Fear in the Dark, page 18
Nevertheless, Cam, Erin and Jean wandered down the narrow hall, walking away from the last light of the elevator until the door was completely shut behind them and the light had flurried away like a weak clover out in the harshest of all winds. The light was gone with a thud of the doors, yet a midnight glow still came down the hall to not leave it in complete darkness from the nearby windows.
But those windows were the only ones there, the rest of the hall was rid of windows... Just walls to keep them in the dark. Cam turned to Jean with a look of excitement upon his face in which she could barely see but stopped for.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you still have a lighter or a match?’ Jean chuffed a laugh for perhaps the very first time in her darkened life.
‘I hardly suppose that this is the time to light one up, Cam,’ she answered, half-jokingly and half knowing his intentions for the light. She wiped away her out of control lips and rummaged her hand into her trench-like jacket pocket to find the lighter. She pulled out a silver lighter, holding it up to her face then stretching it out in front of her with one roll of her thumb. A click sounded down the hall like a sonic boom, then a flame pultruded from the spark.
She stepped forwards, holding the lighter as if it were a miniscule torch with a bursting flame of fire which was in fiery by the splash of oil to keep it long lasting. The windows beside them showed that it was dark and that the last light in the sky was being overrun.
They had made it to the hospital and home, but there wasn’t much time left until it was completely dark. Jean moved ahead, holding the flame up to her cheek whilst she carried it along the dark hall.
She directed the only light towards the first door. The door was bulky, not even the nearby fire extinguisher could break it down if it had to be. Jean scuffed her shoes along the dry and clingy carpet, holding the flame up high to the door in which a label of a name was placed in a plastic slip at about Jeans head height. She put the light upon the black, capitalised lettering. She whispered aloud
– ‘Dr. Ruben Cobb.’ She turned back towards her friends with a hysterical smile, she had found the name amusing, but no one else had caught on. She had picked up a strange sense of humour throughout this entire crime. It was like the darkness had brought the light in her personality. She scuffed along down the hall again, spreading away the darkness as she walked deeper down it with her light, passing more sealed shut doors as she and her friends went by.
They supposed they were looking for the name which read Mr. Truman, but there was no such luck so far. Mrs. Earhart was before Mr. Groves, then after Mr. Groves was Miss. Evanston. Every door was like the one before it. They each had a name in the plastic slit, but not the name they were looking for.
‘Do you suppose he may be behind one of these doors?’ Jean asked.
‘I don’t suppose they would put their patients in dorms with the wrong name. Its a hospital and care home – there’s a system, surely,’ Cam responded as he continued to follow the light source, Erin clinging to his arm as they travelled further. The trio had almost ventured down the entire hall, passing every other name but the one that they were searching for and scrummaging deeper into the darkness of it.
Jean moved away from the centre path and towards the second last door. She looked up at the name in which read Mr. Reeves. In frustration, Jean firmly grasped the sliver door handle and pushed it up and down to try and open it. But there was no use, the door was locked just as all the others were.
The group were left with no choice but to circle to the final door at the end of the hall. Jean regathered herself in the centre of the path, striking the flame out in front of her to reveal the grey door. The name was too far to read until they had each stepped closer towards it. And to their surprise and saviour, they each looked up to the name in the plastic slit to see that it read clearly in the orange flame – WARD 16 MR. TRUMAN. Cams heart began to flutter as he walked up to it, he touched the grey door with a smile as he looked over at Jean.
‘Right down the end of the street, just like Zach's home,’ he stated with a sharp grin curling at the ends of his lips. It felt as if Mr. Truman was the only man left as his door was the one right in front of them. It was logic that everyone was thinking that didn’t quite make a whole lot of sense, yet it felt truthful.
Erin was behind them, she looked at the gap at the bottom of the door as she thought she had heard a click. She looked down to the gap at the bottom of the door to see that a light had come on, it wasn’t a bright light, but a dim one, very much like a dying fire.
