Stranger

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Katie’s eyes swung back and forth as she followed the slow, rhythmic movement of the grandfather clock. It was a quarter to eleven at night and her body was weary from travel. She was laying on top of the kind man’s dusty blow up mattress which was annoyingly deflating more and more as the hours trickled by. She truly had been trying to fall asleep but the humid air clung to her skin and dust blocked up her nose. The soles of her feet felt sweaty and cold at the same time and she could hear the faint snores of her host upstairs. She desperately waited for sleep to come and take her but instead she was just stuck laying there.

In her helpless state of insomnia and boredom she allowed her mind to wander about the events of the day. How she got lost in the expanse that is this snow dusted city. How after travelling for days on end this kind stranger had gifted her with the accommodation that is the cramped, stuffy living room of his house.

She had been sitting alone, munching on crackers at a random bus stop trying to stay out of the cold. However she had no intention of actually boarding a bus, when he arrived. He was a tall, pale man with long thin limbs and eyes slanted slightly inwards. He smiled politely and spoke to her with a strong confident voice in contrast to his otherwise lanky figure. It was hard to remember the exact interaction. Perhaps his smile was more of a grin. Was it that his voice was decisive or rather commanding? What kind of idiot trusts a stranger?

Oh god! Katie thought, what have I done? In her mind his limbs stretched longer and thinner, his skin becoming almost translucent. His spine popping sickeningly as he transformed. The worst were his eyes, that started rotating inwards until they lay upside down on his ghoulish face. Katie shivered at the thought. He’s a devil, and he’s lured me into hell! He’s a beast and I’m trapped in his den! He is a monster.

He was going to kill her in her sleep, gobble her up, or drug her then stuff her in a suitcase as he fled to the woods to tear her apart. It was all a part of his plan, and she took the bait like a mouse with a carefully placed piece of cheese. Only aware of the trap once it was too late.

Her stomach contorted in dread, and in the dark room every shadow resembled a long figure, or perhaps a bony hand reaching for her. She quietly got up and assembled her belongings ready to escape into the night before slumping back down onto the bed.

You’re being ridiculous, she thought. He is a perfectly normal man and all his limbs are a fine size and his eyes lay how they should in his head! Chances are he is just a regular guy, a kind stranger. Suddenly she heard a sound coming from down the narrow corridor leading to the staircase. A long sort of screeching scratch like nails on a chalkboard. Her heart skipped a beat and a cold shiver ran down her spine.

Could it have been the pipes? Or perhaps a regular sound coming from an old, creaky house. She fell silent, listening. The snores from upstairs sounding more and more like rasping breaths, seemingly closer to her than before.

A particularly human shaped coat rack made her whimper and she was too scared to look back at the pitch black window in fear that the abyss would be interrupted by a ghostly white face pressed against the glass. She held her face in her hands as the walls around her creaked and whispered, and shadows danced and taunted. She jumped as the clock chimed eleven and nearly tripped over the mattress which was now so deflated that if she pushed her hand down she could feel the floor underneath her. She caught the side of a shelf that promptly gave way under her weight, crashing on the ground. The sound broke some of the tension but it quickly returned as the room fell silent, almost quieter than before, the snoring had stopped. She waited there for a while, one hand on the mattress the other on the collapsed shelf, taking deep breaths and mumbling reassurances to herself.

Suddenly the man emerged from the shadows of the corridor holding a small night lamp that illuminated his pale skin in a terrifying manner . He was like a cat, completely silent, which was odd in such a noisy house. She screamed when she saw him then stopped and let out a sigh of relief, for he was no monster or creature of darkness like she had led herself to believe but a regular man just like the one she had thought she met at that bus stop. In his strong voice he asked her if everything was alright as he could hear her scuffling downstairs and got worried. Katie assured him she was fine and after pausing to look at the broken shelf for a moment he promptly headed down the corridor lamp in hand.

The next morning he woke her up with a gentle shake of the shoulders and announced he had prepared breakfast and packed her lunch to go. She stumbled to get up, her body heavy from so little sleep and her back sore from the now almost fully deflated mattress. She gathered her things, shoved a piece of bread in her mouth and thanked the man for the lunch. As she walked out the driveway she turned around and glanced back at the house.

For a brief moment she swore she could see a long, dark silhouette behind the curtains and that’s all it took for her to start sprinting down the street as the door swung open and he called out to her, waving a long arm.