Drip
Drop
Drip
Drop
The soft pitter-patter of water jostled me awake softly at a cool 3:44 am a few nights ago.
Groggily, I opened my crusted eyes with a gentle snap and reached a lazy hand to my phone. Resting on my nightstand, it lit up like a beacon as soon as my hand made contact.
3:44 am, October 5th.
The seven am alarm taunted me in the upper left corner of my phone as I sat up wearily. My throat burned and my bladder ached. Looked like it was time for a 3 am pit stop out of dreamland. I swung my legs off the bed and pressed my feet to the worn carpet below. I limped to the bathroom, pain shooting up from my heels.
The bathroom was to the right of my bedroom and barely lit by the light of the moon. The porcelain toilet reflected soft light, so I reasoned quickly that I needn’t turn on the light.
I approached the toilet, feet heavy on the tile floor when I felt myself step in something slick, and slip. Legs flying up in the air, and arms splayed awkwardly behind me, I hit the ground hard with a thud. A grown escaped me as my world spun. My entire body ached, but the thing that stuck out most was the warm wet liquid I found myself lying in.
The next thing I noticed was the pitter-patter of water had stopped and had been replaced by a kind of skittering. The sound was like when a dog stepped on ice or a smooth surface. I gulped and put my arms behind me to push myself up and grab the light, but I slipped in the oily substance.
Suddenly, I heard the shower curtain rustle, and the metal rings slid along the tension bar. Then, a soft panting could be heard coming from the direction of the shower. I looked toward it, and I saw something pale facing me. The moonlight barely illuminated ghostly white skin that was obscured by some kind of thick black hair.
Whatever it was, it was bipedal and stepped one short leg over the shower tub, and when its foot met with the tile, that skittering sound returned. The other foot joined the first one of the tile, and then the creature took to all fours. Skittering toward me, it became clearer as my eyes adjusted.
The creature was indeed on all fours, however, its arms and legs faced down. In contrast to the arms and legs, its head hung upside down, causing its oily hair to hang onto the ground. The hair left behind an ichor-like liquid, and the creature panted heavier as it approached me.
I began to scramble toward the ajar door behind me, and breathe heavily. As I neared the exit, the creature was upon me. Slowly, it crept onto my body, still on all fours. The pinpricks of claw pressed against my skin, and suddenly I was frozen in fear.
The creature climbed my body until I was shrouded in that thick black hair. I was staring at the mass of hair descending from its upside-down head when I heard a sickening crunch. The creature’s head turned to face me, and now I was staring into a pair of white chasms where eyes should be.
The creature’s face was like that of an animal’s skull, with a loose layer of skin draped over it. The skin was from a human face but the skull looked suited to some kind of canine. I heard a guttural noise escape the creature as it held me in place. I was now sobbing, mouth open, emitting soft whimpers.
The creature’s mouth opened, and more long black hair descended from its sagging lips. I shut my own mouth quickly as I felt the oily black substance coat my mouth. I cried more silently and started to thrash. I managed to knock the creature off of me, and I went to push myself to my feet.
The sound of my body slipping on the ichor hit me before the realization did. I was falling for a moment, again, only this time I hit my head on the tile hard. Everything went black.
I woke up to the soft glow of sunshine reflecting off the mirror, and onto my clammy skin. A groan erupted from me before consciousness had even surfaced. My eyes fluttered open and a pain radiated from my ankle. I felt bile rise in my throat as I saw it twisted in a way god didn’t intend it to.
Bile rose to my lips and threatened to breach the right hold I had on them. Slowly, I maneuvered my body to pull myself into a sitting position on the lid of the toilet. There, I remembered the thing in the shower. Surely it couldn’t be a nightmare, I had a physical wound to show for my battle. With a gulp, I reached a hand out to the curtain and pulled it back.
In the tub, was a clump of long oily hair, and small muddy human handprints. The footprints reminded me of when my little brother had found our mother’s paints, and redecorated the kitchen with his little hand prints.
I began picturing this monstrosity, with long oily black hair, a canine face, and feet. However, it was bipedal mostly and had little human hands. My blood pressure was through the roof as I stared into my muck-covered shower, and I wondered how it got into my home in the first place.
I looked harder and saw there were fingerprints made of muck on the drain like something had stuck its fingers up and climbed through. This was impossible though, the creature was much too large to climb through a drain.
With a nauseous feeling in my stomach, I got up, favoring my good leg, and hobbled to my room. My entire body felt grimey after spending a night on the bathroom floor, and normally I’d want nothing more than to take a steamy shower and wash that grime off. Unfortunately, nothing about this situation was normal.
I made it to my bed and sat, reaching for my phone and dialing the only person I could count on showing up.
On the second ring, a soft male voice answered.
“Hello?” My brother’s voice chimed.
“Scott? Scott, I fell and hurt myself. Can you come over and drive me to the hospital?” I said, doing my best not to sound pathetic.
