Voices

James thought he was hearing voices. Lying nervously awake in bed, he kept getting up and looking into the hallway. He swore he was hearing someone whispering.

“Hello?” he said into the darkness.

Nothing.

Fuck, he thought. He needed to be up early at seven in the morning for work.

He walked back into his bedroom for the third time and sat on his bed awhile, waiting to see if the whispering would continue.

Nothing happened for twenty minutes.

He began to drift off into sleep when he heard the voices again, faint and ghostly.

He sprung awake and leaped off his bed. He froze.

A shadow of a tall being moved quickly out of the light which shone from his room into the hallway area in front of his door. He could hear the strange footsteps moving down the hall.

He charged his door, slamming it shut. He was sweating.

Moving away from the door, he felt his whole body shivering. His mind felt numb and cold inside with the knowledge of what he had seen, but on the outside his flesh was dripping wet. He'd been close to this feeling before, when in his freshman year of high school he'd gotten into his first actual fist fight with another kid who was bigger and meaner than he was. The kid had taunted him and made him look weak in front of other classmates. He thought he'd shit his pants right there in front of everyone, or piss his pants, or both. Then everyone would make fun of him and laugh in his face and he'd go home and kill himself.

When the fighting actually started it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be; it was still humiliating and painful (he'd gotten punched in the jaw and kicked in the ribs and fell to the ground with tears in his eyes, but he hadn't cried screaming, he was quite proud of himself for not doing so), but the worst was the buildup to that ass beating, the dread of not knowing.

(something is out there)

He backed up to the wall opposite his door and stood against it for several minutes, frozen stiff, unable to think or act.

(am I crazy?)

(no. I saw it)

(you could've imagined it)

(NO! No fuckin' way! I definitely saw something. Something sentient)

(something trying to sneak up on me)

(trying to do something to me)

(are you sure? Really?)

(yes, I'm sure)

(I think)

(what are you, a little kid still? Grow up, there was nothing)

Something knocked on the door two times then.

James went dead rigid, his heart tightening, his whole body locking up.

(Oh God no!)

(Please!)

(Please don't let it get me!)

He thought he would shit his pants right then.

(PLEASE GOD PLEASE!)

(DON'T LET IT COME IN HERE!)

A minute passed.

(PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE)

Two.

(I'll never do anything bad ever again)

(I swear)

Two and a half minutes.

BANG!

Something slammed the door.

James started crying, dead sure something was outside his door, trying to get in.

BANG! BANG!

“OH GOD NO!” he screamed.

BANG!

Whatever it was growled like a feral bear. It was the sound of Hell incarnate.

The door exploded open and James' face stretched inhumanly and turned dead gray.

The nightmare had just begun.



A minute later everything was dead silent.

James lay asleep in bed, deep in a dreaming slumber.

In his room, the small lamp in the corner was on, keeping the darkness away.

While James slept something came into his room.

The light in the corner went out.

The thing floated to the foot of his bed and looked down at James.

The room got cold, very cold, ice cold.

The thing watched James sleep. It saw his breath plume out into the darkness.

James began to whimper in his sleep.

No, he kept saying, no don't. God please, no.

But God was not listening. Only the featureless thing standing at the foot of his bed was. And what it heard was beautiful, dark sounds of terror.

Slowly, it began to float up and over James' whimpering, slumbering body.

James was now crying in his sleep, weeping tears of horror.

The thing floated down and hovered just above James.

It looked into his soul and saw the way in and entered.