I can hear the footsteps coming.
They thump hard against the wooden stairs below, but I know that is not where they will stay. They are already getting closer.
Each footfall comes louder…
Faster…
As if driven by sheer excitement, they move upward, coming for someone. I pray that this time it will not be me.
I can hear the wails of the others. They, too, know she is coming. Nearby, someone is sobbing. I think it is a woman but I can’t be sure. It has been so long now that they have all begun to sound alike.
They are genderless…
Pitiful moans…
Terrified screams…
Barely even human…
They have become nothing less than a cacophony of anguished noise…
But, no matter how loud it becomes, even it cannot drown out the cruel sound of her feet against the stairs.
I listen in the darkness.
The footsteps are near now, just outside the door.
I wait.
I listen.
And, I wait.
But, the telltale creak of the hinges never comes.
Then I hear her feet shuffle, and the hard noise begins again.
The cruelty is there, but the excitement is gone. It is, instead replaced by annoyance.
This time they fade, growing more distant with each step.
Until, finally, they are no more than a fresh memory of an endless nightmare.
I rolled over in the bed and opened my eyes but found myself staring at nothing. I pondered this for a moment in my groggy state as I listened to my heart thumping. It was beating faster than it should for someone at rest, or so it seemed. But, it was quickly slowing, and with the afterimages of the nightmare still lingering in my head, I thought maybe that was a good sign.
This was the first time the terror had invaded my sleep since the night before Felicity’s arrest. My ongoing headache had actually lessened to a dull throb over the past few days, and with the advent of several decent nights sleep in a row, I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong. That perhaps by some miracle of the Gods, this was going to all fade away for a change and leave us alone.
Of course, I knew better, but I could always hope.
The stab in the back of my head was working its way forward, but for the moment it was bearable. I was sure that I couldn’t count on that lasting for long. I sighed and went back to considering my lack of visual input. I knew I was awake, so it wasn’t part of the nightmare. As my eyes worked at focusing, it became apparent that the nothing I was seeing was actually a dark pattern. I shifted slightly and the pattern moved, brushing softly against my cheek.
Raising my arm, I pushed the pattern away and found that it was the comforter, which at some point I had pulled over my head. Blinking, I now found myself face to face with a pillow on the opposite side of the bed. The only problem my brain found with that picture was that my wife’s head wasn’t on it.
I pushed myself up on one elbow, eyes drowsily searching the room. Before any unwarranted panic managed to set in, however, my ears caught the sound of rushing water and a porcelain throated burp as the toilet was flushed.
Dropping my head back onto the pillow, I mentally chastised myself for letting my fears get the better of me and then rolled over to face the wall. I was tired, and it obviously wasn’t morning yet, so I closed my eyes.
The nightmare hadn’t been so bad this go around. Maybe it really was just a product of my overactive subconscious.
This time.
The reprieve had been too short, but then they always were. It’s just that this one was even shorter.
Footsteps advanced once again up the stairs, pausing only for a moment, then proceeding, coming closer with each hard strike against the wooden planks. The sobbing filled in the short voids between them.
But, there was something different about their sound.
They were still excited.
They were still cruel.
But there was something acute about their tone. No longer the familiar thud, they had become a sharp clack. However, different as they were, I knew they belonged to the same monster.
And, the fear they brought with them bit deep into my soul, for this time I knew they were coming for me. How I knew, I couldn’t say. But, there was no doubt that I was to be her chosen victim, and there was no escape.
I began to pray, but my request had changed drastically from what it had once been. Instead of asking to be spared as I had countless times before, now I prayed to die quickly and not linger, suffering for days-even weeks-like some of the others. I could hear myself whispering in the darkness, even above the growing cries and awful footfalls.
When they stopped outside the door, I was more than just simply aware my time had come. I could feel it deep within every inch of my body, and that just made the panic grow.
The door creaked on un-oiled hinges, allowing a swath of dim light to fall across the room. I couldn’t keep myself from trying to raise my head, but try was all my weakened muscles could manage.
Terror made me strain and pull, trying to escape, even though I knew I was held fast. The flight reflex made me try yet again, but my wrists and ankles screamed with pain as something bit sharply into my flesh. I was left with no choice but to give in to my fate, horrific, as I knew it was to be.
The door creaked again as it swung wider, then the steps clacked closer, stopping near my head, just out of my sight. I felt my stomach tighten, then heave, as it tried to expel contents it didn’t have. The bile rose in my throat, burning and making me gag. But even through that, I continued to pray.
There was a shuffle, and then the steps continued, clacking away across the room. But, I knew they would be back.
The moans of the others hummed in my ears, punctuated by animalistic wails that were born from the bowels of hell.
A sudden, loud clunk sounded in my ears, and bright light flooded into my eyes. I had been in darkness for so long that the luminance brought only pain. A searing pain that made me squeeze my eyelids tightly shut.
The footfalls came again as they moved across the plank floor, returning to their station at my head. I continued to hold my eyes shut and struggled through a gasping breath as I began to sob with the others.
Now, instead of the acrid stench of rot and excrement to which I had grown so accustomed, the sweet smell of perfume burrowed deeply into my nostrils. Its thickness caused me to gag again, and my chest began to tighten.
Another shuffle and pair of excited steps met my ears. A moment later a pressure settled across my belly making it even harder for me to breathe.
I began to beg. God wasn’t listening to my prayers, so I had no other choice.
