He drew a hard breath and pulled his knees to his chest, hoped he would be out of her sight should her eyes open. He held his breath painfully, his vision seeming to ripple with each weighty pulse that passed through him. She was mumbling now. In her sleep, he hoped. Mumbles became whispers. He listened intently as he realized with horror that the gun still lay upon the floor by his side.
He trained his ear on the whispers from the bed. It was confused, hypnopompic stuff, unintelligible in its nature and made more so by the bundle of sheets that still seemed to be cover her face. He seized the opportunity, threw out a hand and grasped the gun in a palm turned slick with nervous sweat. He dropped a leg straight. He reengaged the pistol's safety, tugged the waistband of his pants and pushed the barrel of the weapon down by his leg. The actions took only a second, but now he could hear the sounds of the sheets as she clawed them from her face, impatient in her semi-sleep. He pulled his legs back to his chest, the barrel of the pistol embedded itself painfully in his thigh.
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and awaited the cries of shock that would come when she saw the legs of the stranger extending past her bedside cabinet. He tried desperately to dam the wild current of thoughts coursing through him for long enough to formulate some form of excuse that would not be too heavily scrutinized, at least until morning, if it were in fact to come for them.
He held his mouth agape, channeling his breaths through it in low, slow expulsions, avoiding the whistle of partially occluded nostrils. There was silence. The mumbling had stopped, as had the thrashing of the sheets being pulled from her face. He closed his eyes, tried to focus every piece of his consciousness upon his hearing. Nothing. A board creaked somewhere upstairs. A faint calling of the wind reached the downstairs room. Then nothing other than the faint buzzing he heard within his own ears. Had she slipped back into sleep?
"What is it, Darling?"
Her voice. Clear now, unimpeded by the bed linens. He felt suddenly ill. Had she seen him? How to explain his presence? What if she saw the gun?
"Hmm? I don't understand?"
Christ. She had seen him. He hugged the book and his legs close to his chest, dropped his eyes to the floor. What was he to say? He opened his mouth to speak, still unsure of what words were to come.
"Eh? What are you pointing to?"
He froze, barely maintaining his silence. A fresh surge of adrenaline sent his heart racing, his vision quaking. He heard fresh movement of the bedsheets.
"What? This? What do you want me to do with it?"
She had not seen him after all. Either she was talking in her sleep or she had awoken to some imagined nighttime conversation with the child. With any luck, it would be the former and he would soon hear her muddled conversation deteriorate into fresh snores, allowing him to escape to the upper floor.
"But we only just bought him. You want me to throw him out?"
Silence. Nothing to fill it but the sound of his pulse in his ears.
"Okay. Looks like you are sleeping on the floor my friend."
And then, a dull thud as something struck the floor inches from his feet and rolled slowly to rest at his side. Its black, gleaming eyes sat motionless and seemingly fixed upon his own widening eyes.
It was the toy she had bought in the old store in town.
A bird.
A bright red stuffed bird.
YOU ARE READING
Song, Unheard
Horror***Featured in Fright Profile*** Life has been different lately. She feels a growing sense of dread and wishes for things to be normal. His drinking is out of control. The child seems frightened and withdrawn. And then come the birds. Strange b...
