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Authors: Mark Lukens

Night Terrors (2 page)

BOOK: Night Terrors
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Jen jumped from a soft thumping sound from out in the living room. She looked at Kevin with wide eyes. “Did you hear that?”

Kevin stood up, even more annoyed now. He listened for a moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t hear anything.”

He exhaled a deep breath and then stomped out of the bedroom and left the door wide open.

Jen hopped off the bed and hurried after him.

In the living room, Kevin grabbed his beer from the coffee table and chugged the rest of it down.

“I said I was sorry for scaring you,” Kevin said after finishing the beer. “God, if I knew it was going to make you act like this …”

“It’s not that -”

They both jumped from a loud clanging noise in the kitchen. Jen let out a short scream as she grabbed on to Kevin’s arm, and both of them stared into the kitchen.

“What was that?” Jen whispered.

Kevin tore his arm away from Jen’s hands and took off for the kitchen.

“Kevin, wait.”

“I’m going to see what it was,” Kevin said over his shoulder, still clearly annoyed at these interruptions to his sexual conquest.

Jen followed Kevin into the kitchen. They stared at a few pots and pans that had fallen out of one of the bottom cabinets.

“It’s just some pots and pans,” Kevin said.

Jen walked past Kevin and shoved the pots and pans back inside the cabinet. She didn’t see how they could’ve just fallen out like that. They were usually stacked neatly – her mom kept the kitchen very organized.

She stood up and looked around the kitchen as she rubbed her arms again. She looked right at Kevin. “Let’s just go somewhere.”

Kevin didn’t answer her as he grabbed another beer out of the refrigerator and headed back to the living room.

Jen followed him. “Something doesn’t feel right. I don’t know how to explain it.” She’d never told Kevin about the “feelings” she got sometimes; she didn’t need to give him something else to make fun of her about. She’d never really told anyone about these feelings except her lifelong friend Kelly.

Kevin was on his way back to the couch when he stopped in his tracks. He stared at the vertical blinds – they swayed back and forth slightly, like a breeze outside was moving them.

“You shut the sliding glass door, right?” Kevin asked Jen.

Jen nodded as she stared at the blinds. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I did.”

Both of them jumped as a blast of static erupted from the stereo. Jen glanced at the stereo, but then she focused on Kevin. “Listen to me, something’s wrong here. I’m not kidding.”

Jen hurried over to the stereo and turned down the music which was distorted by static. She looked back at Kevin who stood in front of the vertical blinds. He pushed the blinds aside.

“Kevin, what are you doing?” she hissed.

The sliding glass door was open slightly. He slid the door open all the way and looked out at the pool deck and fenced-in backyard. The back porch light only illuminated so much and a lot of the backyard was still hidden in shadows.

Kevin was about to step outside when Jen grabbed his shoulder. He turned and stared into her wide eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Kevin snorted out a laugh. “I’m gonna check it out.”

“No, don’t. Just stay in here. Someone’s out there. I can feel it.”

Kevin smirked at her. “What do you mean, you can feel it?”

Jen sighed; she really didn’t feel like going into a long explanation right now.

Kevin smiled again at her and pushed a lock of hair out of her face. He seemed like he was relishing her fear, loving to play the hero for her. “I’ll be fine. I just want to have a look around. Besides, I’ve got a weapon with me.” Kevin lifted the beer bottle – indicating his weapon.

Jen exhaled a shudder of a breath.

“Don’t worry,” Kevin told Jen. “Just shut the door and lock it. I’ll knock three times so you’ll know it’s me and not a psycho killer.”

“That’s not funny.”

Kevin kissed Jen and went outside.

Jen shut the sliding glass door and locked it. She walked back to the stereo. Static still hissed from the speakers. She tuned in another station. More static. The static meant something, she was sure of it.

She walked back to the sliding glass door and looked out at the back porch and the pool. The shrubs and fence beyond the pool were just black shapes in the darkness. She couldn’t see Kevin anywhere.

She unlocked the door and opened it. She listened for any sounds from Kevin. The night was silent; she didn’t even hear the usual buzzing of insects so common at night in Florida.

