tingle and black appears around my vision as I realize I need to keep breathing to stay conscious.
I can see the faint outline of a head and shoulders.
Knock, knock, knock.
There it is again! Holy crud, holy crud, holy crud…
I stand up slowly and back up to my door, touching it with my fingers and wrapping them around the cool metal before another set of knocks sound. I hold in a squeal as I fling open my door and run out, banging on my parent’s door.
“What’s wrong?”
My dad, former cop and military veteran, comes to the door in his underwear, completely awake.
“Someone’s knocking on my window,” I whisper, as if whoever it is can hear me. “And someone was in my room.”
He disappears, ordering me to stay here, as he darts into his dark room for a second, my mom stirring and asking what’s going on. He reappears again, cocking his gun as he marches to my room. I stay still, my feet glued to the cold tile floor in fear. My brain begins to pray desperately; there’s definitely someone or something after me, and it doesn’t seem human.
I can hear my father rustling around in my room, opening the window, closing it. Two minutes later, he returns, shrugging.
“Whoever it was, they’re gone now.”
“What do I do?” I ask, scared out of my mind.
My dad ponders over this for a moment and then walks to put his gun away.
“What do you want to do?”
I half-laugh at the ridiculous question. “Well I’m not going back to sleep tonight.” Not after what happened earlier, either.
“Honey,” my mom pipes up, walking to the doorway. She begins to rant about how worried she is about what occurred just a few moments ago, wondering if we should call the cops, but my dad shrugs. I tell him nothing was stolen, but I don’t explain what I’d seen both here and at the mall. I really should though…
“You can stay in our room, if you want. Get the foam topper off your bed and bring it in here.”
I nod and do as instructed. The foam topper is just an extra layer we put on top of our mattresses for extra comfort, and I guess it helps with that. It’s super hard to get off my bed though and I hate touching it because it has a weird texture to it my fingers disapprove of.
I drag the foam all the way to the room with my Bible in my free hand. Holding it always makes me feel a little safer; it’s as if God is closer to me and it helps my heart rid of the stress strung through it. And I’m stressed a lot of the time.
I fix everything I need to and settle down into the makeshift bed, hugging two stuffed animals close to my body. One of them is The Pink Panther with the neck all stretched out and patches of ‘fur’ missing from its outsides. A long time ago, he became a she because I said so and I named her Buddy. I was, like, one. Don’t judge me. The other is Tigger, a stuffed animal from my fiancé’s childhood. His neck is all wonky too, but not as bad as Buddy’s is. He gave it to me so I could always have a piece of him with me, even when I’m sleeping, so it’s like he’s always there. It was one of the sweetest things he’s ever done for me.
I stare up at the ceiling, my head beginning to throb as I dread the moment they turn off the lights. I had to turn my phone off, no texting because of the sounds it made (because vibrations from the cellular device against a foam whatever is so loud it’ll wake them).
(That was sarcasm, by the way…)
The lights turn off and the dread sinks into my bones once again. I pray a silent prayer, probably longer than God wants to listen (I’m just kidding), and try to close my eyes. But in the darkness, it’s as if I can see the woman, or the man that had been in the stall, his eyes flaring a bright red as he saw me, and it frightens me. I feel around for my Bible and touch it with my cold fingers. A chill runs down my spine as I slow my breathing.
God will take care of me.
I hear my parents snoring.
But just in case I need to run…
I press and hold the power button on my phone, the white apple logo appearing and blinding me in the pitch blackness. I cringe, momentarily forgetting the real/unreal threat posed against me, and squint my eyes as Tobias, my fiancé, appears on the screen. I enter in my passcode and swipe up, turning on the flashlight. When I go to sleep, it’s like I have to be able to see everything before and after I open my eyes, as if something might disappear in the middle of the night or something. Like I told you, I’m quite different. Strange is probably a better word to describe me.
For a moment, I cease to breathe, listening for the awakening of my parental units, but they never do. I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe now I can get some sleep.
