With all the courage she could muster, she opened her eye
and saw with horror that it was still there.
Standing in the opposite corner of the bedroom from her (head) on a
plinth positioned under two tall cupboard doors. Staring straight forward with dead eyes taking
in nothing, using its other senses to detect enemies.
Jane hardly dared breath.
She took in as little air as possible, was holding her duvet slightly
above her chest to prevent movement- an act that was beginning to take its
toll, the muscles in Jane's arms tightening and starting to ache. She prayed her sister in the upper bunk was
alright and would remain so. Jane
couldn't hear her breath but that was normal, she reminded herself, Davina was
a shallow breather.
She studied the creature as she lay in the dark. There it stood- her height- stock still with
a small and deformed elephant-shaped head without ears on a human body- a trunk
dangling down its front, hanging behind the gun it was holding. The gun, Jane knew, that would glow when the
trigger was pulled and scramble her insides if she wasn't careful enough. The gun that would end it all. She had seen it already, hadn't she? A whole family wiped out by one hiding behind
their curtains. The whole family killed
together after dinner. Mother thought
she saw a draught and presented their executioner.
What else did she know of these things? Jane remembered a man being pulled into a
swamp by long reaching tentacles. Taken
under and half drowned, tortured before being slopped back on the bank while
others were mistreated. Defending
soldiers hidden in nests shooting up at the invaders in tanks on tall
legs. The soldiers frying in their
hidey-holes, shot by Martian lasers.
Jane was unsure how she knew all of this, of how it was in her
head. All these memories seemed to
involve her somehow, as if she were the protagonist each time. How could that be? Sleep was still clouding her view - in time
she felt she would know.
In the dark she lay, sweat starting to build on her
brow. Overheating from her covers
("10 tog for winter," her mother had said) and knowing she had to put
up with it, be brave and see this thing through. Statuesque it stood, almost as if mimicking
Jane. Its skin was ugly, repulsive even,
to her. Dry and cold it was heavily
wrinkled and flaking away; white, old, dead.
The way the flaky bits were stained yellow by the street lights made
Jane feel sick. She felt a snarl want to
form and repressed it. And then
It blinked. Looked
toward the window, eyes lit suddenly- a dull, threatening, red. Jane stopped everything, or everything in her
stopped. She dropped the cover slightly
(her arms heaving a sigh of relief). And
it seemed to go back to standing its awful patrol, eyes still lit. For a brief moment Jane had hoped. Hoped it had heard something in the street
and would go out there. Give her enough
time to round up her family, hide or escape.
Hope that was eternal, and empty, and futile. Then: movement again? Had it nodded to the window? Its head went back to its original position,
its eyes died again. Was there another
behind the curtain? Jane didn't dare
look, fearing even more for her life now.
It jogged her mind to life, though, and made her remember something dim
and distant in her memory.
She looked again.
Still there. Jane stared,
transfixed at this beast playing its eternal waiting game- scared she might
move and it would win. Fully awake now,
she couldn't take her eyes off it as she slowly resigned herself to her grizzly
fate. She rather liked her insides and
ten was a bit young, she thought, to die.
She scanned it one last time as resignation took over and noticed
something new. A book at its foot, half
tipped off a pile of stuff, revealing its cover: a black border and writing on
an orange background, no picture.
"War of the Worlds. H.G.
Wells," the print read and she remembered her current reading, listening
to the musical at school.
And it was gone. Only
a dream? It had seemed so real.
(Later Jane would realise this was the scariest thing that
had ever happened to her and die pleased this was the case).
Note: could not find other stories with the same start
No comments:
Post a Comment