In Creeps The Night

by Natalie Gibson

  Please believe me…I’m so sorry…so sorry.

  The house had been full of people that night; combing through their belongings, the little things that made up a life and a family. A pair of bright blue rubber gloves sliding a bloody knife into a bag and whisking it away. The constant click and flash of crime-scene photographers provided the backdrop symphony to the pounding of her heart.

  Her sister’s tear-stained face and shaking hadn’t convinced the jurors either.

  The steady cadence of “he made me do it, please believe me,” never answering who he was. Her trial had been swift. Lorna hadn’t seen her sister since the night they’d taken her away. Their grandmother had refused to allow Lorna to testify.

  Please believe me…

  Lorna shivered violently and the ghosts of the past dissipated. The house was vacant now though the remains of her former life were still there. The faded shag rugs that covered the sad hardwood floor had been new when her grandmother had put them down in a half-hearted attempt to shine up the house for sale. But no one wanted to buy a murder house.

  And now it’s my house.

  She kicked the paper into a corner and moved through the hallway; her footsteps echoed loudly like the rapping of the raven.

  Nevermore.

  She flicked the switch in the kitchen and a lone naked bulb shone dully in the rapidly fading daylight. A thick film of dust lay on top of every surface, undisturbed since her grandparents gave up on finding a buyer. They hadn’t the heart to even enter the house before they died. Lorna turned on the faucet and after a moment of groaning protest from the pipes, the water sputtered into the bucket she had brought.

  Dunking a sponge into the lukewarm, bubbly water, Lorna slathered it across the countertops, wiping away years of neglect, uncovering the months of fear bursting forth in thirty minutes of violence. Her memories of that night before being taken away were hazy at best. Shapes out of the corner of her eyes made her jump, but it was only the shadow of the trees shivering across the dull white walls. Could Mary have been telling the truth?

  Cool it, Lorna, it’s just a shadow.

  The cupboard door opened with a soft squeak and Lorna resolved to pick up some WD-40 before she came back in the morning. Another piece of doll, a plump arm, lay in the dust inside. Snatching it up, Lorna frowned at it, rubbing her thumb over it. In the weeks leading up to her parents’ murders, her sister, who had always been jealous of Lorna, began acting more erratic: answering voices that no one else heard or dismembering Lorna’s favourite toys.

  “It’s a puzzle game, Sis. He likes puzzles.”

  “Who likes puzzles?”

  “The devil,” Mary whispered with a malicious grin.

  Their mother had wanted to call the priest but their father punished Mary harshly. Angry voices, Mary’s wailing, echoed in her ears and the acrid smell of burning toys filled her nose. Lorna took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut on the memories just as she had done on her sister; she threw the arm in the trash and wrung out the sponge. Mary snapped and now Lorna had no one.

  A heavy thud from the basement snapped her from her reverie. Another thud and then another, like the slow beating of a sluggish heart. Deep murmuring thrummed through the walls. Lorna had gone through the house from top to bottom earlier in the day. She was the only one there. There was nothing stopping her from leaving, driving away and never looking back, nothing but a deep curiosity. Lorna grabbed a flashlight from her tool kit and began a slow, creeping descent.

  A chorus of whispers swirled through the heavy darkness, reaching a crescendo of mournful cries and then falling back into whispers. Lorna saw nothing, her little flashlight failing to do much but accentuate the blackness surrounding her.

  The air grew warmer and thicker with every creak of the old steps and beads of sweat broke out across her forehead. Something did not want her there. She pressed on and she finally reached the bottom, sliding heavily from the bottom step, bending over, gulping for air. With a small sigh, Lorna reached up on tiptoes for the light switch and flicked it. Another naked bulb shone dully, doing little better than the flashlight had.

  Lorna walked the perimeter of the basement, staying close to the dusty cinder block walls. The room appeared empty but a presence hung in the air, sinister and expectant. Returning to the staircase, she expelled a breath and snapped the flashlight off. There was no one here and no one had made Mary do anything.

  So it’s hot down here. Big deal.