‘Guys... look,’ she frantically said whilst tapping the shoulder of Cam.
‘He must be up still!’ said Cam. Suddenly, his hand rested upon the stiff door handle. He held it down and slowly put the strength in his arm down on it to hear a click.
The door was released of its mechanisms and a slight nudge was able to open it. The door opened gracefully with a slight squeak. Eventually, the door was open at its extent, letting the light from inside come down the hall and burn upon the faces of Cam, Jean and Erin.
They investigated the room, seeing as much as they were able until they stepped in. Cam was the first in, he stepped a little inside of the bright room and took a couple of steps forwards before halting. He looked over towards the side of the room, a large double bed was there, assorted with a blue and brown quilt that was made neatly as if no one had ever slept on it before. Beside it was a small drawer in which a lamp, a folded newspaper and an old alarm clock was resting upon the silk oak, draw top.
He travelled his eyes around the end of the tucked in bed to then see a man, sitting upon a rocking chair, looking at Cam and clutching an old photograph in his hands. He had barely an expression upon his face.
He should have been startled, but he wasn’t... it was as if he knew that they were coming and that he was ready for them to come in. Jean and Erin came up next to Cam, Erin faltering behind the pair and Jean snapping away her lighter as if it were an old and trustworthy flint knife.
The old man looked on at the trio over his foggy, large glasses, he spoke in a sobbed voice once they each tethered down and had stared for him long enough to force an exchange of words.
‘Who in the Wild West are you people?’ He spoke in a daggered voice and blushed his cheeks in frustration. The old man dropped his photograph into his lap, his flappy chin slowly regaining balance as his shaking demand was halted.
‘Mr. Truman?’ Cam asked, leaning in slightly. ‘Who wants to know?’ the grumpy old man gobbled.
‘You don’t know us... But we are here to try and get some answers about something we know you are not too comfortable to talk about,’ said Cam, stepping forwards even further as Mr. Truman squirmed to the very back of his chair to seemingly stay as far away as possible.
‘I know damn well what you are talking about boy! And you won’t get any answers from me! Just like those damn cops, or those damn rats that live on Chatnam. You know they chased me down with a shotgun one night because I wouldn’t tell them what killed their daughter some years ago! Damn hooligans should god damn know what the hell did it without me spelling it out to the damn fools... And so should you lot!’ Truman began to sweat, his rug upon his lap scrunching up as he tried to hop away. Suddenly, Erin stepped up to Cam.
‘We need your help, Mr. Truman, the creature is after us and is about to kill our friend and we need to find a way to kill it once and for all.’ The old man scrunched up his face as if the word “creature" was an omen – and that it was to the old town of Kersbrook and its people.
‘You kids are not from around here, are you? You dumb fools should have left long ago before you got yourselves in too deep.’ The man stopped, gripping his photo and looking down at it one more time.
‘You know that isn’t an option for us, Mr. Truman,’ answered Jean. Truman’s head was buried. The anger in his blushing cheeks and throbbing veins were soothing down as his head was buried to the picture a top of his lap. Amongst all the anger, amongst all of the fear... He thought he had heard a voice, a sweet and soft voice, calling out at him. He stared down at the picture with a tear coming out from his eye and down his wrinkly skin.
‘Who is that?’ who is that in the photograph?’ asked Jean as her eyes trained on it.
Mr. Truman quickly swatted the photograph away from her vison, pressing it up against his stomach and croaking up the tears from his eyes. He stumbled to answer, but he did so over a saddened voice.
‘That woman in the photo... that beautiful woman there, is my wife.’ Truman bended the photo back into his lap and away from his stomach to look at it again, relaxing to what they knew about it.
‘Let me refrain.’ He paused and spoke once more ‘That dear sweetheart right there, was my wife,’ he said with yet another waterfall of tears. Abruptly, his voice became much angrier, much more vicious as his memory was triggered back to damp and cloudy times.
