Welcome to the Abyss

It tricks you

I slammed the door shut behind me with a thud and shrugged off my heavy coat, the cold from outside still lingering on my skin. My nose and fingers were tingling from walking home in the 20 degree cold.
I hung the coat on the rack and stepped into the house "mom I'm home!" I called, setting down my bag on the small wooden table in the dining room. Work had been hectic today, and being home had never felt better. When your boss is as strung out and wily as mine you learn to appreciate the simpler things in life: like a warm home and just being able to relax. I had been running back and forth like a chicken with their head cut off all day long to keep up with demand.
I noticed mom hasn't answered back yet with her usual "welcome home!" or anything, which was a little different. I made my way through the dining room and to the carpeted stairs that led directly to our two rooms and entertainment room. My still snow covered boots met the second step just as mom called from upstairs.
"Hello,"
Her voice came from the entertainment room, which I could see from the bottom of the stairs where I was at. The door was cracked, but no light came from behind it. It was just a spare room with a TV and gaming systems for my friends and I to hang out on the weekends. I let out a kind of confused, half-hearted laugh "ma why are you in the dark? Do you need help in there? " She was weird like that sometimes. She would do quirky things like that, forgetting to turn on lights, leaving water running, etc. She was probably cleaning up from yesterday. I started up the stairs, not wanting the already overworked woman to have to clean up the entertainment room on her own.
As my foot lifted up to the next step something made me stop stiff in my tracks. A tiny hushed voice, barely audible,  called from my left.
"Daniel,"
I froze. It came from the walk-in laundry room closet next to me; it was mom's voice. But she was just upstairs, I could swear I just heard her.
I slowly turned to see one of her blue eyes peering out of the crack at me. "Daniel, quietly come here," I felt my stomach drop and I blinked rapidly. "W-wait...but you were just-" I pointed nervously up the stairs at the cracked door to the entertainment room.
She glanced towards the stairs with a panicked look "come here please, that's not me. I can hear it too" she opened the door a little more, allowing the hall light to reveal her face, my real mom's familiar visage. Her blue eyes were wide, and her normally rosy face was pale as a sheet, bloodless from fear. That expression alone made my heart slam into my throat and I slowly stepped off the stairs, careful not to let them creak like they usually do. What was upstairs then?
I crept to shelter in the closet, and mom silently closed the door behind me. I swallowed the lump in my throat, confusion mixed with fear boiling in my gut and making my heart race. "Mom what's going on? Is this a joke? Is Jake in on this?" My little brother was always pulling pranks, he probably had an audio recording up there playing on loop. What a joke. I went to open the door and storm up there to turn off whatever recording he had playing up there but my moms hand seized the door knob before I even got close. She had a stern but frightened look in her eyes, one that made cold trickle down my spine. "This can't be real, Mom." I breathed.
She shook her head "I wish it wasn't. It's been calling me for an hour. Daniel, I thought it was you until you got home. I've been in here since before you got here, listening to it. It's trying to trick you."
I shook my head and sat down on the nearest box. "Mom this is crazy," I replied shortly. This didn't make much sense, but the terror in her eyes made it impossible not to believe her. I sighed. "We can't stay in here forever. If it's some really crafty burglar or something, we need something to defend ourself with." I pointed out.
She nodded "it's safer in the master bathroom, the door is much sturdier than this one." She mumbled, wringing her hands nervously.  I stood up and shouldered past her to put a shaky hand on the doorknob. I breathed a long exhale and then careful cracked open the door. Silence. I peeked one eye out of the crack, gazing into an ordinary empty hallway, the light still on.
"Hello," there, the voice eerily identical to my moms echoed from the entertainment room. After some hesitation, I poked my head out. The kitchen was at the opposite end of the long hall from where the stairs were, it wouldn't be hard to get to it. In the kitchen were plenty of cooking knives, all freshly sharpened from yesterday.
It would be a risky move but I was certain it was the right one. Our hallway stretched past the front door away from the stairs and opened up into the kitchen on one side, the living room on the other, and continued in another corridor to lead to the Master Bedroom. That was our safe zone. The door was a sturdy oak one that could probably hold back a bear to be honest. It had a lock on it too, which this closet didn't.
