Bedtime by Michael Whitehouse (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

I arrived.

The wheels of the car struggled and slid on the undergrowth as I headed off of the narrow country road. The landscape had opened up and as I looked at the broken and rotting trees around me, I felt that it was fitting to come to this bleak place in the cold night, to destroy that bleakest of things.

The land suddenly came to an abrupt end; a cliff etched out from an old quarry, looking deep into the black waters of the lake below. The cliff edge was relatively flat and had in fact at one time housed a road which had subsided into the lake decades earlier. The local kids would tell stories about the vengeful ghosts of those killed during the subsidence, but they were just stories. Or perhaps they weren't. In the past I would have disregarded such tales, but who would believe mine if I told it to them now?

I switched the engine off and parked several metres away from the cliff edge, switching off any lights and composing myself for what would come. I sat in that car for what seemed a lifetime, the only company given to me by the occasional splash of water against the cliff below.

I waited.

This thing was smart, of that there was no doubt. It had toyed with me, relishing the pain and torment it had caused as only something of a coldly frozen intellect could. For this reason I knew it would suspect me, and perhaps even flee if I brought the car too close to the cliff's edge; I had to wait for it to attack, let it feed, let it revel and gorge itself on me, perhaps then it would not notice as I slowly plunged the car into that dark, icy water below.

I was going to drown the bastard.

I had appraised the potential consequences in my head and reasoned that there would be a moment, a singular moment where I would have a slim opportunity to escape from the car just before it reached the edge. Mary and I used to go there occasionally, a place to be together away from everything else and it did not look nearly as stark during a summer's day. I therefore had the place in mind and knew it well. The drop was at least 30 feet to the depths below and I did not want to be in that car as it hit the water, nor trapped inside with that abomination.

I waited.

Then I heard it. Slowly at first, and then increasing in rate and volume, a rasping, wheezing breath from behind. Strangely, it sounded more laboured than before. Each breath a struggle, filled with fluid, rotten and decayed. A shiver ran up my spine. A rank, foul smell began to fill the air.

The breath drew closer from behind.

My heart began to race, beating hard and fast as I looked up and saw the windscreen begin to ice up from inside. I could see my breath, a natural thing indeed, but what was unnatural was the breath visibly moving across my face from the side. I turned slowly, I wanted to cry, I wanted to leave, run into the night, but I had to stay, I could not allow it to escape.

It was sitting in the passenger seat.

I was staring at it, and it at me. Hunched over covered by darkness, contorted, gaunt, hands seized as if fighting rigamortis, it slowly moved towards me. One bony leg cracked and groaned as it slid over my lap and onto the other side.

Oh god, it was sitting on me!

It pulled itself in close to me and through a shard of light provided by the moon, I saw its face. Skin hung from its jagged features. Glassy eyes stared deep into me as its grin spread up through its face, unnaturally wide as the result of its half rotten flesh, exposing the rotten muscles, broken teeth and sinews of its rancid smile beneath.

Pulling closer it opened its mouth revealing a wet and putrid tongue which could be seen through part of its missing jaw. Wheezing, breathing heavily, a foul stench which stung my eyes and filled my mouth elicited a response from me as I wretched, my body attempting to expel its poisonous fumes, and as I did so it stopped for a moment, and then cackled to itself; happy, content. Staring into its icy cold eyes, it yet gave the impression of an afflicted and increasingly weak old man. It was still incredibly strong, but it seemed as though it had lost some of its potency.

Perhaps leaving that elongated room had somehow affected it?

Its long protruding fingers caressed my face and then, as a show of intent, it stuck one of them deep into my shoulder. I screamed as it bent and twisted inside of me, the rotting fiend moving its finger to cause the maximum amount of damage and pain that it could. As it did so its other hand slid down against my body.

It touched me.

It was time. With my free arm I turned on the ignition and though my shoulder was still pinned to the seat I managed to fight through the pain, put the car into gear and took off as fast as I could.

The creature flailed and screamed, it attempted to climb over me into the back seat, but I held on with all of my strength, the thoughts of what it did to Mary enough to fuel my rage. We raced towards the edge of the cliff and I eyed the driver's door frantically. As we neared our icy plunge, I screamed in anger at its festering, rancid face and pushed it off of me.

