dark I side I thursday I three

It’s Thursday, so welcome to the dark side. This continuing story appears each Thursday…..

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The Invited: Part 3

 

Then time seems to dilate. Her whole being feels like it’s dispersing on the wind.

I’m going to die here.

The thought comes out of the blue. It almost seems like not her own, but It won’t go away. In her mind’s eye this single thought flutters and shivers in front of her.

I’m going to die here.

As she sits there, she can see this strange world; this strange place: but it somehow feels very far away. The danger, though, is real enough, but her black fear, has drained all power to flee or hide. She knows, somehow, that behind the red iron gate there is a place of refuge, but this terrible thought has removed her ability to act.

I’m going to die here.

There’s darkness……

…….Then there is darkness.

In the darkness there’s an animal smell. A sour, bitter stench of animal; and accompanying it, a snuffling: a padding. The sound of dry leaves. The sound of two scratching scrapes: pawing sounds, very close: and sniffing.

In the distance, from the forest, a moan, rising into a howl, echoing through the trees. A howl that grows then suddenly drops in pitch. A haunting sound which abruptly stops, but the echo hangs in the air. It rings in her ears as though time was rewinding it, over and over.

A shadow moves, slowly at first. A slithering, sinuous shadow, barely discernible……in the star light….in the moonlight.

She’s lying face down. With the shadow; the silhouette; coming toward her, crossing the ground: crossing the earth, leaves, and stones. She can smell the damp mouldering earth, inches from her nose: in the moonlight.

Now she is sentient again. Now the ground is hard beneath her; and the stones press into her forehead and she feels the dead weight of her body, pressing into the ground, but the air is humid and there is a great stillness. Silence descends. The place is listening; as she is listening, and she can hear a thumping. A thumping that is shaking her body.

Her heartbeat. She’s  not dead: ….. yet.

The shadow……. is unmoving. She wonders if she had imagined it moving. Straining her hearing, beyond the hissing in her ears, and there’s a liquid swallowing sound;  a sudden release of breath, and a gagging smell of bad teeth; and she starts to tremble, and her own shallow breathing starts to tremble in time with her heartbeats. The shadow moves. From the edge of her vision she is certain beyond doubt that, right next to her, part of the shadow moved.

Suddenly Helen is aware that this could be her last moment. I’m going to die here……

Then she feels something touch her right arm. Until that moment she was not aware of its position above her head on her blind side. Then small staccato impacts on her arm, then on her hand, then her hair; her face. Warm, and wet, and pungent.  ….. Urine.  The creature is urinating on her!

She screams, and screams. Incoherent, garbled words, into the darkness.

 

 

 

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Tags: dark-side-thursday, The Invited

• August 6, 2015
• Story Telling, Writing
• 11 Comments