Creeping towards me

     She stands at the edge of my room, clutching the wall like the ruins of a castle. She is floating towards me, her long, thick black hair covering her face and most of her upper torso. Her presence fills the room like a dense fog, crisping the air while simultaneously electrifying it. The chill keeps my eyes peeled back, focused on her small, subtle creepings. The moon lets a sliver of light into my room, casting a ghostly glow on her black, tree branch-like hands that seem to inch closer and closer with every breath. I can feel my pulse in my ears as I pull the thin sheet over my head like a shield, believing if she cannot see me, she would simply melt into the floorboards, never to be seen again. I had no such luck. For months, she and I played this game in the dark—the game of creepy chicken, seeing who would falter first. And, as one might expect from a small child, I slowly stopped sleeping altogether. I feared that if I closed my eyes, the woman would surely steal my soul.

    My body is immobile as the black branches run across the top of my sheet, begging me to scream, but all that escapes is guttural gasping. I can feel my soul clutching a rosary, begging Mary to protect me from the demonic presence tugging at my toes. Pissing all over myself, I use my essence as a deterrent to prevent Evil Dead from touching me. There is no stopping the branches; for every one I break, three more grow in its place, leaving my bed soaked in urine and tears.

    I can hear the floor creak beneath her weight, a cruel reminder that I am not alone in this suffocating darkness. Each sound reverberates like thunder in my skull, and the once-familiar shadows twist into shapes that loom and leer, feeding on my fear. My heart races, a wild drum echoing in the hollow chamber of my chest, as I count the seconds, praying for dawn to break through the window. But the night stretches on, its grip tightening around me like an old friend turned foe.

    As her branches brush against the sheet, I imagine them curling around my throat, squeezing the breath from my lungs. I wonder if the choking feeling is real or just another trick played by my mind, another cruel game of shadows. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to erase her from existence, but the darkness remains, thick and suffocating. The moonlight, once a beacon of comfort, now feels like a spotlight exposing my vulnerability, illuminating my fear for her to savor.

    Memories of laughter and warmth feel distant, like a mirage fading with the rising sun. I think of the stories my mother used to tell me about brave knights and their valiant quests. Where is my knight? Where is my hero to rescue me from this nightmare? The thought cuts deeper than any branch she could extend, the truth seeping in: I am alone, just a small child against the encroaching void.

    Suddenly, I remember the flash of light that once danced in my room when I pressed my fingers against my nightlight. A flicker of hope, a reminder of safety that now seems like a cruel joke. The world outside my room is full of magic and laughter, but here, in the clutches of the dark, I feel as though I am trapped in a cursed tale, with no chance for rescue. With every breath, I can taste the bitter tang of despair, an intoxicating mixture that feeds the dread coiling in my stomach.

    In an act of desperate rebellion, I muster every ounce of strength I have left. I kick at the branches, feeling the phantom pain of their ghostly grasp. "Leave me alone!" I whisper, my voice barely more than a breath. But the words hang in the air, swallowed by the dark, and she only inches closer, a haunting smile curling upon her lips. I realize then, with a clarity that stings, that this is not just a game for her; it is a game of survival, a twisted dance between predator and prey.

    With a final, trembling breath, I decide to break the silence. I call out to her, not with fear but with a challenge. "You can't have me!" The words echo through the stillness, a flicker of defiance igniting a spark of hope. The branches pause, just for a moment, and in that suspended breath, I see the faintest hint of uncertainty in her dark eyes. Maybe, just maybe, the darkness is not as powerful as it pretends to be. Perhaps the light still flickers somewhere, waiting to be found.

    I hold my breath, suspended in that moment, daring to hope that my words have carved a crack in her shadowy facade. The air thickens, a tangible tension stretching between us as if the world itself holds its breath, waiting to see which of us will break first. The black branches hang in the stillness, quivering like the wings of a trapped bird. And for the first time, I sense a flicker of hesitation from her, as though she is pondering her next move in this macabre chess game.

    But then, like a puppet on invisible strings, she lunges forward, a blur of darkness that threatens to engulf me whole. I scramble backward, heart racing, the bed a flimsy island in an ocean of dread. I feel the edges of reality blurring, the room warping into a distorted nightmare. Desperation wells up within me, and I clutch the rosary tighter, its cool beads a fragile comfort against the encroaching evil. “I am not afraid of you!” I shout, louder now, my voice trembling with unspent fear and rising anger. “I will not let you take me!”

