The Face

          Ridley sat up in his bed and looked at the loft above him. It was pitch black and the stepladder leading up was a perilous climb. The ladder had not been there earlier today. Ridley had no intention of traveling into the loft’s darkness tonight. He was only looking for “the face” and he knew it was here. He switched on the television for a third time. The white snow of weak reception appeared again. He shone a flashlight up into the loft and was unable to pierce the black.
         All the signs that “the face” was present reverberated around this apartment. It was obvious. The ladder, the darkness, the TV… It all pointed the one conclusion. He thought, “Why has it not shown itself?” Ridley began to fear the worst. Unable to stand the anticipation, Ridley decided to make the trip into the loft. It would be the only time he took the excursion since “the face” had claimed the area as its own.
         Ridley picked up his flashlight and began the trek. He stepped one rung at time, a creak was let out as the wooden rails splintered into his skin. He looked up and saw that the loft looked further away with each step.
         Creak….Creak….Creak. The rungs howled under his bare feet.
         Ridley looked up again. He was at the loft’s edge as if he had traveled 100 steps in one moment. Lifting himself up on to the loft’s floor, each part of his body tingled as it passed over the imaginary boundary. He looked around the loft and noticed the darkness was impenetrable. He grabbed at his flashlight, fumbling and getting the switch to the ‘on’ position. As Ridley swung the narrow tube of light back and forth, he squinted to see what his landscape contained.
         From corner to corner the light revealed nothing but emptiness. Crawling, Ridley’s knee hit something. Pointing his flashlight down, Ridley grudgingly left the space around him in darkness. It was a latch. Ridley felt around and found a small round knob and the outline of a door embedded in the floor. It was about 3 feet by 6 feet.
         Creak…Creak…Creak. Ridley shuffled himself around to face the loft’s opening. Something was moving the ladder!
         Ridley was frozen and shivered at the thought of peering over the edge to meet the unknown on the ladder’s path.
         Fear gripped Ridley as he slowly watched, rung by rung, the ladder sink below the edge of the loft. By the time Ridley had gotten to the loft opening his escape route had vanished. Still unable to look down over the edge Ridley turned to his only course.
         His hand shaking, Ridley unfastened the latch and turned the knob. Slowly he lifted the door and on the other side was “the face” waiting staring blankly up through the doorway. As their eyes met, Ridley lost his ability to see. Abandoned on the loft and blinded, Ridley’s only lasting image was “the face”.