‘That bloody nightmarish thing killed and ate my wife forty something years ago. I found her you know, hideously dismembered in our back garden, blood everywhere.
The image just hasn’t gone away yet... it’s still fresh in my mind – I’m only here cos they think I'm all insane. Well it’s not me who is the crazy one here let me tell you that.’ His voice began to calm down.
He painted the perfect picture of that horrific and tragic day, so much that Jean, Cam and Erin were able to clearly envision it.
‘There was pure agony in my darling’s eyes the next day when I found her body. There was so much blood!’ he cried out.
‘That thing... that lurks in the darkness took her from me! The “Nightmare” is what it is.’ He shouted, banging his hands upon the arm rests of the rocking chair. He hadn’t realised it, nor did he care anymore, but he had broken his silence.
He looked out of the window beside him, seeing that all light that was left in the skies was gone and the town had descended into darkness once more.
‘Dear god!’ he said, moving his startled face back towards the direction of the group.
‘It’s coming... Not just coming, but this time it is coming for me and you, and you and you! He pointed, trying to escape from his chair. But there was no use, he was practically glued to the thing as if he were made to sit in it all day.
‘Please! We have time Mr. Truman... We can kill this creature!’ Shouted Cam as he could feel it coming. Mr. Truman leaned into the group, his bald head shining in the buzzing light which went on and off as if the electricity was being tampered with.
‘The creature in which they call “The Nightmare" only comes out when the light is gone. It must be afraid of it or vulnerable to it,’ he viciously whispered to the close Cam. Truman began to ramble on as if the fear had got to him, the lights began to turn on and off more frequently and they began to stay off for even longer.
Cam stepped back, taking the others with him with his eagle like arms to drag them back. Mr. Truman was rambling, sticking to the chair and not being able to get out as he was stuck out in the shadows from where the light now did not venture in the room. Cam looked back at old man whom began to whinny and chuckle insanely as he knew that the creature was coming for him.
Cam had pushed himself and his friends into the opened bathroom in which the light inside was not affected by the supernatural powers of the nearing creature. Cam's attention was on Mr. Truman.
He feared for his life and felt sorry for leaving him there, helpless and virtually to bait the creature. The light in the room completely turned off, leaving the chuckling Truman to be out of sight with his insane and scared rambles. But, Cam was able to make out the last instructions that Mr. Truman spoke out clearly.
‘Do not go out at night! Do not go out at night.’
Chapter 14
Cam and his friends were safely under the radiant light of the bathroom, Erin and Jean clinging to his shielding body as he blocked out the vision of the darkness in front of them and Mr. Truman. He continued to shout whilst chuckling insanely as if there was nothing else for him to do. Death was coming and he welcomed it.
“Do not go out at night! Do not go out at night!” said the old man once more rambling on like a mad man. Perhaps the town were right... A mad man, greeting his incoming death with insane cackling – if only the town’s motto was more well known, yet there was no way to tell it without being on the creatures hit list.
Bashfully and out of nowhere, a flash of wind came down the hall in which they had just walked down. Cam and his friends could hear the doors that were sealed shut were flinging open then slamming shut over and over again like an out of time band.
The force that was coming was so strong that even Cam's hair started to wave in the winds which were emitted. Suddenly, an animalistic scream bellowed down the hall and echoed and a flash of a figure in the dark chased into the room and latched onto Mr. Truman. He remained in the seat, with the creature up on top of him, clawing away at his frail old body and digging its razor teeth into his leathery skin.
Truman screamed and rocked side to side as if he were in an electric chair and the electrical surges were channelling up his veins and shocking his nerves ... The creature had its way, holding him down into the chair and chewing away, bit by bit and there was nothing that the poor, weak old man could do.
