2,607 words - adult horror
Blood and pain and darkness. Cold like breath, and lonely like fog.
But not at first. Not in the beginning.
In the beginning, there was just a girl.
A girl with a scarf and spilling brown curls.
And me. Six foot even. Beanie pulled to my eyebrows.
"It's cold today," she says, stamping her feet.
The bus is late. The pavement hard, the roads plowed open.
Breath like mist. And two black gloves.
"Here." I take off my scarf, but of course she already has one.
There isn't room for more scarf atop a soufflé of hoodie and coat and curls.
"Thanks anyway," she says.
Smile like Land's End.
"Do you think this bus is ever coming?" she asks.
I check my watch. Eight minutes late.
She puffs into her hands and rubs the black gloves together.
"Why is it so cold?"
Like winter shouldn't be cold.
Shivers.
"You want hot chocolate?" I ask.
Brown eyes and a frown.
"You think we missed the bus?" she asks.
I shrug. "I don't think it's coming. Crashed somewhere. Everyone froze to death."
"That's not funny."
"I know."
Thirty-five days I've known her.
Twenty-five bus stop waits.
5:12pm.
Seventeen conversations.
"Hot chocolate?" I ask again. "It's on me. You're lips are turning blue."
Lipgloss pressed together. Then one finger, pointing.
"They have the best hot chocolate. Double cream. Shot of caramel. I'll wait here."
Seven dollars, a stack of napkins, and two foam cups.
She takes hers in the gloves and a smile whispers through her like smoke.
"Thanks." But she doesn't sip.
Mine is burning my fingers. Trading it between my hands.
She huddles like steam is fire.
Bus breaks. Hiss of opening doors.
"You can have the window seat," she says.
When she gets off, twenty-two minutes later, hot chocolate clutched and untouched,
she hands me back the napkin that wrapped around her cup.
A phone number.
"What was that?" She turns like a spook. Like the art gallery isn't florescent and full.
"Dead painter," I say. "Coming to admire his work."
"That's not funny." Gloves gripping arms. Eyes on the air.
"We can go," I say. "We've seen most of the pieces anyway."
"No, this is good," she says.
First date. A sweater sliding off her shoulder.
Two rooms later, she skitters into me. Breathes.
My pulse in her grip.
"Sorry. Nothing." She lets go. Steps away. Breathes again.
I take her hand. Cold as a corpse against my skin.
"You're freezing," I say.
"I know."
"We should go. You want hot chocolate? You shouldn't be this cold."
Her gaze over her shoulder. A shudder.
"Come on." My arm around her.
"Don't take me to my apartment!" Wide eyes. Locked knees.
"Okay. Let's got to mine then. I have Swiss Miss. And a space heater."
"That sounds nice."
1:00am.
A mound of blankets. And one sleeping girl, curls draped over the arm of the couch.
"Hey."
Flutter of eyelashes.
"I should get you home," I say, sweat beading on my forehead.
Central heating turned to ninety.
"Mmmm."
"It's getting late," I say.
She burrows deeper, blankets drawn up and over, obscuring any trace of her.
"You're going to die of heat stroke," I say. "It's got to be over 100 degrees in there."
Shifting of hills and valleys.
I unplug the space heater before the blankets catch fire.
Turn the central heater down to eighty.
Then seventy-seven.
"Come on," I say. "You've got to get home."
A whisper.
"Hmm?"
The whisper fades.
I pull the blankets back to let her breath. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Again a whisper.
But her lips don't move.
I shiver. Frown, rub my forehead.
I don't wake her.
Sleep weighs me down. I don't even brush my teeth.
One girl on a faded brown couch, swathed in blankets.
One boy on a bed, drenched in cold sweat and whispers.
Morning.
Curls and yesterdays clothes and a yawn.
Two bowls of sugar cereal.
She laughs when she sees herself in my bathroom mirror. Shakes out more curls.
My toothbrush in her mouth.
"It's Saturday," she says. Spits in the sink. "I guess we should do something."
"I guess so," I say.
"Let's go to my place," she says. "It's not so bad during the day."
But her fingers strangle my hand as we step inside.
Flips the lights on like the switch might shock her.
Fingers down my spine. Shudder.
But no. Just a chill.
Breathing out fog.
"You should turn on the heater," I say.
"It's broken. I've tried to call maintenance three times."