“Kevin,” she whispered.

No answer.

“Kevin? Where are you? Come back inside.”

Still no answer.

Something crashed through the bushes at the back fence, something large. She couldn’t see who it was, but she was sure it wasn’t Kevin. She hurried back inside, slid the door shut, and locked it. She slid the vertical blinds shut. She stood there for a moment, watching the vertical blinds sway, the plastic blinds tapping at each other as their pendulum dance slowed down to stillness.

She rubbed at her arms. It was warm outside, but she felt so cold.

Her phone!

Jen rushed to the coffee table and picked up her phone and dialed Kelly’s number.

She paced around the living room as she listened to the phone ringing in her ear. A pit of fear knotted her stomach and her muscles felt weak and shaky. Her eyes kept darting back to the wall of vertical blinds in front of the sliding glass door; they seemed like a thin barrier against what was out there.

Come on, Kelly, she thought, pick up the phone.

Finally, Kelly answered. “Hey, Jen. Kevin not there yet?”

“He’s here,” Jen answered, talking a little too quickly. “He’s outside looking around. He banged on the sliding glass door earlier and scared the hell out of me and then he was inside and I know I closed the sliding glass door but it was open again -”

“Hold on, Jen. Slow down.”

Jen took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just freaking out. I think someone’s outside my house. I told Kevin not to go out there, but he went anyway.”

As she talked on the phone, Jen felt a little braver; she walked to the vertical blinds and pushed them aside just a bit so she could peek outside. No one out there. No Kevin, either. She let the blinds fall back in place.

“Maybe Kevin’s just trying to scare you again.”

“Yeah, maybe.” But Jen didn’t think so.

Jen looked at the stereo system; even with the sound turned down low she could still hear the static. “Will you do me a favor, Kelly?”

“What?”

“Will you check your radio? See if the stations are coming in okay.”

“Why?”

“Please, Kelly.”

“Okay.”

Jen walked from the vertical blinds to the TV as she waited for Kelly to check her radio. The picture on the TV was distorted, wavy lines interrupted the program. Jen picked up the remote control and flipped through several channels, all of the channels had wavy lines on them like something powerful was interfering with the signal.

Jen jumped a little when she heard Kelly’s voice on the phone. “All the radio stations are coming in fine here. What’s going on there?”

Jen just stared at the TV.

“Jen? Are you still there?”

Jen could feel the dark and evil presence now; it was like a blanket smothering her. It was so much stronger now. It was the interfering force on the TV and radio, she was sure of it. There was a killer outside. She didn’t know how she knew this, but it was as real as anything she’d ever known in her life. The killer was out there in the darkness and he was coming for her.

And this killer was familiar to her. She
knew
him. She’d seen him before – in her dreams.

“Jen!!”

“Yeah,” Jen whispered into the phone. “I’m still here.”

“You’re kind of freaking me out here.”

“He’s here now.”

“Who?”

No answer from Jen.

“Jen, you’re really starting to scare me.”

Jen backed away from the TV and its wavy lines. She turned back to the vertical blinds. A blast of static erupted from the cell phone and blared in her eardrum.

“He’s here,” Jen said into the phone, but she wasn’t sure if Kelly could hear her words anymore. “The Shadow Man I’ve seen in my dreams.”

“ … Jen … what … Jen … can’t …” Static cut off Kelly’s words.

A panic gripped Jen now, she wanted to run, but she didn’t know where she could she run to. The Shadow Man would know where she was going; he would know what she was going to do. He would be one step ahead of her.

Another blast of static squealed in Jen’s ear from her cell phone. It startled her so badly she dropped her phone. She picked up her phone from the carpet, but there was no signal now. The phone was useless; it wasn’t going to work properly, not with
him
around.

Jen jumped and screamed when she heard a pounding on the sliding glass door.

Kevin! He was back!

Jen ran across the living room to the vertical blinds. She was about to rip them open when a thought occurred to her – it hadn’t been three knocks. What if it wasn’t Kevin on the other side of the glass? What if it was the Shadow Man from her nightmares?

She hesitated, listening, waiting for more knocks on the glass. “Kevin?” she called out. “Is that you?”