Cam looked over the squirm of his pinching eyes. He didn’t want to, but he could not bear not to look in case the creature would now turn to him with its yellow, spiking eyes. He looked in the dark room to see nothing but a disturbance in the dark. Body parts and clothing were flung in the air and the screams and struggle of Mr. Truman had now disappeared and the wheezing whinnies of the “Nightmare” had simmered down to silence. The creature had killed him In it’s true form, rather than choosing a fear to fit the crime.
Cam could hear the spillage of blood which ran down from his neck and chest, it dripped to the carpet like a calm waterfall – yet there was no such vacancy for the word calm. Cam started to breathe heavily as he watched in the dark room for more movement. He could not see anything until the creature atop of Mr. Truman flared its dim, yellow and beady eyes towards Cam.
It lingered in the dark, realising that its next targets were safe by the bright light of the bathroom in which they were all salvaged in.
Suddenly and cunningly, the creature gazed up to the light, Cam only seeing the direction of its beady eyes in the mischief of the dark in which it lingered. The horrible, dark and leathery creature stared daggers straight at Cam after staring at the only thing keeping them safe. It stared at them with lust – and if he could see it in the light, perhaps an excited smile. It stared, egregiously luring at him as if he were next.
Cam felt the deep throb of his pounding heart, the splinters formed from his solid, cold blood jab into it as the creature slipped off the hideously dismembered body of Truman which was the creatures bloodied perch. It moved in the dark like a scent – a scent that could be seen by the murkiness of its textured skin and its peaking, yellow eyes.
It slithered among the floor, to them only raise back up to the eye level as if it were a folded out carpet in the wind. It continued to glare at the hunched Cam. Cam could hear the wheeze from Erin and Jean as they each cradled up behind him for protection. But the creature could not enter.
They were safe by the bathroom light above their heads, but again the creature looked at the bathroom light, callously. In its mind, conjured a plan to complete its dreadful deeds once more. It had a clever plan on its mind and it could sense that Cam knew what it was thinking.
It let out a screeching chirp that could shatter crystal, its teeth showing as white as pearls in the dark entrapment. It looked at the light bulb above the frightened group which clanged together. The creature looked at it as though it did to so many others in its reign about the town. Leisurely and tormentingly, the light bulb began to turn from its screw.
Without the use of hand, it turned as if the creature were using a telekinesis ability. Cam looked up to the slow spinning bulb, his mouth widened and his eyes glaring in desperation to try to stop it from turning. But it was too high up – there was nothing around to climb upon to grant him the reach that he needed. The light bulb leisurely turned all on it’s own like it was magic twisting it loose from it’s grooves, screeching as it did, slowly and easing as if it needed oil to aid it.
The light began to flicker on and off like a weak light post on a drizzly night down a lonely street, and the room became dim. The creatures eyes had twisted into something more sinister, but in desperation, Cam leaped up from his shielding crouch, his leg kicking up to the bathroom sink.
He pushed himself up with his own leg, finding such strength that he did not know he had he was up upon the sinks slippery bench, he leaned over to the centre of the room in which the bulb was hanging by its lasts curves to hold its screw.
Cam leaned his arm forward, as far as an eagles stretch to grasp the piping hot bulb. His finger tips wrapped around it, and eventually his body was leaning against the easily shattered bulb to keep his balance.
He held the heated bulb still, the twist disappearing and the creatures eyes churned to a vanquish anger that its process was formulated to reach an end by the wits of a teenager. Cam screwed the bulb back in, watching the creatures eyes.
He held it in his fingertips, holding his lean upon it, but shaking to the oppressed force as he did so. The brightness was restored and the creature slumbered back deeper into the room in which the spill of Mr. Truman’s leaking blood began to reek. Cam looked down at the shivering girls, trying to excuse the smell which waft up his nostrils and burned down his throat.
‘Are you ok?’ Cam asked, breathing heavily to his desperation and that Erin and Jean were safe for the night.