“Oh my goodness, Tracey! Of course! Should I bring one of the kids to help me carry you? Can you walk?” Scott said frantically, I could tell he was panicking.
“No, I’d prefer if it was just you. There’s…There’s something else and I don’t really want to talk about it on the phone.” I said in a hushed voice.
“Alright, I’ll be right there,” Scott said as he hung up the phone.
I grabbed a dressing gown that I could reach from the bed and waited uneasily for my brother to arrive. When he did, I heard him using his key, verifying the door had stayed locked.
Scott made his way to my room and gasped softly when he saw my foot.
“Holy shit…” Scott said softly.
“That bad, huh?” I said, head still swirling with pain. Scott never swore, so I knew this had to look really fucked up to get that reaction from him.
“Scott…Can you look in the bathroom for me? It’s where I fell.” As I spoke, he gave me a puzzled look and backed away toward my bathroom.
“Um, Trace, did you decide to foster a raccoon?” Scott said, stepping into the bathroom. I heard him speak again through the wall. “What the hell is that?” He said, seeing what I assume was the long black hair.
Scott stepped back into my room and looked at me, clearly tense.
“We need to get you to a hospital, and I’m going to send Wanda and the kids to come clean that up. Don’t worry Tracey, we’ll get this sorted.”
An hour later, I sat in an emergency room waiting area, comfy in the cheap fake leather wheelchair provided by the hospital. Soon, I was in an X-Ray chamber, and then being talked down to by a doctor half my age about the painkillers they were prescribing me.
Scott took me home with him, not wanting me alone in my apartment after the event of the previous night. We hadn’t discussed what I saw, or what it left behind. I was grateful Scott was the type of guy who let things rest. I didn’t want to relive what I saw.
My brother had inherited our family home, under the stipulation that he looks out for me. I didn’t need it, I was childless and content that way. Scott however, had a big bustling family, filling my childhood home with laughter. I was happy with the arrangement, and Scott more than held up his end of the bargain.
My heart was filled with fond memories as my brother set me up in my childhood bedroom, arranging for his young son to have a sleepover in his older brother’s room. It was much different than it had been in 1983 when I’d left it behind. Regardless, it did feel good to be home.
I was laid up in that room just about all night, with my nephew bringing me dinner while in bed. It was nice being taken care of by my family, and surrounded by people who loved me. The fear and panic that had entrenched me the night before had all but dissipated. It was sometime after the house had gone to sleep that it crept back into my mind.
The soft glow of stars on the ceiling above stared down at me, and I stared back at them. Humming softly to myself an old time my mother had taught me, I tried to drift off to sleep. In those hours, trying to fall asleep, my mind kept going back to the dripping of water.
Drip
Drop
Drip
Drop
I could see it in my mind’s eye, falling freely from the stainless steel shower head, and collecting at the bottom of a ceramic tub. I could see the clear water along the clean smooth surface of the tub.
Drip
Drop
Drip
Drop
I hummed softly to myself, keeping my mind away from the thing I’d seen the night before. Then, I heard something in the other room. First came a slurping noise, like a washcloth slapping against a hard surface.
Click
Clack
Click
Clack
It was a sound like a dog’s nails on tile, slowly lumbering around in the bathroom across the hall. Suddenly, my heart felt as still in my chest as the empty halls of this home ought to be.
There was a lump in my throat and sweat forming on my brow as I heard scuffling from the bathroom across the hall. This lump melt away and turned to anguish as I heard a doorknob turn, and the creak of floorboards fill the empty hall. Little feet were pitter-pattering toward the bathroom, the feet of one of my nephews I was sure.
Filled with fear and pain, I swung my legs off the bed. Groaning with pain, I put pressure on the casted ankle. I couldn’t let the creature I’d seen last night make an appearance to my nephew. My thoughts raced as I wondered if the thing had followed me to my family home. Guilt swelled in my chest like a balloon as I painfully wobbled toward the hallway.
The skin on my calloused hand met the cold metal of the doorknob, and with a grinding noise, the door opened. The old wooden door slowly pushed open with a groan. I was met with a wall of darkness, the moonlight slipping out from my doorway into the hallway.
Focusing my eyes, I looked to the bathroom across the hall and saw the light flick on. Suddenly, the hallway was filled with the soft yellow glow of light. The next set of events happened very quickly.
I heard the clacking of nails again, the slurp of something wet on tile, and the wind up of a child’s scream. I launched myself at that door, crunching my ruined ankle against the hardwood, and tumbling through.
On the other side of my door, lay my nephew, wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling. My nephew was on his back, with the creature from the night before on his chest. This time, the creature was forcing its greased black hair into the agape mouth of my nephew. It was like the hair itself was an entity of its own. Maliciously, it seemed as though its goal was to suffocate my small nephew, as I heard him gag.
Maternal rage filling me, I launched myself at the creature and threw my body like a battering ram. Knocked over, the creature began to attempt a bipedal stance, growling threateningly at me all the way. I heard my nephew begin to scream and cough. Following this, I heard a door slam open from down the hall. My own throat emitted a type of growl as my finger made their way to this abomination’s black eye sockets. The eyes were hollow, but as my thumbs entered the holes, I felt a viscous flesh.
