Licking the apple lip gloss off my lips isn't enough to calm me down. I might as well down the whole bottle, vomit out the last of my brain matter, pass out from exhaustion and probably wake up in a suitcase with one sock and both shoes missing.
Maybe then this whole nightmare will be over.
I fiddle with my bracelet, but I'd rather tear it apart with my teeth. There's a window to my right. It's right above my head. I can't see much except a couple of legs in case someone walks by.
It's a little high up, but I'm sure I can get to it with a ladder or a bucket or something.
I slap myself in the face. A bucket? Really now? It's about ten feet off the ground! This time I hit it harder, but I can't feel anything.
To my surprise, I discover a ladder lurking behind the elliptical trainer, or a hammerhead shark with arms blinking at me with red eyes.
When I open the window, the delicate sounds of the night perhaps dispel the tension in the room, which spreads like a disease, crawling along the walls, wriggling across the floor until it reaches my ankles, and then it's time to say: Bye bye cruel world.
Oh God, what was that? I heard a noise.
Click, click, click. And a hiss?
Sounds like a broken clock. Or maybe it's a clock. Maybe Dad installed it when I was at school or something. I don't get down to the basement much, you know.
Don't be silly, Sabina. You know what that noise was. They can't be here already, can they? Don't
now. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. You'd, too, if you knew what they looked like.
However, I haven't taken my eyes off the window since I arrived here. The right side of my neck is painfully tense, but I don't care. My gaze is cemented on the window like a tongue on a metal bar.
Oh, thank God. The fridge has started making noises. If it didn't, the cold silence would kill me. It's the kind of fridge where you have to lift the lid to take out your ice, and... yes.
We usually keep ice cream in there, but it's run out, so I wait for mom and dad to get new ones.
My favorite ice cream is cookies and cream. How can you not like that? What's better than that? God, I wish I had a tub of ice cream to devour.
The fridge is now a place for other things. It’s a shame, really.
I dig my hands into my scalp and tighten my grip. Enough is enough. I can't take this anymore. I want to get out of here, up to the giant mountains and keep going until my chest splits down the middle.
I start pacing, my chest heaving beyond normal, expelling balls of air before exploding like a pressure cooker.
Better still, I remove everything inside me. My organs suddenly feel like foreign objects that have no business being there and I feel nauseous.
The thought that the only way to feel normal is to turn myself into a bag of bloody skin terrifies me.
That's too much adrenaline, far too much for me. I could use it elsewhere, for example, to test my fate in a way that only liquid courage can.
Oh, what am I babbling about? I'm stuck in a freezing cold basement and my teeth are chattering so hard they're falling out of my mouth.
But this... this hormone pulsing through my veins and pushing against the walls is anything but courage. It's the opposite of courage. Fear. Fear that makes my hands shake until they're numb, fear that freezes time, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it.
I pause and glance at the fridge in the dark corner. It should be warm by now, shouldn't it?
It's usually hot on the sides.
Like a zombie, I make my way to the fridge and settle down next to it, out of sight and swallowed up by the darkness.
Memories of the last few weeks flood me immediately. But the more vivid ones seem to haunt me the most.
It’s normal for a family to get bored, especially when they’ve spent all day in the house doing absolutely nothing.
But it’s a different story to do something about it. Along came Dad, who you can call Jeremy
Jeremy, had the brilliant idea to take us camping.
I'll skip the mundane car ride and the search for a suitable place to set up camp.
Eventually we came to a beautiful wooded area, right next to an emerald green lake.
Mom and Dad were in charge of the fishing, and Sean, my little brother, and I had the job of helping as little as possible. So we disappeared into the cold, vast woods and spent the next few hours chasing each other and playing hide and seek.
It was then that the ominous clicking began.
I remember exactly how I felt that day. I was nowhere near as hysterical as I am now, but about a quarter of the way through.
When it was my turn to hide, I sat down in a clearing, which made it easier for him to find me. The last thing I wanted was for him to get lost in a place like this.
If I showed up in front of Mom and Dad without Sean by my side, they'd give me hell.
As I sat in the clearing, listening to the soothing rustle of the trees and the lapping of the lake, a strange sound took hold of my senses.
It was a soft clicking noise, like the tip of your tongue touching the roof of your mouth.
It's hard for me to explain exactly what ingredient in that noise got my blood pumping.
But I do not want you to ever have to hear it. It's not worth finding out either.
Was it Sean? No, it couldn’t have been. I'd never heard him make a noise like that before and the longer
I sat there, the closer it got to me.
Cautiously, I stood up and turned around. It was coming from the forest, yes, but there was
something so unnatural about it. My mouth caught slightly. The silence made it much worse.
If only I had known what was really making that noise...
The clicking stopped abruptly, and my spine vibrated with the all too familiar feeling that someone was standing right behind me. I turned around and nearly had a heart attack when I saw
Sean grinning from ear to ear.
"You are trying to kill me, are not you?” I shouted. He frowned in confusion.
"It does not matter, because I got you faster than you did!" he shouted, grabbing my shirt.
