A Strange Sound

         I awoke to a sound late at night, a particularly odd one at that. Sort of sounded like a crumbling building in the distance – not that I know what that sounds like but I can imagine. The sound beckoned for me, it seemed to dance around my bedroom. First from the south, then the north, then a pause – and abruptly skittered around the room again. It was as if the neighbor’s houses were collapsing around me. The heat exhaled from under my covers as I began to sit up. My feet clasped to the chilled wood floor with a soft creak – then a giggle.

         I hadn’t giggled, humor was hardly on my mind, but it did sound vaguely like my neighbor’s daughters’. She always was laughing and jeering outside my window on her bike, waking me at all hours of the morning. Every time I’d look out the window to try to see her in her moment of bliss, she’d stop, lower her brow, pierce me with those eyes, and fiendishly grin. It was as if someone had programmed her to provoke my sense of security. One can hardly enjoy the cackle of a child when she despises one so.

         I called to the soft joy that seemed to be right next to me but alas, no answer. Oh, what I would do for her body again. The crumbling started, only this time it seemed to be coming from every direction at once. My knees popped loudly as I stood. I put my icy skin into my hide and fur lined robe and began my search for the sound. I attempted to look out the windows but all was dark. I shuffled around my room and tried to turn on the lights to no avail. It’s strange how powerless you feel in the dark, it’s almost arousing to think that no matter the person, death could be lurking. I lit the candle next to my bed and grabbed my pistol before beginning my search.

         Her buttery skin seemed like putty in my hands. I molded her into the beauty she deserved to be. The blood did try so hard to seep but where one piece of skin was lost another was precisely put into its place. I wish you all could’ve seen her smile, she was so happy with the results. After the procedure she was smiling even while we slept, had breakfast, or watched a movie. I could hardly look away from her. Then the night came, that one night, which will live forever in my nightmares – she vanished. Only the remnants from the procedure lay on my floor – I still haven’t moved them. I only wish I knew where she’d gone.

         Now I crept through my empty home trying to find noises wishing she was with me. I looked everywhere. I checked in the bathroom, where we showered together, in the living room, where we had our first kiss, and in the basement where we played dress up. She always liked me in my robe. She never said that but it was implied by the smile, besides it was a form of her father after all.

         I was walking from room to room baffled by the sound. The darkness receding as my candle light revealed the night when suddenly I looked up – there she was. Her head overlooking those rounded shoulders, her soft hands encrusted with rubble from the constant crawling on the ceiling, and the trail of blood left from the peeled back skin on every digit – but her smile.

         Where had it gone? Her jaw now hung loose from breakage and her brow was scraped off revealing the skull. Blood began to seep out of her torsion tear on her neck as she screamed. She descended upon me like a spider as her backward arms clawed for me; I dropped the candle as I began to fumble for my gun. Her scream was piercing as I heard her jawbone dragging on the floor and labored crawling. I fired twice towards her. The first flash revealed the thrashing child, the second nothing.

         I sat on the floor still for several hours, breathing heavily. Finally in a slit of light that crept through the barred windows, her angry face peered at me with that judgment. I shot towards her but she was gone. Again this time at a distant window; she was taunting me like a wolf before the kill. I felt the cold steel touch under my chin – a giggle.