Synopsis: I've just moved into my new apartment and my two best friends are staying the night. I head to the kitchen to get some drinks for us, but I don't know it we'll ever actually get to drink them. (Written 2009)

There’s Something in the Kitchen

The tile feels frigid on my bare feet as I step into the kitchen and flick the light on, but I ignore it for the most part. I walk to the cupboard, opening the glass-fronted contraption to get at the cups within it. After it squeaks open, I pull down three cups; one for myself, one for Jess and the other for Becca, both of whom are spending the night at my place. I just moved out of the house the other day and am now living in a new apartment. Well, one that’s new to me anyway. The building itself is already a few months old.

I give the cupboard door a little push and let it bang shut as I line the plastic cups on the counter beside the fridge. Already it, the fridge, is littered with magnets and pictures that make me smile and that remind me of fun times. The kitchen was one of the first areas that I unpacked and set up because I like my kitchen-space just so. I refuse to work in a messy kitchen.

Cups in place, I reach for the handle on the refrigerator door. When I pull on it, however, it only opens a bit before shutting again. Not thinking much of it, since I had let go after the initial pull, I try again. Holding onto it this time, I pull on the handle with my right hand, but even as I keep my grip firmly on the handle, I feel the door being pulled shut.

“What is the matter with this thing?” I mutter to no one in particular as I give it a perplexed look. Determined, I pull again; this time it doesn’t even budge. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Ag-

I quickly let go of it this time, startled as I feel the handle vibrate. I stare at it a moment and wonder if the motor is just kicking in or something, but the only sound coming from it is the sound of the vibrations. Puzzled, I lean over the counter to try and get a look behind it. Nothing in view, so I lean over a little more and now I hear the contents in the fridge starting to shake.

Glass clatters against glass. Metal against metal. I can hear the fruits and vegetables rumbling around in the crisper and multiple boxes of frozen edibles bumping up in the top freezer. I back away promptly, wide-eyed and wondering if I’ve gone nuts.

“Hey, what’s happening in there?” Jess’ voice calls from the living room. I hear her and Becca stir to come and see what the noise is.

The two brunettes’ footsteps are quick as they come around the corner into the kitchen and I look over at them when they step into the room. I see their eyes roam from my frozen, pyjama-clad form to the rumbling, shaking appliance. The sound of it mutes us all for what seems a long moment.

“AH!” we all scream as the light in the kitchen shuts off and the noise stops.

“What was that?” Becca inquires in the new darkness, her voice trembling as I imagine her form is.

As my eyes adjust, I find they’ve returned their focus on the fridge. “You think I know?” I stare hard at the object, as if it would reveal some answer.

“You should!” she declares irrationally.

I hear someone, probably Jess, flicking the light switch over and over. Satisfied that it’s really out, she leaves it be and stands in the doorway. I can just make out her form a bit from the streetlights filtering in from down the hall.

“Now what do we do?” Jess sighs. “My guess is there was a power surge.”

“Do those even work like that?” I ask in reference to how whatever has just happened effected the refrigerator.

“Beats me.” I think I see her shrug.

“I have some flashlights in the drawer by the door there,” I tell her and I hear her begin to open the drawer.

A bang makes us all jump again and lodges screams into our throats. I whirl towards the other side of the room, where I see a tin of cookies that I left of the counter has fallen to the tiled floor. This is followed by the click of the microwave door being opened, at which point a cold chill takes me.

I suddenly feel my feet drawing me backwards, towards my friends by the doorway. The lights begin to return a bit, not enough to see the whole room entirely, but enough to make things out more.

“The—” Becca can’t bring herself to complete her sentence, but Jess and I nod in fearful understanding.

What we’re staring at is the microwave door swinging back and forth on its hinges. Every once in a while, it comes close to shutting, but then quickly swings back out again all on its own. We jump, the sound and sight of it slamming shut sharp in our perception. Yet, even in our terror, we find that none of us are making to move. The words of escape don’t even pass our lips.

The cookie tin shoots across the floor and the racket of metal scraping and bumping against the crevices of the floor seems astronomically loud in the silent apartment. It disappears under a shelf, where I hear it bang against the moulding and stop.

I feel Jess’ long nails dig into my arm and I turn my attention to where she is looking. The magnets, the pictures, everything attached to the front of my fridge is sliding slowly to the floor. My smiling parents and their Doberman, Harper, slide down the white front before meeting the floor like a rock meeting concrete after a high plunge. Soon to follow is my older sister and her boyfriend at a resort in Cuba, and everyone and everything else that inhabited the front of my refrigerator.

Only when the refrigerator is stripped bare does it start its rumbling again. Then, the door begins to swing open, much like the microwave door had, but it doesn’t swing shut at all. Instead, it just takes its swing and stays open, the light from within the appliance pouring out onto the floor.

“What—” Becca starts again as everything falls still. Yet, she can’t complete this sentence either, cut off by the crisper drawers flying out of the fridge and crashing into the opposite wall.

A terrified numbness takes hold of me entirely now and I’m sure the others feel it, too. The crack of the plastic drawers rings in my ears and the contents can be seen rolling across the floor. Apples, oranges, carrots, cucumbers and whatever else I had in there clutter the floor space. The rest of the contents begin their rumbling and clattering again.

We all draw even closer to each other when a shadow begins to smother the light. The glow vanishing beyond the open door becomes apparent and I point frantically when I see this shadow step down onto the tile itself. For the first time, we try to back away, but just as we’re about to turn around, we freeze.

A bout of laughter echoes in the hallway. Stalk-still in the otherwise silence, we listen for it to return. My focus, at least, goes blurry as I concentrate more on the sound than the coming shadow. The light continues to fade from beyond the door of the fridge, but I don’t want to be attacked from behind. I try to turn us all sideways so that we have a clear view of both the hallway and the fridge area, and with effort I manage to move my statue-friends.

A shadow has also shrouded what little light was in the hallway. There are no sounds of footsteps, but from the way a fraction of the light reappears every few seconds or so, I gather that whatever-it-is is walking towards us.

Another laugh surrounds us as the fridge door slams shut and all the lights dim more. I can feel both of my friends trembling at my sides and I’m sure they can feel the reverberations my body is making too. I close my eyes tight.

Moments after I have though, my friends’ screams rupture as I feel them being pulled away from me. My eyes fly open and I try to grab for each of them, but there is nothing there. In that fraction of a second, I am left alone in my kitchen. I whip around in a circle, looking for them frenetically.

“Guys?!” I manage with a cracking voice, the images of the scattered produce, photos and magnets blurred in my spinning vision. They’re both nowhere to be found and the shadows have vanished as well. Panicked, I back myself against the wall, slipping down to the floor in a crouch. I feel my hot, erratic breath in my hands when I cover my face and soon feel tears soaking my eyelashes.

I start when I hear the same laugh again; masculine in nature and nearer this time. I look up from my hands and see that all light has extinguished around me. My eyes begin to adjust in the darkness again, but before they get a chance, I feel a hand cover my eyes. I scream and try to push away, but there’s nothing to push. Despite the tangibility of the hand on my face, the form it’s attached to seems intangible, unless I’m just missing it entirely.

“No! Get off!” I flail, kicking my legs out now to no avail.

I stop entirely when I hear the laugh right by my ear, the nonexistent breath causing chills to run down my spine and a fraction of a second later, my senses die.

END