‘We can’t stay in here all night! We have to find a better place to hide out, you can’t hold that bulb from twisting all night long,’ replied Jean. Cam looked at the doorway of the next room in which the creature lingered somewhere in the dark in which they could not see. He searched around for it, wondering if it was indeed still there, but he could not spot the cat-like, yellow eyes darting around in the dark of the next room.
But those windows were the only ones there, the rest of the hall was rid of windows... Just walls to keep them in the dark. Cam turned to Jean with a look of excitement upon his face in which she could barely see but stopped for.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you still have a lighter or a match?’ Jean chuffed a laugh for perhaps the very first time in her darkened life.
‘I hardly suppose that this is the time to light one up, Cam,’ she answered, half-jokingly and half knowing his intentions for the light. She wiped away her out of control lips and rummaged her hand into her trench-like jacket pocket to find the lighter. She pulled out a silver lighter, holding it up to her face then stretching it out in front of her with one roll of her thumb. A click sounded down the hall like a sonic boom, then a flame pultruded from the spark.
She stepped forwards, holding the lighter as if it were a miniscule torch with a bursting flame of fire which was in fiery by the splash of oil to keep it long lasting. The windows beside them showed that it was dark and that the last light in the sky was being overrun.
They had made it to the hospital and home, but there wasn’t much time left until it was completely dark. Jean moved ahead, holding the flame up to her cheek whilst she carried it along the dark hall.
She directed the only light towards the first door. The door was bulky, not even the nearby fire extinguisher could break it down if it had to be. Jean scuffed her shoes along the dry and clingy carpet, holding the flame up high to the door in which a label of a name was placed in a plastic slip at about Jeans head height. She put the light upon the black, capitalised lettering. She whispered aloud
– ‘Dr. Ruben Cobb.’ She turned back towards her friends with a hysterical smile, she had found the name amusing, but no one else had caught on. She had picked up a strange sense of humour throughout this entire crime. It was like the darkness had brought the light in her personality. She scuffed along down the hall again, spreading away the darkness as she walked deeper down it with her light, passing more sealed shut doors as she and her friends went by.
They supposed they were looking for the name which read Mr. Truman, but there was no such luck so far. Mrs. Earhart was before Mr. Groves, then after Mr. Groves was Miss. Evanston. Every door was like the one before it. They each had a name in the plastic slit, but not the name they were looking for.
‘Do you suppose he may be behind one of these doors?’ Jean asked.
‘I don’t suppose they would put their patients in dorms with the wrong name. Its a hospital and care home – there’s a system, surely,’ Cam responded as he continued to follow the light source, Erin clinging to his arm as they travelled further. The trio had almost ventured down the entire hall, passing every other name but the one that they were searching for and scrummaging deeper into the darkness of it.
Jean moved away from the centre path and towards the second last door. She looked up at the name in which read Mr. Reeves. In frustration, Jean firmly grasped the sliver door handle and pushed it up and down to try and open it. But there was no use, the door was locked just as all the others were.
The group were left with no choice but to circle to the final door at the end of the hall. Jean regathered herself in the centre of the path, striking the flame out in front of her to reveal the grey door. The name was too far to read until they had each stepped closer towards it. And to their surprise and saviour, they each looked up to the name in the plastic slit to see that it read clearly in the orange flame – WARD 16 MR. TRUMAN. Cams heart began to flutter as he walked up to it, he touched the grey door with a smile as he looked over at Jean.
‘Right down the end of the street, just like Zach's home,’ he stated with a sharp grin curling at the ends of his lips. It felt as if Mr. Truman was the only man left as his door was the one right in front of them. It was logic that everyone was thinking that didn’t quite make a whole lot of sense, yet it felt truthful.
Erin was behind them, she looked at the gap at the bottom of the door as she thought she had heard a click. She looked down to the gap at the bottom of the door to see that a light had come on, it wasn’t a bright light, but a dim one, very much like a dying fire.
‘Guys... look,’ she frantically said whilst tapping the shoulder of Cam.
‘He must be up still!’ said Cam. Suddenly, his hand rested upon the stiff door handle. He held it down and slowly put the strength in his arm down on it to hear a click.
