Terror in the Shadows Vol 5

by Scare Street

  “It’s okay, hon, it’s okay,” she murmured and stroked my hair. I could hear the tears in her voice. “You’re brave enough. We all make mistakes, yeah? Your father and I will do everything we can to make this better. I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Hern. She’ll help you get past this.”

  I pulled back to look at my mom’s face. She was wearing a strained expression that stretched her skin tight against her bones and made her look older than her forty years.

  “Who’s Dr. Hern?”

  “She’s a therapist,” my mom said with a smile that was too bright and reassuring. “And she comes highly recommended. Your father and I have been considering it for a while now because of your… fears at night. She’ll help make all the bad things go away.”

  My nod was slow as the information seeped into my understanding. She gave me one more quick hug and kissed the top of my head before going to wash the dishes. I heard her sniff a few times, but I didn’t comment on it.

  “We’ll get through this,” she said again in that overly bright voice. “You’ll see, everything will be fine, hon.”

  My mother didn’t believe me.

  She would tell my dad, and they would send me to another doctor. How long would it take before they all realized how wrong they were? I feared their belief required my death first.

  The rest of the day was spent napping. My body felt too heavy and no matter how long I rested, I couldn’t seem to get any energy. When my dad came home, I asked him about the mousetraps. He said they had caught five mice during the night. I smiled like I believed him and let the matter drop.

  I kept my door locked at night, every night. My parents didn’t like it, but they had a key, so it was easy enough for them to open it.

  It never occurred to me one of the creatures might find it.

  Something woke me up. A noise. I strained my ears to hear it again.

  I jumped as a flutter and then a thud sounded against my window. I stared with wide eyes at the clear pane, not daring to move, even to breathe as I waited, the blankets pulled up to my chin.

  A shape thumped and scrambled against the mesh window screen. The full moon’s light illuminated the same kind of dark fairy I had seen before.

  Its tiny hands found purchase among the squares, and it began to gnaw upon the wires with its rows of shark teeth. It struggled its head back and forth as it tried to rip through to the glass, and I could almost imagine the soft growls it emitted as it fought with the window’s flimsy protection.

  A harsh, scratching noise in my closet tore my attention away from the feral pixie. It sounded as if something was clawing on the door’s wood, trying to get through. I bolted upright in bed, choking on a panicked sob, still clutching my blanket as if it were a shield.

  The bed underneath me began to shake, gently at first, but then with more violence, until I thought I’d be sick. I gasped, kneeling on my legs, ready to bolt for the door the moment the creature showed itself.

  I wracked my brain, trying to remember all the monsters that hid under beds. Trolls? The boogeyman?

  My heart pounded erratically in my chest as my breath came in short gasps. I tried to slow my breathing down as I gathered up my courage and peeked over the edge of the bed in morbid curiosity, knowing all the while I shouldn’t.

  A thick, hairy arm snaked out from the shadowy world beneath me. The full moon did me no favors with its bright light. The monster’s fungus-laden claws gouged deep grooves into the floor as it pushed against the bed.

  I screamed in terror and cowered in the middle of the mattress.

  My shriek turned into an agonized cry as a sharp spasm knifed through my chest. I gripped my left shoulder as pain shot through my arm.

  The mere act of breathing became labored. I forced my lungs to inhale deeply to calm myself and work up the courage to spring from the bed, but fear still gripped me, and my chest was on fire with pain.

  The knob on the door to my room jiggled. I heard shouts in the hallway on the other side, punctuated by growls as something banged on the door. Tears coursed down my cheeks as I sobbed in hopeless terror and pain.

  There was nowhere to run, no safe place to hide.

  The growls from under my bed sounded hungry. Thick, six-inch claws attached to a muscular grey arm dug into the top of my shaking mattress as the creature endeavored to haul itself out into the open.

  I screamed again, whether from the blindingly hot, stabbing pain in my chest or from my climaxed terror, I didn’t know.

  Spots appeared in my vision as a new scraping sound joined the cacophony around me. My lungs burned as I realized what it sounded like—a key being fitted into the lock and turned.

  Time seemed to slow, and my senses became distorted. The door appeared farther away, as if through a long tunnel. Noises became muffled and distant.

  There was a loud click, and as the door swung open in slow-motion, I saw the glimpse of a jaundiced eye before the world went black and oblivion took me.

  ***

  Becka’s mom hadn’t been asleep long that night before a violent shaking and a terrified scream woke her up. Gasping and scrambling out of bed, she rushed after her husband to stand in the relative safety of their doorway as he dashed into the hall.

  He rattled the knob on their daughter’s door, but it was locked. Framed pictures fell off the walls as the house shook.

  “Becka?” he hollered. “Becka! Are you all right? Rebecka!” He gestured to his wife. “Get the key!”

  She staggered back to his nightstand, trying to hurry as the ground shook violently beneath her feet, her heart hammering in her chest. Becka’s frightened shrieks and sobs tore at her till she was almost mindless in her panic, but she found the key and ran back to her husband who was still trying to force his way into the room.

