Something Wicked this Way Comes

I was frightened, but I drew strength from Mary being in the room, and with a deep breath filled with trepidation, I took another slow, and silent step forward, my bare feet cushioned by the cold floor below.  

 

Again, the voice became louder. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I could have sworn that it had become more agitated as I drew closer. The next step I took, shook me to my very core, for as that murmuring, garbled voice grew louder still; amongst the rambling, gravelled sound of it, I heard a word. A word which shot an icy shudder through my bones. A word to be feared.

It spoke my name.

Dear God it knew my name! To me it was as if knowing who I was somehow endowed that thing with an unlimited reach. That I may never be rid of it. That it could kill me at any moment.

Something suddenly caught my eye, a movement accompanied by a ruffle of cloth. I knew now where that rhythmic, agitated voice originated. I knew now why it was muffled and difficult to decipher. I could now see it, only a few feet in front of me.

Standing.

Standing behind the closed curtains.

The moon was in its ascendancy outside, and while its glimmer could not entirely penetrate the thick cloth, it could barely, and faintly, outline the thing watching between my window and the curtains. I cannot now convey the strangeness which then overcame me. My anxiety and terror had heightened, but an unusual compulsion, an untimely sense of purpose took me over.

I had to see what it was.

I took another tentative step towards the curtains. They swayed slightly as if caught by a breeze, but I could not tell whether the movement had been caused by myself, or the hand of that thing hiding behind a shroud of cloth. I was now close enough to hear its laboured breathing, the displacement of fluid at the back of its throat palpable with each inhalation.

This was it. 

 

I was going to confront this monstrosity from my past, this tormentor of children, this coward. Raising my right hand slowly, I accidentally touched the fabric of the curtain, causing a subtle ripple which parted the them momentarily. I gasped, for through that temporary slit, only for a moment, I saw it.