The door was released of its mechanisms and a slight nudge was able to open it. The door opened gracefully with a slight squeak. Eventually, the door was open at its extent, letting the light from inside come down the hall and burn upon the faces of Cam, Jean and Erin.
They investigated the room, seeing as much as they were able until they stepped in. Cam was the first in, he stepped a little inside of the bright room and took a couple of steps forwards before halting. He looked over towards the side of the room, a large double bed was there, assorted with a blue and brown quilt that was made neatly as if no one had ever slept on it before. Beside it was a small drawer in which a lamp, a folded newspaper and an old alarm clock was resting upon the silk oak, draw top.
He travelled his eyes around the end of the tucked in bed to then see a man, sitting upon a rocking chair, looking at Cam and clutching an old photograph in his hands. He had barely an expression upon his face.
He should have been startled, but he wasn’t... it was as if he knew that they were coming and that he was ready for them to come in. Jean and Erin came up next to Cam, Erin faltering behind the pair and Jean snapping away her lighter as if it were an old and trustworthy flint knife.
The old man looked on at the trio over his foggy, large glasses, he spoke in a sobbed voice once they each tethered down and had stared for him long enough to force an exchange of words.
‘Who in the Wild West are you people?’ He spoke in a daggered voice and blushed his cheeks in frustration. The old man dropped his photograph into his lap, his flappy chin slowly regaining balance as his shaking demand was halted.
‘Mr. Truman?’ Cam asked, leaning in slightly. ‘Who wants to know?’ the grumpy old man gobbled.
‘You don’t know us... But we are here to try and get some answers about something we know you are not too comfortable to talk about,’ said Cam, stepping forwards even further as Mr. Truman squirmed to the very back of his chair to seemingly stay as far away as possible.
‘I know damn well what you are talking about boy! And you won’t get any answers from me! Just like those damn cops, or those damn rats that live on Chatnam. You know they chased me down with a shotgun one night because I wouldn’t tell them what killed their daughter some years ago! Damn hooligans should god damn know what the hell did it without me spelling it out to the damn fools... And so should you lot!’ Truman began to sweat, his rug upon his lap scrunching up as he tried to hop away. Suddenly, Erin stepped up to Cam.
‘We need your help, Mr. Truman, the creature is after us and is about to kill our friend and we need to find a way to kill it once and for all.’ The old man scrunched up his face as if the word “creature" was an omen – and that it was to the old town of Kersbrook and its people.
‘You kids are not from around here, are you? You dumb fools should have left long ago before you got yourselves in too deep.’ The man stopped, gripping his photo and looking down at it one more time.
‘You know that isn’t an option for us, Mr. Truman,’ answered Jean. Truman’s head was buried. The anger in his blushing cheeks and throbbing veins were soothing down as his head was buried to the picture a top of his lap. Amongst all the anger, amongst all of the fear... He thought he had heard a voice, a sweet and soft voice, calling out at him. He stared down at the picture with a tear coming out from his eye and down his wrinkly skin.
‘Who is that?’ who is that in the photograph?’ asked Jean as her eyes trained on it.
Mr. Truman quickly swatted the photograph away from her vison, pressing it up against his stomach and croaking up the tears from his eyes. He stumbled to answer, but he did so over a saddened voice.
‘That woman in the photo... that beautiful woman there, is my wife.’ Truman bended the photo back into his lap and away from his stomach to look at it again, relaxing to what they knew about it.
‘Let me refrain.’ He paused and spoke once more ‘That dear sweetheart right there, was my wife,’ he said with yet another waterfall of tears. Abruptly, his voice became much angrier, much more vicious as his memory was triggered back to damp and cloudy times.
‘That bloody nightmarish thing killed and ate my wife forty something years ago. I found her you know, hideously dismembered in our back garden, blood everywhere.
