(Written when I was part of a writing group we called Scriptorium. This was inspired by the sound of fireworks outside my window.)
I heard a tapping at my window that night. I had thought it was just an odd sound effect, the loud pops of fireworks echoing off the window that sounded exactly like long sharp fingernails rapping on the glass. I would soon discover how wrong I was...
The first time it happened, night had already fallen, and the loud thud of far-off fireworks had not yet begun. It was the 4th of July, after all. My shades hadn’t yet been drawn, and there came a ghastly rapping at the window. It was loud enough that I could clearly hear it over my music, and loud enough to pull me out of the ramblings of my mind trying to work through my latest art project.
I put my reaction down to nerves, at first. I didnt really hear anything, did I? What was there to hear? But then there was the thud, as if the someone (or something) tapping at my window had fallen against the wall beneath. Then several more thuds, fainter this time. Then the tapping came back.
I pulled the shade, turned out the lights in my office, and pretended not to be at home. I grabbed a flashlight and steeled myself to go outside to confront whomever was playing such an awful prank on me. Didn't they know I had better things to do that night?
The moment I stepped outside, I heard the fireworks. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and went back inside. I didn’t want to have to confront some wacko outside my window. I just wanted to paint in peace.
I was back at my desk for maybe 20 minutes when it came again. That rapping, echoing off the glass and through the room, like a hollow clink of claws on the window. Could that really be fireworks? What the hell kind of fireworks made an echo like that? I decided to go back outside and stand by my window to see if I could catch the noise as it happened, tie it to the fireworks that caused it.
I grabbed my flashlight and shoes, and went back outside. once I got around the side of the house, I was in near-total darkness. My neighbors weren’t much for street or porch lights. Especially not on a night like this. I knew the area around my house well enough that I didn’t need the flashlight, but I felt better carrying it. Weapon, or illumination, at need.
My office is at the back of my house, the last in a line of bedrooms across that side of the building. As I approached my window, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I stopped dead in my tracks, regretting that phrase coming into my head just at that moment. Death isn’t a comforting thought when confronting the source of a mysterious noise or shadow.
I stood still for a moment, barely breathing, and waited. My eyes tried to scan the darkness around the window, around the edge of the house, looking for a recognizable shape. a source for the sound, for the shadowed movement. Nothing stirred. I held my breath, and my position, for as long as I could. Nothing happened. I exhaled and slowly started towards the window again, convinced the source of the shadow had been a cat or some other nocturnal animal. I didn’t yet realize how nocturnal, how animal, the source of the noises really was.
I hadnt taken two steps when I saw the shadows move again, this time directly under the window. I stopped and held my breath, watching for more movement. This time as it moved the shadows around the house seemed to gather and shift with it as if they were merely an extension of its presence. It pulled itself up, raising a huge dark head. Still, all I could really see was shadow, the flashlight all but forgotten in my hands. Its head swiveled towards me, shadows slithering around it like a foul mist, and two yellowed orbs blinked open at me. It leaned its head in closer to me, whuffing breath and shadow at me that smelled of damp, rotting earth. It regarded me with what I could only guess was curiosity, peering up and down the length of me. I could feel its gaze shifting through me, as if it were taking the measure and grain of my soul and storing the information for later on. After a few moments of this scrutiny, its head pulled back, and I could feel a distinct aura of puzzlement, and then disappointment. It turned to regard the window, and then looked at me again... and slowly backed away and before melting into the shadows. The smell of damp earth disappeared with it as the shadows lost their impenetrable inkiness.
After a moment or two, I edged over to where it had been standing, under my window. my feet squished into the ground directly under the window, and I could see darker patterns of earth left behind by the creature. Remembering my flashlight, I turned it on and shined it down on the patch of damp earth. maggots and worms of all kinds crawled through the tainted earth, and i stepped back in disgust. as I looked up, to turn away and go back into the safety of the house, my flashlight shone on the window, illuminating six faint scortch marks in the pattern of a six-fingered splayed hand, on the glass.
I got my ass back inside as fast as possible.
I have no idea what it was that I saw outside my window that night, nor why it left me alone. but I have bricked over all of the windows in my house now, and I never ever go out at night anymore.
You never know what you will find, lurking in the shadows, hunting.