The Eyes.

                I awoke like I did most nights, pulled from my slumber by the sound of rattling on the bedroom window like long nails tapping at the glass. I trained myself to stay in my bed, to ignore the lure of looking out onto that dark lawn below, to see the Creeping Man smiling.

                But tonight, more than other nights, the whispering, the darkness with teeth and tongues, spoke to me louder than it had before. Like an insect on the inside of my skull, unable to get out, impossible to ignore. I stood, sleep drunk but a familiar fear in my chest creeping like maggots burrowing inside a frozen carcus for warmth. I moved, legs heavy, drearily to the window.

                The cloudless, star-filled black that laced the heavens above watched over me as my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to resist, fell onto the dull lawn below. There it stood. A figure cloaked in black. It was its eyes that I always saw first: deep and red like the embers of a dying fire. Its hands as white as bone poked from under its flowing black coat. Its face hidden with shadow under a large top hat. I moved away, returning to my bed, not allowing the visions of monsters and devils to fill my head.

                I push the eyes from my mind, forcing myself to detach from the waking world once more. I have quelled fear before, much worse than this, when the creature with the red eyes had made it up to my stairs. If I don’t give it heed, it will disintegrate with the dawn. If I give it attention, it will come closer. But it tries. Oh, how it tries to make me weep, with its incessant whispers, wanting me, forsaking my will to sleep.

                I snap my eyes open, the night still aloof, encased in a timeless box of dark. Had I been sleeping for a minute or more? The sky a still sheet of death, and the chittering and tapping of the specter in my head.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

As if hooked, I am on my feet, pulled to the windowsill beside my bed. There, like before, the creature with the red eyes is staring, its toothy smile alluring, caring, longing for me to join it on the dark lawn. I shake my head, like I always said, and quell its wishes once more.

                Again in my bed, I rest my head, willing the being to vapour. But again I hear, the sinister sneer, of the rapping of knuckles on my door. It was inside, my heart began to pound. I hide under my covers, muting my sound.

Like air, the thing moves, along my hallway into my room. It whispering even louder than before. Begging me to come with it, into the land of hell and fire, where I will be cloaked in shadow forevermore.

                Inside my bed, shaking my head, my tiny hands, they tremble more. “Be gone you, fiend,” I hiss and scream, and shake my head once more. Its shadow grows, begging me to head through the door. I shake my head, like I always said until the creature understands what I implore. But tonight, wrapped in fright, pull down the covers a slither more. I feel its might and in my sight, those reds my eyes doth bore.

                It takes my hand and I scream and howl, the monster dragging me out my door. Out in the yard, I hit and shiver, scream, and quiver, those red eyes staring into mine. The ground opens up and in my vision, I see a world filled with specters and horror. Withered souls and creatures of darkness, feasting on them as they clawed and clambered out of the hole. I pull away, the being’s grip tight on my cuff. The wide grin of sharp teeth, its nose curved and pointed, red eyes and black fedora.

                “Come,” it says. Just one word and nothing more. Harrow fills my body and my blood turns to ice, the moon above no more. The stars are gone, and the world around me cloaked in shadow. A harvest of souls, the creature holds, a list in its hand to show. I am at the top, my name in black, my turn to be buried and rot.

                The ground swells and the chasm grows, hell fire licking at my feet. Eyes sting with tears, and I see past those red eyes of death, the twilight breaking through the dark. The creature withers, turning to dust and ash, carried away by the wind. I lay on the wet grass, parents coming and holding me in their grasp.

                I sleep then, the darkness gone to the land of Nether, for another day, I will wait, until the dark returns at late, and the rattling comes once more, rattling on my bedroom door.