Four chimes in sleet grey gloom,
and every time the silence looms a phantom breath whispers.
No corner lies unchecked,
no cranny unswept -
and yet...
Another breath.
Like a breeze shifting the steam above a glass still pond.
And a strangled creak,
wood shifting beneath careful feet?
My follow-along horrors don't lag.
They stick.
Close like sweat on clammy skin, closer than a cad to his sins.
And the tapping of branches on the windows could be nails.
Prickling along the walls-
down the spine like oily sweat.
Like a noose hissing carefully around a neck.
Click.
In the light, you disappear.
The fingers just branches,
the breath a breeze,
that damp rot smell nothing but the earth beneath the trees.
Not death.
Not quite...
...and yet...
The hot, reeking rot is in the air and the flesh of the neck crawls
as if a stare is pressed a hairs breadth from touch.
One again the question comes -
would a nightlight really be too much?
About the Creator
S. A. Crawford
Writer, reader, life-long student - being brave and finally taking the plunge by publishing some articles and fiction pieces.
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