In Creeps The Night

by Natalie Gibson

  Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Hattie went to examine the back of the dollhouse. The hinges were rusted but still operational, and the back opened to reveal an almost empty interior. It had all the light fixtures, but the furniture normally found inside a dollhouse of this quality was missing. Mandy’s furnishings were there, down to the boxes filled with miniature clothes and toys. A doll, unable to stand on its own floppy legs, was suspended by a string of yarn from the ceiling so that it appeared to stand in the middle of Mandy’s room.

  A tug on the secret door in the tiny closet made the whole room swing out to reveal the hidden room Hattie now stood in. The sheet-covered mannequins, doll-filled chests, and even a tiny dollhouse were represented there.

  A small figure appeared at the top of the stairs and whispered, “Mother.”

  Mandy never called her “Mother.” Hattie looked up and wondered why Mandy had changed out of her shorts into a dress. “What, sweetheart?” Hattie moved the light from the dollhouse to her child and the figure disappeared. “Mandy?” she called out. No answer.

  Hattie moved across the room to check on her daughter when something brushed against her. Losing her grip, the plush flashlight fell, illuminating a mannequin’s feet. Hattie wondered why anyone would make such a bony mannequin before she realized it was a corpse. The dry, cold sealed-off atmosphere had mummified it. Yanking off the sheet revealed a woman dressed like a Stepford wife. Down the row she pulled off the sheets one by one, revealing five more women, each progressively older. The last one, closest to the stairs, had been dead the longest. Her garments were fragile; their style right out of a Jane Austen novel. The face was etched in horror, its mouth frozen in an eternal scream.

  Hattie ran down the stairs, feet pounding every step. Bursting into the bedroom, she screamed. Hanging from the ceiling, exactly as depicted in the dollhouse, was Mandy. Lifeless, her feet dangled inches from the floor.

  Frantically Hattie searched for something to cut the rope with. Finding nothing, she wrapped her arm around Mandy’s waist and lifted her. The noose was easy to remove once the rope wasn’t taut. Her body felt heavier and limper than when she had carried a sleeping Mandy to bed. Her baby stared up at her with unseeing bloodshot eyes; her face blue and her swollen tongue hanging out of her mouth.

  The lights went out, the only source coming from the unicorn’s tummy. In the dim lighting, the ghost reappeared. Transparent, but visible, the girl’s hair and clothes moved by a breeze no living person could feel. Her bare feet floated off the floor as she glided next to Mandy’s body.

  “I killed her.” She smiled, stroking Mandy’s hair.

  “Get away from her!” Hattie screamed.

  Faintly, as if from a great distance, Mandy cried, “Momma!”

  “I’m here, sweetheart.”

  “Momma, where are you?”

  Scared and alone, her baby couldn’t hear her. “Kill me, too, you…monster.”

  The specter’s void black eyes widened. “No. I need you here.”

  “I’m coming, Mandy,” Hattie whispered. She stood and slipped her head into the noose. Bending her knees, she let her weight do the work. The agony of no oxygen lasted longer than she expected, and she almost stood several times, but the thought of Mandy suffering this alone held Hattie fast. Burning extremities crescendoed, then faded. The throbbing brain, starved for air, went heavy as stone. Her vision narrowed, and then blackness.

  Slowly, Hattie became aware. Everything moved quickly around her. Activity flooded Mandy’s room. Outside the window, blue and red strobed. Men and women in uniforms circled Hattie’s body, and searched every box. The only thing that didn’t move too fast for her to track was the ghost’s face.

  “This woman could have stood; her feet more than touch the floor. Suicide, right?”

  “Looks that way,” a uniformed woman replied. “This place is infamous. A child killed herself the same way back in the 1800s.” She gestured to Hattie’s body. “And the girl’s mother mysteriously vanished a few months after that.”

  “I’ve been so lonely.” The girl ghost floated to Hattie, taking her hand. Although Hattie couldn’t feel it, she knew they were joined. Like a magnet, the pull was too strong to break.