As the mumbled words started tumbling from my mouth, a sharp sting lashed across my cheek, and a feminine voice, dripping with false sweetness drawled, “Wake up…”
I was jolted awake by the intense feeling that someone, or something, had just struck me hard in the face. My heart was pounding and my chest was tight. I felt as if a weight were resting on my stomach, causing me to labor for each breath. My head was throbbing with unnatural pain, and I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach.
The nightmare had returned, and this time the abject terror was fully intact. I started upward as I had done countless times before when awaking from this horrific vision, but got nowhere. In fact, not only did it feel as though something was pressing me back downward, an odd sensation bit into my wrists and arms. Confusion joined the pain in my grey matter as I fought to reason out what was happening. I was almost certain I was awake. I didn’t have the odd feeling of disconnection that so often came with channeling a spirit. And, I had the headache. That was a pain that always remained within the boundaries of my wakefulness. Light was streaming in through the thinness of my eyelids, blood red and far too bright for comfort. I found that I was still holding them tightly shut, an artifact of the nightmare I assumed, but one I didn’t mind. Since it appeared that light was now also invading my corporeal world, I knew its sudden influx would only serve to make the headache even worse.
Still, something was definitely off kilter, and I needed to know what it was. I was just about to take the plunge and open my eyes at least enough to get my bearings when another lacerating sting tore into my cheek.
This time I knew it was real.
“I said, time to wake up, little man.” The nightmare woman’s voice rolled into my ears, heavy with a sugary Southern drawl.
My eyes flickered open, and as I suspected, the glare of the overhead light acted as an accelerant on the ache in my skull. Blinking my way toward some semblance of focus, I looked upward toward the direction of the voice. Staring back at me was a visage that would have been comfortingly familiar had it not been for the frightening expression it wore.
My wife was straddling me in the bed, looking back down at me with an imperious gaze. No longer wearing her pajamas, she was now scantily clad in something black that appeared to be composed of tight-fitting leather and a touch of lace. It was something I didn’t recall ever having seen in her wardrobe before, and that told me that perhaps I was now getting a glimpse of the contents from the overnight bag, up close and personal.
Her face had obviously been in recent contact with more than just a touch of makeup and was accented in such a way to enhance the severe expression lining her features. She continued looking down at me, and I started trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really awake.
After a long pause she gave her head a toss then giggled and said, “That’s better.”
Even though the sentence was no more than two words, the uncharacteristic geographical drawl was obvious and intact.
Following the utterance, she placed a cigarette between glossy red lips and drew on it hard. The end grew bright, sizzling audibly as I watched the paper and tobacco slowly burn a full one-half inch down the length right before my eyes. In a fluid motion, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, flicked the spent ash at my face, then pursed her lips and blew out a long stream of smoke.
Never once had she taken her eyes from mine, and now her mouth spread into a contented smile. I started upward again; knowing suddenly that telling myself this was a nightmare simply wasn’t going to make it so. Fear was definitely starting to work its way into my spine.
Again I found myself unable to go far and realized that my arms were outstretched to the sides and above my head. I cast a quick glance to the right and saw my wrist encompassed by a wide, leather-looking cuff that was securely fastened to the bedpost. I didn’t have to look to the left to know it too was similarly bound. I didn’t feel anything around my ankles so I tried to move my legs, only to find they were bound in some unseen way.
I instantly regretted being a heavy sleeper.
“What’s wrong, little man?” my wife asked.
Actually, it was the voice asking the question. It just happened to be coming out of my wife’s mouth.
“Felicity?” I questioned out of reflex.
I didn’t catch the blur of motion, but I definitely felt the sting of her palm against my cheek as she slapped me hard enough to crank my head to the side.
“And, who, pray tell, is Felicity, little man?” she asked.
“You are,” I replied with a groan as I turned my face back to her.
Judging from the force of yet another slap that immediately followed my reply, apparently, it was the wrong thing to say.
“You will call me, Mistress Miranda, little man,” she commanded.
What I had earlier thought to be fear was just a trial run of the emotion. In the grand scheme of things, it had been nothing more than a shot of anxiety with a confusion chaser just to get the ball rolling. Hearing the sentence just spoken by the evil inhabiting my wife’s body was the catalyst, and now true horror set in.
At this stage of the game, I wasn’t sure what this Lwa feasted on, but it was a good bet that pain played into that picture, and I suspected fear was at the very least an appetizer. If that was true, judging by her satisfied grin, I was apparently serving up the first course at this very moment.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” she asked, feigning concern. “Am I scaring you?”
“No,” I returned.
“Liar.”
“Guess it’s your word against mine,” I said, mustering whatever semblance of calm bravado I could.
She sat back and regarded me coolly. Felicity truly didn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, but with the panic starting to well in the pit of my stomach, even that amount of weight on top of me was making it hard to breathe.
After taking another long drag on the cigarette, she pulled it slowly from her mouth and smiled then let the smoke out in a thin stream.
There was no way I could read what was going on behind the still pretty, but frighteningly severe, mask her face had become. In retrospect, given what I knew from the crime scenes, I should have been able to at least predict what she was going to do. Unfortunately, a by-product of terror is that one doesn’t always think straight.
I suppose that’s why it came as such a complete shock to me when, without a word her smile grew even wider, and she began to slowly grind out the burning cigarette against my bare chest.