I slowly crept into the hallway, motioning for Mom to follow closely behind. Together we slunk into the kitchen and I opened up the knife cabinet. An array of hunting, skinning, cooking, and fillet knives dazzled in the bright sunlight streaming from the window. "Here ma," I handed my still shaken mother the biggest, sharpest of my fillet knives. It could cut anything like butter and it wasn't hard to handle. I took one of the large fancy butcher knives my mom got for cooking in one hand for myself. I hoped we wouldn't get close enough to the intruder -whoever it was- to have to use these, but it was better to be prepared.
As I closed the cabinet, a sing-song voice suddenly wafted down from the stairs.
My name. It made an icy feeling trail down my spine, and I shivered.
"Alright we need to hurry" I ordered, grabbing my mom's free hand and pulling her after me into the hall. My eyes wandered up to the room the thing had been hiding in only to see the door to the entertainment room was wide open.
I cursed under my breath "hurry let's go!" But just as my feet turned toward our goal of getting to the master bedroom and bath, something knocked on the front door from outside. It was a quick polite knock, and it made me freeze. Something was wrong, a deep sinking feeling in my gut. That thing could be anywhere in the house now, and I needed to make sure I wasn't opening the door to it if it had made it outside.
"Mom, I'll look. You stay here," I said, and crept toward the door. The knocking continued, still a polite knock and a pause in between. Could it be a neighbor? Maybe they could help us and call the police. I slunk closer and rested one hand on the door handle, leaning closer to peer through the peep hole. My eye nearly made it to the peephole when I stopped. What if they could see me?
"Daniel, Mama, can you open the door? It's freezing," Jake! My little brother! I turned the knob when an explosion of barks and growls erupted from behind me. Nearly soiling my pants I jumped out of the way as Muppet, our YorkiePoo, plowed toward the door barking and snapping. Then it dawned on me, as I saw our normally happy nervous dog now snapping viciously at the door: That's not Jake...
Angry, I pressed into the door and shouted
"Leave us alone! I don't know what kind of twisted practical joke you're playing but you better leave before I get out there!"
Suddenly something slammed --and I don't mean a shove, I mean this thing threw itself with all its might, not caring whether it hurt itself or not--into the door. The shock threw me away from the door and I landed on my butt. I cursed, snatching up Muppet and gathering the knife I had dropped. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the Master bathroom, mom in tow. Whatever it was had been strong, and I mean a couple more throws to the door, it would be inside kind of strong.
Another reverberating thud made the floor quiver under my feet just as we made it into the bathroom. I slammed the door shut, setting Muppet down. Mom sat on the edge of the tub, knife outstretched shakily. Her whole being was shaking, eyes wild from fear. Just as I twisted the lock and heard the click of security, there was a resounding CRACK and thud from the front room. Mom gasped and started shaking again, pointing her knife at the bathroom door.
It was inside.
"Momma! Mom! Where.. Are...you?" The sick thing, sounding just like my little brother, was sneaking closer. I could hear it. A horrible scraping, shuffling sound as if it were dragging its feet, came from the other side of the house as it investigated the kitchen searching for us. My breathing hitched, and I tightened my grip on the butcher knife.
"Where are you.... Where... Come back..." The voice was in the master bedroom door. Only a few steps and it would find us. I steadied myself and sat on the edge of the bathtub next to mom. We waited, complete silence except for the constant calling of the thing, whatever it was, searching the room outside. I put a finger over my lips gesturing for my shaking, near hysterical mom to remain quiet. Maybe it couldn't find us if we didn't make noise, perhaps the thing wouldn't think to check the closed door we were behind. Alright, that was wishful thinking, but it was the only thing we had to hold onto right now. The whole bathroom was in a thick, claustrophobic silence, I could barely even hear myself breathe. The thing had gone silent now, leaving an eerie, goosebump-inducing quiet throughout the whole house. My ears buzzed in the numbing void of soundlessness, like cotton was stuffed in them.
I was just standing up to pull Muppet into my arms, she was shivering and huddled next to the door, when she did the one thing I hadn't counted on.
She lifted her lips from her teeth, and barked. 
The sound broke the thick silence, making my gut sink. It didn't take long for a keening shriek to rip into the air from outside the room.