  “Stop! You’re scaring her!” she begged, but he only snatched the key from her and scrapped it into the lock.

  She jabbed at the switch on the wall and light momentarily blinded her. But as the door swung open, that light gave her one last glimpse of her daughter’s chalk-white face, her lips an unhealthy blue. The next moment, Becka’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she slumped down onto her bed.

  At the sight of her daughter’s still form, numb shock slid over her, and she sagged to the floor. The earth had stopped shaking, but her body continued. Her husband checked Becka’s pulse and yelled at his wife to call an ambulance as he started performing CPR.

  But she could only stare at her daughter as tears spilled unnoticed down her cheeks.

  * * *

  On the Other Side

  By Julia Grace

  When Willis Murphy opened his eyes, he was expecting something a lot different from what he saw.

  Sometimes he woke up to sunshine and trees and long grassy fields. But lately, he hadn’t woken up in pleasant places. It was always dark and dreary, sometimes raining, and he would be staring down a lonely road leading nowhere.

  Willis was used to the other world he experienced when he was asleep. It was like living in two different dimensions.

  When he “woke up,” he was actually just crossing over to the other dimension, ready to experience whatever adventure the dream reality would bring.

  But this was different. He was in a place he didn’t want to be, and had no idea why he was there.

  Willis looked up at the tile ceiling above him, his heart pounding with fear. He could feel straps holding him down tight, over his wrists, his ankles, and his forehead. He couldn’t turn his head left or right, couldn’t move a limb.

  “Hello?” he asked in a shaky voice. No matter how far he tried to look, he couldn’t see anyone else in the room. “Hello? Is anyone in here? What’s going on?”

  “Glad to see you awake, Mr. Murphy.” Willis heard a deep female voice come from somewhere to his right. When he strained to see the source, he saw a speaker high up on the wall. “We didn’t know how long you would sleep.”

  Willis couldn’t tell if the
woman’s voice was friendly or not. It was almost monotone and without emotion.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “I don’t know… where I am…”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Willis heard the woman sigh in exasperation. “I suppose you have no memory of the last 24 hours, am I right?”

  Willis tried to think back to what he’d been doing for the last 24 hours. He’d spent most of it in his “awake” state; the other reality in which he was a married man and the father of a six-month-old baby boy. He’d been studying for finals on his law exam in preparation for the bar. He hadn’t slept much, which meant he was not in this reality.

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t remember anything. Please tell me what’s going on? Why am I strapped down like this?”

  “You are strapped down for your own safety as well as the staff at this hospital,” the woman’s voice replied.

  “But what did I do?” Willis didn’t really want to know. He just wanted to go back to sleep and wake up in his other world. It was his only escape.

  “You were in a chaotic state when you came here, Mr. Murphy,” the woman said. “You were screaming and lashing out at the nurses. You had to be sedated. You’ve been asleep for almost twenty hours.”

  Willis thought about it. It made sense that he had been sedated in this state while he was staying up in his awake reality to study for finals. He hadn’t counted how many energy drinks he’d consumed so that he wouldn’t fall asleep.

  Apparently, the length of time without his presence had made this side of reality a little crazy.

  “I’m feeling better now,” he said, trying to sound healthy and confident. “Can you let me up? I need to stretch my muscles.”

  “Oh, you will have a chance to do that, Mr. Murphy.” Now the voice didn’t sound as friendly. She sounded almost sarcastic, but he didn’t know why. It was almost as if she was holding something against him.

  “I… I don’t understand. I won’t attack anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Willis had never been a violent or an aggressive man. He was, in fact, one of the calmest guys in his circle. He was the free-thinker who relied on logic to make the best decisions. Emotions were to be considered, but the most logical, ethical thing to do was always the right thing to do.

  “Your behavior in the past 24 hours leads us to believe otherwise,” the woman replied coldly.

  Willis frowned, at least as much as the strap would let him move his face.

  “This doesn’t make sense. Tell me what I’ve done. Otherwise, let me go. You have no right to…”

  The woman didn’t have to hold down a button for Willis to hear her laughing. He could hear her muffled cackle, which meant she was in a room nearby. Probably just on the other side of one of the walls. She was probably watching him through two-way glass, if the room even had one. Being in his position, he really couldn’t tell

  He struggled against the straps, twisting his hands back and forth to see if they would slide out.

  “You can try to get away, Mr. Murphy,” the woman’s voice came through the speaker loud and clear. “But you will not succeed. You’d have to have the strength to rip your arm apart, and that’s impossible.”

  Willis felt frustration run through him. He relaxed and tried to think of another way out of the situation. “It would really help me if you would tell me what happened to get me put in here. I don’t remember anything.”

  “So you’ve said,” the woman responded, her cold tone starting to irate him.

  Willis wished she would come in the room and talk to him. He felt so cold and alone, strapped to the flatbed, unable to move more than his fingers, toes, and eyes.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Where am I?”

  “I’m sure if you think hard enough, you’ll remember. But if you insist on hearing where you are, you’re in the psychiatric ward of Fordham Prison.”