  “Where’s Mandy?” she asked as realization dawned.

  “Heaven,” the girl replied. “Where all who are murdered go. I saved her…Mother.”

  “BYE, MUM!” SETH called. If he was quick he might manage to make it outside before the usual interrogation. He flung open the front door.

  “Get back here, young man!” Mum shouted, loud enough so that he could not pretend that he hadn’t heard. He sighed and went through to the study. Mum was at her desk, laptop open, screen glowing with an image of one of her beloved aircraft. This one was a Hawker Hurricane. Seth knew the fighters, he liked them. Mum looked at him with pursed lips.

  “Where do you think you’re off to?”

  “Playing.” When his mother raised her eyebrows he added the required information. “With Tommy, in the woods.”

  “You’re supposed to be helping Dad with the ironing.”

  “I was, but he said I should leave him to it. He’s going to watch an old film while he irons.”

  “Brief Encounter again, knowing him.” Mum smiled. “Okay, off you go, but call in at Granny’s and give her this book for me. She’s wanted to borrow it for ages.” She held out a worn paperback called Kitchen Antics. Seth stuffed it into the back pocket of his shorts.

  “Yes, Mum!” He ran to the front door.

  “Be back for teatime!” she shouted after him, “We’re having sheps!”

  Outside the sun was cracking the cobblestones. Why was mum bothering to cook Shepherd’s Pie on such a hot day? Tommy’s mum was probably making salad, or sending her son to the chippy to avoid putting on the oven.

  Seth started walking, but stopped within three paces. Her-Next-Door had a visitor. Not that there was anything unusual in that. Her-Next-Door was always having visitors; mostly nurses or doctors.

  This was not a nurse, though. There was nothing crisp and clean-looking about this visitor. It stood thin and tall on the steps, facing the door, so that Seth was at leisure to examine it. The figure wore a shapeless ankle-length dress of black, which probably meant it was a woman, although as Dad said you couldn’t be bloody sure these days. The thin material wafted as though in a gentle wind, yet Seth felt no disturbance in the summer air. Shoulder-length waves of bible-black hair also stirred in a non-existent breeze. The stranger’s feet were bare, and dark gray in color. The figure remained motionless and silent, showing no inclination to knock on the door.

  Seth wondered briefly about speaking, then decided against it and ran up the hill toward Granny’s house. There was another of the unearthly figures standing outside the village shop, motionless like the first. Maybe the strangers were canvassing for some weird political party, like that Raving Loony lot that Mum had got angry at. Or perhaps it was some bizarre variation of the annual scarecrow festival, when scores of homemade scarecrows dotted the village. Whatever the reason, this figure blocked the shop doorway, so no doubt someone would be along soon to complain and make it move.

  “It’s only me!” Seth called as he entered the little white cottage that shone bright in the sunshine. Granny appeared at the kitchen door wiping her hands. She wore slacks, white T-shirt and an apron that said, “Kiss The Chef.” Her almost-white hair was incongruously tied in pigtails.

  “Hello, love, what are you doing here?” She grinned. “Want a cheese scone?”

  “No thanks,” he said, giving her a hug and getting flour on his own shirt. “Mum sent this book.”

  “Champion! Just my sort of read. Your mum said it was spooky.”

  “Granny?”

  “Yes, love?”

  “Do you know what those funny people are doing?”

  “Funny people?”

  “There’s one at Her-Next-Door’s, and one at the shop. Look.” Seth stepped outside so that
his grandmother could look across the green to the small store that sat by the pub.

  “There’s no one there now. They must have gone,” said his grandmother, squinting in the sunshine.

  “No, no, outside the shop! It’s still there, look!” He pointed to the precariously thin figure before the shop doorway. His grandmother looked at him curiously.

  “I can’t see anyone outside the shop. Describe it to me,” she said, her forehead even more wrinkled than usual.

