by J. A. Areces
Jesse heard a knock on the door. He was on his laptop taking orders. Halloween was just around the corner, and he was working around the clock. It was late at night, and he was still at work. The blinds were pulled down, and the sign on the front door read CLOSED. The second knock on the door was more powerful than the first. It must be the wizard, Jesse thought as he stepped away from the desk, and hurried to the door. Taking hold of the handle with one hand, he unlocked the door with the other. The bell swung violently as he turned the knob and slowly opened. It was dark, pitch black; an awful darkness that sent chills up his back. A figure stood in the shadows. Jesse flicked on the lights. It was an old man in prison clothes. Jesse froze. It all came back to him. He experienced this before. Oh, no, he thought, not again! Jesse tried to move, but he couldn’t. He struggled to move his legs, arms anything, please anything move…run. The old man moved forward opening his mouth. His lips spread apart and his tongue dropped with his jaw. That stale breath, Jesse could feel a rush of warm, stale breath on his face. The mouth grew and grew, and Jesse lost himself inside of it. He felt everything tighten up; his head was being swallowed up; his body was being compressed, and his heart pounding wildly. He yelled! He yelled as loud as he could. He yelled for his life.
Jesse tossed and turned in his bed. The sheets wrapped around his body. He desperately fought against the nightmare, throwing pillows in different directions, knocking over a lamp, a picture frame that hung on the wall and the portable phone. Jesse jumped. The crashing noise woke him up. He rolled out of his bed and fell on the floor knocking over the nightstand and its contents. He was almost scared to death, again. If not for having fallen out of bed, he would have surely died, he thought.