†
I wake before my parents can, the room lighter even without my flashlight, I realize as I switch it off. No nightmares had come between the random event and now…
I shudder at the memory of last night, still doubting its realism. Yet here I am, nineteen and sleeping in my parent’s bedroom because I was scared. I mean, I had the right to be, but what if it was all a nightmare or a mirage? I don’t even know if that word works in a sentence like that, but it works for me, I guess.
I take a deep breath, trying to press the thoughts from my mind and get some more sleep, but trying not to think about it makes my brain tug at its content even more, questioning every little thing. I groan aloud. Luckily my parents don’t stir.
But I can’t get back to sleep, so I head into the living room, both stuffed animals tucked close to my chest, and plop down on the couch. I hiss at its frigidness and turn on the television, making sure to turn on everything else that needs to be on. It’s so complicated.
I stand up, making sure to turn the volume way, way down since it’s five in the morning and everyone’s asleep, and make my way to my bedroom. My No-Face blanket is draped across Bo’s cathouse, the mask on it seeming distorted and almost freakish-looking. My eyes skirt the room for danger before I enter, and I dart in to grasp the soft blanket. I pull it towards me and jump out the door, something falling to the ground softly. I turn, startled, and look down at it.
A golden pocket watch sits face-up on the uneven tile floor of my short hallway, just before the entrance to the bathroom door. The quietness of the house makes its ticking excruciatingly loud to my ears, even over the soft murmuring of the TV. I bend down to pick it up, my body popping all over. My whole family has back problems. And… body problems. Kinda sucks.
The watch is cool to the touch, its chain even icier as my fingers brush across it. This wasn’t mine and it certainly wasn’t anybody else’s in this house. My brother probably doesn’t even know what a pocket watch is, let alone how to tell time on one. And my parents have no need for one, they’ve got their phone and my dad’s got his wristwatch. Could this be my ticket to claiming I’m not entirely crazy? Perhaps what happened last night was real. Maybe that man I’d almost been ‘fed’ to wasn’t at all human, and perhaps there’s something very dark and the furthest from Godly happening all around me.
Now, cliché isn’t something I typically like to do or act upon of whatever, but I can’t help myself picturing the movie I’d obsessed over—it didn’t start with my fascination on the creatures, but it sure as heck fueled it—and the one part in the woods everyone used to quote and make fun of. Okay—and even if this were true, and even if I could be slightly right about this, we’d have a whole other thing to worry about lurking the streets at night.
And, as if by some ironic torture, a commercial for a similar TV show plays I’d never personally seen before but have asked about. Same plot, though, I’m guessing.
If—and I mean if (stressing it helps me rationalize)—I’m absolutely correct on this one, then I’d have nothing better to do but sit and wait for them to come back and empty me out, because nothing but God could save me from this future.
I swallow hard at this daunting thought. My feet find themselves again and I shuffle to the couch, my eyes drooping but my brain alert. I’ve got to keep my mind off this somehow, and mindlessly watching television would seem to be the way to go. If I decide to write, I’d find my paranoia slipping its way into my words, not to mention my music if I decide to sing. The only logical thing to do would be to sit and watch as something happens before my eyes, shutting off my assuming brain and letting the story tell itself. I avoid specific channels, but come across a rerun of Doctor Who. BBC has taken every episode off of Netflix and Hulu so they can start their own streaming service. That’s the suckiest thing anyone could ever do to me. Luckily it’s an episode of the Tenth Doctor—my favorite one.
Ah, David Tennant.
It definitely distracts me until the sun fully comes out and my parents decide to rise for the day. The bombard me with questions and I answer, avoiding the small details about the woman and the pocket watch I’d found. Looking over it earlier, I had seen my name engraved in the back, which had freaked me out all the more. It sat in my pants pocket, tucked tightly against my leg.