It scrambled into the back seat for dear life as I scrambled for mine by unlocking the car door.

It was too late, the car careered over the cliff face and before I knew it, we hit the dark water, splitting the black glass-like surface with tremendous force. I should have died then, but an air-bag took the brunt of my impact, although I still managed to scrape my head across the door frame.

Dazed, I looked around. The sound that I heard coming from that thing was malformed yet familiar. The squeal of some demonic child soon gave way to the anguish and rage of an ancient intelligence which knew that it faced almost certain death.

The water was frozen and poured in through the now twisted open car door with such force that it winded me. I gasped for air as my unwilling prey now did. It writhed and twisted as it looked for an exit. Spying the open door, it pulled itself through the water towards me.  

I curled up my fist and smashed it into that thing's face. Pieces of rotten flesh flaked off under the impact as a dark black liquid oozed from the resulting wound.

Again it attempted to get passed me and I knew that to keep it in that car, long enough to drown, that I would have to die with it. I felt numb as the frozen water slipped over my chin, my heart struggled against the cold and with a sudden surge I was submerged and had breathed my last.

I held my breath, but only to compose and ready myself for an icy, suffocating death. I hoped that it would not be painful. My thoughts returned to Mary and my family, a all consuming sense of sadness and despair overwhelmed me, but as I struggled with that thing trying to get passed me and through the door, grabbing and flailing with its arms, I looked down and saw it.

Its leg was trapped between the dashboard and floor of the car by the impact of the fall, and although it could move, it could not leave.

I turned immediately for the door, I could barely see but a foot in front of me in that black water, but there was enough moonlight to light my way. Just as I got to the door, the wretch grabbed hold of me and pulled me back to it. It had given up all hope of escaping, but it wanted to drown me with it.

We fought for what felt like an age in that cold bitter grave as the car slowly sank deeper and deeper into the darkness. I could now feel my body pleading with me to take a breath, to exhale my last gasp of air and then inhale the frozen water.

I am happy to say that I used my wits to get out of such a horrible fate. Orientating my body , I pushed my feet against the dashboard with enough force to at last escape its slippery grasp. I do not remember much else, bar the anguished and hate-filled scream that my tormentor let out as I left it to die at the bottom of that icy lake.

I found myself walking through the wilderness, cold, wet, but alive. The wound in my shoulder slowed me down, but I kept the bleeding at bay by applying pressure to it with my other hand. It took me two hours to walk home, and I am amazed that I did not collapse from exhaustion or hypothermia. When I saw the familiar sight of the street that I live on, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment. A sense of pride and triumph.

I had beaten that thing once and for all!

That is until I went inside my house and found a trail of large, wet footprints leading from the front door to my bed.

Disbelief took me. Despair so sharp and so overwhelming that I am unable to convey it with mere words. It was lying in my bed, waiting, a white sheet covering its emaciated body from sight.

The human mind is a wonderful thing. Just as you believe your body has reached a level of exhaustion that it cannot recover from, that your emotions are so frayed that you feel you cannot continue, a thought springs as if miraculous from a weary mind.

Let it rest, for now.

I quietly crept through the dark and picked up my wallet which I had left on a small coffee table in the centre of my living room. Leaving the door unlocked, I left to attend to a new plan and returned an hour later. With a moment's preparation I slipped into the spare room. There I lay in that unsullied bed, waiting. I was sure that this was the end game, that instead of toying with me, it would come for the kill. How it had escaped that watery grave I did not know, but I would be damned if it would escape again. I could only hope that it would sense me from the other room.

I closed my eyes, pretending to be sound asleep. Time lumbered onwards and although I fought it, exhaustion finally took me, sending me into a deep slumber.

I woke with its hands around my neck. It coughed and spluttered on top of me, a rancid black liquid dripping on my face as it oozed from its facial wounds. I struggled, gasping for air and hoping that I had the strength in me to escape its grasp, but it was too strong and my hands could not grip it with any sense of conviction, as it seemed to be dripping wet from its plunge into the lake.

It may not have seemed rational at the time, but as my vision dimmed and the last light of consciousness extinguished within me, I did as so many animals do in their last moments; I played dead.

Lying motionless, holding my breath, it shook me violently by the neck and then released me. I waited for my moment, my last chance to destroy this thing.