Inside

Shae woke up in a room so dark she feared that she'd gone blind. She blinked hard, tasted blood, felt her stomach roil in response. She tried to get up, but the ache in her head became a screaming, stabbing mass of pain. She collapsed, gasping, and tried not to cry out.

Her fingers found the sheets underneath them and curled. They were her sheets; the rough cotton was unmistakable. It stood to reason, then, that she was in her bed and in her room. Trying to keep still, she stretched out an arm and groped for her bedside lamp. She tugged on the string. No light. Tugged again. Nothing. The pain in her head stirred. She returned her arm to her side.

Shae's eyes tried to adjust to the darkness and failed. It was inky black, cavelike. She could usually count on the streetlights that threw orange bars up against her bedroom wall, but tonight, they weren't on. Not a single light-giving object was. Gauzy silence hung in the wake of their missing electrical buzz.

"Sorry," came a child's sweet voice, somewhere at the foot of her bed. "Hard to get inside."

Shae sat up despite the angry white starbursts that flared behind her skull. Through the haze of renewed pain, she recounted the ordinary facts that made up her world. She had no children or grandchildren. She lived alone, in an overgrown cul-de-sac few children ever visited.

"What..." She gritted her teeth, waited for the pain to recede. When it did, she tried again. Her breath escaped in a ragged rush. "Who are you? What are you doing in here?"

"I'm a little child," said the voice. There was an emptiness behind those words, a costumed quality to them that made cold sweat bead on her forehead. She shrank back against the headboard, wishing for a light source, any light source, to help her aging eyes. It's still so impossibly dark.

"Cold in here," the voice begged. "Have to get inside. Please."

A cloying smell, like rotting apples, washed over Shae. She let out a strangled sound, half gag and half shriek, as something heavy began its labored climb over the edge of the bed.

A hand – a paw? – found her ankle and squeezed. Prickly cold-heat shot up her spine. She screamed and kicked it away with a frenzied strength she hadn't encountered in years. The mass let out a querulous cry and drew back, leaving just enough time for Shae to leap out of bed and hobble wildly into the open hall.

An old woman stumbling through the dark would make easy prey for anyone. She knew she couldn't run or fight, only try to hide. Shae lurched into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. Her numb fingers struggled with, prevailed over the lock. As it turned, she heard uneven footfalls exiting the bedroom. A thump. A drag. A skitter.

"I'm cold."

That round, wet voice–

"Cold."

Floating over the ground–

"Cold."

Came to a stop directly in front of the bathroom door.

Shae's heart beat painfully fast, like a bird banging again and again against the bars of its cage. Her eyes darted around the little bathroom, seeing nothing but lightless air. She felt the cool plastic sink under her palms, raised them and found the edge of the mirror. She lifted it, then groped around for the scissors she kept in the medicine cabinet.

All the while, the not-child whimpered and moaned. "Hurt me. Kicked me."

Its fingers found the bottom edge of the door. It scrabbled for purchase against the linoleum.

"I'm cold."

Her fingers wrapped around the scissors and tightened. There was always a chance that the not-child would leave her alone. Maybe the lights would come back on. Maybe it'd vanish in a puff of smoke, and she'd wake up and find it was all a bad dream. But if it wasn't a dream, she decided she'd fight. She'd plunge the scissors into the thing before it took her.

"I need to get inside."

The scrabbling grew urgent.

Shae raised the scissors overhead and waited.