  Lorna made a mental note to call in the furnace service technician. She sank to her knees, hoping the floor was cool and leaned forward, pressing her hands into the stone floor. Something warm and sticky squished up between her fingers.

  “What the hell?”

  “Welcome home, Lorna.” A voice like hot asphalt was all around. Lorna looked around wildly, squinting into the shadows, her eyes focusing just in time to see a red, well-muscled arm and the glint of a knife striking downward.

  Please believe me…

  Lorna fell heavily to the floor; her blood bubbled up, hot and red around the blade. A doll’s body, naked and ripped open, lay near her fingertips. One shuddering breath and her eyes rolled back into her head.

  I’m so sorry…

  ANOTHER TYPICAL DAY. You know how it is. Wake up, make coffee, and wish you were anywhere than where you are. You tell yourself today will be different. You’ll find your place in this world. That even madness can coexist within a world filled with the paradox of beauty. Of sunshine and sanity—or so they say.

  Abnormal psych. The inner workings of the mind. Sure, they can conjecture all they want. Study and theorize. In the end, it all boils down to one thing: how do the insane manage to float freely through society without us recognizing them? It’s as if they were made of ink, able to blend within the darkness of the night, a perfect balance of yin and yang, ever shifting from white to black, then black to white, fitting in and slithering past the blind eyes of a society more interested in money, superficiality, and shallow lives instead of noticing the evil staring them in the face on a daily basis.

  Final exams start this week and the pressure is on. The top two papers are guaranteed an internship at the coveted Chesterfield Academy, which practically sets you for academic life. Having lived and breathed madness my entire obsessed life, there was no way my paper wouldn’t be selected. Then again, there was always that nagging voice in the back of my head that told me I was worthless and would never amount to anything.

  You were born for this, I remind myself. Walking into the lecture room, I stare at the whiteboard in class. The words What scares you? are written in neat, flowing script in blue marker. Never red or black or any other color. Always blue. Dr. Hathaway is as predictable as the unpredictable mind. I write the topic in my notebook and leave class. I’ll be glad when this is over.

  Back at my room I boot up my laptop and pop a K-cup of Double Black Diamond extra bold coffee into my Keurig. It’s going to be a long night, and I have a lot of research to finish my paper. The words what scares you run around my mind in an endless mantra like a hamster stuck on the proverbial wheel, beckoning me to the brink of insanity.

  I try to shake it off. But that’s the problem. Nothing scares me. About as close as I can get to that emotion is annoyed. Horror movies are lame. And while the criminally insane intrigued me to venture into abnormal psych, they didn’t scare me either. Rather, they fascinate me.

  Finishing my coffee, I set the empty cup on the counter and brew another. After four more cups, I feel as wired as a streetwalker hopped up on amphetamines. My fingers race across the keyboard in a blur of motion, trying to keep up with my thoughts as they pour out of me.

  The late afternoon sunshine wakes me, and I stumble into the bathroom. My neck and head throb and my mouth has an odd metallic taste. I gaze at my reflection in the mirror. Disheveled chestnut-brown hair and pasty skin with dark circles greet me back. I smile except it looks more like a grimace. Shrugging out of my clothes, I step i
nto the shower. Steam as thick as fog fills the bathroom and the hot water runs over my neck, easing the tension.

  Drying my hair in a thick, fluffy towel, I notice the words what scares you written on my medicine cabinet. I rub the condensation from the glass with my towel and get ready for my meeting with the doctor before class.

  Everything is brown. From the paneled walls to the tiled floor to the faux wooden desk. I prefer the warmth of real wood to the fake, laminated conglomeration of this office. Even the diploma from Chesterfield Academy is housed in boring brown plastic. The only redeeming piece of furniture is the worn leather couch where the brown has faded away to a light rust shade from years of overuse.

  An odd smell of peppermint and musty air fills the room. I can’t sit so I pace back and forth. Waiting. As the sun descends toward night, a soft click of the door announces the arrival of the never-on-time Hathaway. I hurry and take a seat on the couch.