  When she said the word “prison”, Willis was awash with cold chills. He couldn’t be in prison. It didn’t make sense. When he was asleep in this world, he was awake in the other. That’s the way it had always worked.

  But he’d never questioned that he woke up in different places more than he’d remembered going to sleep. Only in his constant reality did he wake up in his bed next to his wife, ready to change another diaper or go to work, or do an odd job around the house.

  His dream reality was often somewhere new and interesting. But that’s how dreams worked, didn’t they? Nothing ever happened when Willis was awake.

  Nothing had ever happened before.

  “Why am I in prison?” he asked in a strained voice, his throat constricting. Terror split through him. He had never even been to jail, much less prison, strapped down to a table.

  “So you’re going to try to claim you don’t remember what you did?”

  Willis didn’t like the sound of that. The woman was obviously struggling to keep her voice neutral, but there was a seething quality to it that indicated she didn’t like him in the least.

  “Enlighten me.” He tried to sound brave. He didn’t feel it, but he didn’t want to be strapped to a table at the mercy of strangers. God only knew what they were planning to do to him.

  “You killed hundreds of people with that bomb you planted,” came the response. Willis felt the cold finger of terror slide from his neck down to his legs. “Setting it to go off at 5 would put it at the busiest time of the day in that area of downtown. You left people crippled and blind, and others dead… you’re a monster.”

  Willis almost didn’t comprehend the words she was saying. That was nothing like him. He would never put other people’s lives at risk, much less purposefully set out to kill them. It wasn’t true.

  And why would he already be in prison? What about due process? There hadn’t been time for a trial.

  But when had he found the time to hatch a diabolical plot? What had transpired since the last dream reality?

  “You have the wrong man,” he said in a firm voice. “I wouldn’t do something like that. You can ask anyone.”

  When the woman responded, she sounded like she’d heard that line a million times before. “I’m sure we could. But you made sure to kill everyone you cared about in that explosion. You’re going to pay for your crimes.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Willis repeated. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Please. Give me a chance to…”

  Give him a chance to what? To remember? To think? To do what? He was stuck.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Willis asked. He hated the shakiness of his voice, but until he had a chance to wake up, he would have to endure whatever was done to him. It scared him.

  “It’s not up to me,” the woman replied. “And you’re lucky it isn’t. My sister was caught in that explosion. She’s in the hospital now, fighting for her life. Because of you. I’d make you die a slow death and…” Her voice trailed off. “The state will take care of you.”

  Another burst of chills lit up Willis’s skin.

  The state conjured up images in his mind of dark, faceless beings hovering all around him, lit only by dim candlelight. They would find him guilty, and he would be cast into the pit of Hell forever.

  Willis started squirming. All he needed to do was wake up. If he could get out of this reality, he would be safe. Hopefully, he would never return to it.

  “This is just a dream,” he said out loud, struggling against the straps that held him down so hard. He felt the leather burning his skin. “It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

  “No, Mr. Murphy,” he heard the woman through the speaker. He was beginning to hate her. He never wanted to hear her voice again.

  Anger lit up his nerves and he growled, “It is a dream! You are part of it! You are just a figment of my imagination!”

  He heard the woman laughing again and jerked his head as hard as he could to look in the direction it was coming from. As he suspected, he looked directly at his own reflection, in what had to be
a two-way mirror. She wasn’t even hiding the fact that she was behind it. Her laughter gave her away.

  “Let me out of here!” Willis roared, yanking up on the straps that held his wrists down. They were loosening. He could feel it but wasn’t about to say anything.

  “You’ll be let out soon enough, when the state comes to get you. They’re just coming to transport you to the chair anyway.”

  Every nerve in Willis’s body tingled. The chair. He knew what that was. How he knew was the question.

  He could picture it in his mind. It was a version of the electric chair, but had many wires connected to the back of it. They stretched up, and each one connected to a pulsing bulb that flashed different colors. It was deep in an isolated, underground cavern. Anyone taken to the chair would endure hours of torture before they were killed.

  Willis didn’t stop to wonder how he knew the information. It was often that way in his dream reality. He could do things he normally couldn’t do in his waking one, like run faster or jump higher.

  Maybe I’m stronger, he thought. I’ll break these straps and get out of here. I’ll be my own superhero and rescue myself.

  With that thought in mind, Willis focused his mind on his arms and the muscles he would need to use for the feat. He pumped all his energy into them mentally and pulled up as hard as he could. It was a dream, and he expected it to be different. But he was still surprised when the straps snapped like there was nothing to it.

  He grabbed the strap holding his head down and yanked on one side as hard as he could, breaking the leather like it was tissue paper.

  Willis sat up as quickly as he could and unstrapped his feet. It was easier than breaking the leather, even if he was super-strong.

  He leaped from the table and ran toward a door surrounded by stacked cardboard boxes. It was a plain, simple door painted grey to match the walls on either side of it.

  Willis grabbed the knob and yanked it open. The door behind him, the one his observers would use, flew open, and people came running through.