The Old Foe

As I follow the man going down the concrete staircase, I cannot help but feel her presence behind me. She is close by, way too close for my liking: I can feel her chilly breath over the base of my neck. I calculate we are arriving in the basement, in the parking to be more precise. The man has nowhere else to go, at least for the time being. He has been carrying a large hockey bag over his shoulder all this time.

As he slows down, I notice he seems to be getting tired from all this walk and carrying the bag. This is a good thing, as should he try to escape, I'll easily catch up on him. The only places he could go to would either be the garage door or back towards the staircase.

My skin gets cold, as sweat drips down towards the base of my neck. My back is all wet, as is my tank top.

I turn around to face her and see no one, nothing. Nothing is there, save the darkness. Sometimes one gets this eerie feeling the darkness is staring back at them, except this time it is not the case. She is gone, nowhere to be seen. I glance around the walls, and look at the ceiling, just in case. No, nothing. While she disappeared, it will not be for long. I have little time ahead of me.

She reminds me of a feline, an animal that loves to toy with her prey. I am not her only prey, though. She has several others she plays with until she grows bored and then discards us. Or worse. None of us are her favorite. This can be seen as either a good or a bad thing, depending on the day.

I still follow the man, as quietly as I can, keeping a safe distance between the two of us. I do not want him to notice my presence. I find a place to hide behind some parked cars, always keeping an eye on him. I position myself behind a wheel, avoiding making myself visible, should he decide to look down under the vehicles. Not that he has been careful about being followed so far.

The garage is gloomier than an abandoned cemetery. The walls are painted dark grey, the floor is covered with light gray paint, and the parking lines, which used to be of a brighter yellow, are mostly all faded out. Tire marks can be seen all over. The lighting is deficient in most areas. In some places, the neon lights are twitching. As for those that do work, the light they emit is quite faint. The ceiling is high and dark. Despite the area being chilly and damp, I find myself suffocating.

The man stopped in front of the garbage disposal area. It seems he finally found a place where to get rid of his… luggage. As he lifts it over his head using both hands, I can't help but notice how heavy this thing is. The sports bag falls to the bottom of the dumpster with a thud.

He quickly looks around, passes his hand on his forehead to wipe off the excess sweat, and walks away from his crime scene. I move around the vehicle as quietly as possible, to avoid getting caught. My gaze follows him as he goes back to the staircase and leaves the area. I no longer have any interest in him, for now. I'll take care of him later.

I then shift my attention towards where he left the bag. I know what I will find in it, yet I need visual confirmation. Plus, I also have this morbid curiosity that I can never quench. I want to know things even though I should not know what these things are. They say curiosity killed the cat.

I look inside the dumpster and poke the bag using a broken broomstick. The whole thing is stiff. I jump in and partially unzip the bag, enough to see a pair of feet tied up together. One of the feet has a tattoo. I recognize the art and it does not take me long to understand who this is and how this person ended up there.

His name was Robert Smith, and he tried to bet against the house. He was one of those low-level drug dealers in the area, unhappy with his earnings. I know this because Robert was my neighbor, and regularly, I was one of his customers. He decided to attempt being the bigger fish in the pond. I assume things did not go the way he wanted.

When one is a private investigator, one sees shit most people normally do not. One also has to take normally reprehensible actions, actions that are outside of the legal framework. These actions are not even considered to be part of a gray area, and lawmakers will also call this breaking the law and vigilante work… Whatever the fuck that means. Police forces end up hunting down such individuals, solely because they do what other people do not dare to do. No one wants to get their hands dirty.

Oh, while I am talking about police, here's my reminder: ACAB.

I finish unzipping the bag, and what I see makes me step back for a moment. Robert's hands are tied together in front of him, and he is wearing a mouth gag. He was never into BDSM. He does not have any mark of violence whatsoever, save for a cross-shaped wound on his forehead. It appears to be a burn wound, not a bleeding one. Due to the room's terrible lighting, I cannot tell if the wound was inflicted before or after his death. It is also surprising, considering he never was the religious type.

He is fully clothed, and his skin is white as snow. There are, obviously, no vital signs. He is cold, and he has been missing for how long again? Did he die recently? Was he kept in a freezer and only brought here today because it is trash day?