I spend the rest of my day avoiding the fact that someone could possibly be after me for whatever reason. Perhaps because of what I’d seen in the bathroom yesterday. But I push it away as Tobias calls, our phones connected for four hours until he falls back asleep. I chuckle to myself as I sit in my bedroom with every light on, including my computer and TV. I let the noise from my sound maker and the movie playing fill up the room, but only to where it’s loud enough for only myself to hear. I flip through the Bible, reading it in different sections and looking over the devotionals on various pages.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” I read aloud, smiling at the verse I’ve come so accustomed to. My mom was always worrying and it rubbed off on me. I used to never worry or fear, and now that I do, this verse, Psalms 23:4, helps me calm my mind.
My eyelids become heavy and the past days’ events come flooding back to me. I clutch the book with God’s word in it and take a deep, shaky breath. I whisper a prayer up above, knowing it doesn’t fall onto deaf ears.
I lay down under my covers, pulling Tigger and Buddy closer as I tug at the covers. My eyes stay open for as long as possible, my mind afraid to go under for hours at a time.
Somehow I fall asleep. I dream. The things I see while asleep are pleasant, everything light and wonderful. Maybe things are turning up. Everything could be headed in an upward direction, becoming better than I could ever imagine.
As I open my eyes, I realize how wrong I was.
There’s a sound of something shifting in my room and I whirl around to find its source, only to see my kitten stretching, deep in sleep. I don’t know if I’m jealous of his slumber or grateful I awoke. How did that woman find me? Could this all possibly be a dream?
Emotions rage inside me, something like a world war twisting inside my stomach and poking holes in my lungs. I can’t pick apart reality from fantasy—does this mean insanity isn’t far from my reach?
I walk over to my cat, Bo, on wobbly legs and squat down, my knees cracking over the sound of my noise machine. I can’t sleep in silence, my brain keeps me up with ideas and questions and hypotheses.
He wakes with a sound resembling a pigeon, cracking his eyes open and stretching again. He begins to purr as my adrenaline starts to cease. The little rascal put me out fifty bucks just so I could take him home, and at the time we thought he was a she. His name had been Bella, and, one day—I’ll skip the story for your sake—I found out he was no Bella. And recently, Stephanie Meyer had come out with a gender-bender book of Twilight, where Bella became Beaux. So, as the Twi-hard fan I used to be when I was, like, twelve, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a cat with a name from one of those books when the genders are opposite, now that I’m nineteen. As for the spelling, I wanted it to be different (as if the name isn’t different enough, especially for a cat).
I let my mind wander about my kitten for a little while longer before checking my closets for any signs of her goons. I find nothing, but it still doesn’t ease my mind or quiet the rapid pace of my poor heart. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just… you know. The woman crushed it with fear.
I sit on my bed and run my fingers through my thin ash-blonde hair, trying to make sense of it all. Could it be possible, all the myths I grew up with, all of the stories I heard, even the book I would read for my online college class—could it all be true? Could she be a…
I shake my head, almost laughing at myself, when I stop suddenly, three raps on my window with—most likely—knuckles. My stomach leaps into my throat and I stare at the pink curtains hanging before my window and hiding my room from sight. My body begins to tingle and black appears around my vision as I realize I need to keep breathing to stay conscious.
I can see the faint outline of a head and shoulders.
Knock, knock, knock.
There it is again! Holy crud, holy crud, holy crud…
I stand up slowly and back up to my door, touching it with my fingers and wrapping them around the cool metal before another set of knocks sound. I hold in a squeal as I fling open my door and run out, banging on my parent’s door.
“What’s wrong?”
My dad, former cop and military veteran, comes to the door in his underwear, completely awake.
“Someone’s knocking on my window,” I whisper, as if whoever it is can hear me. “And someone was in my room.”
He disappears, ordering me to stay here, as he darts into his dark room for a second, my mom stirring and asking what’s going on. He reappears again, cocking his gun as he marches to my room. I stay still, my feet glued to the cold tile floor in fear. My brain begins to pray desperately; there’s definitely someone or something after me, and it doesn’t seem human.
I can hear my father rustling around in my room, opening the window, closing it. Two minutes later, he returns, shrugging.
“Whoever it was, they’re gone now.”
