Night Auditor

Abby (4)

A sharp stab to the side of my belly awakened me from a nice dream where I was back in Albuquerque for Fourth of July, grilling hotdogs and steaks with Lucas, Rae, Addison, and Jax, while Lily taught Gale how to swim in Rae's infinity pool in the back of her parents' acre-and-a-half estate.

It had taken a few seconds before my eyes could adjust in the darkness. The forceful putter against the windows told me Hurricane XX was still in full force overhead, and next to me was Lily, in deep sleep, her curly hair almost brushing against my face. The wall against the headboard thumped in perfectly synchronized beats, but fortunately not loud enough to wake Gale up. Whoever was staying next door must be having a swell time.

I maneuvered my torso to see what was poking my belly before extending my hand under the comforter to feel for anything I might have left on the bed when I unpacked the luggages earlier. Yet there was nothing but the cold, soft surface of the sheets and Lily's warm legs rubbing against my skin.

Even after giving myself some time to adjust in the darkness, still I could barely see anything through it. A slight pain twinged beneath the skin where I thought something was poking me then suddenly, I had an urge to pee. The stab wasn't a stab after all, but an intense pressure my body had initiated so I could wake up and relieve myself.

Struggling with my sore back and now sore belly, I pulled myself up from the bed as quietly as I could so as not to wake Lily up. My vision was a bit better now, and even if only barely, I could see the fogged up surface of the hotel window and the runny rainwater sliding across it.

I surveyed our room, cold and murky, and found Gale on the other bed, still fast asleep beneath the ball of comforter where Lily set her down earlier, almost like she hadn't moved at all.

The next thing I saw, or kind of saw, caused me to forget the pain in my belly or my sudden need to pee. I sat there confused more than anything, as I tried to improve my vision in the darkness, whatever that meant.

On the foot of Gale's bed was opaque darkness I couldn't make out of. The darkness didn't have a certain shape, at least not one I recognized. It simply stood there, almost touching the bed sheets, as still as the dressers I could tell were behind it.

The darkness was immovable as if whatever it was had always been there, rooted deep into the carpets and through the cement flooring. And I couldn't tell if it was the illusion of the slightest hint of moonlight slipping through the fogged up window and into our room, but it seemed to be growing, getting a wee bit taller for every second I stared at it.

Then a sinking feeling in me had also been growing until that feeling was stronger now, much stronger than the stabbing pain that awoke me from my dream. It was at that moment when I realized the thought whispering in the back of my head. It was a whisper that told me if I really looked, the darkness wasn't an abstract, unidentifiable shape, but a general shape I knew well. And when I fully listened to the whisper, and fully observed the darkness as a whole, only then did I register that the darkness wasn't a darkness, but a person's silhouette.

A clump had formed in my throat as my spine grew increasingly ice cold. My mind had so many conflicting thoughts, thoughts that started as a whisper I refused to listen to from the back of my head, spilling outwards and all over as it all fought for the immediate space in the front of my mind.

While I was busy gathering my thoughts and figuring out which initial reaction to follow, the silhouette began to expand, its structure no longer seeming immovable but an organism moving in slow motion.

"Lily," I tried to say but no words formed out of my mouth. The lump was still in my throat and even my fingers were so frightened it couldn't move even slightly to wake up Lily. To no avail, my body remained still, the gravity beneath me sinking my motionless body into the bed. I hadn't decided if my mind was playing tricks or not, but I was convinced at the moment that I was being pulled down by several hands on each of my arms, scrawny hands rough on my cold skin, its sharp nails digging into me.

The shadow continued to move as it transformed to a marginally different shape. It was still a silhouette of someone, only now the skinny arms on either side were slowly becoming more apparent.

I sat on the once-comfy bed, still paralyzed like I had just been put on pause by this unknown stranger, as I continued to watch the silhouette become both unidentifiable yet familiar. Its distinctive fingers were forming out of the darkness, the torso detaching from the arms to form a waist. If I still had an ounce of denial in me, it was surely flushed out when two dots on the silhouette's face emerged before it transformed into empty holes so I could see the walls so clearly through it. Immense fear showered over me as I helplessly watched this creature in its natural element, like a nightmare I couldn't wake out of.

The two-holed face gazed at the direction of Gale, still sleeping under the comforts of her blanket. The good thing was it didn't seem like it had noticed my watchful presence... yet. The bad thing was I was still in a wakeful coma, still unable to speak or nudge Lily.

But as if it heard the dilemma in my head, the silhouette's forming head steadily turned to my direction, its eyes, or lack of, gaping down on me like a prey whose presence it didn't expect. And before I knew it, this humanly beast had come charging towards me, its holed eyes sizeable up close before it finally devoured me.

"Lily!" I screamed as I shot up on the bed, still in the dark hotel room with the rain thrashing on the window outside, only now with Lily and Gale awake from their side of the beds, horrified.