by Lily Taffel
As she replaced the sheets that had traces of dirt on them, Sue finally found a way to ask about it without it sounding suspicious to her daughter.
"How was your sleep? You slept alright?"
"Yes!" the girl answered, "And I had a beautiful dream, too!"
"Yeah? Just one beautiful dream?" she asked, glad that her daughter wasn;t experiencing any nightmares.
"Yep, one."
"Well? Tell me about it," she coaxed.
The little girl looked around as if to recall how exactly her dream started, then she put down the clothes she was folding and sighed. "At first I thought it was not a dream. Because I was still in my bed."
Susan's ears perked up. She did not say anything for fear of ruining the child's mood.
"Then I heard someone calling me from outside my room, like a psssst, psssst. I didn't pay attention at first, but it would not stop. So I got up and saw a ball of light and I knew who was calling me," said the child, smiling.
"Who?" asked Susan.
"Princess Jessica! Well, not really Princess Jessica, because she is in her kingdom. But if she wants to talk to me, she can. Even if she is far away."
"Through the ball of light?"
"Yes. Sometimes. So I got out of bed and followed the light and Princess Jessica told me that she had sent her friends over to play with me because I was bored."
"Bored?"
"Yeah. There're no cartoons most times and Jenna's sick."
"Tell me about these friends," Sue asked, starting to get afraid but willing herself not to. These was Faith, and she was just a child. She could not conjure bad things in her dreams because she had never suffered any bad events in her small life.
"When I got down, Princess Jessica told me to open the backdoor. She told me her friends would be waiting for me outside. So I opened the backdoor. I didn't want to go out because it was raining, so I said I will not go out because I will get wet. She said I can go out and I will not get wet, so I did."
"And you... got wet," finished Susan for her daughter.
"No! I did not! It was not even cold. It was just like it was daytime and there was no rain, except that it was dark and I could only see as far as the lights."
"Were Princess Jennifer's friends there?"
"Jessica, Princess Jessica," the girl corrected. "Yeah, there was a man and a woman there. The woman was beautiful, she looked like you and the man was like a tree."
Susan gulped as she felt herself going cold even when it was warm in the room. "What do you mean... like a tree?" she whispered.
"He was tall and looked like he had branches instead of arms because they were very long."
"And what did he look like?"
"Nothing. He had no face. He was black all over."
Susan had frozen. The waking nightmares she had, two of them over the course of the entire night, came back to her. She listened, horrified, as Faith continued to outline her dream to her.
"And she didn't step on the ground -- she was floating. She let me play in the mud and I stomped my feet on the ground and gave them high fives with my muddy hands! Then we played tag in the kitchen for a while. And then Princess Jessica's friends told me it was time to go back."
"So you went back to your room and they left, right?"
"No! The woman carried me and the tall man followed upstairs. They put me to bed and left."
"That doesn't sound like a dream," said Sue as she tried to control her shiver.
"It was a dream because I woke up when Daddy went to Jenna's room. You were talking, too. Then you went to your room."
Susan didn't want to think. She couldn't go where her thoughts would get her. But there was no way to stop her head when it started because everything her daughter told her made sense as far as the events went.
She paused for a long time, reflecting on what the events meant. Unconsciously, she rubbed the skin in her arms and found that her skin was covered in goose bumps.
She realized that even the children were being visited by them who had visited her last night to try to scare her to death. What were they trying to do? Were they trying to drive the family away? What were they?
And most of all, if they would not leave, were these beings going to kill them?
17
SOON AFTER HE had completed installing additional locks on their doors, Jim went out to take care of the headless squirrels.
With the use of a small shovel and a black bag, he was able to put the carcasses away in minutes. He went looking for others just in case he missed some. The stench would have been more offending than the sight if there were other carcasses that he missed, aside from the fact that it would scare Susan again.
Jim covered the front and both sides of the house and found none. He headed off to the back of the house. He remembered leaving the garden hose there the day before and had forgotten about it. He wanted to put it away.
As he stooped down to retrieve the hose that was lying on the ground, Jim noticed something peculiar just below their back door. He paused, then left the hose. His eyes stayed with the objects that had caught his attention.
His stomach knotted as, slowly, Jim began to recognize the first one -- a severed squirrel head. The head had two small twigs jutting out of its eye sockets. Then there was another one, and another, perfectly lined up just below the concrete step immediately below their back door.
Jim quickly got a hold of himself before he panicked again. He looked around, into the trees, and towards the river. This was not an animal killing prey. This was intentional, and it felt hostile. He became alert as he looked around again, on the other plants, the trees, and on the ground.
The first thing Jim noticed as he wheeled around was the disturbance in the ground around him. He inspected the area. It took him a few moments to recognize what he was seeing but when he did, he let out an involuntary gasp.
He saw footprints. There was no mistaking them, and the smaller ones were the size of his daughter's feet! There was another set of prints but it didn't look like footprints or shoe prints. It seemed to have a connection with the small footprints. To his eyes, it looked like his daughter was with someone, or something.
