The Confluence

The Confluence Part VII

VII

Suzie was lying down on her bed, staring up at the Blue Oyster Cult poster she had above her bed, holding a bag of frozen peas on her left eye. She had been crying for hours, and her whole face felt swollen. Frank had been drunk even when he picked her up from the police station. The whole car ride home had been deadly silent, and it terrified Suzie. He only got quiet when he was mad. And when he was mad he let his fists do all the talking. They had barely walked into the house when he turned her around and punched her right in the eye. Suzie had cried out and fell to the floor, and saw her mother grab her younger brother off the living room floor and hustled him off to her and Frank's room and then slammed the door.

She turned her gaze back at her father, who loomed above her, darkening the entrance hall with his presence. He didn't move, didn't speak. So she spat right in his face. "Fuck off, freak." She hissed at him. He wiped her spit off with his left hand, and then with terrifying speed, he slapped her with his right. Her face stung, and tears were already flowing. He stepped over her, while making sure to dig the toe of his boot deep into her side between ribs and hip. Suzie groaned and tried curling up into a ball, but Frank snatched his hand around her wrist and literally dragged her, crying, into her room. He tossed her in and then slammed her door. Frank had made sure to install a lock on the outside of her door, and he slammed the deadbolt in with grim finality. Suzie, heaving with sobs, crawled onto her bed, and screamed into her pillow for a solid five minutes. She didn't want to see, didn't want to hear. She wanted none of this shit.

It was a few hours later, and night had fallen. She had put on a record about an hour ago, but now it just spun on in crackly silence, a reflection of how she felt. Empty and silent. She felt powerless and she hated that feeling with every fiber of her being. She felt broken, and all the hate and rage was pouring through the cracks. She lay on her bed, face prickly and wet from the crying. Suzie heard something stealthily scratching and tapping at her window. Thinking it might be Johnny, she crawled up to the window next to her bed. She drew the curtains back and revealed nothing. Just empty black space. "What... Where...?" Suzie gazed out into the void outside her window. Their neighbors' place, which was usually lit up, was gone. She leaned her head against the window, trying to look out into the street, but there was no street to see, no street lamps, nothing. She started backing away from the window, every muscle ready to bolt, her mind a storm of confusion. She let the curtains fall back against the window as she scooted back up onto her bed, holding her knees. Just as she was starting to relax, there was another light tap on the window. It was so quiet in the house that the light tap seemed to magnify in the silence. Suzie tried ignoring it, but the tap came again. Louder, this time. Suzie shut her eyes, and put her hands on her ears. Yet still, she could hear the tapping. The tapping started coming faster and faster, until it was scratching at her window, sharp nails grating against the glass.

She couldn't take it anymore. She got up, threw the curtains open and screamed "What the hell do you... huh?" Again, there was nothing. No houses nearby, no street lights, just darkness. Out of the empty dark, a large, gnarled, pale hand slapped against the window, and with large black nails dragged down against the pane, leaving deep grooves in the glass. Suzie screamed, her hands reaching for her face as she watched more of the monstrous hands grasping at the window, tapping and scratching, trying to find a way in. She was still screaming as pale, humanoid silhouettes started forming in the dark. They drew close, drawn by the screaming. They had no faces, just pallid grey skin and black holes where they should've had faces. They moved silently, and soon, the entire window was covered by their grasping, unnaturally long three fingered hands, and Suzie watched the glass shatter, and screams entered into this shrill howl as her eyes fluttered open and with a sharp gasp, she was awake. Cold sweat dripped off her body, and she was gasping for breath.

The memories of the nightmare were already fading away, but she remembered that something was wrong with the window, and that they wanted in. Suzie groggily got onto her knees, and went to the window and lifted the drapes. The entire house heard her screams. Her mother, who was the only one home, rushed to her room and, after unlocking the dead bolt, found Suzie cowering in the corner of her room as far as she could get from the window. She had torn down the curtains in her panic and was crying into her hands. Suzie's mom looked at the window and felt some kind of involuntary reaction of nausea at the weird markings all over the window. It was as if some kind of sharp clawed animal had been scratching at her window. She turned to her daughter who was getting hysterical, and went to comfort her as best as she could.

It was Sunday, and already the news was babbling about the new detective and how he caught and killed the maniac who had chopped up that poor old man. For some reason, nobody seemed to notice or mention a young man who went missing, a police officer named Tyler Walker who was last seen with Detective Stein. Nobody saw the sheriff meet Tyler's widow, with their newborn son on her shoulder, and pass her a small manila envelope with a thin lipped smile, with a light whisper of "Forget about him."