Wait and See: Part Two - The GloBELL ROAR

At first, I thought the trunk was empty. Lying at the bottom was a pool of blackness, and it took me a moment to work out what I was seeing...

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“String?’’ I said aloud, surprised. I reached down and lifted up a handful of the stuff, not believing my eyes. ‘’Who fills a trunk with string?’’

For that’s what it was: a pile of string. The trunk was filled almost to the brim with a tangled mass of thick, black thread. It had a sheen to it, and felt oily in my hand. The dull attic light gleamed on its surface, seeming to slide across the stuff as thought it couldn’t get a grip on the fibers.

I dropped my fistful back in the trunk and wiped my hand across my shirt. I wondered if there might be anything else in there, buried under the thread. For a moment I considered reaching in, shifting through that black tangle and trying to feel if there was anything underneath. It didn’t take me long to decide against it; I didn`t like the feel of that stuff on my skin, and the thought of being elbow deep in the stuff wasn’t appealing. Even though I’d wiped my hand, I could still feel an oily slickness on my palm, the kind you get from touching hair that hasn’t been washed for a long, long time.

I shut the trunk, slamming down the lid a little harder than I’d meant to. There was nothing else in the attic to look at, and suddenly I found the air in there oppressive, felt the walls nearness in a wave of claustrophobia. Stumbling through the mess left by my little excavation, I headed for the stairs, eager to get somewhere I could open a window, take a breath of fresh air. There was a nasty taste in my mouth, and there seemed to be a whiff of something putrid in the attic now. Something just shy of sour yet much too sweet, that nameless scent of injury we all know from childhood, the smell of scraped knees and pricked fingers. Of a wound about to go bad.

I didn’t bother to lock the trunk as I left. After all, it was just a box of string.

It was still raining when I darted out to the car to grab my bags, and had started to come down in bucketfuls. I was soaked by the time I got my things inside, and headed up to the linen closet I’d seen on the second floor, in search of towels. After a bit of rummaging I dug one out, shaking out the dust and clinging threads before I wiped the rain from my face. Then it was back downstairs to unpack the cooler, and realize just how tiny the fridge was. Technically I had work to do, a project saved on my laptop that was due in a few a weeks, but there was no real rush. So I settled in to see what channels the T.V. could get out here, figuring I’d deal with work and hunt down that elusive infestation later.

I’d been watching for an about an hour when the thunk from upstairs caught my attention. There’d been the occasional creak now and then as I was filling the fridge, but I’d written it off as the usual sounds of an old cabin in the rain. I turned down the volume, sat silently looking up at the ceiling above me, listening. A few seconds later came an echo as the wood seemed to groan, shifting under some unseen weight. I wondered if it might be coming from outside, a branch scraping against the roof or something. But then the ceiling creaked again, the slow moan of old floorboards. Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the second floor.

“Crumbs,’’ I muttered, getting off the sofa and heading for the stairs. The last thing I needed was a family of racoons running loose in the place. I tried to keep quite as I darted up the steps, not wanting whatever it was to go zipping off into a bolt hole before I got there. I’d have to see where the thing ran when it caught sight of me, make sure I plugged up whatever crack it was sneaking in through.

I scanned the second floor hall, didn’t see anything. I tried to imagine which room would be directly above the sofa, tried to figure out where the noises I’d heard had come from. Near as I could guess, that would be the linen closet.

I couldn’t hear anything now, but the door was closed and I assumed the raccoon must still be in there. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of opening the door, only to have a cat-sized lump of angry fur and claws come flying out at me. But I wanted that thing out of the cabin, so I headed back downstairs and grabbed a broom from beside the drier, figuring that if I was going to do it, doing it armed couldn’t hurt. Then, broom tucked under my arm like a lance, brushy tip aimed at the ground by the door, I grabbed the handle and pulled it open.

The first thing that hit me was the smell, that semi-putrid reek that seemed to pour out of the closet in waves. Then for a moment I thought something had lunged at me, had just enough time to jump back instinctively before it hit me. But it wasn’t a racoon that had come tumbling out of the closet. Instead, all the sheets and linens had come falling out, a tangled rat’s nest of twisted cloth slumping to the floor as though overcome by the stink surrounding it. I took a few more steps back, waving my hand in front of my nose, trying to sweep away the smell. I gently prodded the pile of fabric with the end of the broom, trying to poke out the animal hiding there. Though based on the stink, maybe it had died in there.