  “I didn’t realize we had an appointment, Miss Evans. How are you feeling today?” Dr. Hathaway settles in behind her desk and stares at me through wire-rimmed glasses.

  Clutching my thesis, I jump to my feet. “I finished my paper.” My smile bright enough to burn through her retinas if only I were the sun. “I think you’ll be very pleased.” The excitement within flops around like a gasping fish out of water, yet I maintain my composure.

  “Paper? Oh, that. I’m glad to see that you’ve finally taken an interest in our group therapy sessions, Ava.”

  It’s exactly five steps to the front of her desk. Nine steps if I walk around to the chair. I count them off as I edge closer, the smile never leaving my face. “Would you care to read it now?” I ask.

  “Of course.”

  I hand her my thesis. It is exactly 42 pages long.

  Dr. Hathaway begins to read and then eyes me with those doctor eyes. “Ava, the staff informed me you had a bad night and required heavy sedation.”

  “That’s impossible. I was busy working on my thesis all night.” The words what scares you begin to materialize everywhere—the walls, floor, Dr. Hathaway’s face....

  Sighing, she sets my paper down on her desk. “These pages are all blank, Ava. And you still haven’t answered the question.”

  I produce a dog-eared, folded piece of paper from my pocket. “Actually, I have. The answer is right here,” I say, waving the paper. “I guess I’m still apprehensive talking about it.”

  Dr. Hathaway beckons me to her side. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve been treating you for years,” she says. Her face is plastered with that practiced smile that is supposed to reassure me.

  I walk four more steps, unfold the paper, lean across her, and place it upon the desk. Her eyes widen as I slip the knife into her stomach, twist, and then jerk upward before pulling it out. The glint of blood-tinged steel reflects in my brown eyes as I pull the knife from her body. I dip my fingers in the red, pooling warmth, the sensation sending a jolt of excitement within me.

  In blood, I write the words: I scare me on the piece of paper. A thin line of burgundy bubbles from her lips, and she slumps to the floor.

  I walk three steps to her bathroom and wash the blood from my hands, and then reemerge into the office. Using a towel, I wipe my fingerprints from the knife I stole from the kitchen. Nobody pays attention in this facility. Everyone is too busy to notice when you blend in like invisibility.

  It’s time to slide silently back into society. I grab Dr. Hathaway’s keys, badge, and jacket. And then I slip out into the darkness…like ink.

  I’VE HAD A dead man haunt my dreams lately—chortling from the sidelines and pointing fingers from the edges. Maybe he’s trying to tell me something?

  He’d made an unwelcome guest appearance for several nights now and Cath couldn’t figure out why. He stood there, on her dreamscape’s periphery, doubled over with laughter. How did she know he was dead? she had asked.

  “Who are you?”

  He cocked his head and looked at her. “I’m dead.”

  It made sense, then, in the middle of the night. Oddities populated her nocturnal world so a dead man wasn’t outside the norm. But the laughter—that’s what chilled her.

  Cath sat in her favorite chair, gently rocking. She replayed last night’s dream. It had been mundane—full of garbled flotsam from her day at work and some Daliesque touches. Tonight she was going to confront him. She didn’t mind reoccurring characters in her dreams, but welcomed them as harbingers. This man was different.

  Cath’s preparations for bed that night were deliberate. She didn’t have her customary glass of wine and didn’t watch TV. She went for a walk. She drank herbal tea and did Sudoku puzzles until her eyes burned. She didn’t particularly like the Japanese numbers game but wanted to keep her mind free of the whimsical thoughts she usually had when reading fiction or watching her TV shows. She needed clarity.

  Like a warrior in flannel pajamas, she stalked to her bed, vanquishing the extra throw pillows by tossing them to the floor. No fripperies, not this night. She settled down with a determined sigh and closed her eyes.

  And waited.

  Sleep eluded her, as it often does when a routine is disturbed. The hours ticked by. Cath clenched her eyelids, trying to will herself to sleep. Her brain balked. It was busy gleefully ordering numbers, remnants of that evening’s puzzles.