The image just hasn’t gone away yet... it’s still fresh in my mind – I’m only here cos they think I'm all insane. Well it’s not me who is the crazy one here let me tell you that.’ His voice began to calm down.
He painted the perfect picture of that horrific and tragic day, so much that Jean, Cam and Erin were able to clearly envision it.
‘There was pure agony in my darling’s eyes the next day when I found her body. There was so much blood!’ he cried out.
‘That thing... that lurks in the darkness took her from me! The “Nightmare” is what it is.’ He shouted, banging his hands upon the arm rests of the rocking chair. He hadn’t realised it, nor did he care anymore, but he had broken his silence.
He looked out of the window beside him, seeing that all light that was left in the skies was gone and the town had descended into darkness once more.
‘Dear god!’ he said, moving his startled face back towards the direction of the group.
‘It’s coming... Not just coming, but this time it is coming for me and you, and you and you! He pointed, trying to escape from his chair. But there was no use, he was practically glued to the thing as if he were made to sit in it all day.
‘Please! We have time Mr. Truman... We can kill this creature!’ Shouted Cam as he could feel it coming. Mr. Truman leaned into the group, his bald head shining in the buzzing light which went on and off as if the electricity was being tampered with.
‘The creature in which they call “The Nightmare" only comes out when the light is gone. It must be afraid of it or vulnerable to it,’ he viciously whispered to the close Cam. Truman began to ramble on as if the fear had got to him, the lights began to turn on and off more frequently and they began to stay off for even longer.
Cam stepped back, taking the others with him with his eagle like arms to drag them back. Mr. Truman was rambling, sticking to the chair and not being able to get out as he was stuck out in the shadows from where the light now did not venture in the room. Cam looked back at old man whom began to whinny and chuckle insanely as he knew that the creature was coming for him.
Cam had pushed himself and his friends into the opened bathroom in which the light inside was not affected by the supernatural powers of the nearing creature. Cam's attention was on Mr. Truman.
He feared for his life and felt sorry for leaving him there, helpless and virtually to bait the creature. The light in the room completely turned off, leaving the chuckling Truman to be out of sight with his insane and scared rambles. But, Cam was able to make out the last instructions that Mr. Truman spoke out clearly.
‘Do not go out at night! Do not go out at night.’
Chapter 14
Cam and his friends were safely under the radiant light of the bathroom, Erin and Jean clinging to his shielding body as he blocked out the vision of the darkness in front of them and Mr. Truman. He continued to shout whilst chuckling insanely as if there was nothing else for him to do. Death was coming and he welcomed it.
“Do not go out at night! Do not go out at night!” said the old man once more rambling on like a mad man. Perhaps the town were right... A mad man, greeting his incoming death with insane cackling – if only the town’s motto was more well known, yet there was no way to tell it without being on the creatures hit list.
Bashfully and out of nowhere, a flash of wind came down the hall in which they had just walked down. Cam and his friends could hear the doors that were sealed shut were flinging open then slamming shut over and over again like an out of time band.
The force that was coming was so strong that even Cam's hair started to wave in the winds which were emitted. Suddenly, an animalistic scream bellowed down the hall and echoed and a flash of a figure in the dark chased into the room and latched onto Mr. Truman. He remained in the seat, with the creature up on top of him, clawing away at his frail old body and digging its razor teeth into his leathery skin.
Truman screamed and rocked side to side as if he were in an electric chair and the electrical surges were channelling up his veins and shocking his nerves ... The creature had its way, holding him down into the chair and chewing away, bit by bit and there was nothing that the poor, weak old man could do.
Cam looked over the squirm of his pinching eyes. He didn’t want to, but he could not bear not to look in case the creature would now turn to him with its yellow, spiking eyes. He looked in the dark room to see nothing but a disturbance in the dark. Body parts and clothing were flung in the air and the screams and struggle of Mr. Truman had now disappeared and the wheezing whinnies of the “Nightmare” had simmered down to silence. The creature had killed him In it’s true form, rather than choosing a fear to fit the crime.
