Running Scared

“It sounded like a thunder bolt hitting the building. Waking me out of my daily stupor of typing away at reports on my computer screen, sitting alone in my office. My whole body froze for an instant. Unconsciously brought back to my childhood of my parents fighting over who will do the dishes, or how the cat should have been fed already, or that my father needs to switch to the day shift at his work. Loud, banging, anger.

As my heart subsided, another feeling, as if insidiously put there slowly rose up. Making my chest tight and breathing shallow. And just as a child, I wanted to see. To catch even a glimpse of the terror. Slowly opening up the door I told myself , ‘There is nothing to worry about… Its in the middle of the day… Something must have fallen and that was the noise… they are doing renovations after all.’

As I took a step outside, into the hallway, something did not feel right. Usually the lights automatically turned on from the motion detector, but they remained off. Only the translucent light from my own office fled into the hallway, giving it a foggy glow into the blackness. When I took a step forward, that is when I heard it.

It was a fallow hissing sound, followed by what seemed to be a chuckle. I had never heard anything like it before. I called out to my co-worker Mary. Then Tom. No reply. At this point my heart began to pound. So much so I could feel my shirt moving with the beat heart trying to escape my chest. Perhaps it was keeping it in, even with the slightest of pressure on my chest.

Some blackish figure skittered on the floor. Its faint clicks of what may have been toes or claws pattered as it scraped its nails on the cheap yellow linoleum flooring. It seemed to laugh as it did so, then fell silent. The whole building was silent, as if everyone had left and didn’t tell me it was time to leave. Now that insidious feeling made itself known. I was alone. Alone with something that drew pleasure from my fear.

“Hello!” I managed to shout out. Trying my best to sound confident, like I was not scared of the thing in the darkness. As if I woke it, a pair of eyes opened in the black at the end of the hallway. They seemed to glow even though its entire body was shapeless due to the dark. Red, shimmering eyes, slanted in the middle like a cat’s eyes. Ungodly eyes staring right back at me. I regretted saying anything.

My whole body wanted to run. To pick up my feet and run the opposite way. But I froze. I couldn’t move. It was as if the carpet had grown around my feet, keeping them planted in one spot. The thing moved closer. Its eyes stayed open, staring me down like a hunter coming for a prey it caught in its trap. Knowing I cannot leave.

As it came closer it appeared to be even closer to the ground. Only a few feet tall. Each step making it grow smaller and smaller. I could hear the scrapping again. Rhythmically growing louder and louder as it drew near.

Now I could see some of its body. Reptilian in nature with downy white hair, as if trying to look as human as it could. Only its hands were twice as large as its body, garnishing razor sharp black claws that seemed to glisten in the dark. It held up one hand and beckoned me to come to it. All the while just staring at me.

It smiled as it stopped and looked at me. Its frozen prey. It bared what would have been ivory white teeth if not bleached in blood and pieces of torn flesh from what I assume was Mary and Tom. It opened its mouth and the same hiss I heard earlier came out. Only now it was accompanied by a thought in my mind that was not my own. I thought that I should take a step forward. To come to it. That the only way out was to let it in and take me.

That’s when you showed up. The siren you blared when you got here, must have startled it. It turned its head, breaking its stare on me. It was then I found that I could move my feet. I turned and went back into my office. Closed and locked the door. That’s when I picked up my chair and ran at the window. The noise of the breaking glass was the best thing I’ve heard in my life. It meant I could run away from that thing.”

***

“Now hold on just a minute. You expect me to believe that some little monster is the one that killed all your co-workers? And for some reason you were spared? That you are the only one left and that you had nothing to do with all of them being dead.”

“Well didn’t you find it?” Panic filled the void between reason and salvation. “That dammed thing? It must still be in there! You have to find it, before it kills again.”

“Jack!” the detective called to the orderly. “Take this lunatic back to his room. I think he’s had enough excitement telling tall-tales for today.”

“NO! You have to believe me, it’s still out there!”

“Of course it is Mr. Henderson” He said with a condescending tone. “And don’t you worry we’ll catch him and Bigfoot too. Because we all know you are totally innocent.”

As Mr. Henderson was brought back into his ill-lit room and injected with some chemical he was told would help him relax, he heard a noise. A scampering in the ducts in his ceiling. A running with a malevolent purpose. To take him back to the precipice of unending darkness, where madness rules, and fear is the sustenance on what they feed.