The Dark Within
Excerpt
Night envelopes the coast, pregnant and still, save for the silent flitting of hunting birds, and the panicked rustle and squeak of their desperate prey. The mournful call of a buoy sounds in the distance, muffled by a creeping bank of fog that all but obscures a lone house, huddled on the promontory below. The moon, a heavy globe of silver light hovering over a blue-black horizon, paints a ghostly highway, stretching across the rippling water, cutting through cloud and mist, and stopping at the door. Somewhere…something… shifts and stirs. The wind picks up, scattering the flimsy curtain, revealing a moon-washed gingerbread house, shimmering silver-grey in the dark. It shines like a beacon, and something warm and vibrant at its centre, pulses with life.
It descends through the night, avid, hungry, and curious… like the hunting birds, drawn to the heat and rhythm that flickers below. Its swift approach sends a flock of starlings exploding into the sky, wheeling as one, fleeing into the night. The gnarled trees that sheltered them, rattled by a gust of wind, creep closer to the house, crowding against it, twitching and shuddering with excitement, reaching bone-grey fingers to scrabble at the windows, tapping and scratching as if testing for weakness, seeking someway in.
Restless, the woman twists and moans. Something clatters on the porch. She shifts and whimpers as half-heard sounds find her in her sleep. Her heart beats faster. Her breath comes in shallow gasps and she clutches her blanket, gripping it tight. She twitches and starts violently, but doesn’t wake, trapped by whatever chases her through her dreams.
The wind is stronger now, shaking the foundations, pushing at the windows and tugging at the roof. As it whips the trees they bang against the glass, angry, insistent, threatening, but the old house was left empty far too long, and it is hungry too. A whoosh, a hiss, an inundation, as windows fly open. Something moves in the dark outside, something stirs in the dark within, and the house begins to breathe.
Downstairs, something rattles on a counter. A car passes by, out on the highway, its headlights illuminating the first floor in flickers of pallid light, darting along the walls and ceilings, stopping at the stairs. The house shifts and groans, and something hunkers down to wait. Upstairs she slumbers, unaware.