Empty



My mother and I had been fighting and she had locked herself in the bedroom in our tiny one bedroom apartment. Being almost eleven o’clock I was feeling the cool hand of sleep slowly run its fingertips up my spine and since I had nowhere else to surrender myself to the calling, I grabbed a blanket from the hallway closet and laid down on the couch watching TV. I had merely closed my eyes when I heard a knock at the door.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Irritated, hating deeply whoever would interrupt my sleep before it even began, I answered the door. “What?” I demand of the man at the door. “You’re here for my mother aren’t…” I then looked at the man. The once delicate fingers running up my spine beckoning sleep, closed themselves tightly crushing each vertebrae paralyzing me. Hours seemed to pass, endless hours of staring into that face. Enveloped in shadow, I was unable to see anything above his nose as “he” mouthed words I was either too young or too tired to understand. If only I knew then what “he” said, maybe I’d be ready for what he ended up giving me as a punishment. I felt his eyes devouring me, leaving me felt naked and exposed like he knew everything about me. Slowly he smirks and turns his head towards the stairs leading to my apartment. I felt the grip loosen just enough for me to turn my head to the left and try to see what it is “he” was looking at. Confused I sat there looking at nothing for a couple of seconds before I feel a pat on my head before “he” simply vanished, like he was never there.

I refused to sleep in the living room the next night and convinced my mother, even though we were fighting, to stay in the living room while I slept in the bed, safe from the door, safe from the stranger. I fell asleep quickly, whisked away into the wonderful bliss, that wonderful empty void.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Immediately I awoke in a cold sweat knowing exactly what I would find. I closed my eyes and rolled away from the window covering my head with the pillow, refusing to get up knowing in my young naïve heart that he would have to stop eventually and go away.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The sound was piercing straight to my brain no matter how tightly I packed my fingers into my ears. I reluctantly stood up on the bed, trembling. I opened the curtain and saw the faceless figure. Terrified, I felt the long delicate fingers secure themselves tightly around my spine not allowing me to move even an inch away from this faceless terror. Playfully “he” placed his finger on the glass right where my nose was touching the window, as his cracked dry lips slowly twisted into a smirk.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Each stroke of his finger against the pane shot daggers into my lungs ripping the air out of my lungs. “He” chuckled to himself every time I winced in agony unable to breathe. His hood would shift on his head each time his shoulders would raise. Strange the things we remember when we’re suffering, anything to take our mind off of the burning and aching of being suffocated really. Once again “he” pulled his finger away from the glass and I clenched my eyes tightly and braced myself for the expected collapse of my empty lungs.

Tap.

Static began blaring from my clock radio on the night stand and I opened my eyes. Inky black darkness was the only thing there.

This went on for weeks, night after night, waking up to a tapping on the window. I would quiver in fear each night as if I were a slave grasped by my collar and drug to the window by a malevolent master to be shown what happens to bad little boys.

I had to escape. I couldn’t face the horror any longer. I talked my mother into letting me spend the night at my friend’s house. We stayed up late watching movies and playing video games until finally we became tired and were dragged deeply into the glorious abyss known as sleep.

Tap.

I felt the blade pierce deeply into my shoulder immobilizing me as his finger pressed harder than anything I have ever felt. “How did you get here? How did you get inside when the door is locked?” I asked, with the first words spoken between us since that first night. To which the only answer I got was a grin and nothing more. I jumped as my friend yelled at me.

“Who are you talking to?”

And with that “he” was gone. Relieved that “he” was gone I simply told my friend I must have been talking in my sleep and to go back to bed. That was the last time I saw “him” for years. I was just a child then, no older than ten.

I saw “him” once more, just recently, a week after my twenty-fourth birthday. I had forgotten “him”, pushed those weeks of terror deep into my subconscious never to be recovered. It was the only way to maintain any sort of sanity.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

In that moment every detail rushed back to me. I was that scared ten year old quivering under my blankets. The smell of my old apartment filled the air, the stench of dirty dishes and alcohol. I stood up and wrapped a blanket around myself then opened the curtain. There was nothing there. I stood quizzically for a minute before I shook it off as nothing more than paranoia.

I turned around to lie back down in my soft comfortable bed when there “he” was standing there no more than four feet away from me wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and torn jeans with the same blank expression on his face.

“The rest are gone now.” “He” said as he chuckled and smiled to himself.

“What do you mean the rest are gone?”

“I’ve given you what I promised.” Saying nothing more he simply turned around and walked out through my bedroom door.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” I scream out frantically. “WHAT DID YOU PROMISE ME!? GIVE ME AN ANSWER!”

I rushed down the hall to my roommate’s room and bash my knuckles against his door until my knuckles leave red splotches where they were striking. Nothing, I swing the door open slamming it on the wall to see “him” standing there “He’s not here, neither is anybody else. You are truly alone now.”

That was two weeks ago and I’m about to go insane I’m writing this in case there is anybody else around. “He” had to be lying, Things like “him” don’t exist. They can’t exist. I’m about to run out of power, and there hasn’t been electricity in four days. I hope this reaches somebody, anybody. I just want there to be someone out there. I can’t do this. There has to be somebody out there. I don’t want to die alone.