"What happened? Was that a scream?" Her speech was sluggish. She struggled to open her eyes... one at a time. Her body rebelled against the effort.
A blurry glow from the window, distant and unfocused. She rolled toward the light, each movement slow and ponderous, the exertion threatened to pull her back into the shroud of sleep. A veil of sleep... of mourning... her thoughts drifted...
There had been a sound. A screeching wail. Piercing and immediate. Now a distant memory. And her own voice had asked him what the noise had been. She dreamed of darkness. A voice pleading.
I didn't see anything.
Visions of hands fumbling in the night. A shimmer of light on steel. The echo of metal clanging on pavement, hastily abandoned at the shrill cry.
The burnt-orange hue of the sodium arc lamps shone through the naked window. Frost on the windowsill. Lace curtains pushed to the side. His murky silhouette blinking in and out of existence as she fought to stay conscious. He stood like a specter. A silent sentinel, inky black against the dim light. Somewhere in the distance, the dull thump of a car trunk, then a muffled rhythmic pounding.
She thought to ask him what he saw. The words still forming in her mind, drawing breath, beginning to speak, "What..." when she remembered that she lived alone.
"Who are you?" she whispered in the dark. Skin now glistening with cold sweat.
Death.
No sound to hear, the words echoed only in her mind. Frozen. Ice. Death... Paralyzed with fear. Breath held tightly. The shadow man wavered as words formed in her half-dreaming consciousness. Like the buzzing of a hive. The grit of sandpaper polishing the inside of her skull.
Death awaits...
She recoiled, frantically pushing away the tangle of cotton and polyester that coiled around her. Stumbling out of bed, she scrambled to the door. Unsteady, wobbling. Heart beating in her throat.
Bare feet slapped on stone tile. Ungainly... lurching, she fought to escape from her trance and run. Nightgown swirling behind her. The hallway seemed to extend and twist. A glowing exit sign swayed in front of her. Demonic red, with that unearthly buzzing sound, sweeping left and then right in her vision with each heavy step.
Stairs spiraled downwards into the abyss below. Her hand blindly grasped the cold steel of the handrail.
Like a cluster of spiders crawling down her spine. She sensed black wings of smoke unfurling behind her. Faster! She dashed, half-falling, down the stairs.
Another exit sign beckoned above the portal to her freedom. The pulsing sound of its ungodly hum reached into her head, scratching behind her eyes, as she heard his voice, its voice, again.
Death awaits outside.
Her hands finally on the crash bar, she leaned into the impossibly heavy door. Burst out into the frigid air. Gasping, shivering, night air stinging her lungs, she sank to her knees in the parking lot.
The sudden thud of a car trunk slamming shut demanded her attention. Her head snapped up and she saw a man, a real flesh and blood human man, starring at her with a look of surprise and horror. Her eyes were drawn down to the glint of the knife clutched tightly in his hand.
"You didn't see anything," he said. His voice a low growl, as the look of shock melted from his visage to be replaced by grim determination. He advanced on her slowly.
Her head shook in bewildered assent.
"I didn't see anything." She agreed in a hushed undertone... barely a sigh.
Behind the steadily approaching man, she saw a rising column of dense velvet gloom, an angel of death, eyes glowing with a sickly orange light. An unfathomable black hole which threatened to pull her into its chilling void.
She stood and screamed, a wretched screeching, a piercing wail. At the sound, the man quickened his pace and swiftly stabbed her in the chest.
Stars spun above her. The warm sticky feeling of blood on her fingers as her assailant pulled out the knife, and her hands clutched absently at the wound. The familiar clanging note as the carelessly abandoned weapon struck the damp pavement.
Dizzy. Not remembering how to fall. Dimly she heard the scratching of a key in the lock. Felt weightlessness as the man lifted her into the trunk's silent black interior.
She rolled toward the light. Leering behind the man, she saw the devil's wings spread out, blotting out the stars, its eyes glowing brighter until its form faded away, leaving only the rust-colored street lamp. Its unholy glow shining down on her as the trunk lid closed.
She lay completely alone. Warmth drained from her with each heartbeat. Enveloped in darkness. Nothing but that dreadful unearthly buzz of the street light, the muffled rhythmic pounding of her fists against the lid of her metal coffin, and the echo of her scream burning in her ears as she faded away.
