In The Arms of Hypnos

Here’s a story.  Written in May.

    The bed is hugging me. I am its teddy bear. It enfolds me in its soft embrace, knowing how much I need it – it’s minus eight outside – and doing its best to accommodate me. I lie in the one warm spot, feeling my eyelids grow heavy in the pleasant knowledge that I can close them whenever I wish. I am absolutely comfortable and at peace with the world. I have achieved pre-REM Nirvana.

Wait.

Creak.

There is a rustle, brief, coming from the corner of the room. I roll over and try to ignore it, but I forget that I was lying on the only warm spot on the bed. I shudder and try to roll back, but now the blanket’s gotten all rolled up around the warm spot and by the time I get it sorted out, the spot I’m currently in is warmer anyway. I fall back in frustration.

Creak.

A different one this time. Must be from downstairs. The refrigerator cooling down, or maybe the plumbing straining a bit. I read somewhere that objects contract when heat leaves them at night, so it could just be my chair settling down for a good night’s rest.

But what if it’s a killer?

My caveman instincts kick in as another click is heard from the same place. At the remote thought of a threat, adrenaline howls into my bloodstream. My eyelids shoot up like junkies. I sigh, realize there’s no two ways around it, and get up to scout under the weak pretense of using the bathroom.

I hug the walls, making sure my vulnerable spine isn’t exposed, and glance around shiftily at the shadows, each of which has a statistical chance, however miniscule, of containing a psychotic KGB agent or a slavering nuclear mutant. I work my way into an entrenched position behind the bathroom door, flip on the lights, check behind the shower curtain, wait for noises, and, finally, use the fixtures.

On my way back, I realize that this is absurd. I’m a bookstore manager. Nobody will want to kill me. Then I realize that thinking that has probably given the phantoms leeway to advance, so I shove my rationality back into its corner, panic, and sprint across the hall into bed.

It embraces me again, all my stupidity forgiven. I sigh and lie back.

Creak.

Under my bed. A monster? My primal side really takes over now. Cave bear? Smilodon? Maybe just a slasher with a knife, ready to punch through my bed, rupture my kidneys, and leave me to die. I’m taking no chances. I have to keep moving, or the improbable specters will get me. I hop out of bed and hear another creak.

Then the light comes on.

I’m blinded by it, coming in through my window. I shield my eyes to see a police helicopter, and hear its blades ripping through the hypothermic air. Red-and-blue sirens lights flare on the ground outside.  The creaks under my bed become frequent and distressed.

I run.

Across hall down stairs grab coat from chair step into shoes open door.

Get down, yelps a policeman’s voice so I do. I duck and a freezing wind passes right over my back cutting a three inch-wide streak down the spine of my coat: the cold instantly moves in to take advantage and I shiver as I scream.

I reach the ground and look up in time to see the wind collapse awkwardly at the feet of the policemen and be pincushioned by tranquilizer rounds.

I do not stand up. I curl into a fetal ball. A policeman asks me if I am alright; I check my forgotten nerve endings and answer in the affirmative.

He tells me I am lucky to be alive – the man who was under my bed was a serial killer. Wanted in four states.

I shudder. In premonition I realize that I will not have a good night for a long time.

~ by pieboy on July 17, 2007.