Nothing moved, and I took a hesitant step closer, jabbing at the tangle again. There didn’t seem to be anything solid in there, no sign of a body. Not that there could be, I reflected. I’d taken atowel out of the closet only an hour or so before, and things had smelled fine then. No way a racoon could have crawled in there, died, and rotted this badly in so little time. God, it was like the smell from the attic, only so much stronger. It left that same bad taste in the mouth, and-

That was when I noticed the string.

I’d crouched down next to the mess, carefully lifting one of the rumpled sheets with the end of the broom. Now I could see that it wasn’t just tangled and torn; it had been sewn. Wrapped all along its length were long black threads, seeming to pierce the fabric at random, stitching it into convulsive folds and sharp twists. Threads trailed away from the sheet, and as I lifted it higher a pillow case below was pulled up, and I could see the crazy stitches that bound the two together.

Alright. So maybe a racoon had gotten into the cabin, had clawed up the linen closet to make itself a nest. Racoons had little hands, but I was pretty sure they couldn’t sew. Right then. Maybe when it was shredding things in there it tore up something black, got bits of thread tangled into the other sheets...? But even if I’d been willing to ignore the unlikeliness of that, I couldn’t overlook the fact that there wasn’t anything black in the closet. The thread had come from somewhere else.

My mind flicked back to the trunk in the attic. I could imagine a racoon dragging a mouthful of the stuff down the stairs, but that still didn’t explain the sewing. The only explanation I could think of for that was that I wasn’t alone. Someone else must be in the cabin.

Someone who could fit inside a fully-packed linen closet? It didn’t make sense, but I was uneasy.

"Alright then," I called, getting to my feet and taking a firmer hold of the broom. "Whoever is there, you’ve got thirty seconds to give yourself up." The cabin was quiet, the only sound the rain hammering on the roof. "I’m warning you," I called out, not really sure how I’d follow up that threat.

Thirty seconds ticked past, then a full minute. Nothing happened, except I started to feel more than a little vulnerable, standing there in the middle of the hallway while someone snuck unseen through the rooms around me.

"Time’s up," I called a little belatedly. "Here I come!"

I searched the cabin room by room twice, checked every closet and cupboard, looked behind every curtain. I didn’t find so much as a hair, didn’t hear any footsteps except for my own. I scoured the attic, pulled open every box and dumped its contents out on the floor. I even rooted around in the old trunk, poking at the remaining tangle of thread with the end of the broom. Nothing. No one else there.

So what was going on?

The only conclusion I could come to was that someone had snuck into the cabin, and promptly run off while I was searching. It was still pouring rain outside, and when I went to check the front door, I found it was still locked from the inside, just as I’d left it. I stepped out just long enough to make sure my car was still there, then locked the door again and bolted every window in the place. The cabin didn’t have a phone, but I’d brought my cell along. I tried punching in the number for the local police station, but couldn’t get a signal. Should have known better than to think my phone would work in the middle of nowhere, during a rainstorm no less.

Well, even if there was some sort of sewing psychopath running loose in the woods, he was out of the cabin and thus no longer my problem. I’d just keep the door locked and stay inside until I could get a call through to the cops.

I settled in to watch some more T.V., listening to the wind howling through the trees as they scraped their branches against the roof. I tried to ignore the creaking sounds from upstairs, telling myself it was just the cabin settling down, the way old buildings do. It didn’t sound like footsteps, not at all.

I dreamed of Myra that night. We were fighting, but I’m not sure what it was about. Something to do with Christmas ornaments, lights I had to take down before July. It was vitally important that they come down before July, Myra kept telling me that, saying over and over "You’ve got to take that string of lights down, that string of lights down, that string, that string, string..."

"Thread." Her voice was a gurgle, a croak. I couldn’t see her anymore, everything had gone dark. But I could hear her, rasping to herself over and over again "Thread, thread, thread..." I tried to reach out to her, but my arms couldn’t move. It felt like they’d been tied down.

"Myra...?" I mumbled, turning my head toward the sound of her voice. I could hear something else now, a fainter sound almost drowned out in the rasp and gurgle of her words. A soft foosh, foosh, sort of noise, repeating over and over, following some irregular rythym. "What...?"