“What do I do?” I ask, scared out of my mind.
My dad ponders over this for a moment and then walks to put his gun away.
“What do you want to do?”
I half-laugh at the ridiculous question. “Well I’m not going back to sleep tonight.” Not after what happened earlier, either.
“Honey,” my mom pipes up, walking to the doorway. She begins to rant about how worried she is about what occurred just a few moments ago, wondering if we should call the cops, but my dad shrugs. I tell him nothing was stolen, but I don’t explain what I’d seen both here and at the mall. I really should though…
“You can stay in our room, if you want. Get the foam topper off your bed and bring it in here.”
I nod and do as instructed. The foam topper is just an extra layer we put on top of our mattresses for extra comfort, and I guess it helps with that. It’s super hard to get off my bed though and I hate touching it because it has a weird texture to it my fingers disapprove of.
I drag the foam all the way to the room with my Bible in my free hand. Holding it always makes me feel a little safer; it’s as if God is closer to me and it helps my heart rid of the stress strung through it. And I’m stressed a lot of the time.
I fix everything I need to and settle down into the makeshift bed, hugging two stuffed animals close to my body. One of them is The Pink Panther with the neck all stretched out and patches of ‘fur’ missing from its outsides. A long time ago, he became a she because I said so and I named her Buddy. I was, like, one. Don’t judge me. The other is Tigger, a stuffed animal from my fiancé’s childhood. His neck is all wonky too, but not as bad as Buddy’s is. He gave it to me so I could always have a piece of him with me, even when I’m sleeping, so it’s like he’s always there. It was one of the sweetest things he’s ever done for me.
I stare up at the ceiling, my head beginning to throb as I dread the moment they turn off the lights. I had to turn my phone off, no texting because of the sounds it made (because vibrations from the cellular device against a foam whatever is so loud it’ll wake them).
(That was sarcasm, by the way…)
The lights turn off and the dread sinks into my bones once again. I pray a silent prayer, probably longer than God wants to listen (I’m just kidding), and try to close my eyes. But in the darkness, it’s as if I can see the woman, or the man that had been in the stall, his eyes flaring a bright red as he saw me, and it frightens me. I feel around for my Bible and touch it with my cold fingers. A chill runs down my spine as I slow my breathing.
God will take care of me.
I hear my parents snoring.
But just in case I need to run…
I press and hold the power button on my phone, the white apple logo appearing and blinding me in the pitch blackness. I cringe, momentarily forgetting the real/unreal threat posed against me, and squint my eyes as Tobias, my fiancé, appears on the screen. I enter in my passcode and swipe up, turning on the flashlight. When I go to sleep, it’s like I have to be able to see everything before and after I open my eyes, as if something might disappear in the middle of the night or something. Like I told you, I’m quite different. Strange is probably a better word to describe me.
For a moment, I cease to breathe, listening for the awakening of my parental units, but they never do. I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe now I can get some sleep.
†
I wake before my parents can, the room lighter even without my flashlight, I realize as I switch it off. No nightmares had come between the random event and now…
I shudder at the memory of last night, still doubting its realism. Yet here I am, nineteen and sleeping in my parent’s bedroom because I was scared. I mean, I had the right to be, but what if it was all a nightmare or a mirage? I don’t even know if that word works in a sentence like that, but it works for me, I guess.
I take a deep breath, trying to press the thoughts from my mind and get some more sleep, but trying not to think about it makes my brain tug at its content even more, questioning every little thing. I groan aloud. Luckily my parents don’t stir.
But I can’t get back to sleep, so I head into the living room, both stuffed animals tucked close to my chest, and plop down on the couch. I hiss at its frigidness and turn on the television, making sure to turn on everything else that needs to be on. It’s so complicated.
I stand up, making sure to turn the volume way, way down since it’s five in the morning and everyone’s asleep, and make my way to my bedroom. My No-Face blanket is draped across Bo’s cathouse, the mask on it seeming distorted and almost freakish-looking. My eyes skirt the room for danger before I enter, and I dart in to grasp the soft blanket. I pull it towards me and jump out the door, something falling to the ground softly. I turn, startled, and look down at it.
