Drifting. In and out. Room lit by the spectral glow of modern electronics. The shape of my wife a comforting weight beside me. I don't understand how she sleeps so peacefully, unafraid, but there she is. Breath even and measured, still in the dark.

I roll over onto my side, seeking that perfect spot that will allow me to finally fade out for the night. We have been out of town, up north, and I find only misery in the hated humidity I have had to return to. My eyelids slide down again and that's when I hear it. A furtive sliding sound from the direction of my closet. In the time I've been away I have once again grown accustomed to sleeping without a light on. My father's house, where we had been visiting, held no threat, safety even in the dark. Now... that sound.

In the split second that I hear it, my eyes snap back open. I am in no mood to deal with this tonight. Hot. Tired. I have felt nauseous most of the day, on the verge of vomiting and instead of lying in terror, as I would normally, I simply fling myself out of the bed. I feel him there, in the dark, but I don't care. Not tonight. I'm too tired, too sick, too depressed even over missing my family and the city I have, over the years, grown to love.

My wife is safe from harm. I don't know how I know that, but I do. It is only me he torments in this house, only my darkness he haunts, stepping through the spaces between my thoughts. I nearly trip on the fan cord, cursing, moving as quickly as I can to avoid not only hands which may grasp suddenly from the lightless corners of the room, but also waking The Wife.

Downstairs a light is on as it always is. The door behind me vibrates slightly in its frame, a faint scratching sound emanates roomside. Light or heavy, there would be no evidence of it in the morning. There never is. I grab a Dr. Pepper from the fridge, seeking solace in caffeine. The back door next to me thuds as if hit hard, the blinds bouncing, the glass rattling. This elicits a sharp scream which I cover quickly. I begin to suspect it is my terror he desires, and he has it now, but also my anger.

I turn, face the door, slam the fridge hard enough to dislodge items from the door inside. Breathing heavy, throat pinched closed with copper madness and I rage.

"FUCK YOU"

SLAM

"FUCK YOU"

SLAM

"FUCK"

SLAM

"YOU"

SLAM

"MOTHERFUCKER"

The door slams in its frame again as I drop the can of Dr. Pepper and reach, one hand for the knob, one for the deadbolt. I twist, I turn, I pull. The door flies open, as though pushed from the other side, barely missing my foot which surely would have been broken.

Framed in the doorway is only darkness. My back patio. The gate in the small fence closed. The cicadas drone on in the wooded dark. No stars shine, no moon can be seen, but nothing moves. The only sound the normal insectile buzz I have lived with so long I hardly hear it anymore.

"Fuck you," I say into the darkness and slam closed the door. The Wife, miraculously, has not awakened. The rest of the night passes without incident.

It is only in the morning when I check the weather that I realize the sky had been cloudless, clear, and should have been full of glittering stars.

Last night was a little different from my more recent experiences. It was more like that first night, when the shadowy figure sent me running through the house in hysterics. Except this time was a thousand times worse.
I was laying in bed again. I don't know why I still sleep there, or why I try to sleep at night at all; but I do, and so the story goes that I was laying in bed, huddled up under my blanket with the window closed, even though it was eighty degrees. It's funny the things you'll do for a measure of security. Not that any of them actually help. The light streaming in the window from the security lamp out back was shining in my eyes a little brighter than usual.
Restless and feeling watched, I got up and looked out the window. The back yard was flooded with light ... but for one patch about 100 feet away from the house. It was about three feet in diameter. A seemingly perfect circle. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to grasp the strangeness, then looked again. The shadow had moved, now about fifty feet from the house. Where it had been, the bats were having a heyday swooping down at something. I closed my eyes and swallowed, looked again. Twenty feet from the house, and the bats now swooping at the area fifty feet away, as well as the first area.
Fingers of fear were ticking across my brain and digging in. Gone was any need to swallow; my mouth was as dry as it's ever been. Afraid to look away again but afraid, also, not to, I was rooted where I stood, shaking like a leaf. As hard as I tried not to blink, I couldn't do it. The circle was gone, and bats spread the hunt to where it had been once again. I couldn't see it at all now, but the sense of being watched was monumental.
I turned to survey my room, my eyes landing on the doors of the closet to my left. They were closed, but they're the slatted type, and I knew in that way that only experience can explain that it was in there, watching, waiting for something. Another blink. Suddenly, spiders began to pour out of the closet from between the slats in waves, and I ran screaming from the room, down the stairs, outside, to my car, and just drove.
I must have been on the road for an hour before I realized I had nowhere to go and pulled over into a brightly lit and busy truck stop. I came home when dawn arrived and finally snatched a couple hours of sleep on the couch before sitting down to try to write this. I'm not sure how I'll spend the night tonight, but I'm pretty sure it won't be sleeping.

-J