A SMILE IN THE DARK

We shouldn’t have moved here. My mother wanted to start anew with a new home out of state to get away from her problems, I don’t mind the adventure, but the house we got is a complete wreck.

A two-story house that was built in the late 60’s, barely has been updated to code for sale but the previous owner was desperate, he even gave us a discounted price to move in immediately. We’ve stayed for almost a week, I still haven’t finished unpacking my room yet, and the high school? I’m already over it.

Piping is bad that the water sometimes run brown, the air conditioning didn’t work so well so the house always ran hot—in fact it ran so hot that the door frame of my bedroom upstairs morphed to an angle, so you have to force the door to open and close. Those are only to name a few. I’m at least glad my mother was gracious enough to get an A/C window unit for my room so I don’t die of the heat, heat rises you know.

Thunder struck again but even louder than before.

I sat up in my bed and noticed that my bedroom door was wide open. That’s strange...I’m a very light sleeper and I always keep my door closed whether I’m in or out of my room, I’m superstitious—I keep all my doors closed especially while I sleep.

I do have half-siblings, but they were at their dad’s house, my parents are divorced and my mother separated from my stepfather—hence the sudden move.

Before getting out of bed, I rubbed my eyes so I could adjust my eyes to see a little through the pitch black. I reached the middle of my room and suddenly stopped, I hear something...

Creak. Creak. Creak.

Someone was slowly coming up the stairs. But who? It was only me and my mother in the house, I know she was sleeping because she has work early in the morning.

The creaking suddenly stopped, whoever it was, was standing on the other side of my door frame. I gulped quietly as I took another step forward, my eyes never straying from the shadowy figure near my door frame.

“M-mom?...” I cautiously asked.

Lightning. Thunder.

The light from my window flashed, exposing the being standing in front of me—a black, tall, scrawny figure with a large smile with sharp teeth. No eyes...no ears...no nose...

My eyes widen as I ran back to my bed, where else could I go? I couldn’t run out...I’m trapped.

When I reached my bed, I covered myself with my blanket. Holding back tears and covering my mouth to keep from causing too much attention, at least that’s what I was hoping. I would close my eyes but I’m scared to imagine the thing I just saw. It had long claws on his hands...a long tail...it was so dark that it could camouflage through the shadows.

I suddenly heard scratching on the walls, oh God...it’s crawling on my walls! The sound was getting louder as the creature crawled its way to my bed. As it got closer, I could hear its breathing through its teeth...so aggressive...so hungry...

Tears ran down my cheeks as my eyes closed tightly, whimpering through my lips. I could feel the creature facing me and leaning closer to me.

In a grungy, deep voice...it whispered my name.

A loud scream escaped my mouth as I cried.

My bedroom lights came on and my mother ran over to me, trying to calm me down as she was yelling hysterically. “Paige! Paige! Baby! It’s okay!”

She uncovered me and hugged me as I hugged her back tightly, crying loudly. “I want to leave! We can’t stay here! It’s in this room!”

My mother pulled away to look at me and tried to make sense of what I said, “What do you mean? What happened? Who is in here?”

“There’s this...this thing! It’s all black with sharp teeth and claws!” I covered my face with my hands, not risking a chance to see it again. “It knew my name, mom...”

She sighed to herself as she stared at me with annoyance, “I know you don’t want to be here, but this is our home now. I don’t want to hear anymore complaints or stories.”

I lifted my head up from hands with my face wet from my tears, looking at her, frightened. “...W-what?...n-no, this isn’t a story, mom! Please! I need you to believe me!”

My mother gets up from my bed and paces in the middle of my room, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

“...Was my door open or closed?” I asked, curiously.

She stopped and looked at me, “What?”

“My door...when you came in here was it opened or closed?” I demanded, I had to know.

“Your door was closed.” She crossed her arms. “I hear your crying from downstairs so I came up and had to body slam my way in like normal. Why does it matter?”

I grew quiet and shook my head to dismiss it. Was I...imagining it? No, no, it was too real. I remember the sound of its voice when it said my name, I can’t just imagine something so vivid like that.

“Paige, why does it matter?” She became desperate.

Thunder struck hard and the electricity blew out, it was once again pitch black.

I started breathing heavily, “Mom?! Mom?!”

“I’m here, I’m here. The power just shot, I’ll need to go check the breakers.”

After she spoke, lightening lit the room up and behind her was the creature. My eyes widen as I screamed out for my mom, reaching out to her to take my hand but it was too late. It grabbed my mom’s face with its long claws and threw her body out of my bedroom window. Rain was pouring though the broken window as more thunder roared and lightening blazed the skies.

I screamed to the creature, “What do you want from me?!”

It chuckled deeply as it slowly came closer, “Paaaige.” It dug it’s long claw into my neck.

I screamed in pain and fear as more tears rolled down my cheeks, my vision turned dark and blurry. My arms began to swing all over to fight the creature off.

“Hold her down! Hold her down!” I heard a female voice, “Nurse Diane! Hold her still to calm her down!”

Hands quickly wrapped around my torso from behind to help restrain my arms, my breath remained heavy until I started to feel weak...

The voice came again, “There we go...shh, it’s okay, Paige. It was just one of your dreams...let’s put you back to bed.”

My vision slowly started to clear as I saw a woman in front of me in a nurse uniform with a name tag: Jan. Nurse Jan slowly pulled out the needle from my neck as the arms around me started to loosen, helping me up and guiding me to my white twin size bed in the corner. I lied down as Nurse Jan walked over and covered me up with the thin wool blanket.

Nurse Diane spoke as she watched Nurse Jan stroke my hair to help put me to sleep, “What’s her story?...”

Once I started to get woozy and lightheaded, my eyes closed as I pulled my covers up to my mouth and curled into a ball on the bed.

Nurse Jan sighed, “She just...got too emotional and murdered her mother.”

“Oh my...” replied the other nurse as she covered her mouth with her hand.

Nurse Jan gestured for them to leave so she could let me rest and finish the story, “Her mother forced her and her other siblings to move away from their fathers. Paige loved her father so much and since they moved out of state, she was unable to see him after that,” she closes the door to my bright white padded room and locked it with the key around her neck.

“Paige was already going through so much. New school, getting bullied, being in an unstable household and the relationship with her mother wasn’t the best...it just became too much for her.” The nurses walked down the hallway, as thunder struck once more.

“How did she kill her mother?...” Nurse Diane had to know.

“It was thunder storming, just like this...it triggers her episode that she had that night. Paige had a nightmare, so her mother came to comfort her. They got into an argument, her mother was upset at how she was 17 and still having bad dreams as if they were a big deal at that age. She pushed her mother out of her two-story window out of hurt and rage.”

“Oh poor thing...” Nurse Diane looked over her shoulder at my door then looked at Nurse Jan, “What happened after? Is she still enraged?”

Nurse Jan shook her head, “Not at all. She came to after she realized what happened. She called the police and reported it, but she requested to be sent to this asylum. We accepted her, because we thought she would be endangering herself and others, we couldn’t allow that. She feels guilt more than anything.

“Paige probably thought being in that padded white cell would help with her nightmares. She’s terrified of the dark, her eyes play tricks on her...”

THE END