“Was that you who made that noise?” I asked as my heart returned to its normal pace.
“Oh, yes. Yes, that was me,” he replied, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest.
“Where did you learn that?"
Sean swallowed, and for a moment, a hint of fear flashed across his face. Then he shrugged and said, “I made it up, and it worked!”
Relieved to find an excuse to leave, I grabbed Sean by the wrist and quickly left that part of the forest to walk all the way back to our campsite.
As the blue sky faded, we stuck to the old tradition of roasting marshmallows over an open fire while mom told us embarrassing stories from our youth.
Sean kept dropping his marshmallows on the floor, and before he could pick them up again, I slapped his hand and gave him half of mine. After that, we made the most delicious s'mores.
Dad started telling us ghost stories in typical Dad fashion, making the right faces and noises in the right places.
I, for one, had to restrain myself from yawning every two minutes. I knew that these stories were nonsense and far removed from reality.
But Dad made a point of saying that those who were unlucky enough to encounter these monsters were never seen again.
I could well imagine that. As if a breeze of their existence should never reach the light.
You should have seen Sean’s face during that whole ordeal. He was certainly one story away from losing control of his bubble.
His seven-year-old imagination had bridged the gap between reality and fiction, making him believe that these creatures actually existed.
But I was on the cusp of puberty at the time, and to me they were nothing more than fictional nonsense.
My mother tried to comfort Sean by stroking his hair and trying to pull him to her side.
But Sean tore himself away from her, threw his arms around me and buried his little head in my denim jacket.
Her face contorted like a toasted marshmallow, and I did everything in my power not to look my mother straight in the eye. I probably would have seen molten lava and people with burnt skin screaming bloody murder.
I do not know what it's all about.
When it was time to go to bed, we crawled into our sleeping bags and I fell asleep before Sean.
But that didn’t stop him from pinching and poking me whenever he got the chance?
It got to a point where I no longer took note of his repeated remarks about thinking someone was watching us.
I made sure my back was to him and was about to drift off when he pinched me hard near my ribs, but he caught the skin rather than the bone. Oh, I was going crazy.
I shoved him with so much force it knocked him out. He crashed into the tent wall and shook it back and forth. It seemed almost funny to me. One tent shook violently, while the others remained motionless.
“If you don't stop, you'll have to sleep outside on your own! What's wrong with you?" I whispered.
He swallowed. Then Sean pointed forward, his pale lips quivering. It was only when I followed his gaze that I realized what was troubling him.
What greeted me were the dull flames that had once kept us warm. The tent was open.
I fumbled for my backpack and began to rummage through it. Nothing had been stolen.
Knowing the answer, I asked him if Sean had done it. Perhaps he had relieved himself and forgotten to close the tent on the way in.
As expected, he shook his head no. I knew that his current condition wouldn't allow him to do such a stupid thing.
I lunged forward and zipped him up. He started waving his hands frantically and mumbling the words,
"No!" over and over again. "They'll know we're here!"
“What am I supposed to do? Leave it open?”
Sean hung his head in defeat. I knew how powerless he felt in this situation, but we were in danger whether the damn thing was open or not.
The tension was wearing on him and my feigned confidence was crumbling by the second.
With great effort, he lay down again. After I had done the same, I noticed that his hand was outstretched. I gripped it tightly and felt my anger at him fade like dandelions in the breeze.
Ten minutes had passed without incident. The black water rippled gently as the howling wind dominated the night.
But my veins were full of adrenaline and I could say goodbye to any prospect of sleep.
Thankfully, Sean fell asleep as quickly as he woke up, and his grip on my hand became soft and airy.
And then my eyes shot up. A soft click, click, click filled the tent.
My heart began to race. I cautiously lifted my head and froze. The tent opened once again. No one in the world can open a tent that slowly. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out how a tent works.
Against my gut feeling, I lay there and waited and waited and waited, for a painfully long
time.
I suffered in silence, knowing that whoever it was was one step closer to getting me. Then the opening of the tent gave way.
I could tell that the fire had gone out. My chest burned as my heart continued to race, to the point where my whole body was shaking. At least I thought that was the case.
And there, in the middle of the night, a dark mass loomed in the gloom. It was there, a few metres away from us. I remained as stiff as a board. I almost had a heart attack when it tilted its head to the side.
To my horror, it dropped to the ground and crawled towards me on all fours, like a cheetah stalking its prey. My bones went soft.
It climbed on top of me and pressed its cold body against mine. Two opposing poles.
My ribs pressed against the pressure, but I did not dare make a sound.
The creature was so close that I could see its spherical eyes boring into mine. The eerie silence was no longer a threat.
After a while, my eyes had adjusted well enough in the darkness to recognise the face. My soul almost left my body when I recognised the broad, pointed beak.
It turned ever so slightly toward Sean, turned back toward me, and then lowered itself until it was right next to my ear. What it said to me filled me with a horror that I can’t even begin to describe.
It was like a sickening lump in my chest whenever its words came to mind.
There were many other incidents after that, but that was a defining moment, a catalyst for all the eerie events to come.