Cam could hear the spillage of blood which ran down from his neck and chest, it dripped to the carpet like a calm waterfall – yet there was no such vacancy for the word calm. Cam started to breathe heavily as he watched in the dark room for more movement. He could not see anything until the creature atop of Mr. Truman flared its dim, yellow and beady eyes towards Cam.
It lingered in the dark, realising that its next targets were safe by the bright light of the bathroom in which they were all salvaged in.
Suddenly and cunningly, the creature gazed up to the light, Cam only seeing the direction of its beady eyes in the mischief of the dark in which it lingered. The horrible, dark and leathery creature stared daggers straight at Cam after staring at the only thing keeping them safe. It stared at them with lust – and if he could see it in the light, perhaps an excited smile. It stared, egregiously luring at him as if he were next.
Cam felt the deep throb of his pounding heart, the splinters formed from his solid, cold blood jab into it as the creature slipped off the hideously dismembered body of Truman which was the creatures bloodied perch. It moved in the dark like a scent – a scent that could be seen by the murkiness of its textured skin and its peaking, yellow eyes.
It slithered among the floor, to them only raise back up to the eye level as if it were a folded out carpet in the wind. It continued to glare at the hunched Cam. Cam could hear the wheeze from Erin and Jean as they each cradled up behind him for protection. But the creature could not enter.
They were safe by the bathroom light above their heads, but again the creature looked at the bathroom light, callously. In its mind, conjured a plan to complete its dreadful deeds once more. It had a clever plan on its mind and it could sense that Cam knew what it was thinking.
It let out a screeching chirp that could shatter crystal, its teeth showing as white as pearls in the dark entrapment. It looked at the light bulb above the frightened group which clanged together. The creature looked at it as though it did to so many others in its reign about the town. Leisurely and tormentingly, the light bulb began to turn from its screw.
Without the use of hand, it turned as if the creature were using a telekinesis ability. Cam looked up to the slow spinning bulb, his mouth widened and his eyes glaring in desperation to try to stop it from turning. But it was too high up – there was nothing around to climb upon to grant him the reach that he needed. The light bulb leisurely turned all on it’s own like it was magic twisting it loose from it’s grooves, screeching as it did, slowly and easing as if it needed oil to aid it.
The light began to flicker on and off like a weak light post on a drizzly night down a lonely street, and the room became dim. The creatures eyes had twisted into something more sinister, but in desperation, Cam leaped up from his shielding crouch, his leg kicking up to the bathroom sink.
He pushed himself up with his own leg, finding such strength that he did not know he had he was up upon the sinks slippery bench, he leaned over to the centre of the room in which the bulb was hanging by its lasts curves to hold its screw.
Cam leaned his arm forward, as far as an eagles stretch to grasp the piping hot bulb. His finger tips wrapped around it, and eventually his body was leaning against the easily shattered bulb to keep his balance.
He held the heated bulb still, the twist disappearing and the creatures eyes churned to a vanquish anger that its process was formulated to reach an end by the wits of a teenager. Cam screwed the bulb back in, watching the creatures eyes.
He held it in his fingertips, holding his lean upon it, but shaking to the oppressed force as he did so. The brightness was restored and the creature slumbered back deeper into the room in which the spill of Mr. Truman’s leaking blood began to reek. Cam looked down at the shivering girls, trying to excuse the smell which waft up his nostrils and burned down his throat.
‘Are you ok?’ Cam asked, breathing heavily to his desperation and that Erin and Jean were safe for the night.
‘We can’t stay in here all night! We have to find a better place to hide out, you can’t hold that bulb from twisting all night long,’ replied Jean. Cam looked at the doorway of the next room in which the creature lingered somewhere in the dark in which they could not see. He searched around for it, wondering if it was indeed still there, but he could not spot the cat-like, yellow eyes darting around in the dark of the next room.