    In response, she lets out a low, mocking laugh that reverberates in the hollow corners of my room, chilling my bones. It’s a sound that pierces through the veil of terror, shattering my resolve for just a moment. But I refuse to let it crush me. The warmth of defiance ignites within, spreading like wildfire, consuming the tendrils of fear that threaten to pull me under. I gather the remnants of my courage, each heartbeat thrumming with a resolve I didn’t know I possessed.

    “Leave this place!” I command, my voice growing stronger with each word, a newfound power coursing through my veins. I envision the light from my nightlight growing brighter, an ethereal beacon shining through the darkness, pushing her back, pushing her away. The branches shudder and recoil as if my words have actual weight, tangible enough to be felt, to create distance. I refuse to let her extinguish my flame, and I can almost feel the edges of reality shifting, reshaping around my conviction.

    The moon’s glow strengthens, illuminating the room with a purity I had long forgotten existed. Shadows retreat, collapsing into themselves, losing their power as I stand firm against her. She stares at me, her eyes dark pools filled with rage and confusion, and for the first time, I see the cracks in her facade. I wonder if she can sense my resolve, the flicker of light that refuses to die. I realize that in this battle of wills, I am not just a frightened child—I am a warrior of light, unyielding and fierce.

    In a final act of defiance, I throw off the covers and sit up, my posture straightening, a warrior ready to fight. “You may haunt my nights, but you will never own my soul!” I declare, the words spilling from my lips like a mantra, grounding me in my truth. With every repetition, I can feel her presence falter, the branches quivering, losing their grip. Maybe, just maybe, I can reclaim my power, banishing her to the shadows from whence she came.

Angel Spider Sees

     While he injected himself into me like a microchip beneath my skin I thought maybe I wasn't myself at all. Maybe I was the angel in the farthest corner of the darkest crevice in the bathroom. I was floating there watching with eight large eyes surrounded by rings. If I wanted to I could have crawled down and bit him right in the eye so he could see things from my point of view but, the water turned cold and my piss turned red and the angel turned into a spider. Small, weak, and riddled with large black eyes that seemed to stare directly into my soul. They stared like they had never seen anything so gruesome in their life but I didn't scream. I am still afraid of spiders but not of old weaselly men who reek of Marlboro's maybe I didn't learn the lesson that God was trying so desperately to teach me. The lesson of lifeless eyes and "ultraviolence".

    As I floated in that cramped, grimy space, the shadows twisted and swayed, weaving grotesque patterns that danced along the stained tiles. My skin prickled as he leaned closer, his breath a sickly blend of smoke and decay, dripping with stories I never asked to hear. I could almost taste the bitterness in the air, like spoiled fruit rotting in the sun. I watched, suspended in that bathroom’s darkness, my body a ghostly remnant of something once vibrant and whole. But what was whole? Was it the girl who giggled under the stars or the specter of regret lurking behind my dilated pupils?

    The spider—the angel turned traitor—scuttled across the floor, each leg a reminder of how small I felt. I imagined it whispering my secrets, my fears, broadcasting them to the weaselly man, who now grinned with yellowed teeth. “You think you’re safe?” he croaked, his voice grating against the fragile walls of my mind. I wanted to deny him, to scream that safety was a mirage, an illusion spun by hopeful hearts and naïve dreams. But the words tangled in my throat, choking me with the weight of my own silence. Instead, I was the mute observer, reduced to nothing more than a spectator in a theater of horrors.

    Behind the grimy mirror, my reflection flickered—a twisted version of myself, eyes wide with terror, the irises swallowed by darkness. It seemed to beckon me, to drag me back into its liquid depths. Perhaps that was where I truly belonged, submerged in a void where pain and joy coalesced into a murky haze. I wanted to plunge in, to dissolve and float away, far from the man with his sickening laughter and the suffocating stench of despair. But the spider crawled ever closer, its multitude of eyes reflecting my own flickering spirit, urging me to confront the beast that had wrapped its claws around my heart.

    I felt the walls closing in, the bathroom morphing into a prison, each tile a reminder of my confinement. I wanted to shatter the mirror, to unleash the fragments of myself trapped behind glass, to let them scatter into a million pieces. But all I could do was watch, paralyzed, as the weaselly man leaned back, his grotesque smile stretching wider, the lines on his face deepening like scars etched by a cruel artist. He whispered promises of ecstasy laced with agony, and for a moment, I wondered if he spoke the truth. Was it ecstasy to drown in darkness? Was it freedom to yield to the monster that lurked just beneath the surface, waiting to swallow me whole?

    I closed my eyes, summoning the memory of light, of warmth—the feeling of sun-drenched skin and laughter that didn’t taste like ashes. But the spider persisted, weaving webs of doubt and despair, its dark little heart beating like a metronome, reminding me that time was slipping away. The cold water wrapped around my ankles, and the red stained the white, a watercolor masterpiece of anguish. And as the weaselly man reached for me, the last shred of angelic defiance flickered in my chest.