"They don't pick up?" I ask.
"My phone doesn't work when I'm in here. Bad reception."
Dusty light bulbs. Cement walls.
She says, "I should have called from your place."
I pull out my phone. Zero bars.
Look around again. A couch with holes.
"I don't hang out here much," she says.
I nod. Constricted chest. Deep breath. Cold air. Shiver.
"It's kind of creepy," I say.
Air whooshing out of her. Release. "Yes, I know! I hate this place!"
"Why don't you move?"
"Can't sell my contract. It's not up for another six months."
"Oh."
Heart beat.
"A girl died in here," she says. A whisper. "Murdered, I think."
Swallow.
"How do you know?" I ask.
She looks at the wall. No pictures. No mirror. Nothing. "I just do."
Floorboards shift. Down the hall.
"Do you have roommates?"
Shakes her head.
We need to get out of here.
I need to get out of here.
The shiver won't leave my spine alone, tracing it up and down it, drawing a thick line.
"Let's go," I say, at the same time she says, "I know things."
A look across closed hands.
"Yeah, okay," she says, as I say, "What things?"
Laughter, maybe? But no. No space for it in here.
"Lots of things." Again, the whisper. "I hear them."
I tug at her hand, her arm. "Let's go."
She lets me pull her from the apartment.
"Yeah." I can chuckle, almost, now that we're outside in the chilled sunshine.
"That's a pretty creepy place."
Nothing.
"I feel like a trip to Starbucks after that," I say. "You?"
Nothing.
Her eyes on the door I closed behind us.
My hand on her shoulder.
She jumps. "What?" Breathing fast.
"Hey, it's okay." I hold her shoulders still. "You're okay. Want a hot drink?"
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
Fast steps, pulling me with her, glancing back. Eyes too wide for relaxing.
She doesn't drink her latte.
"Help me."
Her voice over the phone. A breath in the shape of words.
"Please. You have to help me!"
"What?"
2:00am on the alarm clock.
The back of my hand against sleepy eyes.
"They're in my apartment." Voice too fast. Too insubstantial.
"Who?" Sleep leaving fast. Adrenaline sparking.
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Help me! Please, please, please, help me!"
"I'm coming. Stay on the phone with me."
Legs and jeans and shoes. Car keys. Can't find the wallet.
"You still there? Hello?"
Silence.
Look at my phone.
Swear.
Dial her number.
No answer.
Doorknob. Stairs. Parking lot. Car keys and door handle. Steering wheel. Drive.
No wallet.
Her apartment complex.
I pound on the door.
No answer.
"Hello? Hey!"
Nothing.
Lean back and kick. Hard. Once, twice, three times.
Wood cracks. Door hinges squeak.
The apartment is dark and silent. I feel for the switch.
Click.
Nothing.
Click click.
Darkness.
"Hey, it's me. Are you here?"
One step. Two.
Pause.
Puffs of fast white breath.
Footsteps down the hall. Not mine.
"Hello?"
Silence.
"This isn't funny. Why is your power out?"
My phone flashlight. Sliding shadows.
"If there's someone else here, I have 911 on speed dial."
Nothing.
One more step.
Scurrying down the hall. Something else. Not me. Not her.
Mice?
I clear my throat.
Two more steps. Then three. Halfway into the front room.
Thud.
I jump.
"Hello?"
Whispering.
"Hello, I can hear you. This isn't funny!"
Fading to silence.
Cold seeping up my legs. My arms. Fingers numb.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Dark corners. Flashlight sweeping.
"If this is a joke-"
Shadow along the wall, opposite the flashlight sweep. Whirl and point the light.
Nothing.
A finger on my shoulder.
I jump.
She screams. A different room.
I run. Down the hall, throw open her bedroom door.
She's on the bed, soaked in moonlight.
Eyes on the ceiling, screaming to break her lungs.
I grab her, and she fights me, kicking and clawing.
Her scream stops and she lets me go, fingers tugging and tearing at her own neck.
Face like blushing and drowning.
I lift her off the bed and run, out of the room, out of the apartment.
I dump her on the hood of my car.
Grab her hands before she scratches her neck to shreds.
"Stop!" I shake her wrists, squeeze them.
She still can't breathe.
Both her wrists in one palm. Touch my fingers to her throat, careful.
