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When they reached the bottom of the attic stairs, John
hesitantly peeked around the corner and down the hall as Sandy watched the rear
for their lethargic, arm-assailant. Already, tendrils of moist, chilly air had
made its way up to the second floor, and a foreboding shadow devoured the
upstairs landing, hungrily swallowing everything it touched. The staircase
trumpeted an advance warning of the intruder with every step. It was moving
slowly, deliberately and made a whispery chatter, a sinister grumble that was
barely understandable. It sounded like it was saying, “Key,
key, key, key, here, the key.” The heavy wetness of the words, their
mucousy slur, made it sound as though it’s mouth was crammed full of phlegm
and teeth and tongue.
Whatever was casting that silhouette and making those noises
was certainly no man, and those golem incantations issuing from it made John’s
stomach turn as though it was filled with slithering snakes, trying frantically
to free themselves from their containment. He was fast being overcome with an
indescribable fear, a morbid dread of things unknown, unnamed, unhuman. The
thing coming up the stairs was certainly all those and more. He had to think
fast. Whatever it was, was blocking the only way downstairs--and out. There had
to be another way.
His distress prevented him from thinking clearly and
coherently. Thoughts and ideas ran together like a watery soup in his head, and
he struggled to make some sense of them. What to
do, what to do! He had to make the right decisions. Somehow, he knew that
there was more at stake here than just there lives, though that was motivation
enough. He thought about Johnny and Abbey. Thank God they weren’t here. He
knew that he would completely fall apart at the thought of them being in
harm’s way. Or maybe that would give him the resolve to fight even
harder--fighting against what, as yet, remained a dark mystery. Never in his
wildest dreams would he have ever admitted that his children were better off
with their mother. But this was wilder than his wildest dreams, and he did
happily admit that to himself.
Running out of options, John finally took Sandy’s hand, and
they quietly slipped into the bathroom which was the next room down the hall. He
closed the door behind them. The room’s darkness was made only minimally
brighter by a seashell night light and the occasional lightning strike. As
silently as he could, he engaged the lock on the door. Then he went to the
shower and softly opened up the shower curtain.
Sandy followed John’s muted lead and held both hands over her
mouth to try to prevent any uncontrollable sobs.
Heavy footsteps fell in the hallway now. Under the drum of rain
outside, they might as well have been the footsteps of the approaching T-Rex
from the movie Jurassic Park. They held that much untapped power in their
methodical stride.
Because it was an older house that had a shower installed at a
later date, the bathroom window was right above the tub. John pulled back the
latch on the lock and tried to push it up, but to his dismay, it wouldn’t
budge. He pushed harder with all he had behind it. Nothing. Damn it! It had been
painted shut.
Sandy stood in the middle of the bathroom nervously throwing
her head from the door to John, the door to John.
Again, indecisiveness clouded his judgment. It wasn’t as
though he was inept at instinctive thinking. He just rarely got the chance to
test himself in that area. He was a planner, a meticulous planner. He had to be,
he was a teacher for God’s sake! And
even if he’d had more experience, it wouldn’t have been sufficient for the
crisis at hand. His callowness was painfully evident as ideas trudged through
his mind as slowly as cold tar.
Precious seconds ticked away, never to be retrieved or relived.
Tick.
The footsteps stopped right outside the bathroom door. Every
fetid pant from its lungs seemed to seep through the oak door as if it was
cheese cloth. It wheezed and crackled with a bronchitis-like grumble. “Key,
key, key, here, key. Feel it, know it.”
Tick.
“Coming. Coming to let you
out. Let you all out.”
Let who out? And out of what? John then thought about the
shadowed specter from the portal reaching out at them. The goblin-like
adumbrations behind it, pacing like caged animals. The distant murmurs growing
to incessant chittering. All those horrible sounds, louder, louder like all the
legions of Hell descending upon that one focal point. That one opening. That
one—doorway. His stomach turned to lead. He suddenly realized what the thing on
the other side of the door wanted to do.
Tick, tick.
Sandy backed up, and if it weren’t for John being in her way,
she would have tumbled right into the tub.
Was it deciding whether to check the attic where they had just
been, or did it already know that they were huddling like scared mice behind the
bathroom door?
John wiped his
brow as if trying to tear away and toss aside his fear. He looked desperately through the weakly-lit room for
something to break out the window because it was obvious that the porch roof six
feet below it would be their only avenue of escape. A small, square, wooden
stand next to the toilet that Amos had used to stack fishing magazines on would
have to do. He knew that what had to be done needed to be done quickly. There
would be no more time for stealth. He quickly went to the stand, reached down
and grabbed it by its front two legs--.
And the attack came suddenly, with ferocity. The first blow
came straight through solid oak with such speed and power it barely shook the
door on its hinges.
Sandy screamed.
Tick, tick, tick.
Wood splintered into hundreds of pieces and rained across the
bathroom floor.
A hand, shadow-hidden, groped in the ill-lighted space narrowly
missing John’s shirt collar.
A second fist punched its way into the bathroom, feeling,
grasping, clutching only at air--so far.
Tick, tick, tick, tick.
Chunks of wood began being ripped away from the door.
Somehow the lock managed to stay engaged, but the thick wood
surrounding it, as well as the door frame, began to crack and splinter. It
wouldn’t last another blow.
Only fractions of seconds had passed, but it felt like an
eternity.
“Get out of the way!” John cried. He lifted the stand,
sending a column of magazines cascading to the floor, and with one blow smashed
out the window above the bathtub.
Sandy ducked as the stand met glass and shattered the window
into a thousand pieces, their surfaces glistening like fine, black jewels as
they flew out into the wet night.
The thing squealed in anger. It was a shrill cry, piercing the
room with a bone-crushing resonance which sent skin crawling, hearts thrumming
and legs and hands scampering ever faster.
In an adrenaline craze John began pushing out shards of glass
from the bottom of the window with the top of the stand, allowing them to crawl
through without fear of cuts from broken shards of glass. “Go through the
window! Go, go, go!” He tossed the stand aside then more pushed than helped
Sandy out through the window as the last of the bathroom door was ripped away.
There was nothing now between them and death. They were
out of time.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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