My nails sank as deep as they could, causing the creature to yelp and try to back up into the bathtub. I watched with barbaric anger, as the ichor-like fluid that must have been blood, flowed down the ashy grey skin of this creature. Suddenly, I heard Scott behind me.
“God’s mercy, what is that thing?” I heard him say. My nephew was a sobbing mess behind me, and by the sound of it, being scooped up by his father.
I glanced back at the brother and nephew, both looking horrified at the scene before them. It was then that the creature before me took the opportunity to twist its head upside down like it had the night before. Its loose jowls tightened into a snarl, and the creature snapped at my shoulder, sinking its teeth in deep. I howled in pain, and at the source of the wound, I began to see long black hair rising from the creature’s canid fangs. The hair slid around my shoulder and snaked into my pajamas. Oily hair slinking down my back, I hit the creature repeatedly to try and free myself.
The hair was cold and wet, beginning to envelop me in its snare. It was then that I stopped screaming. I was beginning to subside to my fear, knowing this would be the end of my time. I felt strangely at peace with this death. After all, it was a death in service to another, the most honorable way to go.
Pain seared from my shoulder, and ankle. My vision began to grow dark, and my consciousness faded. Then, I heard a sound that caught me off guard.
BANG
The smell of gunpowder filled the air, and my body went limp. The creature that had been holding me in this position slumped to the tile floor, as did I. However, it was not I that sported a bullet hole in my forehead. Laying still, and gushing blood from my shoulder, I stared blankly at the white ceiling overhead. I then saw the face of my brother’s wife peeking over at me. I blinked, and she gulped, setting something heavy down on the bathroom sink.
“Just relax, Tracey. Scott has already called 911. We’re going to be okay.” She spoke in a shell-shocked voice. She then gasped, and I watched as she slowly pointed to something. I raised my neck to see what she was pointing at.
Where the creature had been not one minute ago, there sat a viscous puddle of inky black goo and a swirling lump of hair. I felt vomit rise in my throat and finally lost consciousness.
I didn’t awaken for a few days, and when I did, Scott was by my side. His face was haggard, and he seemed more tired than I’d ever seen him. I wearily attempted to speak but found my throat dry and lost.
Scott perked up and leaned in with a smile.
“Tracey, I’m so glad you’re awake,” Scott said warmly, reaching for my hand. His expression grew dark as he looked at my shoulder. I was prompted to look over, and I was greeted with a thick wad of gauze adorning my arm. I winced and looked at my brother. “You’re going to be okay, I promise. I-” He paused and looked at the ground. “Thank you.” Scott said, finding his words at last. Tired brown eyes met mine. “You saved my son. I…I won’t pretend to know what that thing was. Or how it got in our home. But thank you.” Scott said solemnly.
I finally found my voice and spoke. “Is it gone?” I said hoarsely.
“There was nothing left so, I think it must be,” Scott replied. I looked down at my hands, eyes catching my thumbs that had dug so deeply into the creature’s flesh. I gulped and settled into the hospital bed.
The hospital released me after two more days, and my family was by my side for every moment I was in the hospital. We didn’t part ways until I was back in my home, insisting on privacy. While I didn’t truly want to be alone, I couldn’t put them out any longer. They had been by my side every waking moment ever since that creature had invaded my home. My sister-in-law, true to her word, had completely cleaned my bathroom. It was like nothing had ever happened. Save for, of course, my shattered ankle and mauled shoulder.
Despite the horrors inflicted upon me, after days of constant observation, the thing calling to me the most was a hot bath. I wobbled to my tub and drew the water. Putting the plug into the bottom of the tub, I was lulled into a sense of security. Hot water and steam filled the tub, and I hummed softly to myself as I lowered my broken frame into the tub.
Sitting in the tub, I began to drift off slowly, as relaxation took over. A smile spread on my lips and the pain in my body dissipated. I heard the faucet dripping into the water.
Drip
Drip
Drip
My eyes slowly blinked open, then closed. After a light spell, my eyes blinked open once more, and a scream escape my lips. From the drain, long black hair was creeping out of the metal ring, and flooding the tub. It floated through the water weightlessly and coiled like a squid’s tentacles.
Before the hair could reach me, I pulled myself out of the tub and dragged myself onto my good foot. Limping away as fast as I could, I made my way out of the bathroom.
I desperately shut the door behind me and burst through my bedroom door. When I made it inside, I pushed my dresser over, in front of the door. I clambered to the corner of the bedroom and began to rock myself into a calmer state. From the bathroom, I began to hear the now all-too-familiar sound of nails clinking on the tile.
I don’t know what else to do, who else to tell. I can’t go back to my brother’s house and put my family at risk. This creature is my burden to bear. I won’t give up though, if it wants me, it will have to work for it.