And she can breathe.
She gasps. Sucks in cold air. Chokes. Coughs. Gulps.
Eyes wild and roving.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," I say, pulling her up into my arms. Holding her still.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
My t-shirt collar soaks and I pull back, thinking blood, because tonight blood is possible.
But no. Tears.
So I pull her in again.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
"They came for me," she says, cheekbone to collarbone.
"Shhhh."
"They'll come back. They said-" Choke.
Swallow.
Shudder. "They said someone is going to kill me.
Just like that other girl. Someone is going to- to kill me. Kill me kill me kill me."
"Shhh. Shhh, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
I know it's the deepest lie I've ever told, because things like this are not okay.
Are not real.
Are not true.
Are not not not okay.
My own apartment.
The light switch clicks.
Light. One burned out bulb.
"We'll figure something out," I say.
Blankets, but eyes too big for sleep.
Hot chocolate. Miniature marshmallows. Empty caramel sauce bottle.
She breathes in chocolate steam like aromatherapy.
"Hey," I say. "Hey, look at me."
Eyes still on the floating marshmallows.
"I'm going to get some sleep," I say. "You're safe here."
Nothing.
"You need anything?"
Just breathing.
"My bedroom is down the hall."
Her eyes don't even blink.
"Good night," I say.
My room. Shadows.
Jeans on the floor. Cold covers up to my chin.
Shivering.
Eyes closed, but not sleeping.
Whispers. In my own apartment.
My eyes open.
I think that when I drove her here,
the things that choked her all climbed in the car and came along too.
"Shut up," I say.
They infest the air with their murmurs.
Too low for words.
On and on and on.
"Shut up shut up shut up!"
Eyes squeezed shut.
In my dreams, they find me.
Whispers climbing out of shadows, over and around each other.
Spilling, filling, chilling my skin.
Cold sinking in, seeping in, soaking in.
Cold cold cold.
And dark dark dark.
Shadow and ice.
Icicle teeth, jagged, broken.
Open, reaching, tearing, screaming.
I wake.
She is standing over my bed
with a knife.
I am frozen to the sheets. Can't move.
"I thought they were coming for me again," she says.
"Put the knife down."
"I thought they were coming. They're still coming. They'll still find me."
"Just put it down."
The knife drops. Sticks in the wood floor with the blade up.
Coffee.
Red bull.
Even Excedrin.
Chocolate and sugar and bright lights and loud music.
I will not fall asleep.
Hands.
Claws.
Broken icicle fangs.
I start awake and topple my chair.
It's worse when she's around.
She leaves. Five minutes. Maybe ten.
Then I drink up sleep.
Nightmare free.
Dark hallways.
Cold corners and curves.
The floor slopes. Feet slipping out from under me.
Sliding and falling, and falling and falling.
Past writhing shadows and twisting hands.
Grasping, reaching, fingers tangling in my clothes my hair.
There are only hands.
No air, no light, no breath, no life.
Just fingers, touching, pulling.
A hiss and they are gone, arms slithering and fingers scuttling.
Alone.
Silence.
Breathing.
Breathing.
Breathing.
Turning.
Gray and nothing and just me.
A hand clamps down on my shoulder.
I jump and whirl.
Face the color of bruises. Split mouth. Dripping fangs.
But the eyes.
I scream and wake.
Because the eyes are mine.
Daytime.
The whispering thumping freezing cackling footsteps screeching will not stop
will not stop
will not stop.
They have to stop.
"Get out," I tell her.
She stands with my apartment door open.
Grocery bags like huge raindrops sliding off her arms.
I can feel it, feel them.
Scampering scuttling slithering off her and around her through the door.
Feel them brush my legs, breathe on my hair.
Cannot stop shivering. Teeth rattle.
"Get out."
My voice is a dam, blocking them from getting inside me.
"Get out get out get out!"
The first grocery bag drops, splash, on the carpet.
Cereal boxes tip.
Her face is blank.
Wet.
Raindrops on her cheeks.
The second bag drips off her arm.
And then they all tumble down.
Milk. Crackers. Clinking glass jars.
I shove her.
When did I get so close?
Harder.
Harder!
"I said get out!"
Another shove, her shoulders out the door, then her feet.
Slam and bolt.
She doesn't knock.
I stand in the puddle of her groceries and press my hands into my ears.
