Night Fright

The house dark, Anne snuggled beneath her covers, slowly drifting off to sleep in hopes of having a wonderful dream or two, when she felt her sock tug slightly off her foot. Reaching over to turn on the lamp, the sharp contrast of the bright light shined to the corners of the room, casting deep shadows as she stared at her foot, halfway out from under the cover, sock half pulled off.

“Hello?” She said in a quiet voice, daring the silence to respond.

But the silence reigned king as no noises were made and no responses were heard.

Looking around the room, she brought her foot under the covers, kicking them further down the bed so that she would remain covered. A long and low creak caught her attention as the double doors of the closet across from her bed creaked partially open. Anne pulled the covers up to her chin, staring out at the darkened slit staring out from the middle of the closet, the folding doors acting as some horrid maw for the hellish beast that her closet appeared to be in her imagination.

But nothing happened.

Slowly, as her heart beat within her throat rapidly, she reached over to the lamp on the night stand.

“Nobody’s there Anne, just calm down. You’ve been watching too many scary movies.” She told herself, thinking of what her friends would say if they could see her now, shaking in her bed sheets at some imagined terror.

Turning off the light, she quickly retracted her arm beneath the covers, pulling them up and over her head, the blanket growing taut as she held with her hands, braced by her feet at the end of the bed. Before she could adjust, a face pressed into the taut blanket, it’s jaw opening and closing as she stared in abject horror, kicking her legs as she two hands grab at them, pulling them out from underneath the covers.

Blankets whipped off her prone form, sheets torn down the middle, Anne was left facing empty air as invisible hands clamped down on her ankles, dragging her toward the closet, the doors slowly opening wider to receive her. Screaming, she clawed at the hardwood floor, breaking her nails on the grainy wood as she slowly slid across the bedroom floor into the dark closet.

Just as she was pulled into the carpeted room and the doors began to shut, Anne thought she saw a darkened figure, emaciated from time and the elements, staring down at her from the back of her closet. Something evil, lurking in the dark, grinned as it stared at her, mere shadows that seemed all too real as it lunged forward, gripping her neck as one hand, cold as a freezer, slid down her chest, a long nail cutting deep into her skin as it went.

“The foulest stenches in the air, swirl all about this time of year,” the thing whispered, leaning in close enough for Anne to smell the rotting teeth in its head, “Spectral creatures from every tomb, are closing in to seal your doom.”

“Why?” Anne shrieked as the creature leaned in close, sniffing her neck. “Why me?”

“Doubters cry and mourners weep, when Death himself makes a sweep. You too are one to see, the reapers grin and face misery!”

And with that, Anne fell lifeless to the floor in her closet, eyes wide open, a faint trickle of blood stemming from her right eye as her mouth lay open in a wide, silent scream.