He went for the backdoor. He had changed his mind about telling Susan and he called her several times before she answered with a call to wait for her there. While waiting, he reached for his pocket and lit a cigarette in an effort to calm his nerves.
Susan came down.
"What?" she asked as she emerged from the door.
Jim stopped her from going down the stone step. His gaze indicated why and Sue's gaze followed. She had a more audible reaction.
"What...what's that?" she asked, haltingly.
"Found just sitting there," he replied.
"My God! Who would do this?"
"I don't know. But that's not what's... curious," he said, trying to lighten the words.
He showed Susan the footprints. Just like him, it took her a while before she recognized it and once she did, she, too, was horrified. Her reaction was more intense. "Faith's dream..." she had whispered. The expression on her face, with tears rimming her eyes, was enough to have Jim immediately concerned.
"Honey, what is it?"
As if the mere act of asking brought her walls down, Susan began to cry. Jim hugged her to him. She was a driven woman with a strength that often surpassed his. When she cried, it was never for something trivial. He gave her time.
When her crying had subsided, Susan slowly related all the details of Faith's supposed dream. And then she told him about her nightmare last night in Jenna's room. She spared no detail and Jim did not interrupt her. She also added the comparison between the figure in her nightmares and Faith's description of the figures in her dream.
Jim was so shaken he barely was able to hide it. The only clues as to how bothered he was were the cigarettes that he lit after Sue had gone back inside, one after the other, like he was running a race wherein he was desperately behind.
18
THAT NIGHT, they ate at Jenna's room again. Dinner was almost entirely silent except for Jim's attempt at making light of the situation by joking around. Only Faith paid him attention. Susan kept to herself but for a few necessary interactions. Jenna, although still weak, ate more and managed a smile now and then.
After dinner, Jim and Faith were about to go down when Susan told him, "Let's sleep here. All of us, here."
Jim saw the expression on her face and nodded. "Okay. We're just going to a watch TV for a bit and then we'll come up," he answered, smiling.
He did the dishes and left Faith to find a station. When he was done, Jim joined his daughter on the couch opposite the TV. Faith picked a station that was showing a funny program. Although most of the jokes were not intended for children, she laughed when she understood.
Jim was thankful that Faith found a little diversion. There was no program that could hold his attention. In his mind, he still mulled over the events of the day and Sue's experiences.
He helped Faith get ready for bed and then he brought her to her sister's room. Sue had already prepared with sleeping mats and extra pillows on the floor. To make it more enjoyable for the younger girl, Jim tied the ends of a blanket to build a makeshift tent that made even Jenna perk up at the sight.
Father and daughter joked around while Sue stayed with Jenna. Jim could see that she appreciated his effort even though she still looked scared. He was stealing glances at her when she wouldn't notice. His wife's eyes darted around. She had installed new curtains on the windows. And she would turn her head quickly at the slightest sound.
The night finally won out. First it was Faith who fell asleep, and then Jim. Jenna fell asleep next and after that, at a quarter to ten, Susan finally fell asleep.
19
SUSAN OPENED her eyes and it was still dark but she felt rejuvenated. She wondered how long she had been asleep. But when she seek the digital alarm clock, it was only ten minutes past ten. She had only been asleep in minutes! She wanted to go back to sleep and was about to close her eyes again when she noticed something that it was cold. The windows were closed and so was the door. Yet it was cold. There was a very subtle breeze that seemed to emanate from the right side, but she remembered that the door was closed on that side.
She turned her head to see. And that was how she knew that she could not move. She lay flat on her back on the bed with Jenna, hands at her sides-and she could not move!
Terror began to well up from within. She was awake. She knew she was awake! Everything around her, everything she could see, was real. But how could she not move?
She could only move her eyes and she swept the room with them-nothing. She could not see towards the door, but the air that was a subtle draft came from that side, and it was becoming colder.
The bed creaked but Jenna did not stir. But Susan noticed that the foot of the bed slowly dropped a few inches. She did not see it, but she felt it. Someone heavy had just climbed the bed.
Someone.
Or something.
Susan felt pressure on the bed and imagined seeing indentations where the pressure was. It climbed from the foot of the bed until it came up to where her upper body was. It was heavy. When the pressure reached the left side of her shoulder, she felt her body tilt in that direction. And it was cold, very cold.
The chilling sensation washed over different parts of her body where skin was exposed-arms, neck, chest, and face. It came in random order, there was no flow to it like air had. She felt like something was touching her.
The heaviness on her left side lightened a little, only to be replaced by an indentation on her right side. Then her skin was awash with the cold sensation once more so that her body was wracked with shivers even if she couldn't move. The light in the room was being blotted out in quick segments.
She focused her eyes on the area above her. A shadow passed over that same spot, over her body, quicker than a second. The frequency of the shadow that blinked in and out of her vision increased and blotted out the light for longer periods.
