The Calling of Time

Ghosts in the Moonlight

The door wouldn’t hold up long under the crashing blows it was receiving, in fact, as I watched the middle of the door bowed inwards, warping under the strain. I backed up hastily, straight into a pile of boxes against the wall. There was nowhere to go.

Panic made my breath short and fast. Why did I think the attic was a good place to go? It was a terrible idea. I’d backed myself into a corner and made it easier for them to get to me. For a second I eyed the dusty window at the other end of the room. Was the idea of falling to my death more terrifying than the prospect of having my soul ripped from my body?

No. I turned toward the window at the same moment the door finally gave way, crashing inwards, splintering the wooden doorframe. The scythe came up automatically, wobbling in my shaking hands. I stared at the glittering blade that curved back towards me, fixed my eyes on it as my throat constricted and my mouth went dry. If I looked straight at the soul suckers I knew my body would seize up again, and I wouldn’t be able to move. Wouldn’t be able to breathe, or fight.

Even with my gaze locked firmly on the scythe, I could still see the black silhouettes in the doorway. The way they moved was jerky and sporadic. Surging forward and then dropping back, hunched together, sniffing the air. I knew they had picked up my scent, because their nostrils flared and their mouths hung agape. They had human shaped skulls, the soul suckers, with pointed ears and a pair of nostrils in the center of their faces. Their mouths were unnaturally large, lipless, a ring of sharp teeth circled just inside the gap. Cavern-like mouths.

All the better to suck out your soul with, my dear.

I realized it was too late. My gaze was drawn to them and I couldn’t look away. My bones felt frozen, brittle and ready to crack. Any minute I would fly to pieces, explode like heated glass.

                They have no eyes.

I’d hidden in this same attic and watched them take my parents. It had been so fast. I hadn’t paid close attention to the creature’s faces. Fixating on my parents, paralyzed by their screams. But the soul suckers drew my attention now, and held it.

They crouched on scrawny hind legs, snuffling and snorting, hesitating. I stared at them with the kind of morbid fascination usually reserved for things like car crashes. I knew I was about to die, but for some reason I wanted to study them, to see what they really looked like, even through the thick haze of fear.

The reporters had speculated they might be some kind of evolutionary fluke, a “freak of nature”. Some kind of mutation that had occurred in…what, dogs? Ridiculous.

We all knew it was ridiculous, but we’d gone along with it because the only alternative was something far more disturbing.

Now they were right here in front of me, and it was so obvious. These things weren’t any kind of mutated earth creature. They didn’t belong here.

The nearest soul sucker limped forward, and the rest fanned out behind it. It turned my stomach to see them acting like some kind of organized pack. It meant they were at least marginally intelligent.                 The creature opened its cavernous mouth, and I jumped as it screeched. A high pitched cross between a woman’s quavering scream and nails on a blackboard. It was a noise I’d heard echoed outside the safety of home until now, and it had always sent a chill through me. Now I was hearing it up close.

My entire body was shaking. 

It moved, faster than I’d anticipated, ducking under the scythe, batting at me with long, thin arms. I shrieked as it hit me in the gut, sending me backwards over the boxes. The scythe clattered to the floor, and I hit the wall, cracking my head painfully and knocking my elbow so hard it went numb. The soul sucker towered over me, and I found myself staring into the abyss of its mouth, breathing in the stench of rot. It still had blood in its teeth.