Then I noticed the smell, felt the sickly sweet odor clawing its way into my lungs. Suddenly I was wide awake.

I was lying on the very edge of the bed, my face still turned toward the source of Myra’s voice. My eyes flew open, and I saw it wasn’t Myra I’d heard at all.

The thing was standing beside my bed, its low head only inches away from my face. Its body was wrapped in a mass of black rags, its face lost beneath a drooping hood. I could hear its ragged breathing now, hear its gurgling mutters as it whispered to itself. It wasn’t looking at me, didn’t realize I was awake; its hood was angled down, looking at the thing’s withered hands, the twisted knobs of bone and skin protruding from its tattered sleeves. My mind was frozen, a scream had locked in my throat. Without thinking, I followed the direction of the monster’s gaze, realizing at the same time that it’s words had a rythym to them, something like a chant in time with the fain foosh sounds I could hear.

Clutched tightly in the thing’s bony fingers was a needle, a crude shard of rusty metal, just thin enough to pierce through cloth. And from the end of it trailed a long black thread, its surface alive with an oily gleam. As I watched, rigid with shock, the creature’s hands jerked spastically, punched the needle down through the fabric of my blanket, then jerked it back up suddenly, pulling the thread along in its wake. The needle was stabbing up and down at random, making a soft, rasping foosh each time it sliced through the bedclothes.

"Thread, thread, thread," the creature croaked to itself.

I lay where I was, staring at the withered hands, locked in place by sheer disbelief. The creature’s fingers jerked up and down with horrific speed, twisting and twitching as though in the grips of a seizure, all the while leaving a crazed line of stitches in their wake. Then I realized what the thing was doing.

It was sewing me into my bed.

The scream tore out of my throat, and I jerked back, tried to throw the blanket off and get away from the thing. But the blanket stayed put, sewn in place and pulled taut by the stitches running round its edge. All I could do was flail, inch back convulsively, couldn’t even get my arms free.

When I screamed the thing’s head snapped up, and its hood twisted round to stare at me with hidden eyes. Then the hunched thing turned round, curling its hands into fists, clutching its needle close as it fled the room. Its long, tattered cloak trailed on the ground behind it, and I could hear the sharp thunk thunk of two heavy feet hammering their way across the floor, practically punching the boards with the force of their steps. Then the thing was at the door, speeding out into the hallway, until the end of its cloak vanished around the corner.

I kept struggling, found myself at the other end of the bed, my back against the stitches that pierced the sheets. I managed to get an arm free, then the other, sliding them up and out over the pillows. Apparently the thing hadn’t managed to get that far, hadn’t gotten a chance to sew the top of the blanket down. I felt a chill run down my spine. What would have happened as the stitches made their across the pillows, when that jagged needle reached my neck?

It was awkward to slide the rest of my body out through the narrow slit at the top of the bed, but I managed it, fast. Then I was across the room in a heartbeat, slammed the door shut. There wasn’t a lock, but a low dresser stood against the wall, and I dragged it across the floor, shoving it in front of the door. Then I sank to the floor, and started to shake.

"Crumbs," I muttered. What was that thing? Why was it doing that, trying to sew me into my bed? What did it want? Where had it come from-

I knew the answer almost before I thought the question. The trunk. The trunk in the attic. I recognized that oily thread, the same stuff that had sewn the sheets in the closet together. The smell had been the same too, here and in the closet, the same stench I’d noticed in the attic, after I’d opened the trunk. The thing must have been in there, lying hidden under the tangle of thread. I’d almost reached in there, reached my bare arm in...

"Infestation". Right. That man had sold me the cabin, knowing well what was waiting inside, tucked up in the attic, waiting to be let loose. So help me, if I ever got my hands on him-

There was a thunk from somewhere down the hall, the sound of heavy footfalls, something crashing to the ground.

I had to get out. Get out of the cabin, get away from that thing. But the bedroom didn’t have a window, and the only way out was through the door and down the hall, past the noises I’d just heard.

I took a deep breath. My car was still outside, ready and waiting with a good half tank of gas. If I could just get to it, I’d be home free. All I had to do was get past the hall, down the stairs, and out the door. The creature had been fast, but hopefully I was faster. I had to be.

To be continued...