  She finally fell into a fitful slumber, the type that is more wearying than restful. She woke up, dissatisfied and feeling shattered. Whether she had dreamt, she couldn’t remember. The man had not shown up. She found she missed the laughter.

  Work was a misery. Cath felt like she was going through the motions. Once or twice she heard a peal of laughter and her head would snap up, looking for her tormentor, but it was only a co-worker, leaning against a neighbor’s cubicle, telling an off-color joke. Nothing unusual, but Cath felt on the alert nevertheless.

  The day dragged. Cath waved goodbye to the janitor, who had finished his shift. He told her to go home but she shook her head. She had a deadline that couldn’t be ignored, not if she wanted to keep her job. It would be a night of too much caffeine, stale air, fast food and artificial light. Cath felt pale, insubstantial. Her fingertips gleamed whitely against the black keyboard. She pressed her eyes, red flashes filling the blackness. She longed for sleep.

  She heard him before she saw him. It started out as a soft snort, then a whisper of a giggle. Before long, gales of laughter filled the room. There, in a corner by the supply cabinet, he stood. Tears streamed from his eyes. He laughed helplessly, the kind of mirth demonstrated by a two year old or a drunk.

  It took seven strides before she reached him. She flashed out her arm. It went right through his chest. He looked at her, bemused.

  “I told you,” he chuckled. “I’m dead.”

  “Who are you and why are you here?” she demanded.

  “Does it really matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  He shrugged, his lips twitching.

  Cath slumped against the cabinet. She was bone-tired.

  “At least tell me why you’re laughing all the time.”

  This made him chortle.

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  Cath shook her head.

  “What else is there to do but laugh? I’m dead.” He gestured at the office. “It’s not like I have to work or anything.”

  “But why me? Why don’t you bother somebody else?”

  He looked surprised at that.

  “Isn’t it self-evident?”

  She shook her head again. “Not really, no.”

  “Maybe it’s your time and I’ve come to get you.”

  Cath was incensed. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said angrily.

  He laughed harder. “As if you’d know,” he mocked.

  “And how am I supposed to go?”

  He shrugged again, indifferent. “I don’t really care. Throw yourself down the elevator shaft. Jump out a window. Stab yourself with scissors. Choke on your pizza. Ju
st hurry up.”

  Cath wasn’t having any of it. She had just turned 27. There was no way she was going to listen to him. She had too much to do, too much to see. She wasn’t going to go just yet. “Who died and made you God?” She spat in his face.

  It connected. He wiped the spittle from his cheek and stared at his hand, amazed.

  “How did you do that?” he asked. “Nobody has done that before.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’ll be damned if you dictate when I die. Now piss off and bug somebody else.”

  He looked at her with respect and shuffled a half-bow. “I don’t know how you did that,” he said seriously. “But it’s not something I can argue with.” He disappeared silently, no last laugh.

  Cath allowed herself a small smile and settled back at her desk. Her bony fingers flew across the keyboard. By midnight she was done. She turned off the office lights and locked the door. The moon was full and the night held a promise of spring, a lushness that wasn’t there the evening before.

  She didn’t see the taxi until too late. It swerved to avoid a raccoon that lay dead on the road. It hit her full force, smashing her body into the brick wall of a convenience store. Cath saw a flash of bright lights. She smelled lilacs. Somewhere, someone was laughing.

  THE NIGHT WAS darker than most as the headlights from the eighteen-wheeler cut through the inky black sky. It hitched and inched its way forward until it came to rest in a clearing on Route 301 just within the Georgia state line. The driver, Chuck Bigelow, known to his friends as “Biggs,” put the truck in park and began to prepare for a valuable night’s sleep.

  “I’m comin’ for ya, Shelly. Just hold on!” Biggs exclaimed with a chuckle as he exited the cab of the trailer. Considered one of the best independent truckers for hire from Florida to Illinois, he preferred smaller highways to the larger interstates. The peacefulness of the large, lonely stretches he encountered cleared his head, giving him time to think about the job as well as other certain tasks—like tonight’s festivities.