Like the time Sean and I went fishing and ignored the warnings of the low, grey clouds overhead and the faint, distant rumble of thunder.
Before we got even hooked our bait, it started to rain. Heavy. Like a depressing soap opera in the
heaven. It was raining so hard that we had to squint our eyes to see in front of us. Everything was blurred.
We risked getting rainwater in our eyes, which was painful in itself. Even the wind had joined in the fun. It pushed us so far back that I had to walk backwards with both feet without much effort.
Sean was right behind me, holding on to my jeans. My umbrella threatened to crumple under the pressure.
But eventually I managed to position it so that for a fraction of a second ... for a fraction of a second, I could see the tiny, broad heads emerging from the rippling lake.
Those charcoal-colored eyes ... numb and shark-like, were fixed on us.
Another time, and this has nothing to do with them … or maybe it does. I kept finding dead avian fetuses around the house. Simsim, my fat, ginger tomcat, carried them around in his beak.
The first time I saw them, I freaked out. The yellow beak, the rubbery, hairless body, the closed eyes, the broken neck.
After giving it a decent burial, I searched my roof left, right and center, but there was no nest in sight.
The worst happened tonight, but I'll get to that in a minute. The day before yesterday, the thing I was trying to keep six feet underground came back.
Right at that moment, the thing leaned down and whispered in my ear. I knew what was going to happen, and it... sucked the life out of me.
When I went upstairs to my bedroom after lunch, I checked the time on my cell phone and saw the date.
I felt sick to my stomach and sank into my desk chair. A few minutes later, Sean entered my bedroom and found me in a terrible state. My head was pressed against the desk and hot tears were streaming down my face.
Without saying a word, he hopped up on my desk and laid my head on his lap.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, “did they scare you again?”
I forgot to mention that Sean and I were well aware of the creatures stalking us by now, which to my surprise gave him a little more courage to face them.
The fact that I knew seemed to ... reassured him, as he now had someone who believed him.
But I knew it was only a matter of time before he broke down again.
“Mum still says it’s you,” Sean said, “it’s you who’s making them up to scare me.”
“Bitch,” I muttered, unsure if he'd heard or not.
“I found my old lightsaber. I can use it to show them who’s boss!” he shouted, raising an imaginary lightsaber in the air.
I could not hold back the tears that were streaming out of my mouth. I didn’t even try to hide them from him. Sean was freaking out.
He kissed me on the forehead, stroked my hair, still under the impression that I was crying because of mom.
Sean is the best brother a feisty big sister could wish for. But tonight, as I was about to go to bed, I started to smell something funny. It was foul and disgusting.
I pulled my T-shirt up to my face and began to search every corner of my room. At first I couldn't place it, but the longer I stayed there, the stronger it became.
I opened the window to air out the foul smell and called Simsim into my room.
As soon as he entered my room, he pounced on the space under my bed. I stood there for a moment, then my throat went dry as reality hit me like a bus.
I swallowed, knelt down and realized that the smell was definitely coming from down there.
As my eyes met the gruesome sight before me, I gasped and fell backwards.
Beneath my bed, unbeknownst to me, was a flock of dead fowl, their necks broken and some still twitching helplessly. How could Simsim not know about this avian graveyard?
Anyway, I wanted to get Simsim out of there right away before he caught something he shouldn't, which meant I had to get back under my bed and face those... poor babies.
I put my hand around the back of his neck and was about to pull him out when the mattress springs creaked above me.
My heart stopped. Was it Sean? Surely I would have heard his footsteps behind me.
And then I heard it.
Click, click, click.
Simsim hissed and growled. His back was arched and his tail was bobbing in a way I'd never seen before.
Feeling safe with Simsim beside me, I slowly crawled out from under my head, only to discover a pair of charcoal-colored eyes staring at me.
The clicking stopped when it saw me. And then it slowly opened its beak and a hellish screech filled my ears.
I screamed and ran out with Simsim behind me. I slammed the door shut. Sean was out of his room within minutes and asked me, "What happened? What's wrong?"
I didn't answer him. Instead, I grabbed him and dragged him down the stairs, making a quick stop in the kitchen and rushing into the dark basement.
You might be wondering where Sean is. If I had brought him downstairs with me, I'd certainly have talked about him. The truth is, he's with me. With us.
It won't be hard for them to find him. The blood oozing from under the fridge should be an unmistakable sign.
He complained that he'd left his lightsaber in his room and had nothing to fight them with.
However, he insisted that we'd fight them together. That we'd get out of there.
The cellar door bursts open. Tiny footsteps approach the fridge. They can smell it and hiss with pleasure!
It won't be long before they catch me. I'm not that far away.
If you ever have the misfortune to encounter these monsters, you may or may not make it out alive.
And as long as you're alive, you won't understand the reason for their existence. You won’t know where they come from or why they’re after you. You won't catch them, but they'll
you. They always do. They never forget.
I lean my hand against the side of the fridge, tears streaming down my face. I cover my
mouth with my hand and wished he had a soft hand to grasp.
Then, as dawn casts a reddish glow across the sky, I close my eyes and take my last breaths.