"Get out!"
But they don't.
I locked them inside.
Whatever they are.
When I shoved her out, they stayed in.
She's gone.
Taxi maybe. Or a friend.
Does she have friends?
They whisper, brushing against the back of my neck.
Sliding down my icicle spine.
Congealing my blood.
Ice cubes clink in my arteries.
I fall into sleep.
An accident.
They grab me, choke me, fingers around my neck.
I wake, and the fingers don't let go.
Groping at my neck, clawing red into my own skin.
But still, no air no air no air.
I reach and grab.
A book.
I smash it at my neck.
And I am released.
Gasp for air.
I open the windows, doors, air vents, freezer.
"GET OUT!" I scream.
Nails cling to my ankles.
I drag them down the halls, each step a load.
Blood trickles off my frozen feet.
The kitchen.
A knife.
I stab the floor around my feet but they don’t let go.
I slash the air, the floorboards, my own skin.
Blood erupts in long lines of pain.
Shrieking and laughing.
I butcher them, the knife blade between the bones of my feet, a puddle of blood.
They let go.
Whispering.
A stir of air behind me.
I whirl and strike the air.
I can hear them feel them smell them.
Rust and sleep and mold.
My nose hairs freeze. My brain frosts over.
They are not leaving.
They are never leaving.
They will kill me, kill me, kill me, again again again.
This is how I will die.
Broken open, covered in whispers of snow and claws of hail.
And then I know.
I know and I run for my room.
Bloody footprints behind me.
Under the bed.
A safe.
Unlocked.
A gun.
Loaded.
I run, things grasping at my shirt, my hair, my skin.
Start the car.
Slam the door.
A smear of red on the steering wheel.
And drive to find her.
Midnight.
12:03am in dashboard lights.
Her door.
Still splintered. Already broken in.
Once I came to save her.
She sees me open the bedroom door.
Moonlight on her face, her blanket, her hair.
Sits up.
Barrel aimed at her head.
Her eyes.
A gunshot.
One.
Two.
Three.
Blood.
One her face, her blanket, her hair.
Her body.
Curls on the quilt.
And silence.
At last there is silence.
I don't think I will ever thaw.
Blood and pain and darkness. Cold like breath, and lonely like fog.
But not at first. Not in the beginning.
In the beginning, there was just a girl.
A girl with a scarf and spilling brown curls.
And me. Six foot even. Beanie pulled to my eyebrows.
"It's cold today," she says, stamping her feet.
The bus is late. The pavement hard, the roads plowed open.
Breath like mist. And two black gloves.
"Here." I take off my scarf, but of course she already has one.
There isn't room for more scarf atop a soufflé of hoodie and coat and curls.
"Thanks anyway," she says.
Smile like Land's End.
"Do you think this bus is ever coming?" she asks.
I check my watch. Eight minutes late.
She puffs into her hands and rubs the black gloves together.
"Why is it so cold?"
Like winter shouldn't be cold.
Shivers.
"You want hot chocolate?" I ask.
Brown eyes and a frown.
"You think we missed the bus?" she asks.
I shrug. "I don't think it's coming. Crashed somewhere. Everyone froze to death."
"That's not funny."
"I know."
Thirty-five days I've known her.
Twenty-five bus stop waits.
5:12pm.
Seventeen conversations.
"Hot chocolate?" I ask again. "It's on me. You're lips are turning blue."
Lipgloss pressed together. Then one finger, pointing.
"They have the best hot chocolate. Double cream. Shot of caramel. I'll wait here."
Seven dollars, a stack of napkins, and two foam cups.
She takes hers in the gloves and a smile whispers through her like smoke.
"Thanks." But she doesn't sip.
Mine is burning my fingers. Trading it between my hands.
She huddles like steam is fire.
Bus breaks. Hiss of opening doors.
"You can have the window seat," she says.
When she gets off, twenty-two minutes later, hot chocolate clutched and untouched,
she hands me back the napkin that wrapped around her cup.
A phone number.
"What was that?" She turns like a spook. Like the art gallery isn't florescent and full.
"Dead painter," I say. "Coming to admire his work."
"That's not funny." Gloves gripping arms. Eyes on the air.
"We can go," I say. "We've seen most of the pieces anyway."
"No, this is good," she says.
First date. A sweater sliding off her shoulder.
