Running From Darkness

Scream

James ran to the door of the apartment complex. His mum lived in a huge building that dominated the London skyline. It was 150 stories high and 4 apartments wide. It was a very imposing structure with its rough grey stone construction. He shoved one of his keys into the lock and twisted it until he heard the customary click that meant the door was unlocked. He pushed open the varnished wood, careful not to blow this to smithereens as well. He slammed the door shut behind him and raced up the stairs, not bothering with the escalator that he knew was faulty and would always stick in the shaft. He got to the door of his mum's third story apartment and his keychain jingled as he tried to find the correct key. To his surprise, his mother opened the door and smiled at him.
"Hiya James! How are you?" She asked him in a jolly tone of voice, although it seemed slightly forced.
"Hi mum," James' said warily. His mother was never home before 6 and her being here was fishy to say the least. "What are you doing back?"
"Oh, you know," she said, obviously trying to avoid the subject, "come in, I'll put the kettle on!"
" I can't really stay mum," he called to her. He knew that something was definitely wrong. His REAL mother would have bombarded him with questions about why he wasn't at school and, his mother absolutely hated tea! She'd despised the stuff ever since she was a child. He decided to proceed with caution.
"Why ever not dear?" she yelled from the kitchen.
"I'm going out with my friends," he replied, furiously packing 4 bags with all of the stuff they might need for months of being alone together.
"But darling, I have a present for you," his mother purred, having suddenly appeared at the door. Her hands were behind her back. That couldn't have been a good sign.
"I really need to go mum, my friends are waiting for me," he mumbled as he pushed his way past into the living room with the 4 bags found across his back. The living room was the nicest room in the apartment. It had a floor to ceiling window behind him and some plush sofas with a variety of cushions scattered across them facing a 36" Panasonic flat screen TV.
"No," his 'mother' growled. But now her voice seemed to be layered with others, all interwoven and overlapping. She took her hands out from behind her back and revealed a long, serrated kitchen knife clutched in her suddenly grey-skinned hands.
"Mum?" he asked in a last ditch effort to see if this was all some elaborate prank to fool him. The monster before him, that was slowly changing from his mother to a grey-skinned beast with pointed teeth and folded wings behind her back, chuckled maliciously.
"Not quite James, but you'll wish it was your mother." And then the hideous creature before him let out an ear-piercing shriek, and before he knew it James was falling backwards to the concrete below.