    The cold seeped deeper into my bones, as if the chill from the water was gnawing at my soul. His hand lingered in the air, suspended like a grotesque omen, and I wondered if he felt it too—the darkness pulling me further, deeper. His fingers twitched, but they didn’t reach me, not yet. Maybe he saw the spider too, scurrying along the periphery of his vision, taunting him with a menace he couldn’t comprehend. I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but the noise would have been swallowed whole by the suffocating silence that hung between us.

    The angel, long since vanished, left only fragments of its presence in the brittle air. I tried to summon its warmth, its strength, but the image of those large, unblinking eyes—staring at me, judging me—invaded my mind. What had they seen that I couldn’t? What wretched reflection of myself did they recognize, a thing twisted and frayed at the edges? I’d always been afraid of spiders, their skittering limbs and their patient cruelty, weaving webs to catch those unaware. And yet here I was, a fly caught in the man’s web, trembling but still alive. Still watching.

    His voice slithered through the air again, dripping with a rancid sweetness. “You’re not alone in this, you know,” he rasped, his grin splitting his face like a wound that refused to heal. “There’s more where you came from. They all think they can escape. None of them do.”

    I swallowed hard, the taste of blood and bile bitter in my throat. He leaned forward, a shadow too close, too real, and I felt the sting of panic lashing out inside me, clawing at my insides. But I didn’t scream. No, not this time. Because I knew better now. The angel wasn’t going to save me, and the spider wasn’t going to bite him. The only weapon I had was my silence, sharper than any scream, cutting through the thick air like a blade waiting to strike.

    And in that silence, I heard it—the faint hum of the spider’s heartbeat, echoing in time with my own. We were one and the same, it seemed, both too small and too afraid, but still alive. Still moving.

5 Perspectives

Today, we are speaking to a few shaken pedestrians after what seems to be a drunk driving accident. At 4:29 a.m. this morning, we received news of strange driving on Route 3, and here to tell us more is Taylor County’s very own Sheriff Sparks. Sheriff?

Sheriff: We had received a few disturbing calls from residents at around 4 a.m., and we decided to send a dispatch unit out to investigate. Unfortunately, when we got there, several people were hurt in addition to a deceased driver in a white Ford Ultimo. After alerting the paramedics, we went ahead and got a few testimonies. Several people described hearing loud noises at about 3:45 a.m., and some even thought it was drag racing from the squealing sound of the tires. From the tread marks we saw upon arrival, we have reason to believe it may have been a drunk driving accident where the intoxicated driver swerved to avoid hitting something and crashed into the rail. While the seatbelt kept the driver in his vehicle, the force of the impact crushed his skull, killing him on impact. Luckily, he did not hurt anyone else; there was a young teen we sent to the hospital to be checked out—she was in the passenger seat and suffered minor injuries.

Thank you so much, Sheriff Sparks. After this break, Morning News at 9 will let you hear from first-hand testimonies. My name is Jerry Star, and this is Morning News at 9!

(Commercial break)

Welcome back, Taylor County, to Morning News at 9. After a fatal drunk driving accident that killed the driver and injured a young teen, we have news anchor Jerry Star at the scene to give us a first-hand testimony of the carnage. Jerry?

Jerry: Hello, Martha. Many locals I have interviewed this morning say they could tell something was amiss when their usually quiet morning commutes and preparations for school were interrupted by loud tire screeching, followed by a loud crash. Here to talk to us about what she heard is Mrs. Dianne Smith, who was getting ready to go to work when she heard the loud screeching and was the first to call the Taylor County dispatch.

Mrs. Smith: I was getting ready in my bathroom, which faces Route 3. While I was straightening my hair, I heard some loud screeching. I was already on my way to call the police when I heard screaming coming from the road. I told the police everything I saw while looking out my bathroom window. I saw the car swerve to miss something in the road, and it crashed into the railing. I heard the screaming when the car swerved, but after the car crashed, the screaming stopped. I expected the worst. I’m glad no one else was hurt, but it’s still very sad what happened to the driver.

Thank you for your testimony, Mrs. Smith. Up next to tell you the details of the crash is our Morning News at 9 accident expert. Back to you, Martha.

Martha: Well, here in the Morning News at 9 studio, we have local crash expert Tom Robbins here to tell us about the facts of the crash. Now, Tom, I think the first question on everyone’s mind is: What really happened?