Two rooms later, she skitters into me. Breathes.
My pulse in her grip.
"Sorry. Nothing." She lets go. Steps away. Breathes again.
I take her hand. Cold as a corpse against my skin.
"You're freezing," I say.
"I know."
"We should go. You want hot chocolate? You shouldn't be this cold."
Her gaze over her shoulder. A shudder.
"Come on." My arm around her.
"Don't take me to my apartment!" Wide eyes. Locked knees.
"Okay. Let's got to mine then. I have Swiss Miss. And a space heater."
"That sounds nice."
1:00am.
A mound of blankets. And one sleeping girl, curls draped over the arm of the couch.
"Hey."
Flutter of eyelashes.
"I should get you home," I say, sweat beading on my forehead.
Central heating turned to ninety.
"Mmmm."
"It's getting late," I say.
She burrows deeper, blankets drawn up and over, obscuring any trace of her.
"You're going to die of heat stroke," I say. "It's got to be over 100 degrees in there."
Shifting of hills and valleys.
I unplug the space heater before the blankets catch fire.
Turn the central heater down to eighty.
Then seventy-seven.
"Come on," I say. "You've got to get home."
A whisper.
"Hmm?"
The whisper fades.
I pull the blankets back to let her breath. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Again a whisper.
But her lips don't move.
I shiver. Frown, rub my forehead.
I don't wake her.
Sleep weighs me down. I don't even brush my teeth.
One girl on a faded brown couch, swathed in blankets.
One boy on a bed, drenched in cold sweat and whispers.
Morning.
Curls and yesterdays clothes and a yawn.
Two bowls of sugar cereal.
She laughs when she sees herself in my bathroom mirror. Shakes out more curls.
My toothbrush in her mouth.
"It's Saturday," she says. Spits in the sink. "I guess we should do something."
"I guess so," I say.
"Let's go to my place," she says. "It's not so bad during the day."
But her fingers strangle my hand as we step inside.
Flips the lights on like the switch might shock her.
Fingers down my spine. Shudder.
But no. Just a chill.
Breathing out fog.
"You should turn on the heater," I say.
"It's broken. I've tried to call maintenance three times."
"They don't pick up?" I ask.
"My phone doesn't work when I'm in here. Bad reception."
Dusty light bulbs. Cement walls.
She says, "I should have called from your place."
I pull out my phone. Zero bars.
Look around again. A couch with holes.
"I don't hang out here much," she says.
I nod. Constricted chest. Deep breath. Cold air. Shiver.
"It's kind of creepy," I say.
Air whooshing out of her. Release. "Yes, I know! I hate this place!"
"Why don't you move?"
"Can't sell my contract. It's not up for another six months."
"Oh."
Heart beat.
"A girl died in here," she says. A whisper. "Murdered, I think."
Swallow.
"How do you know?" I ask.
She looks at the wall. No pictures. No mirror. Nothing. "I just do."
Floorboards shift. Down the hall.
"Do you have roommates?"
Shakes her head.
We need to get out of here.
I need to get out of here.
The shiver won't leave my spine alone, tracing it up and down it, drawing a thick line.
"Let's go," I say, at the same time she says, "I know things."
A look across closed hands.
"Yeah, okay," she says, as I say, "What things?"
Laughter, maybe? But no. No space for it in here.
"Lots of things." Again, the whisper. "I hear them."
I tug at her hand, her arm. "Let's go."
She lets me pull her from the apartment.
"Yeah." I can chuckle, almost, now that we're outside in the chilled sunshine.
"That's a pretty creepy place."
Nothing.
"I feel like a trip to Starbucks after that," I say. "You?"
Nothing.
Her eyes on the door I closed behind us.
My hand on her shoulder.
She jumps. "What?" Breathing fast.
"Hey, it's okay." I hold her shoulders still. "You're okay. Want a hot drink?"
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
Fast steps, pulling me with her, glancing back. Eyes too wide for relaxing.
She doesn't drink her latte.
"Help me."
Her voice over the phone. A breath in the shape of words.
"Please. You have to help me!"
"What?"
2:00am on the alarm clock.
The back of my hand against sleepy eyes.
"They're in my apartment." Voice too fast. Too insubstantial.
"Who?" Sleep leaving fast. Adrenaline sparking.
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Help me! Please, please, please, help me!"
