Fearing the Dark

  Waking up in the sweat of fevered dreams, I can't breathe. For a moment there is terror, a panic clawing up my throat, the tattoo of my heart thudding in my ears. I feel certain there is a corpse in bed with me, perhaps a monster sleeping between my legs, it's fingernails sunk deep into my thighs, it's mouth presses tight to my stomach.

  Quick, afraid of being grabbed, I roll off the bed and rip the sheet back. I see the wrinkles where my back had rested, the lipstick left over from some godless night. But no corpse, no monster. Only my shadow on the white.

  I don't trust it. I can feel someone there, crouched in the darkness and watching. A chill shivers up my spine, some sick, perverse pleasure twitching between my shoulder blades. I tell myself there is nothing to be afraid of, morning will come and I'll feel silly. But I shudder, imagining all the things I can't see.

  I check under the bed, in the closet, search for dead boys in the corners. Breath stopped and tight, I reach my hand into the dark - half expecting something to grab me and eat my face - jerk it away as goosebumps touch over my skin. I search my eyes over the ceiling and poke my fingertips into the drawers. I look under my pillow, shake out my shoes for spiders.

  And there is nothing.

  I sit on the bed and draw my knees up, not daring to leave my feet on the floor, certain I hear a monster breathing under the bed. My arms go around my legs, my forehead on my knees. I whisper to fill the silence, force thought out of my head and concentrate on the inside of my eyelids.

  Sleep creeps up to me, playfully flicking my ear, it's calm lull deceptive. Then I feel it again, eyes on me. I don't open my eyes. If I don't look, nothing will be there.

  I hear it. Fingers drumming on the window, da da da da, fingernails clicking the glass.

  I want to scream, bolt for the door, hide in the closet. But I can hear the monsters moving, I can smell there breath, can feel the coolness of there skin next to mine.

  The smell of gasoline is hot in my lungs and paper litters the floor, bone white in the moonlight. The black words seem to dance, taunt me, screaming my inadequecies back at me. Fingernails set against the back of my neck, scratching my spine in sweet ways.

  There is a face outside the window.

  His eyes are stitched shut and his lips pulled back, the moonlight in his mouth dirty and resentful. I stare at his fingernails on the window, not breathing for fear of what I might miss in the silence.

  The back of me neck prickles, an unfamiliar body suddenly very close to my back. Fingers push into my hair and twist, pulling hard. I call to the man and he doesn't move. Breath touches my throat and I swallow hard, teeth against my pulse. I call out again and again, my voice rising and becoming more insistent each time, betraying my fear.

  I watch the blood ooze from the scabs over his eyes and disappear below his chest. His sweaty teeth click together and I scream at him, a chuckle taunting me from inside my head.

  A weight of cold fear settles in the clammy space between my clothes and skin. I stare at the window and the man behind it, praying for the day to come and force itself through the glass.

  And then she appears.

  A thin and ragged shawl hangs about her shoulders and her hair floats lightly about her head, the translucent strands bright fro

the moonlight inside them. The skin of her face sags off the bones, hangs in wrinkled folds under her chin. Her head tilts back and I stare.

  She has no eyes. Only black, gaping holes, the edges puckered and purple, old scar tissue swollen with infected blood. I lean in to peer more closely and I smell her. She smells like summer; wet, slippery rocks and a dead worm, cut in half, baking in the sun, yellow puss oozing from it's severed ends.

  Grimacing, I move back from her. She makes me uneasy - sweaty and jumpy, fearfully certain of a grinning ghoul creeping up to my neck.

  She chuckles through a throat of tightly packed phlegm. Gray dust rises off her shawlas she hacks and spits, a sticky gob of infection hitting the floor with a wet slap. Her empty sockets yawn at me, so full of darkness, and I see something of myself inside them.

  "You staring at me, girl?" her lips curl scornfully, her black tongue peeking out at me from between her teeth. "You're staring."

  Guilty, I want to deny it, but my voice is gone. An awful dread chills the skin over my eyes. I feel certainshe can see me, the thoughts in my skull and the turmoil in my chest.

  She holds out her fist. Her knuckles pop and creak as her fingers open. The lines in her palm are full of black ash. Her teeth flash and she begins to purr. She moves and dry, ancient skin rustles beneath her clothes. She's suddenly so close to me, close enough to see the worms feeding off her brain. Her hands float up and settle on my face, her palms wet and sour.

  "Give me your eyes," she hisses and her fingernails sink deep into my flesh, infect my blood. "Give them to me!"

  An unholy wash of hysteric panic floods into my mouth - a distracting giggle that makes my face burn and my eardrums thud. I seize the old woman's face and squeeze it between my hands. I drag her closer to me and hear her bones inside her skin, smell the dust and age falling from her hair.

  My insides become hot, my blood thickening in my veins and crawling, blessing me with the reality of pain. My vision blurs and distorts, pulls out and goes numb at the edges. A dull, aching pressure begins to throb at the back of my head. My face feels too hot, burning up, melting.

  I thrust my tongue into the eyeless socket and taste decay, a metallic wetness that clamps down and bites my tongue in half. And beneath that, barely discenable, is the sticky sweet taste of madness - a taste that fills my head with ice water and numbs my brain until blood begins to swell from my ears.

  As suddenly as she was there, she vanishes. I blink my eyes and feel the scabs on my lips crack open and bleed against my teeth as I smile.

  Floating, I move across the room and stand in front of the mirror. I touch my lips and examine my face, realizing for the first time that it's not my own. That's a starnger standing there, a doll, someone's perverse fantasy painted to look alive.

  I glance up at the reflections over my shoulder, see the shadows moving over the walls, the man standing outside the window, his bones shiny. My face itches, like there is somehing crawling beneath my skin. I rub my palms over my cheeks, think about cutting it off.

  A rust nail protruding from the wall steals my attention. I scrape my thumb over it's head and wiggle it from it's place, pushing my shirt up and away from my stomach. I touch the nail to my skin and carve a line into myself, watching as the blood comes out. I make another line and sigh. A third time and I don't even feel it. I smear my fingers in my blood and scratch the mirror, a sudden hot rage making my chest tight and my vision black at the edges. I see my own mistakes staring back at me, all the bullshit and the waste. I see the sickness.

  I find myself smiling. I lick the tiny beads of blood off my lips and raise my hands to my face again. With two fingers, I peel back my left eyelid and hold it open.

  If your hand disobeys you, cut it off. If your own eye offends you, pluck it out.