Tom: Well, Martha, I wasn’t there, but from a close examination of the crime scene photos, it becomes clear there is no way this could have been a drunk driving accident. The tire marks in the road show a sudden stop, indicating a five-second reaction time, and there is no way someone who was inebriated could have stopped that quickly. In addition, we have a young teen's testimony that suggests foul play.

Martha: Well, that is certainly stressful news, Tom. But Morning News at 9 will be right back with the details right after these messages from our sponsors.

And we are back! Morning News at 9 has the latest on all local news. Before we left, Tom, our crash expert, said the tire marks indicated drunk driving is not a possibility, and that the teen found at the scene has given a testimony revealing foul play. Here to give you the details is our field reporter, Jerry Star, who is at Glory’s Pass Hospital to talk to this young teen. Jerry?

Jerry: Thank you, Martha. Here at Glory’s Pass Hospital is a young teen who suffered a major spine injury. Upon arrival at the scene of the crime, the teen appeared to be fine—merely scraped up and scared—but after being admitted to the emergency room, the head surgeon says she is lucky to be alive. Unfortunately, we have just received word that the family does not wish for their daughter’s testimony to be aired, so this is where the story ends. Until next time, Taylor County, this is Jerry Star, your eyes and ears for all local news!

(A young woman who looks to be about twenty-five enters the young teen’s room. The teen’s condition is critical; while she is still conscious and able to communicate, her body remains immobile from the neck down.)

Detective Banks: Hello, my name is Detective Banks. We were sent from the Taylor County deputies' office to get your testimony, and we have your parents’ consent. Whenever you are ready, I would like to hear your statement.

(The young teen lets tears roll down her face.)

Debra Cohen: (through tears) I need to speak to my lawyer, please.

(The detective looks back at the teen, who has yet to make eye contact, with a worried expression.)

Detective Banks: Of course. I will have the nurse bring you a phone.

(After the detective leaves, a few minutes pass. A plump, usually cheerful nurse, now wearing a look of sadness, places a phone on the tray table next to the teen.)

Nurse Donald: I need to dial the number for you, and I will put it on speaker and leave so you can use the phone in private, darling.

Debra Cohen: 980-0577.

(The nurse quickly punches the numbers into the phone, hits the speaker button, and leaves the room. Nurse Donald then shoos away some lingering orderlies from the hallway. The phone rings twice before the other end picks up.)

Luke Cohen: Hey, are you okay? I heard on the news that you are paralyzed. Is that true? What happened, Debra?

DC: Do you have Uncle John’s number?

LC: Of course.

DC: After I explain everything, I need you to call him and tell him to come down to the hospital to help me talk to the detective. I don’t want you to call anyone else—not even Mom and Dad. They’re in Copenhagen, so they’re probably not watching the news. Call Aunt Jena and tell her to keep her mouth shut.

LC: I can do that. Please tell me what happened.

DC: I was at the train station this morning, ready to leave to go back to UFCU, and there was a man watching me. I didn’t think much of it because, ever since I got my boob job, guys stare, so I just ignored him. He followed me into the ticket booth, and I was about to turn around to ask him what his problem was when he grabbed me. He put a rag over my mouth, and everything went dark. When I came to, I was in a car going way too fast down Route 3. He kept saying something repeatedly, but I don’t know what it was; it was like a different language. I couldn’t really hear anything clearly, but I saw something in the road ahead, and I screamed. He looked back at the road, swerved, and hit the railing. His airbag didn’t open, and his head smashed into the steering wheel. There was blood all over me, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I still don’t feel anything.

LC: I’m going to call John. Just hold tight, okay?

DC: The nurses said there was a lot of blood in my pants. I think he may have—

LC: Let’s just call John and go from there, okay? I’ll make sure he is quick. I love you, sis. I will call you when I know he is on his way.

(Debra looks up, expecting the nurse to return at any moment. Instead, an orderly enters, and she expects him to hang up the phone.)

Orderly: Are you Debra Cohen?

DC: Yes.

(The orderly pulls out a pistol with a silencer on it and quickly shoots her in the head. The orderly then pulls out a cell phone and hits speed dial.)

Orderly: She’s dead.

Phone Voice: No loose ends, Hank.

(With that, the orderly hangs up the phone and, quickly but without raising suspicion, goes out to his car parked in the east wing parking lot. He grabs a syringe out of his glove compartment and injects himself with a lethal dose of heroin.)

Orderly: You’re going to be okay, Rebecca. You’re safe now.

(About thirty minutes pass, and the orderly is dead. The entire hospital is on lockdown while police scan the perimeter, looking for whoever shot Debra Cohen. No one is allowed to leave the hospital grounds until the perpetrator has been found.)