She hated when Grandma came to visit. Not because Grandma was visiting, she loved Grandma, but because she had to give up her room. And not even because of that, but because she had to sleep on a cot in the back end of the house.
It was a room of hard surfaces. Hard tile squares and barnwood paneled walls. Tucked back around the corner from the washing machine and dryer and in between Dad’s writing desk and his reloading bench. The antler mounts and hunting gear and fishing rods were no big deal. Dad’s strange collection of odds and ends strewn about and hung on the walls were interesting. The reason she hated sleeping back there was because of the Creak.
It never started the first night. It gave her time, a night or two of sleep. At first, the heavy barnwood door Dad made for the back room would creak open. Slowly. She was a light sleeper and it woke her instantly. Light from a neighbor’s back porch filtered through the trees in the back yard and the plastic slat window shade. She could make out the shapes of all the things around her in the lines of light scattered across the room.
She heard footsteps. Someone wearing shoes. Slow. Stealthy. Carefully walking back toward where she slept, but stopping next the washing machine. She looked with eyes only, without moving. No one stood there. The steps started again. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. The steps stopped right next to her. She wanted to hold her breath. Be invisible herself. She barely opened one eye. She could feel something was there. A foot away. The pressure of it. The way it made the hair on the back of her neck and on her arms stand up in animal fear. All she saw was the empty space to the wall. Then she heard it walk away. The pressure eased. The door creaked open. The door creaked closed.
She got up and carefully went to the door, cracking it enough to see out. She opened it just wide enough to slip through so it was silent. Shaking, she walked through the kitchen to the living room, but her Dad was on the couch snoring over the low, muddy sound of an old western on TV. Back down the hall, her brother was sprawled across his bed, arms flung wide, fast asleep. Peeking into her parents’ room, her mother was a slow-breathing lump under the covers. The door to her room was closed. No one else had been disturbed.
She only asked once if someone had come into the back room, though she knew the answer. She didn’t press. She was an accepting girl. Some things just happened. She never got up again when the Creak came to visit. She waited it out. She waited for morning. She waited for Grandma to go home. She treated it like something to be tolerated, like chili for supper or a really long sermon at church.
Years later her Dad mentioned that, when they first moved into the house, there was a strange feel to the back end of the house. Noticeable enough that he had the pastor come and bless it. She just nodded, thinking about the Creak, deciding that blessing must have worn completely off by the time she had to sleep in there.
Maybe the Creak, she reasoned, which hadn’t ever done anything but look, made the rounds of the house checking on all of them. Maybe she was the only one who noticed because it had to come looking for her. It wanted her to know it had the watch. That was a better idea to hold onto. Better than being the only one interesting to things she couldn’t see.
Thanks for stopping by—it’s good to see you again,
Lyndsey
The watchful creak. I like it. I enjoy how it flipped the creak around from monster to possible guardian. Awesome tale, Lyndsey.
I love short horror-- all mystery and sensation, no answers to settle you down. Well done.