As the shadow lingered more and more, she was able to make out a general outline of it. Her breathing came more rapidly as the humanoid shape loomed over her, squatting over her upper torso, its face just inches from her! And it had become clearer.
It resembled that of an old woman and her skin was dark that it almost looked burnt. The figure's eyes were pools of darkness, no whites could be seen except for the faint light that reflected from them. The entire face of the entity was covered in deep, aged lines that seemed to have been carved. But the expression on the face was what terrorized her the most.
The crooked smile, and the wide, black eyes told of malevolence -- and it was going to be inflicted on her!
Stricken with terror, she tried to scream, but like the previous night no sound came out of her. She could neither move nor scream even when she was struggling as hard as she had never before in her entire life! The figure had lowered its pelvis onto her chest until it was sitting on her. Sue found breathing became harder and harder. She was desperate. No matter how she tried, the weight made it impossible. Unable to move, she felt her body losing the struggle to keep up with its need for air.
She slowly slipped out of consciousness as the terrifying expression on the figure's face taunted her.
Just when she feared it was her end, it stopped. It just disappeared.
Susan bolted into a sitting position as she took in great gulps of air. She looked around as she did so.
And it did not surprise her anymore to find that there was nothing amiss in the room like nothing happened, like it was just a bad dream. But this time, she knew it wasn't.
20
JIM'S DREAMLESS SLEEP was interrupted by a vigorous shaking.
When he opened his eyes, he found that the makeshift tent was already gone and Sue was trying to wake him up. She was not looking at him but at their surroundings. She was very pale and very scared.
He followed her gaze as he sat up, taking care not to wake Faith up. Sue's gaze was transfixed on the doorway. He could see nothing there, so he looked back to his wife and held her hand while thinking of how to phrase himself so he could talk her out of whatever she was afraid of. That's when he heard it.
Heavy footsteps that sounded like something was ascending the stairs, heavy enough to make the fresh wooden steps creak!
He turned towards the doorway again. He felt his wife grip his hand tighter, her breathing becoming more audible. The creeping feeling of dread washed over him and held him still. In his head, he kept telling himself an intruder had been able to enter his house despite the additional locks he had installed that morning. But he knew he was wrong.
His heart leapt every time the steps creaked. When the steps reached the second storey, they stopped.
They held their breaths, anticipating the continuation of those strides but wishing it would just end. Then Sue gasped as the floorboards started to creak again. The steps were very slow, as if whoever was making them was taking its time to make them aware it was coming for them. Susan quaked with fear. So did Jim as they watched a shadow appear on the floor outside the open doorway, lengthening until they could make up the shape of the intruder. The head was bald with pointed ears, which appeared longer at the angle that it was cast. The head itself was bigger than what was normal. And the body... was full of sharp, pointed spikes.
Susan had begun to cry. The shadow was complete, the foot lined up perfectly with the door. The angle was correct. But there was something deeply wrong about it.
For while there was a shadow, there was nothing by the door that could have cast it!
The creepy footsteps stopped. They were replaced by breathing sounds coming from the doorway. They saw the shadow move. As it did, the couple heard a low guttural sound, like a growling dog about to attack. The shadow's hands moved. One stretched to the side towards the bed, while the other directly to where Jim, Sue, and Faith were.
The growling sound became s
tronger and louder that it soon filled the room. Jim and Susan felt the air in the room getting heavier. They also felt the floors faintly vibrating. Susan did not know what to do. But as she thought to ran to Jenna to get her, the children suddenly bolted up -- Faith beside Jim and Jenna in her bed. The parents watched in horror as their children began to move, while they both could not!
Faith slowly stood up while Jenna turned, climbed out of bed and stood beside her. And then they walked in the same tempo as the heavy footsteps towards the door. Their eyes were closed, heads held high, and they walked as if in a trance, step by step, towards the door.
Susan was glued to the spot. This time, she knew she was not imagining things because Jim could also see what she was seeing, and he could not move, too. She knew they wanted more than anything to reach for their children and save them from the creature with the hideous shadow, but they couldn't. While the growling built to a crescendo, the shadow retreated from the door. The image of its hands still outstretched, pointing at the couple's daughters.
Faith reached the door just as the shadow disappeared from view.
Suddenly, Jim broke out from his frozen stance and he quickly went for the door to grab Jenna. Jim brought her to Susan, who found that she could move, too, and tightly held on to Jenna because the child still strained towards the door even while still on her trance-like state. Jim went back for Faith but she had already gone out of the room. He raced outside and saw Faith teetering on the edge of the stairs, rocking back and forth on her heels. He called out to her, but he could not move closer because every step caused Faith to sway back and forth more violently.
His mind churned with indecision. If he did not move now, it would be too late. But if he did, the creature might throw Faith down the stairs! Faith was now leaning back and swaying forward at a precarious angle. But he couldn't not do anything! So he jumped forward and when he landed, he leaned over the banister and reached down to catch his daughter, anticipating where Faith would fall.
