Writing Up A Storm

The computer screen she sat in front of was the only light in the room, casting an artificial glow on the umbra-soaked walls. It set her features in stark contrast; black, white, black, white. Her shadow seemed to loom over her, like a ghost ready to break through the thin barrier of an unknown plain to possess a feeble mortal like herself. Eerie music from her headphones made their way slowly into one ear and out the other, only stopping a moment to lend some inspiration as she typed away on her WordPad. The Courier font was starting to hurt her eyes, but she was in too deep to realize she should probably change it. She was “in the zone”, as her mom would say. Nothing could get her out of it without considerable prodding and nagging. Any crook, jail-bird, thug, hell, even serial killer, could break into her house and she wouldn’t know it until a hand clasped over her mouth from behind.

But the lightning. It flashed every few seconds, crackling the air, followed closely and without fail by a rumble of thunder so loud that she heard it past her headphones. She’d been startled by it aggravatingly often in the past minutes. She glanced at her computer clock, and started. Not minutes; hours. The rain that had driven her inside to her close friend had not relented for hours. It drove against the windows with enough force to leak through the cracks around the windowsill and onto her carpet below her desk. Her toes were soaking wet and about to freeze off, but she refused to get up to put on slippers, afraid her inspiration would run out of the room like a hounded rabbit, flashing its white tail like a flashlight in defiance. She could almost imagine its grin, both the rabbit’s and the inspiration’s, whispering you can’t catch me.

So she stayed, bearing the hunger, bearing the cold, bearing the exhaustion. This story would be it. Just one more word, she thought. Then I’ll go to bed.

Lightning flashed. She bolted, then rolled her eyes like she did, quite often, behind her parents’ back. She glanced lazily to the window, annoyed at herself for flinching. But she jerked backwards, her chair wobbling dangerously on two legs. The rain was different. It no longer splattered; it licked onto the window. It no longer flowed down; it slid down on the other side of the glass. Lightning cracked again, lending its momentary brilliance to the room. The rain was red. Blood-red. She shook her head and closed her eyes, tightly. A shiver flowed down her body, like ice cold water, from her neck over her shoulder blades and to her sides, ending at her thighs. She tentatively opened one eye, afraid of what she would see; what she would feel.

Nothing. The rain was just that: rain.

Damn Stephen King books, she thought, settling herself more comfortably into her chair, the rough fabric snagging at her sweat pants.

She typed another sentence and shifted position again. Is my chair deliberately becoming more uncomfortable? It tugged on her sweat pants with subtle… intent. She glanced down quickly from the screen; a scream froze in her throat. Four skeletal claws were clamped onto the side of the chair. She jerked up, but another hand appeared from the other side and grabbed onto her wrist. The steel grip did not relent. The rotting flesh lay inconsistently on the star-white bones. Whimpering in fear, she tugging on her hand. To her shaky surprise, it let her go, and she fell backwards next to her bed. Her breathing was as fast as the speed of her heart. The hands had gone. She laid her head onto her carpet and closed her eyes. I’m hallucinating, she thought. I have to be. This is not real.

A rustle sounded close by. Something breathed into her ear. No matter her beating heart, ignore it, she thought to herself. It’s not real.

The glistening red eyes beneath her bed that she refused to see moved backwards into the darkness and disappeared.

Never opening her eyes, she stumbled back to her chair and placed her fingers on the keyboard. The feeling of the warm keys beneath her hands reassured her. Her headphones bumped softly against her legs, dangling from the computer and sending out ghostly tunes.

She opened her eyes to see the computer’s dark blue screensaver sending back a reflection from behind her. A very large shadow.

A cold hand landed on her shoulder, an omen and a poison; it stopped her heart. Without thinking, she jumped up with a screech, her recently acquired stability blown to smithereens. Her head tolled in confusion as she rolled to a dark wall of her room.

The dark entity moved closer, and the cornered girl yammered softly. A shadow of a hand rose up like an ax, come to make the lethal cut. The girl closed her eyes. A click; was it going to shoot her? But the inside of her eyelids instantly became red, and when she opened her eyes, her mom stood before her under the overhanging lamp, smiling down at her. She laughed softly and clicked her tongue when thunder rumbled.

“I’ve heard about writing up a storm, but this is just ridiculous…”