Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

hand emerged from between the blinds, identical to the first. Then came a third, a fourth, a fifth…. Six, seven, eight, nine…. She lost count after that as hands continued thrusting through the blinds. Within seconds the rectangular space that marked the patio door’s opening was filled with ebon-clawed hands, all of them reaching toward her, fingers flexing, claws softly scratching against one another, as if the creatures were attempting to sharpen them before attacking. She’d been right about something blocking the light from the lamps behind the building, and now she knew what that something was.

She heard whispering then, a sound that might have been an autumnal wind, but which might also have been a chorus of voices speaking words that she couldn’t quite make out. Then one of the shadow creatures entered the apartment, seeming to slide between the blinds’ slats as if it were momentarily two-dimensional. But once it was inside the room, standing between the patio door and the dining table, it regained mass, like a black balloon inflating itself. This creature looked exactly like the one she’d seen at FoodSaver, might even have been the same one. It was impossible to tell. The thing had no apparent sensory organs, but its featureless face was pointed at her, and she had the impression that it was well aware of her presence. It stood for a moment, regarding her, and then it gripped the edge of the small round table with its clawed hands and flipped it over. The sound of the table hitting the floor shocked her out of her paralysis, and she turned to flee. In her peripheral vision she caught sight of the shadow creature heading toward her, claws upraised, as others of its kind entered the room, knocking the dining table’s two chairs over as they came.

She ran.

Her bare feet pounded on the carpet of the short hallway as she dashed toward her bedroom. She heard no sounds of pursuit coming from behind her, but she didn’t know if the shadow creatures made any noise as they moved – the one at FoodSaver hadn’t. But she wasn’t dumb enough to believe the things weren’t chasing after her, and she was damn sure she wasn’t going to look back over her shoulder to check. When she reached her bedroom, she dashed inside, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it. She then hurried to her nightstand to snatch up her phone. Before she could start to input numbers, one of the creatures crashed into her bedroom door, hitting it so hard she heard wood crack. The creatures might look like shadows and move just as silently, but it seemed they could pack a wallop when they wanted to.

More pounding at the door now. She pictured a mass of shadowy forms filling the hallway, clawed hands curled into fists, all of them pounding on her bedroom door, desperate to get at her. It wouldn’t take the things long to break down the door and flood into the room. She preferred not to be there when it happened.

She darted toward her bathroom and reached it at the exact instant that the bedroom door burst open. She spun around, shut the bathroom door, locked it, then plopped down on her ass in front of it. She turned, braced her bare feet on the toilet bowl’s cold porcelain, and pushed her back against the door. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep the shadow creatures from reaching her, but she hoped it would be long enough.

Heart pounding, head throbbing, breath coming in ragged gasps, she pressed nine-one-one on her phone’s screen and then held the device up to her head with a shaking hand. For an instant she feared that the call wouldn’t go through, that the shadow creatures possessed some kind of ability to block her phone’s signal, and she was relieved when she heard the sound of ringing as her phone tried to connect.

Before the dispatcher on the other end could answer, dozens of hands began pounding on the bathroom door, striking so hard that she could feel the impacts juddering through her bones and teeth. She experienced a draining sensation then, a sudden weariness, as if her strength was deserting her. Her legs began to tremble, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to keep the door closed much longer.

“No,” she said. “Please, no….”

And just like that, the pounding stopped. It didn’t taper off, one pair of hands stopping, followed by another and so on. All the hands discontinued striking the door at the exact same instant, as if the shadow things had received some kind of signal to break off their attack.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

Lori was so relieved she started crying, and when the dispatcher once again asked what her emergency was, she almost couldn’t speak.

“Someone’s broken into my apartment,” she said, voice soft and breathy. “I’ve locked myself in the bathroom and I’m hiding from them.”

“Hold on. Someone will be there soon. Give me your address.”

Lori did, and the dispatcher told her to remain on the line while she contacted officers closest to her location. Lori said she would, and while she waited, she listened, trying to hear if the shadow creatures were still gathered outside the bathroom, perhaps hoping to trick her into thinking they were gone so she’d open the door and they could get at her. She heard nothing, though. Maybe they were gone.

A soft rapping sounded on the door, and she screamed.

“Lori? Are you okay?”

It was Larry.

In an instant, she was on her feet. Still holding on to her phone with her left hand, she unlocked the door with her right, opened it, and threw herself into Larry’s arms. She hit him so hard, he staggered back a step before hesitantly bringing up his arms to hold on to her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She tried to speak, but all that came out was a sob, which was swiftly followed by more tears. She began trembling then,