A golden pocket watch sits face-up on the uneven tile floor of my short hallway, just before the entrance to the bathroom door. The quietness of the house makes its ticking excruciatingly loud to my ears, even over the soft murmuring of the TV. I bend down to pick it up, my body popping all over. My whole family has back problems. And… body problems. Kinda sucks.
The watch is cool to the touch, its chain even icier as my fingers brush across it. This wasn’t mine and it certainly wasn’t anybody else’s in this house. My brother probably doesn’t even know what a pocket watch is, let alone how to tell time on one. And my parents have no need for one, they’ve got their phone and my dad’s got his wristwatch. Could this be my ticket to claiming I’m not entirely crazy? Perhaps what happened last night was real. Maybe that man I’d almost been ‘fed’ to wasn’t at all human, and perhaps there’s something very dark and the furthest from Godly happening all around me.
Now, cliché isn’t something I typically like to do or act upon of whatever, but I can’t help myself picturing the movie I’d obsessed over—it didn’t start with my fascination on the creatures, but it sure as heck fueled it—and the one part in the woods everyone used to quote and make fun of. Okay—and even if this were true, and even if I could be slightly right about this, we’d have a whole other thing to worry about lurking the streets at night.
And, as if by some ironic torture, a commercial for a similar TV show plays I’d never personally seen before but have asked about. Same plot, though, I’m guessing.
If—and I mean if (stressing it helps me rationalize)—I’m absolutely correct on this one, then I’d have nothing better to do but sit and wait for them to come back and empty me out, because nothing but God could save me from this future.
I swallow hard at this daunting thought. My feet find themselves again and I shuffle to the couch, my eyes drooping but my brain alert. I’ve got to keep my mind off this somehow, and mindlessly watching television would seem to be the way to go. If I decide to write, I’d find my paranoia slipping its way into my words, not to mention my music if I decide to sing. The only logical thing to do would be to sit and watch as something happens before my eyes, shutting off my assuming brain and letting the story tell itself. I avoid specific channels, but come across a rerun of Doctor Who. BBC has taken every episode off of Netflix and Hulu so they can start their own streaming service. That’s the suckiest thing anyone could ever do to me. Luckily it’s an episode of the Tenth Doctor—my favorite one.
Ah, David Tennant.
It definitely distracts me until the sun fully comes out and my parents decide to rise for the day. The bombard me with questions and I answer, avoiding the small details about the woman and the pocket watch I’d found. Looking over it earlier, I had seen my name engraved in the back, which had freaked me out all the more. It sat in my pants pocket, tucked tightly against my leg.
I spend the rest of my day avoiding the fact that someone could possibly be after me for whatever reason. Perhaps because of what I’d seen in the bathroom yesterday. But I push it away as Tobias calls, our phones connected for four hours until he falls back asleep. I chuckle to myself as I sit in my bedroom with every light on, including my computer and TV. I let the noise from my sound maker and the movie playing fill up the room, but only to where it’s loud enough for only myself to hear. I flip through the Bible, reading it in different sections and looking over the devotionals on various pages.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” I read aloud, smiling at the verse I’ve come so accustomed to. My mom was always worrying and it rubbed off on me. I used to never worry or fear, and now that I do, this verse, Psalms 23:4, helps me calm my mind.
My eyelids become heavy and the past days’ events come flooding back to me. I clutch the book with God’s word in it and take a deep, shaky breath. I whisper a prayer up above, knowing it doesn’t fall onto deaf ears.
I lay down under my covers, pulling Tigger and Buddy closer as I tug at the covers. My eyes stay open for as long as possible, my mind afraid to go under for hours at a time.
Somehow I fall asleep. I dream. The things I see while asleep are pleasant, everything light and wonderful. Maybe things are turning up. Everything could be headed in an upward direction, becoming better than I could ever imagine.
As I open my eyes, I realize how wrong I was.
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