  “Tall, black hair, black frock, bare feet. Look, it’s right—” He stopped short. A woman had walked out of the shop. She had walked out of the shop and, Seth could swear, had passed right through the figure in black as though it did not exist.

  “What is it?” asked Granny, her eyes narrowing.

  “That woman that came out of the shop. She…” He stopped. He could not tell Granny. She would not believe him. Probably call Mum and she’d call the doctor. Granny, however, laid a hand on his shoulder and saved him the trouble.

  “She walked right through the figure,” she suggested.

  “Yes!” said Seth, mind a-whirl. “You saw it too!”

  “No,” Granny said. “I don’t have the gift. Your Granddad did though. His Granddad too.” She took off her apron and sat on the doorstep. He sat down by her. “Some people, a very few, possess a wonderful gift. They alone are able to see Angels of Death when they visit someone’s house, and know that someone will be collected from there soon. Granddad used to point them out to me. ‘He’ll be gone in the morning,’ he’d say, pointing to someone’s door. We tried warning a few people, but it did no good. They died anyway. When your time comes, it can’t be changed. The day he saw a dark angel outside this cottage, he took time to prepare me, show me all the paperwork I’d need. Then he made himself comfortable and waited. It was very peaceful.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Not much. When you get to my age you know Death is looking you over more and more often.”

  “So, someone at the shop is going to die soon?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He felt shaky and nervous, unsure what to do with this new knowledge, this doubtful gift.

  “I think I might go home now,” he said.

  “You do that, love. Have a quiet think about it, and then you’ll see that there’s nothing to fear. Come back when you’re ready to talk some more.”

  He stood. “Bye, Granny.”

  “Bye,” his grandmother said, closing the door. Seth walked slowly down the path, deep in thought. It seemed pointless to be able to see death approaching if you couldn’t actually do anything about it, but he decided that he would try anyway. He would tell Her-Next-Door what he had seen. Perhaps it might help.

  He looked up from his reverie, at the Angel of Death that haunted the shop. His eyes flicked sideways. There was one outside the pub, too. To the left, by the houses that lined the village green, there were more. On this side of the green were more cottages, and more figures, dozens of them. A dark angel waited outside every single door, their black robes stirring in a breeze that blew from beyond the grave. He turned slowly. There was one outside Granny’s door now, sucking the light out of everything that he knew.

  “Mum!” he gasped, and sprinted down the hill. Every door he passed, each cottage, each farm, had its own shadowy visitor, waiting patiently for those inside to die. What had brought this army of angels down upon the village? What was about to happen?

  He skidded around the corner and saw that the angel visiting Her-Next-Door had been joined by several companions, one before each house. Including his own.

  “No!” he yelled, running to his cottage. The angel on his steps slowly turned. Its face was a skull, white bone shining in stark contrast to the sable hair and clothing. The angel gave a grim smile, then lifted its finger to its mouth and said, “Shh!”

  AT 3:15 IN the morning, Misty made her way up Virginia Street, crossing under the fluorescent lights of the Reno arch. The heels of her leather cowboy boots clacked on the little used metal railroad tracks and the wind whipped over her, making her hair swirl over her eyes.

  The newly unemployed woman ignored the distant horn, more likely from a truck than a car judging by the deep tone, as she continued down the sidewalk along one of the many closed casinos. The cool breeze rattled the metal barriers between her and the big building as she made her way past the couple of panhandlers that sat at the edge of the concrete walkway. None of the people said a word to each other.

  A truck with massive tires slowly rolled past the woman, the first sign of life on the blacktop since the woman started walking. It wasn’t unusual for vehicles to drive slowly this late but there was something about that truck that was…familiar? She didn’t focus on it too long as her attention was grabbed by the red and green traffic lights at 4th Street.

  Reaching the corner, she looked around before crossing the street. The truck sped up and turned down a street one or two blocks ahead and the streets were again empty. Misty jogged over to the other sidewalk. The alley between the two casinos on this side would cut the walk to what was her room, at least for the rest of the week, by five minutes.

