Hand of darkness

He woke with a start. Damn. He evaluated the situation but there was no avoiding it, he had to go. He hated these nights. He slid out of the safety of the warm bed and into the cool darkness until his toes touched the carpet beneath his feet and then lifted himself slowly to his feet. There was no light but he didn't need any here, but out there i would be a different story.

The house was old and large, built in the 1920s at the center of what was once sprawling farmland but now positioned on the outskirts of a small town. The house had seen a lot in its time and, it had spread over the years with additions for a growing family. There was only one thing older than the house in the area, the town cemetery that sat a couple of hundred paces from the backdoor.

His room was in the original part of the house, double-brick walls, high ceilings, long disused and boarded up fire places in every bedroom. Even during the hot summer days this part of the home was unusually cool but at night, it was colder than the night itself. The cold was not the only thing to feel though.

There was something else, an uneasy presence, a shiver that would ripple along the skin and make hairs stand on end. Everyone felt it. Everyone. None spoke it out aloud though, as if to mention it would draw whatever was laying hidden in the ether into existence. Despite the fear that clung to his body, the boy had to go and at the end of the long corridor and to the left, was his destination, the bathroom.

The hallway was near twenty yards long and his doorway in which he now stood was dead center along the windowless walls. The dark swallowed it all, but he knew his way as it was his home, the only one he had ever known in his six years and on nights like these, he followed a routine, one that got him to where he was going and, supported the journey.

He reached into the black with his left hand until his fingers touched the cool varnished sided of the wooden linen cabinet that ran the length of one of the walls. His grandfather had made it years ago and it was filled with sheets and bedding for a family of eight, and guests if ever needed.

With steps of false certainty, he stepped from the doorway and pushed into the passage keeping his fingers running along the cabinet to his left. Each hand carved ridge would smoothly glide beneath his touch until the gaps in the door would gently catch. There were eight doors in all but he knew that at the fourth, he would be level to the entrance to his parent's bedroom. Every night as this, he considered going in there instead, but never did.

There was an overcoming factor involved in this, a face your fears approach and up until now, he had survived unscathed each time and content as he would slip back under the quilt that still grasped the warmth of his body before he had ventured out. While back safe, the covers pulled over the back of his head, there was a feeling of victory.

He pressed on past the doorway of parental safety and waited with breath held expectantly as he knew that his fingers would come to the end of the cabinet and slip into unseen air. This was the junction point, free space from here to the light switch that powered the brown glass-ball light that was suspended from the ceiling by blackened iron chain, like a giant's flail.

Even in the dark he knew the direction, he knew the height of the switch and he knew he didn't have time to waste, no room for rummaging. The free space was where the only stability was the ground beneath the feet and at this time of night, it was not much of a comfort.

He stepped from the corner of the cabinet and sharply out into the space to close the five or six steps as quickly as he could and reached up on the solid wood frame to where the switch was located and clicked it downward. The light high above his head lit the free space and even though not overly bright, caused him to squint but, there was a sense of relief that came with being able to see.

And then he felt it. Like tiny pins scraping upward along the skin of his spine. It was here, the presence had awoken, it wanted in.

He turned on his heels to face the original back door of the house, the one that always remained chained, day and night while the others were barely even locked, even when no one was home. He saw it move as the light above cast long shadows across the walls but illuminated the door, like a spot light. A boned hand was reaching through the door and was curled back, struggling to unlatch the door chain that stood in its way. The chain clinked with movement.

Feet planted, a frozen scream came out but there was no sound, the air had been sucked from his body and instead of exhaling, the breath drew back in to once again fill his lungs. All that escaped was a barely audible gasp. But it was enough, it drew attention, the bone hand drew away from the chain and with palm outstretched seemingly stared at him for what seemed minutes before, withdrawing back through the solid door.

It was only after it had disappeared that the boy could move again and he bolted back down the long hallway, the wind of his speed in his ears and dove under the blankets, shivering until finally, the warmth began to return to his body.

---

The next morning his mother asked why he had left the light on and he recounted the story. She remained silent and then uneasily changed the topic to breakfast.

---

She awoke to screaming. It was the middle of the night and it was her son's voice. "You can't come in, you can't come in!" She sprang from the bed and rushed out of the doorway into the hallway and turned to see her toddler son staring at the backdoor. "You can't com in!" She ran to his side and held him as she looked to where he was screaming but there was nothing there.

That was my older brother almost twenty years earlier than my experience seeing the bone hand and the door was chained from then on. No one spoke about it.

---

This is a true story.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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