"I'm coming. Stay on the phone with me."
Legs and jeans and shoes. Car keys. Can't find the wallet.
"You still there? Hello?"
Silence.
Look at my phone.
Swear.
Dial her number.
No answer.
Doorknob. Stairs. Parking lot. Car keys and door handle. Steering wheel. Drive.
No wallet.
Her apartment complex.
I pound on the door.
No answer.
"Hello? Hey!"
Nothing.
Lean back and kick. Hard. Once, twice, three times.
Wood cracks. Door hinges squeak.
The apartment is dark and silent. I feel for the switch.
Click.
Nothing.
Click click.
Darkness.
"Hey, it's me. Are you here?"
One step. Two.
Pause.
Puffs of fast white breath.
Footsteps down the hall. Not mine.
"Hello?"
Silence.
"This isn't funny. Why is your power out?"
My phone flashlight. Sliding shadows.
"If there's someone else here, I have 911 on speed dial."
Nothing.
One more step.
Scurrying down the hall. Something else. Not me. Not her.
Mice?
I clear my throat.
Two more steps. Then three. Halfway into the front room.
Thud.
I jump.
"Hello?"
Whispering.
"Hello, I can hear you. This isn't funny!"
Fading to silence.
Cold seeping up my legs. My arms. Fingers numb.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Dark corners. Flashlight sweeping.
"If this is a joke-"
Shadow along the wall, opposite the flashlight sweep. Whirl and point the light.
Nothing.
A finger on my shoulder.
I jump.
She screams. A different room.
I run. Down the hall, throw open her bedroom door.
She's on the bed, soaked in moonlight.
Eyes on the ceiling, screaming to break her lungs.
I grab her, and she fights me, kicking and clawing.
Her scream stops and she lets me go, fingers tugging and tearing at her own neck.
Face like blushing and drowning.
I lift her off the bed and run, out of the room, out of the apartment.
I dump her on the hood of my car.
Grab her hands before she scratches her neck to shreds.
"Stop!" I shake her wrists, squeeze them.
She still can't breathe.
Both her wrists in one palm. Touch my fingers to her throat, careful.
And she can breathe.
She gasps. Sucks in cold air. Chokes. Coughs. Gulps.
Eyes wild and roving.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," I say, pulling her up into my arms. Holding her still.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
My t-shirt collar soaks and I pull back, thinking blood, because tonight blood is possible.
But no. Tears.
So I pull her in again.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
"They came for me," she says, cheekbone to collarbone.
"Shhhh."
"They'll come back. They said-" Choke.
Swallow.
Shudder. "They said someone is going to kill me.
Just like that other girl. Someone is going to- to kill me. Kill me kill me kill me."
"Shhh. Shhh, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay."
I know it's the deepest lie I've ever told, because things like this are not okay.
Are not real.
Are not true.
Are not not not okay.
My own apartment.
The light switch clicks.
Light. One burned out bulb.
"We'll figure something out," I say.
Blankets, but eyes too big for sleep.
Hot chocolate. Miniature marshmallows. Empty caramel sauce bottle.
She breathes in chocolate steam like aromatherapy.
"Hey," I say. "Hey, look at me."
Eyes still on the floating marshmallows.
"I'm going to get some sleep," I say. "You're safe here."
Nothing.
"You need anything?"
Just breathing.
"My bedroom is down the hall."
Her eyes don't even blink.
"Good night," I say.
My room. Shadows.
Jeans on the floor. Cold covers up to my chin.
Shivering.
Eyes closed, but not sleeping.
Whispers. In my own apartment.
My eyes open.
I think that when I drove her here,
the things that choked her all climbed in the car and came along too.
"Shut up," I say.
They infest the air with their murmurs.
Too low for words.
On and on and on.
"Shut up shut up shut up!"
Eyes squeezed shut.
In my dreams, they find me.
Whispers climbing out of shadows, over and around each other.
Spilling, filling, chilling my skin.
Cold sinking in, seeping in, soaking in.
Cold cold cold.
And dark dark dark.
Shadow and ice.
Icicle teeth, jagged, broken.
Open, reaching, tearing, screaming.
I wake.
She is standing over my bed
with a knife.
I am frozen to the sheets. Can't move.
"I thought they were coming for me again," she says.
"Put the knife down."
