Night Terrors
Donald Henry couldn't sleep.

This was nothing new, Donald always had trouble sleeping. Because Donald was always worrying. This particular night he was worried about his trip out to Clayton tomorrow. He hated driving. People were such terrible drivers, why just the other day, someone, probably drunk, had nearly hit him. And now he had to drive three hours just to go to some lousy meeting that he didn't want to go to anyway. But thinking about the meeting just made him worry about his presentation that he had to give, so instead he returned to his thoughts about the lunatics who drove on today's highways.

And then something moved in the corner.

Donald sat up suddenly, and squinted staring at what caused the movement. But he couldn't focus on what it was. An indistinct shape, shifting, never able to focus onto one form. Then it looked at him. Its eyes glowed a bright white, like headlights. Like the headlights of a car rushing towards him. The eyes flared very brightly and he was suddenly in the passenger seat of a car looking through the windshield at an oncoming semi. In little more than a few seconds the semi and car would meet. Donald turned and looked at the driver. And saw himself. Donald stared at the driver that looked like him. He, the driver, was fast asleep at the wheel. Donald grabbed at him and yelled, trying to wake him up before he they hit the semi, but it was too late, and the truck's horn blared and they.

Donald was suddenly back in his bedroom. The thing that had been in the corner was still there, it hissed at him and crawled under the dresser, where it watched him. Donald shuddered, the dream had been so real. He clawed at the phone and called his work, and told them he would be unable to make the trip to Clayton tomorrow as he was very, very ill.

He hung up the phone, and looked towards where the thing watched him under his dresser. It's eyes stayed dark. And then it just seemed to fade back into the shadows. Donald jumped out of bed, and looked under his dresser fearfully. But there was no trace of whatever it was.

He went back to bed, and fell asleep watching where the thing had been.

Donald Henry still couldn't sleep.

It was a full twenty-four hours since the events of the night before. Donald had spent most of that morning crawling around on his bedroom floor looking for his night visitor, but couldn't find a trace of it. He spent the day puttering around the house wondering what it was. He finally decided that it had been a warning not to go to Clayton, and that he had been right not to go to work that day. That night he headed up to bed, after making another thorough search of his room. Poking into every nook and cranny. Only when he had searched the entire room five times did he decide that the room was free of invaders.

He crawled into bed, and tried to fall asleep.

But he didn 't. He lay there. Wondering. Worrying. And then the thing returned around two in the morning, but it looked slightly different. Taller maybe, blacker. Something about it had changed. Once more he found himself looking into its eyes, and watching the eyes change. However, this time they did not glow like headlights, but rather like the glint of sunlight off metal...

And once more he was where he wasn't supposed to be. He found himself walking down the street towards where his bus stop was. He couldn't stop walking or do anything but continue walking. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a man he often saw on his way to work. A homeless man who always had an edge to his eyes. Every day Donald passed him, and everyday the man glowered at him, but they never spoke to one another.

This time it was different. The man headed towards Donald. Sunlight glinted off something in his hand. A knife. "Give me your money. Now." the man's voice had the same edge as his eyes. Donald stepped backwards, and opened his mouth to say something, anything. The man suddenly lunged forward and Donald felt a piercing pain in his stomach before he was suddenly thrown violently back towards his bed at home.

Donald shivered violently, he had broken out into a sweat, and could do nothing more than sit there and tremble. The thing in the center of the room didn't move under the dresser as before, but merely stayed there watching him. Donald heard a noise coming from the ceiling. He looked up and saw a new creature hanging from the ceiling right above his bed. It opened its eyes. A bright red flashing light filled the room.

He was watching fire trucks parked around a smoldering wreck of a house. With a burst of fear he realized that it was his house. Against his will he moved to where a group of firemen stood talking with a paramedic. "Who was he?" one of the firemen asked. "Donald Henry," answered the paramedic, "looks like the smoke got him before he could get out. Any idea how it happened?"

"Yeah, looks like he left one of burners on, it was pouring gas into his home. It caught fire, and probably most of the first floor was burning before he woke up."

Donald again was turned against his will, and he saw the other paramedics loading a body into an ambulance. And he realized it was his body.

He was back in bed again. "What's happening to me?!" he yelled "Get out! Go away!" But the things paid no attention, but merely watched him with their now dark eyes. More movement in the corner. A third thing, like a large spider this time. "No, no, no," Donald just kept repeating the word as though hoping to fend off this new Terror. It's many eyes opened.

The next day Donald didn't go to work once again, but stayed at home, trying to sleep on the couch. But sleep still wouldn't come, but at least there weren't any creatures, no more worries, fears to gnaw at him.

Night came. He tossed and turned on the couch, and then froze when he saw the leg hooking over the armrest where his feet were. The leg had many joints, like a spider's leg. "No." Donald whispered. It poked its head over the edge of the chair as if it was playing a game of peek-a-boo. Another pulled itself along the floor with its front legs. Another crawled across the ceiling. More and more appeared, all of them pitch black, amorphous forms. And then they sat, waiting.

And then they opened their eyes.

Donald screamed.

Several days later the paramedics carried his body out to a waiting ambulance, and placed it inside. A police officer talked with the one of them. "Yeah, the next door neighbor said he was worried when he didn't see him, and came over to check on him."

"Looks like he just suffered a heart attack while asleep on the couch," said the EM.

"I wonder why he was on the couch."

"Dunno, maybe he couldn't sleep."

The paramedics got into the ambulance and drove off, leaving the officer to fill out the report.