I jump out of the dumpster and try to understand what is going on. It does not make sense. None of this does. When was the last time I saw Robert? … How did I end up here? … How did I manage to follow this lead? I scratch my head as I walk around in circles, trying to connect the dots in my mind. Between the lights twitching and the environment's cold air, the conditions are far from ideal for me to properly think.

Then, I start thinking about the problem from another angle… The bag itself, Robert's corpse… was it all an illusion? I turn my focus back to the dumpster and swallow my nicotine gum as I see her levitate out of it.

She stands before me, tall. Rectification, she towers over me. She lured me into this place and there is nowhere for me to go. We are still in the closed garage and anywhere I can think to run to, she can outrun me to it, she can and will crush me on the concrete… it's unclear if the concrete will be the one from the floor, the ceiling, the walls, or from one of those columns. I am an animal in a cage, and I am trapped.

I have a good look at her, once again. Her skin is chalk-white, her eyes are tiny yellow orbs staring at me from their black sockets. She wears her former nun uniform, a black tunic covered by a white scapular and a black cowl, with a black veil. There is an evil presence surrounding her.

She jumps out at me from her vantage position, as cheetahs jump out on their prey. For a demon, she is extremely agile and strong. Then again, aren't demons supposed to be all skillful and powerful?

The last time I saw her, I was back in Halifax, NS. Or was I in Austin, TX? It's getting hard to tell. I can barely keep a mental track of these encounters, draining as they are. I dare not write about them in my journal, for fear someone might find those writings and think I am going crazy.

Lucky for me, I only see her in my dreams. And when I see her, I know I am in dreamland. Yet, there is no running away from her. She is my sleep demon.

As odd as it seems, other sleep demons previously tried working their hunting skills on me, yet they all failed. This one seems to be quite good at hunting. And she is relentless, too.

It is as if it is all happening for real. Even though, it is not. … or is it? I am second-guessing myself. I must be going crazy, a demon nun trying to kill me. It is the kind of stuff one sees in their dreams after watching too many horror movies.

I do not know her name, nor do I care.

While she did jump on towards me, I initially managed to evade her. She is now walking towards me, as I am walking away from her, unable to look elsewhere other than at her gaze. I feel the wall hitting my back. It's over. She had the high ground, and she took advantage of it.

She looks at me and slowly whispers, "Of course it is over. It should have been over ages ago." I am still looking at her, and this time I am puzzled. I do not understand why she says that… I am fucking clueless! What did she mean by "it should have been over ages ago?"

Despite her being a demon, I will not call God's name, because I do not believe in Him. She opens her mouth to reveal a series of well-sharpened yellow teeth dripping with black blood.

I instinctively lift my arms before me, and I take a defensive posture. She grabs my arms and breaks my bones as if they were uncooked spaghetti. I feel them, I hear them shattering. The pain envelops me, as I am unable to move my hands nor my arms, they become numb. The rest of my body won't move either: I am frozen with fear.

When someone dies in their sleep, they die in real life. And when they die, save from blunt trauma to the head, their mind stays alive for about seven minutes.

She will get to toy with her prey before killing it, and there is nothing I can do to prevent this…

I wake up. Finally!

I can finally catch my breath and calm down. I stare in the darkness of the bedroom. I blink. I blink again. The darkness is still there. I cannot see the usual modem and router lights blinking back at me, nor the cat's water fountain. The room is too dark. Something is wrong.

As I lay in the bed, I can feel my wife and our cat both sleeping next to me. I am unable to move. I try to move my arms. They refuse to cooperate. They are in atrocious pain. I attempt to move my fingers instead. They are all crooked and refuse to move as well. Is this my arthritis pulling tricks on me? My legs are also not moving, no matter how hard I try. I can feel my heart racing, my back is all cold and wet from the heavy sweating.

Am I still under the effect of sleep paralysis? Or… am I still sleeping? Slowly, I start to understand what is going on.

I am terrified. I cannot talk, I cannot let out any sound. I am paralyzed, helpless, and at the mercy of the darkness that descends upon me. All I can see is those two yellow orbs staring straight at me and a jaw full of those well-sharpened teeth, opening wide, closing in.