Spoopy Season Draws Near

The sheets he’d swaddled himself in were light enough to let him feel a portion of the cool autumn breeze. Faintly aware of his surroundings, sleep called to him.

His eyes opened when the door opened with a high-pitched creak. Darkness had enveloped the room. He checked his phone, set atop the surface of his bedside table. The room was illuminated by electronic light the moment it was lifted.

White numeric symbols flared atop the blank black canvas that acted as the Lock Screen. ‘09:34’, it read. Hardly an hour since he’d turned in.

He turned on the phone’s light and aimed it at the door. Ajar, enough so that one could slip through if they swallowed their gut and side-stepped in. Nothing worthwhile here aside from his bed and dresser. The private sanctuary within the domicile he claimed as his own.

His kingdom of a glorified closet.

‘Just the wind,’ he assured himself. ‘The house is old, the foundation had shifted over time and it was likely just a bit uneven now. Not level. More than enough reason for it to have been the wind.’

Satisfied with the rational explanation, it all went out the window when a sinewy red hand, the nails atop each finger overgrown and chipped, grabbed the knob and pulled the door shut. Casual, practiced, borderline considerate.

“Lights off, Daniel.” Mother purred from the other side of the door. “Big day tomorrow, get some sleep.”

Daniel turned the light on his phone off. The depleted carrier bars on the locked screen stared back at him, just above the clock, ‘09:36.’ He set the phone back on the bedside table, screen down.

Daniel laid within the darkness of his room, and listened as Mother strode through the halls. He pulled the sheets tighter around him. He didn’t want to leave Mother’s home, and he really didn’t want to go to sleep.

He feared if he did, he wouldn’t have a say in the matter.

Tomorrow was his birthday.

Mother needed fresh ingredients for dinner.