Laughs in the Night

The windows were closed. There was no doubt that they were closed. On this night, the wind howled outside like a lost dog, scrabbling against the panes in a maniacal frenzy. It would be a shame if the windows were not closed. It just so happened to be a full moon this night, and luckily, the heavy drapes were flung over the windows, because on a night such as this nobody knew what could show up outside. Nobody knew what could show up inside, either, but few people took note of that.

Inside the house, a man sat at a small table with the lights out, drunk with several bottles of beer. He was oblivious to the sound. The house held no pity for stray animals either, and despite the weather, it never failed to generate its own deafening silence, the kind that rang in your ears when you listened for too long. The man's ears were currently affected by this phenomenon. Mr Kane had had just enough of the alcohol that it made him dense and twitchy but not entirely drowsy, and under normal circumstances he would have sat slumped in his seat for the entire night. However, the dappled light of the yellow moon that shone over the city and the small ripples in his time frame allowed his ears to perceive a strange thing.

He looked up at the stiff wooden clock that hung in front of him, his vision blurred. It read: 11:24. 

Mr Kane then heard a creak coming from upstairs. He was not alone in this house.

His wife was just getting ready for bed, shuffling irritatedly in the room on the second floor. She despised his drinking, and they avoided each other whenever possible. Mrs Kane always locked the door of the room they used to share, preventing his entry so she would not need to choke on the fumes of his late-night activities. Sometimes, she even wished that she was allowed to stay the night at her workplace so she wouldn't have to come home. But their daughter existed, so she had to provide adequate care in case the authorities came.

Alisa was four years old, but she heard and saw more than people gave her credit for. She knew that the silver watch her father wore had five hands, but she didn't know what they were for. She also knew that her mother cried in her room every night before she fell asleep, and that her father loved her more than her mother did. Neither Mr nor Mrs Kane knew what she knew, and they were certainly oblivious to the fact that their daughter gave them the attention they failed to give her.

At 10:50, Alisa drew the curtains apart just a crack, letting the moonlight stream in. The moon sang a lullaby for her. Then at 11:24, Alisa was asleep.

But not all was still. Back in the living room where Mr Kane sat slouched, he heard a noise. It was the sound of water, of the wind, the sound the moon would make if it had a voice. It was in equal parts chilling and enchanting, and it drew him forward until he fell from the chair and hit his forehead on the table's edge. He sat up straight and his eyes, bogged down by the mud of alcohol, struggled to dart from side to side. The singing stopped, the silence abruptly returned, and the buzzing of the walls of the house could be heard once more. Something fell from the kitchen counter-top onto the floor with a crash.

Mr Kane, trembling, proceeded to stand up. What was it that had been strong enough to penetrate the imperishable silence? He glanced around him, suddenly feeling as if he was a stranger in his own home. The walls seemed to loom higher than usual and he had the sense that they were closing in on him, stalking him, as if they were predators and he was the prey. He didn't like being the prey. It was why he drank every night, after playing the role of a mouse all day long. The beer always gave him the grandest feeling, sending a rush of warm tingles down his arms and legs. He felt invincible. But on this night, nothing and no one was invincible, because the shadows came out to play.

Tick. Tock. Tick. The sound flooded Mr Kane's ears. The clock's second hand insistently marched on, as if impatient for something to happen. He heard his heartbeat in the vessel of his right ear, the blood going rush-rush, twice per second. His jaw clenched as he ambled across the room to the hallway. He was going crazy. There is nothing out of the ordinary, he told himself. I just drank too much beer, that's all.

Somewhere off in the distance, an owl hooted, but he didn't hear that. He didn't hear the garden snake twisting its way through the undergrowth in the yard either, or the mewling of kittens crying for their mother from inside the broken pipe extending from the side of the house.

As he settled down into an old armchair beside the curtained window of the study, he looked at his watch: 11:34. Had only ten minutes passed? Grumbling restlessly, he shifted in his seat and gave in to the softness of the cushions. He drifted in and out of consciousness as peculiar shapes and signs appeared before his eyes. A white piece of cloth drifted past a circular dish with holes in it; a fish with legs swam up and down and was drawn into a spinning vortex . . . and when he saw the hand of the clock strike seven, he startled awake with a violent jerk. As if on cue, a faint, eerie keening began to hum the air into motion. Panicked, he threw himself out of the chair.

"Oh, curse it!" he shouted out loud. "Just leave me be, will you!"

The noise grew louder.

"I'm done with this nonsense. I'm done, I tell you! Go away," Mr Kane demanded the shadow of a ghost.

He sank to his knees as the whistling turned into a wail and the wail formed into a scream, growing increasingly louder until his head was on the brink of exploding. His whole body shook with desperation and terror, and now he heard everything. It was 11:45, but his eyes were as unseeing as black holes. For the next ten minutes, he was curled on the floor in false agony, twitching uselessly away from an imaginary haunting. His heart raged like thunder against his ribcage while he tried to bury his head into the scratchy strands of the rug, hands over his ears. The moaning continued incessantly. The moon, a delirious witness, laughed at the world beneath it that was being consumed by phantoms.

11:55, and the man lifted his head wearily from the ground.

"Fix the pipe," he mumbled, and fell back against the carpet.

In the last few seconds before he fell asleep, the moaning faded into a rasped whisper, and one more breath was stolen in the night. The clock struck midnight. Mr Kane had lost his hearing to the realm of dreams.

The sliver of moonlight had intensified in brightness, the curtains stained with some horrific message only the dead could see. The moon, burdened with the happenings of the night, retreated back into non-existence and gave way to the sun. A foul morning song arose from a foul bird, for foul things had happened during the night.

Mr Kane woke up to a dull aching in his chest. He scoffed at the rug he had slept on and kicked it aside. Night-time was for fools. He'd been a fool. This day, he would make it right.

He tramped up the stairs to his daughter's bedroom and opened the door.

"Morning, sweetie," he called. There was no response. "Alisa?"

He walked over to the bed and pulled back the covers. He saw the froth from her open mouth. He saw the glazed look on her face. He saw the stain on the drapery.

Veiled beneath another stretch of day, the moon laughed a meaningless laugh, a resounding echo within the empty souls of men. Another night would come to pass.