"I thought they were coming. They're still coming. They'll still find me."
"Just put it down."
The knife drops. Sticks in the wood floor with the blade up.
Coffee.
Red bull.
Even Excedrin.
Chocolate and sugar and bright lights and loud music.
I will not fall asleep.
Hands.
Claws.
Broken icicle fangs.
I start awake and topple my chair.
It's worse when she's around.
She leaves. Five minutes. Maybe ten.
Then I drink up sleep.
Nightmare free.
Dark hallways.
Cold corners and curves.
The floor slopes. Feet slipping out from under me.
Sliding and falling, and falling and falling.
Past writhing shadows and twisting hands.
Grasping, reaching, fingers tangling in my clothes my hair.
There are only hands.
No air, no light, no breath, no life.
Just fingers, touching, pulling.
A hiss and they are gone, arms slithering and fingers scuttling.
Alone.
Silence.
Breathing.
Breathing.
Breathing.
Turning.
Gray and nothing and just me.
A hand clamps down on my shoulder.
I jump and whirl.
Face the color of bruises. Split mouth. Dripping fangs.
But the eyes.
I scream and wake.
Because the eyes are mine.
Daytime.
The whispering thumping freezing cackling footsteps screeching will not stop
will not stop
will not stop.
They have to stop.
"Get out," I tell her.
She stands with my apartment door open.
Grocery bags like huge raindrops sliding off her arms.
I can feel it, feel them.
Scampering scuttling slithering off her and around her through the door.
Feel them brush my legs, breathe on my hair.
Cannot stop shivering. Teeth rattle.
"Get out."
My voice is a dam, blocking them from getting inside me.
"Get out get out get out!"
The first grocery bag drops, splash, on the carpet.
Cereal boxes tip.
Her face is blank.
Wet.
Raindrops on her cheeks.
The second bag drips off her arm.
And then they all tumble down.
Milk. Crackers. Clinking glass jars.
I shove her.
When did I get so close?
Harder.
Harder!
"I said get out!"
Another shove, her shoulders out the door, then her feet.
Slam and bolt.
She doesn't knock.
I stand in the puddle of her groceries and press my hands into my ears.
"Get out!"
But they don't.
I locked them inside.
Whatever they are.
When I shoved her out, they stayed in.
She's gone.
Taxi maybe. Or a friend.
Does she have friends?
They whisper, brushing against the back of my neck.
Sliding down my icicle spine.
Congealing my blood.
Ice cubes clink in my arteries.
I fall into sleep.
An accident.
They grab me, choke me, fingers around my neck.
I wake, and the fingers don't let go.
Groping at my neck, clawing red into my own skin.
But still, no air no air no air.
I reach and grab.
A book.
I smash it at my neck.
And I am released.
Gasp for air.
I open the windows, doors, air vents, freezer.
"GET OUT!" I scream.
Nails cling to my ankles.
I drag them down the halls, each step a load.
Blood trickles off my frozen feet.
The kitchen.
A knife.
I stab the floor around my feet but they don’t let go.
I slash the air, the floorboards, my own skin.
Blood erupts in long lines of pain.
Shrieking and laughing.
I butcher them, the knife blade between the bones of my feet, a puddle of blood.
They let go.
Whispering.
A stir of air behind me.
I whirl and strike the air.
I can hear them feel them smell them.
Rust and sleep and mold.
My nose hairs freeze. My brain frosts over.
They are not leaving.
They are never leaving.
They will kill me, kill me, kill me, again again again.
This is how I will die.
Broken open, covered in whispers of snow and claws of hail.
And then I know.
I know and I run for my room.
Bloody footprints behind me.
Under the bed.
A safe.
Unlocked.
A gun.
Loaded.
I run, things grasping at my shirt, my hair, my skin.
Start the car.
Slam the door.
A smear of red on the steering wheel.
And drive to find her.
Midnight.
12:03am in dashboard lights.
Her door.
Still splintered. Already broken in.
Once I came to save her.
She sees me open the bedroom door.
Moonlight on her face, her blanket, her hair.
Sits up.
Barrel aimed at her head.
Her eyes.
A gunshot.
One.
Two.
Three.
Blood.
One her face, her blanket, her hair.
Her body.
Curls on the quilt.
And silence.
At last there is silence.
I don't think I will ever thaw.
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