  Halfway through the space between the two buildings, the rumbling of an engine caught her attention. She turned to look back the way she’d come and blinding headlights swerved in from around the corner.

  The engine revved up and the truck charged at Misty! Diving to the asphalt, the vehicle ran over her. She wasn’t even touched by any metal of the truck thanks to the lifted suspension and incredibly large tires.

  The vehicle screeched to a stop at the far end. The driver side door had just enough room to open and let the driver step out. In his hands was a shotgun, which he lifted and trained on Misty as she lifted herself to her knees.

  “You think you could get away from me that easily?” A loud click popped from the weapon as he pulled back on the pump action.

  The woman’s golden eyebrows pressed together. Like the truck, the man also looked familiar. Was he in the bar earlier? Judging from his reaction, the response he was looking for wasn’t the confusion that washed over her face.

  The man gripped the weapon so hard it was shaking. “You know what you did! No bitch can get the best of me!”

  Misty lifted herself to her feet, her hands up and away from her sides. “What are you talking about? Please, just leave me alone!”

  “You know what you did! You can’t show me that kind of disrespect!” Spit flung from his mouth as his face flushed.

  The woman shook her head, her blonde hair falling over her pale blue eyes, as he pushed the barrel closer and closer to her face. She was actually an inch or two taller than the man but he was the one with the gun that could make a hole the size of her fist all the way through her entire body.

  “I don’t want any trouble.” The woman couldn’t bring herself to look away from the business end of the shotgun. “I won’t tell anyone what happened. Please, just leave.”

  He ground his teeth so hard that Misty could hear it clearly through his stubble-covered cheeks. His breathing was fast and uneven and his hands shook so badly that the business end of the shotgun started to waver from her face, down the length of her body, and back.

  “Don’t order me around!” He suddenly looked unsure of himself.

  The barrel bobbed up and down as the man held the shotgun with only one hand. The rage in his eyes only moments before seemed to waver and he looked back at the still-open driver side door of his truck. Whatever motivation had driven him to threaten the woman seemed to have worn off and the idea of consequences to his actions had finally occurred to him.

  “I’m not.” She answered, her voice soft. “I’ve had a bad night and I just want to get out of the cold.”

  Misty didn’t move. She was almost home and had a big fat steak waiting for her in the fridge. It wasn’t much but she wanted it so much right now. All he had to do was keep moving toward his truck and pull away.

  He started to do
just that…then tripped over a loose patch of gravel. The shotgun went off as he tumbled and Misty collapsed to her knees, clutching her stomach as crimson blood started to spill over her forearms. Her head slumped down and the man gasped in shock.

  “Omigod omigod omigod…” He dropped the gun to the ground and hesitantly made his way to the slumped woman.

  Her head slowly sank to the asphalt, a gurgle starting in her throat. Her entire body stiffened, blood seeping into the cotton across the entire back of her t-shirt.

  The man ran his hands over his face, suddenly pale with panic. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” He kept whispering to himself as he circled around the woman’s hunched body.

  Misty had heard that, when you were dying, her life would flash across her eyes. But it wasn’t her whole life.

  It was the last four hours. She saw the club where she worked as a bouncer and the man who drove the truck causing trouble and picking fights with the smaller men on the dance floor.

  It only took one hand placed strategically to get him out of the club. The other patrons laughed as he hopped awkwardly out the front doors, only to land face-first in the gravel that served as the parking lot.

  That was worth shooting her over? His ego was so big that she had to die to appease it?

  The gurgling got louder and louder until it sounded more like a growl. The woman’s head slowly rocked from side to side, as if answering “no” to some unheard question again and again. She was still alive!

  Misty’s head suddenly whipped up to face him and what stared the man down was not the face of a woman, but a wolf! With a lunge that the man had no chance of avoiding, the long jaws of the beast locked around either side of his neck. Her already tight shirt ripped loose, exposing her newly fur covered body. The hole in her abdomen was forgotten as fur grew over the newly regenerated skin.