Click Click Click

It was a dark and lonely night… OK… it was a dark and dueling night. There were… signs. Signs of something to come, but… it never did. I remember sleeping… I was on an old, large… couch, overstuffed with the feeling of the grim. As I sank away, hidden in the mounds of pillow fort leftovers and tapestries, I dreamt of yore. For some reason, my childhood floated about in my head, never settling on [any subject in particular] the subject, but noticed it was my teen years that called from beyond. As I dreamed and sank, and dreamed and sank, I began to feel the wind change. I stirred. Awake, I believed… yes, there was a soft scratching beyond the window that floated to my right. Just a light tapping. I did not feel any panic worth of note. No. I felt calm and just simply… alive. As I tucked myself back into the sinking sofa, I heard it again.

Tap tap tap.

This was an organized rapping. My eyes flung open like a raven searching for prey. Black and observant. But nothing. There was wind… was there wind? All of a sudden something stirred in me, a hot fire. Straight up, I sat and I pushed my sister awake. And there it was!

I looked into the shadows. Just wind and trees. Nothing of noticeable consequence. Window after window, there was no being, no fox, no… no, nothing that I could dreadfully report of. But I knew something was too … equal, in the tapping. It wasn’t anything. It was someone. But who? 

By this time I was clearly up – I was walking without thinking I cleared the stuffings and bedding and the giant windows… I stared. And I stared. And I was reaching for something, my phone. THERE IT WAS AGAIN.

This time, the sound was furious – like a warning. Loud. High. Fast.

CLINK!CLINK!CLINK!

I was on the phone by this time – it rang, but no answer. It rang again.

... Do I call the police?... I stare. Still nothing… no shadow, of a body, no movement of consequence that I could define. One sound was to my right… The next sound was to my left. 

I AM in the middle. You can see me from every window now – I am the prey. There is a giant glass window, perched in the dining room – it is as large as it is tall – 7 ft I suspect. It is behind me… I can’t see it right now.

A voice… 

Is there someone else here? 

Well… what do you think?

… I’ll call one more time….

A voice…. Mom, there is someone outside, they are tapping on the window as if to warn someone inside to leave. I don’t think I am alone. 

Tap Tap Tap

My mom is at the back door… 

Did you see anything?

It was probably the fox that lives next door.

I went back to sleep and dreamed about high school, hoping to be alone once more.