No answer.

There was a pounding on the glass; it almost sounded like the glass was reverberating, threatening to shatter.

“Kevin! If that’s you, then answer me!!”

Still no answer from Kevin. If it was Kevin, he would’ve said something by now.

Then she heard three loud knocks on the sliding glass door hidden behind the blinds. Three deliberate knocks.

“Kevin … please …”

Jen took a deep breath and tore the vertical blinds to the side. And then she screamed.

Oh God. It was too late for Kevin.

Kevin sank down on the other side of the glass door leaving behind a smear of blood.

Jen backed away from the sliding glass door, shaking her head no, tears streaming down her face. Her mind buzzed with white-hot panic, and her animal instincts took over – she needed to run.

She raced across the living room towards the front door and then froze when she heard a pounding at the door.

Jen stifled a scream. She tried to dial 911 on her cell phone, but the phone still wasn’t working.

The phone in the kitchen!

She bolted for the kitchen and ran past the counter to the wall where the phone normally hung, but she stopped dead and stared at the spot on the wall where the phone used to be; now there were just some shredded wires hanging out of the wall – the phone was gone.

Jen turned to the counter and reached for the block of kitchen knives. She needed something to defend herself with. But all of the knives were gone.

She hurried back around the counter to the kitchen door that led outside, about to reach for the spare keys on a wooden key holder that was shaped like a key. But all of the keys were gone: the keys to the house, the keys to her mom’s car in the garage. All of them gone.

She backed up a step away from the wall, shaking her head no, praying that this was another one of her nightmares. This couldn’t be real. She just wanted to wake up.

A scraping noise at the kitchen door grabbed her attention. She saw the shadowy figure of a man right on the other side of the door, just visible through the sheer curtain.

The lock on the door handle slowly twisted from locked to unlocked. Then the door handle slowly turned.

Jen bolted from the kitchen in a blind panic; she ran through the living room for the stairs. She rushed up the stairs, stumbling on the last few carpeted steps as she reached the second floor hall. She fell down in the hallway, but she didn’t waste any time, she was back on her feet and running to her bedroom as whimpers of fear escaped her throat.

She rushed inside her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She had a lock on her door; she had asked her parents for a lock a few years ago and they had installed one. She twisted the lock and backed away from the door. The lock seemed so flimsy right now. Even the door itself didn’t seem like much protection.

Her phone!

She turned and ran to the table beside her bed. Her phone was gone; the only thing left was the telephone wire on the table. No, he couldn’t have been up here already. And then her mind slipped back to the muffled noises she had heard when she and Kevin were in her parents’ bedroom.

The sound of heavy footsteps in the hall drew her attention back to her bedroom door. A shadow crossed the strip of light underneath the door.

Jen breathed hard as she tried to think of what to do. She couldn’t protect herself up here; she had nothing to fight back with.

The window? It was only a fifteen or sixteen foot drop to the ground – she could make it.

A clicking noise at the door. She looked back and saw the lock in the door handle twisting, the door handle turning. The door opened slowly. And the man from her nightmares entered. In her dreams she had never seen his face; it had always been hidden in shadows. He had wanted it that way. But she could see him now, she could see his eyes, and there was no mercy in those dark eyes.

Jen backed up to the wall, slid down, and cried hopeless tears. She shook her head back and forth.

“No … please,” she sobbed. “What do you want?”

The killer approached.

“What is that thing?” she asked when she saw the metal contraption in his gloved hands.

And that’s when Jen started screaming.

CHAPTER TWO
1.

Tara woke up panicking as she clawed at the air and screamed out a name: “Jen!”

She sat up and looked around at the bathroom.

Then she began to relax – she knew where she was now; she was in her guest bathroom, in the bathtub. She had been sleepwalking again. She’d been having a nightmare about a girl being murdered.

But this wasn’t a nightmare. It had really happened. Some girl she didn’t even know, a girl named Jen, had been murdered by a killer. She could remember Jen’s face, but she couldn’t remember anything about the killer – because it was like she had been watching everything through his eyes.

BOOK: Night Terrors
6.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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